Chapter 15 Like a broken doll

"Ran-neechan?"

Was this what drowning felt like? Ran never had come close to drowning, so she wouldn't know what it feels like. No, that's – not true. She had come close to drowning once, or twice, but that one time she'd been under heavy drugs and she didn't remember much of the guy pressing her head under water. The second time was in the sea when she'd thought she would drown – but she hadn't. She had fought until the very end.

But none of the times, she vaguely remembered, had felt like this. There had been darkness back then too, but not like this.

This time she felt swallowed whole by nothing but choking darkness. Her head felt heavy, there was chaos in her mind but she couldn't grasp a single thought. It was silent, as silent as before in the warehouse when she had been so scared of making a single sound. But at the same time her ears were burning with noise, hissing, static, whatever one would call it. It was loud and disturbing and not calm at all.

"Ran-neechan?"

She was at the bottom of the sea, she was sure, with the dark water pressing her down, down, down, keeping her down, taking her breath away. Her lungs were burning, she was sure because she couldn't breathe and she was underwater because it was so silent as it can only be where there is no sound. Of course, that was true only partially. There was sound. But it was weird sound she couldn't place. Weird hissing static.

But even though her lungs were burning, her body felt oddly at peace. She did feel cold but that was to be expected if you found yourself at the bottom of the cold, dark sea. The pressure was quite heavy too and maybe that was a reason for her burning lungs too.

She couldn't remember how she got here, how she was pushed into the cold dark water. Or even when or by whom. Had she gone to the sea? Sure they lived quite close to the sea and if she jumped from the Rainbow Bridge, she'd fall quite deep, too. But depending on where she jumped from, she might not survive the fall. Either way, apparently, however she had gotten into the water, Ran wasn't dead yet. She surely felt like it. Her mind felt detached, even though there were thoughts swirling around, like bubbles in the sea she couldn't catch because once she did, they would burst. Her head felt like it, too. Once she grasped one single thought, she'd burst, she was sure of it.

So Ran didn't try to catch any thought. She kept sitting in the cold dark water, pressing her legs tightly to her chest, hugging her small form with as much power as she had. She had her eyes closed but then again Ran wasn't sure. It was dark inside and outside, there was no telling if her eyes were open or not.

Those swirling thoughts aside, Ran felt empty. There was no panic that she was drowning – even though that was obviously happening, and she knew she should be panicking, fighting to get back to the surface and breathe. But whenever she tuned out the noise, there was just silence. Silence and cold and darkness, but somehow it didn't disturb her. Everything was neutral. Empty. She felt no emotions. No anger, no sadness, not fear, no panic. Feelings she imagined she should feel, but she didn't. And even that, she should wonder why that was, shouldn't she? Shouldn't she ask herself why she wasn't feeling anything? Why she felt empty inside out?

There was no more emotion inside of her and there was no more drive inside of her. She didn't want to know. She felt nothing? Well, then she felt nothing. Who cared? She surely didn't.

There was cold water around her but she wasn't cold per se. Another mystery she didn't feel like solving.

"Ran!"

Or maybe that was because she was already dead? Did death feel like this? If it did then Ran actually didn't mind dying anymore. If death was like this, then death was better than life. Death didn't hurt, it was just empty, there was nothing there but that was it. No drama, no heavenly door, no decision of heaven or hell, though she wouldn't mind either. She didn't care.

But solving mysteries, huh? She knew someone who did that, didn't she? There was something, deep deep down inside of her, something was stirring, a life changing pain.

"Ran!"

Yeah, there was someone she used to know once who was related to mysteries, she remembered now. And then she opened her eyes and everything came back to her.

Shinichi had no idea where Ran had gone.

He felt stupid, so stupid, in fact, that he wished he could slap himself – or Hattori that baka. He had gone to all the trouble to accompany Ran when Sonoko had explicitly said – "no brat with the glasses, there will only be another case and I want just one day without a dead body close to me". He'd begged and pleased and hoped Ran would give in – what she had done in the end. There was simply no way he'd let her go somewhere unsupervised, not after everything that had happened and then Hattori had come, too, and while Shinichi didn't mind that much because right now he could use all the help he could get, it was actually Hattori's fault this time that he lost sight of Ran.

