18

"I tried the suicide hotline. Ironically, it was so busy I had a 45 minute wait ahead of me. I didn't wait. I just hung up and called my mom. Worked as good as anything."

Late evening, we finished packing all our equipment. The van wouldn't start.

"Of course," muttered the boss.

Ayako and Takigawa watched on from the porch, shivering in the late autumn air. Naru raised the hood and we both took a look, even though I suspected neither of us knew what the crap we were looking at.

"Spend the extra money for a newer Ford," he continued, "and it fails you."

"Plot twist," I said. I would have laughed, except the numb cold was still there. The ambulance's sirens still whirred in my ears, and I still remembered the unnatural way Lin's head bent on his neck.

Naru prodded about the van's interior a bit more, sighed, then picked up his phone to call a mechanic.

Meanwhile, I wondered back to the porch, as it had started to rain like mist. Takigawa and Ayako said nothing, though they both drew near to me.

It was cold. Inside and out.

I breathed in the dark, the cold, the mist. The urge to return to the attic inflated within me like a too large balloon.

The prof ended his call and returned to us on the porch.

"There's heat inside," he said. "We'll be fine if we stay together."

I didn't want to be together. I wanted quiet, dark, and peace. I didn't even know why. I only knew that my gut wanted me to throw back my head and howl until I ran out of every bubble of air in my body. Just…haaaah. There was no point in staying. No point in going. A present and future of struggle.

But I found myself on the couch in the now equipment empty parlor. The lights were the LED kind, and therefore, far too white. I missed the kind yellow glow of regular bulbs. That made me think of the orange streetlights painting stripes across Naru's face through the window. Such a…beautiful face…I shouldn't be allowed to exist in the same sphere as that. It was unfair.

I gave in to the urge and silently shoved out all the air in my body, holding as long as I could until I had to suck it back in again. Why was breathing such a pain? Each breath brought more cold to the numbness in my gut.

Even if they would care, they'd get over it. I was just a breathing in the night.

"Mai,"

I flinched as Ayako snapped her fingers in front of my face. I blinked and looked around, the numbness in my chest spiking a bit in need to see Naru. I couldn't let him do the same.

"Where's the professor?" I asked.

"Bathroom," said Ayako. "Takigawa's with him."

I stood, urgency moving my gut. I had to see him, make sure…he was a genius, after all. Takigawa was hardly an obstacle.

"I'm going to go wait with them."

And before Ayako could say anything, I was out and climbing up the stairs, smooth as a winter wind. I saw Takigawa's shoulder and part of his leg leaning outside the doorway of Naru's old room.

Then I heard a flush, and all the warmth my concern had left me vanished.

I didn't stop. I tiptoed up the next landing, thinking the carpet on the stairs tender and my socks old friends; my flesh cumbersome and given more care than it needed. I should be sturdy and strong.

The ladder to the attic had been left down. Strange, I could have sworn Takigawa practically slammed it closed. Must have been pushed too hard and missed the latch.

I stood at the base of the stairs for a minute, staring up into the darkness that beckoned me. In it were soft dreams of Navajo quilts and mother scented sheets. And through that, the dream of a golden warm parlor, where my parents sat with the sole intention of holding me close.

It would just be a break. It would just be darkness. It would just be loneliness.

"Mai!"

At Ayako's call I flinched up the next few steps, almost as if my legs had a mind of their own. In a heavy, too cold breath, I had the rope to pull up the stairs, door and all, which closed without a sound on oiled hinges. The refurbishers had done their job well.

And then there was pleasant, blissful, complete black. The rain pattered just above my head on the roof. There were whooshes of cars driving past through puddles. I crawled till I felt cool wall, and there I curled up.

Let me breathe.

The line passed through my head, like a breath, and I remembered the poem I had found on my pillow. Breathing, freedom, what else had it said?

Strip me clean.

My skin felt tight. I scratched at my arms, moving down, and the feel of my nails was like fresh, shocking ice after a hot day. Such a pain. If only I could get down to the core of myself, take off all this uselessness that I hung around and made me such an unwanted, listless creature. I could have grown. Could have made people love me.

Make me naked

To the bone,

The flash of ice turned hot as my nails bit deep and I caught my gasp.

Quietly, quietly,

So no one

Interferes.

A rush of pleasure ran up my arms. There was me. This pain almost wasn't pain. It was the knife against the veil which locked me up too tight in here and made my skin itch.

Make me fleshless,

Make me whole,

I bit my nails in deep and peeled. Warm and wet came with the underside of the sparking ice, which went numb once I pulled it away, like a thin, Clementine orange peel.

Make me no longer

Mortal.

My fingers were sticky. I digged on, digging for what made me so fragile. I dug for a tendon, a muscle, a bone. Dull, purple like lights flashed through my vision in the black. My head went light, and in that lightness a great heaviness that had been on me for far too long lifted. I was walking down a new path, now. That golden warm room waited for me, and my parents had tears in their eyes. There, I'd be clothed in a soft dress, given any food I liked, and would be sent to dance on the soft carpet in the hall. No rain could hit me now. Just dance and laugh, joining hands with sisters and cousins and aunts I had never known, but who knew me very, very well. And I did know them, because here I had all the time in the world.

My skin came off so easily. Like peeling a soft shell from a hard boiled egg. So much slime. So much wetness. God, I was disgusting.

Strip me clean.

And I was there, dancing. And I did well. I could dance. I twirled, as light as air, as straight as a ballerina. Mother clapped on, dressed in a dark navy that her sheets had once been.

Something too hot clamped like metal around my wrists.

I coiled back, dismayed, then angry. It hurt. Their salty fingers stung my raw flesh.

I swore and lashed out, but I ended up curled in agony as their grip only tightened.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

Tears stung my eyes. I couldn't recognize the voice, though I knew it. A good deal of my mind had floated up to the sky with black, popping lights. In their midst there was no thought.

And thus, I was left with only my heart.

"I just want to go home!" I cried, and the words pierced my own ears, weakening me. I was so close.

"That's where we're going—"

"No!" There were no words. "I wanna go back, go home, let me go!"

The voice said something under their breath than barked for someone to bring a towel. The sting of their hands was lessening, and my mind wavered on the last tendrils of consciousness.

"They're gone," I whimpered, desperately hoping I could get them to understand before my mind lifted off. "I want to go with them. I don't belong here. Home, please."

Then, as silent as slipping yarn, my mind detached and I drifted out into the black.