They'd been in a heated discussion about why Sherlock Holmes was that much better than Ellery Queen and it had gotten so out of hand that if it hadn't been for Sonoko who came looking for them because not only had Ran long vanished, but Kazuha, too. That woke them up pretty quickly and both went looking for the two girls even though looking wasn't quite the right term for following the dot on his glasses. Of course he had tracked Ran – he wasn't stupid. He had already anticipated Ran would put on an act of disappearance and he hadn't wanted to desperately look for her later on. Good thing he'd been prepared.

But when they'd arrived, there had not been any Ran anymore and instead police cars and a dead body – Sonoko had been right, after all, only it wasn't his fault, ok? There was absolutely no correlation between dead bodies and him, thank you very much.

Still, there was a dead body and his body and mind both were screaming at him to go figure out what happened but Kazuha was angry and Aoko was preferring one side of her body – obviously something had happened and he had a bad bad feeling. Both of them looked rather pale, shaken if his eyes weren't deceiving him – they never were. Something must have happened, something he very likely wouldn't like one bit. Considering what he knew what Ran was doing – together with Aoko – he had a very bad feeling and decided to go after Ran and leave things here with Hattori. He was capable enough and once he took care of Ran, he could easily come back here and take things over – or help out, whichever was needed.

He left in the direction Aoko had shown him and wondered why the dot was not moving from the place he just left. Had Ran detected the bug? Did she know or did she maybe just lose it? Bad enough, he had no idea where to look for her if he couldn't follow some clue.

Thankfully, because he was smart, he had his skateboard with him and traveling like that was much faster. He'd maybe even outrun her – if he just went in the correct direction. The professor had updated the engine and so he didn't need the sun for it to work anymore – though the power was of course still limited.

Sooner than he imagined though a call reached him and in a moment all his worries skyrocketed. Ran at his home? What was she doing there? Ran looking pale, like a ghost, empty eyes and not taking notice of anything around her? Something was incredibly, horribly wrong here.

Shinichi was sure this was the fastest he'd ever went home. A home he didn't dislike but also didn't particularly like. He'd been alone most of the time in this way too big and dark house of his. He barely took notice of it because he was either reading or taking care of cases – or meeting with Ran, so there was never a need to feel lonely but he wondered what it would be to g back now, after he'd stayed so long with Ran in a home where there was never a second of silence.

Thankfully, he arrived soon and ran up to his room, absolutely ignoring Subaru-san who had both his eyebrows raised and maybe an amused smile on his lips, but Shinichi wouldn't know because his mind was set on one single thing and that was sitting in front of his bed, in a lump, shaking, barely breathing and his heart stopped beating.

Now what in heavens had happened?

His room looked like a mess but he only saw that because his detective mind took care of all the details once he entered the room. His wardrobe was opened and some clothes were thrown in the floor, his book case was half empty with half the books lying on the floor.

"Ran-neechan?"

He tried shaking her out of her stupor. She had her head hiding in her knees, being so small he'd never seen her.

For a second there was the word broken in his mind before he discarded it as fast as it had come. Ran, broken?! Please! As if that'd ever happen. Ran was this incredibly, astonishingly headstrong, physically strong thunderstorm which would never get beaten. Ever.

"Ran-neechan?"

Though, he tried to reach her, to have her raise her head and look at him, smile at him, maybe wipe her tears away and laugh awkwardly because he once again saw her crying.

But she didn't raise her head, she didn't smile and didn't look at him. In fact, she wasn't reacting at all.

Her breath sounded labored, maybe she was also crying, Shinichi wasn't too sure, and her body felt chilly, too chilly to be considered healthy.

What had she been doing here? Why were all his things upside down? If he didn't know any better he'd say a burglar had come here and – yeah, but he knew better. For one, Subaru-san wouldn't let any burglar in and second, last time he'd been here his room had been perfectly clean and tidied up. And then there was little Ran, sitting in his room, in a state he'd never seen her before and what was more clear than the deduction that Ran had been looking for something in his room and either she found it or not – he wasn't sure about this yet.

And Shinichi wondered if he should curse his brain for doing all these deductions when maybe he should simply focus on Ran – but then again, all these deductions might help him find out what was wrong with her, right?

"Ran!" he half yelled because damn she wasn't reacting to anything and now he was getting incredibly worried. Was she hurt? Was she physically hurt somewhere?

Trying to pry her arms away from her legs, Shinichi vainly tried to look for any outward wounds.

"Ran!"

It wasn't worry anymore that held his heart, it was clear, honest fear now.

And then she opened her eyes.

She felt like waking up from a dream, a long dream, a peaceful dream. No panic, no pain, there was nothing but silence and at the same time noise and it should have confused her, but it didn't.

Ran felt detached.

There was her body, and there was her mind but those felt like two entities who didn't belong together, like two entities that watched each other, as if they didn't belong to one and the same person. No. Those were two entities who were completely independent from each other – at least, that was what it felt like.

There was her mind watching her body from afar, outside of her body.

There she was, sitting in Shinichi's bedroom on the floor, leaning on his bed, her arms hugging her small form tightly, and then there was little Conan with worried eyes, shaking her out of her stupor. At least that was what Ran thought he was doing.

She wondered what he was saying because he was moving his mouth, but she felt like in those old movies with pictures but no sound. She would have laughed if she had felt something because it looked so comedic watching Conan shaking her, talking and talking but no sound reaching her.

She didn't laugh though and there was a pull at her heart, something like pain maybe, she was sure she should have felt sympathy for this young boy who was vainly trying to – well, do something. Ran didn't know why he was shaking her or talking to her or what ever he was doing.

He looked desperate enough for her to feel bad though and after a while watching him, she couldn't take it anymore.

"Conan-kun?" she asked in a raspy voice, only slowly and painfully the memories coming back to her. She was here for a reason, wasn't she?

"Ran! Ran!"

There was urgency in his voice – did someone die? But he also sounded kind of relieved?

Ran felt confused. What had happened. Where was she? Looking around, she found herself in a room she knew, she was sure of it but it wasn't her room and why was she here?

There was slight panic at the corner of her mind, she could feel it but somehow it never fully reached her and so her heartbeat spiked only for a second and then immediately calmed down again.

She felt disoriented, to be honest, like she had sleep walked only she had never done that and she didn't know if it really felt like it, either.

"Ran! Look at me! Are you alright? What happened?"

She did turn her head in Conan's direction then and – why did it feel weird how he called her? She wondered what was wrong with it but forgot about it soon after.

She didn't feel fine but she couldn't really say what fine entailed anyway, so she said she was fine. As for what happened she was as clueless as her little friend and that confused her even more. Wasn't Conan supposed to be super smart? Wasn't he supposed to know what was wrong with her, what happened and why she was here?

Pursing her lips in disdain – she hated being in the dark, why ever she felt such strong feelings was beyond her too. Not knowing something wasn't so bad, after all, now was it?

"Ran."

She felt a small hand on her forehead and she looked up in surprise, surprising herself even more because she hadn't even realized that she had looked down again – was she drugged? Also, her thoughts broke at the very source of every thought and then sprung to something else – it was incredibly hard to focus on one thing. Was she drugged? Was she hurt, after all? She was missing something, wasn't she?

"You don't have a fever. But you're too cold, Ran. Here." He stood up, the incredibly worried look on his face never leaving, going to on pile that was thrown down and looked through it. She saw his brow wrinkle in what she thought was confusion and decided to help him. He looked so small and helpless, so worried that it hurt her heart and she couldn't have that – even though she wondered why this boy brought her so much mental pain.

And when she tried to stand up she realized she was holding something or better, it was between her legs and chest and when she straightened her legs, it fell down and then, suddenly, everything came back to her, leaving her panting for breath.

Hands shaking, mind numbed, she pulled the sweater from her legs and held it in front of her face. From the corner of her eyes she saw Conan standing up but she dismissed that thought again.

She breathed in his smell, Shinichi's smell which was still in the sweater – it was still smelling like him even after such a long time being stuck in the wardrobe.

Her heart throbbed painfully in her chest as the memories came back, making her remember why she was here, what had happened and why she didn't think she could continue anymore. She felt weak and empty. Hurt and empty and as contradictive as it sounded, she still felt both.

Maybe the word she was truly looking for was broken.

"Ran."

His voice was so soft, so worried. She couldn't remember ever hearing his voice sounding like this. He'd been worried before, all right, but never like this, as if he was scared he'd lose her – for good. As if he truly believed she was leaving him forever. But then again, why would Conan be so scared? He was smart, he was such a smart, smart boy – and then she realized that that was what he was. A seven year old young boy who was basically abandoned by his parents, wasn't he? Of course, he'd be scared of losing her, too, when she just might be everything he had left. Not as a friend, but maybe more like a big sister, like a second mother.

She pulled the sweater close to her chest, hugging it like she'd hug Shinichi and looked at Conan. Now, she felt like crying. Before, she'd been desperate, hopeless but the tears had been far away. Too tense had she been, too desperate to know if he were still alive or not. But now, knowing the undeniable truth, knowing that day, that fatal day Shinichi had not returned anymore, now the tears came.

"Ran. What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

Shouldn't he be calling her Ran-neechan? But the girl didn't care much. There was sorrow in her soul she'd never felt before and she wasn't sure she'd survive the night. There was darkness around her, daring her step out to be swallowed whole, swallowed forever.

So far, she'd always been strong enough, always bright enough to keep the shadows away even if they were reaching for her, day after day, night after night. She'd always been strong enough to keep them far from her but now – now they were there, far closer than they'd ever been and there was no more wall, no wall called Shinichi which would protect her, which would keep her safe, far away from those dangerous black, dead hands.

Dead like Shinichi.

She broke down in a fit of sobs, unfiltered, painful sobs because she'd never again see her best friend. Someone had played her, someone had disguised themselves as Shinichi and made her believe that he was till alive when he wasn't. There was nothing alive about him anymore and it was all her fault.

Burying her face in his sweater, she sank further down, both physically and mentally, the dark hands reaching for her, clawing at her, at her heart and soul, pulling her towards the deep deep hole she wouldn't make it out of anymore.

Had she not won the competition, had she not made the stupid, so incredibly stupid challenge to go to Tropical Land, had she kept him away from the case, had she kept him away from the roller coaster, anything – had she done anything differently, he'd be still alive today. He'd be the same too arrogant mystery nerd with too much confidence, but just like she liked him best.

Suddenly, there was something warm around her – but Ran didn't care. She didn't care and didn't move.

Only much later, when her head hurt more than her heart, her painful sobs stopped. Slowly, ever so slowly, never running out of fresh tears, she stopped crying.

"Ran-neechan."

The voice sounded so small, hurt like a dying deer and she didn't understand why she had that imagine in her mind. She calmed down enough to wipe away her tears, wipe her snotty nose – god she must look horrible, but hey she just realized her best friend had died a year ago. She really didn't care what she looked like.

"Are you better now?"

She looked down, down to the boy who was holding her so tightly, as if taking all her sorrows away – but he couldn't. Unless he could bring back Shinichi, she'd never be able to let go of this sorrow. Never.

She shook her head, there was no reason for her to lie. Why would she tell him she was fine when she wasn't? She might break down any second again, besides, he'd be able to see right through her, wouldn't he? What good would it do her to lie to him, easing his worry only to make it worse again?

She wasn't fine and Ran wondered if she'd ever be again.

"Shinichi's dead."

She sobbed, all the pain rushing back to her. Just those three words were enough to bring back all the pain, all the sorrow, all the agony, the regret.

"He's dead and it's all my fault."

She felt Conan moving next to her. But she didn't want him to talk.

"It's all my fault."

She tried in vain to wipe her tears away, but she lost all hope of them ever stopping. Not like this, not with this burning pain in her chest.

"He's dead because I had to drag him to that horrible place. If we just never went there, if we never rode that stupid roller coaster, if we never met those two horrible killers, if I just hadn't let him wander off…"

She stopped to take in some air, only to choke on silent sobs. Ran pressed her face into his now very wet sweater and wished she'd just choke and die. Make this pain go away. Make it go away.

"No, Ran. That's not true. That-"

She shook her head in despair, ripping the cloth away from her. "It is true! I saw them!" She yelled in hopeless, painless despair. "I saw them today, Conan-kun. I saw them kill someone in cold blood. They weren't thinking twice about pulling the trigger. The same men in black as Shinichi and I met one year ago. They killed him. Today and one year ago they killed Shinichi!"

"Ran, listen to me, that's no-"

Shaking her head in despair and pressing his sweater against her face again, she continued her rambling. "He wasn't here. He hasn't come home. His clothes aren't here. His things aren't here. if Shinichi truly was alive, he'd have come home. He'd have come here at one point. There'd be something here, but there's nothing. There's nothing which would ever point to Shinichi being alive!"

Sobbing, shaking and burying herself so much in his sweater as was physically possible, Ran wanted to give, die, give herself to those dark hands, dark shadows pulling at her. She didn't want to feel anymore. No more.

"They killed him."

Shaking her head as in denial, she shook his hands off her body.

"They killed him", she stammered more silent now.

That's true. Those people, those men in black, they had killed her best friend. Those people had also killed that man today. They were murderers and running around happily, killing more people.

"They killed him" she breathed.

Calming, repeating those three words as if that was her mantra, Ran's tears stopped, and a different kind of feeling spread through her. Slowly, slowly, it spread through her, dispelling her pain, her agony, and instead something else was unfurling. Something dark, something so sinister she couldn't even name it.

They killed him.

To say he was worried was the understatement of the last 100 centuries.

"She thinks I'm dead, Hattori." He felt dead inside and hopeless outside.

"No", he corrected, laughing dryly. "She thinks she knows I'm dead."

Shinichi had never felt such hopelessness before, he'd never felt so broken before. Not even when he had found himself in the body of a six-year-old, not understanding what had happened, not knowing how to get back – still, he didn't know if he'd ever be able to get his correctly aged body back.

But this – he never wanted to experience something like this again. Never again. He never again wanted to see Ran this broken. He never felt such pain, such agony. This was something that went way beyond what he ever experienced.

Those murderers who after killing someone regretted their actions? That was nothing compared to what he was witness to just a few hours prior.

"Toldcha ta tell her from the start."

Shinichi really didn't need the sass from his friend but maybe Hattori was right. Maybe he should have told her from the very start. Apparently, she had met the BO in person, anyway. He couldn't get out of her what had happened, if they saw her, if they tried to kill her. Nothing.

He was beyond worried.

"Did Kazuha tell you anything?"

Hattori sighed at the other end of the phone. "That aho went straight to nee-chan's place and acts like she's sleeping now. I'll talk to her tomorrow. Anyway, where are ya, Kudo? Did you find nee-chan?"

"Yeah. She's at my house right now. It was a long night."

"Yeah, true. The corpse was some business man, he had no ID on him so no one knows who he was, so far. Straight shot through the head. The murderer wasn't too far away but I think we have some professional killer on this one. This was definitely planned – also, the setting. This was too much a setup to not be planned."

Shinichi hoped his whole being that Ran didn't try to intervene. If the BO knew who she was – no, he didn't even want to think about it.

"I think it was the BO, Hattori. Try to ask Kazuha-chan, will you? Ran's pretty shaken up, I cannot get anything out of her."

Shinichi wondered if Hattori maybe was tired because he never expected this knowledge would shut the boy up this quickly.

"Wait, BO?! Are ya sure, Kudo? Wait, why does nee-chan think ya' dead?"

"Because they ran into the BO and she remembered them from the time I actually got poisoned. She deduced that I was killed that day."

"Wait, and all the times ya actually met her in person?"

"I couldn't really talk to her. I'll try to reason with her and tell her that apparently I cannot be dead when she met me all the times after my death."

It left a weird aftertaste, calling himself dead, talking about his apparent death.

"Geez, what a mess."

"Yeah. Check up on Kazuha-chan. I'll stay here and see how Ran feels in the morning." Though, funnily enough, it was already at the break of dawn, so morning really wasn't far off anymore.

"Alright, alright. Then, see ya later."

Haha I lied. I said last chapter this time we'd get some action, what we got instead was this angsty roller coaster. Well, but next time for sure we will get some action and some KidAo goodness :D and we'll definitely get on with the story (though I'm not sure it will happen in chap 16 :'D)

Thanks for your lovely reviews my dear anons and to that one particular anon haha if I actually had the girls tell someone, like have them tell the police? You know I could end the story at that point xD so, I'm sorry haha I guess you'll get bored after all. But maybe you'll also like the way I'll handle things. We'll see :D

Jya, see ya next chapter.