Title: We're All Breaking Down
Theme: Inuyasha; Set #1 Theme #8- Break
Genre: Angst, AU
Characters: Inuyasha, Everyone (Kagome)
Word Count: 250
Rating: General
Summary: A material world's take on fairy tales. AU warning.
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'"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat. "We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad..." "How do you know I'm mad?" replied Alice. "You must be- or else you wouldn't be here."' -Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
The boy down the hall had been there almost as long as he had, hovering between flirting with nurses and warning everyone to get away, lest he harm them accidentally. He sat in his room, alone, wrapping and re-wrapping his hand in purple cloth, cinching strands of his mother's beads around it like they were the only thing protecting the world from himself.
The girl in the room next to him was consumed by grief, carrying a photo of her family with her everywhere. She had two possessions, with her always- a stuffed cat she had had since childhood, and a small boomerang her father had bought her on holiday.
There was a little boy a few doors down- just a child, really. His family was killed before his eyes, and he had never recovered. He variegated between a carefree child, playing with his toys in the hall, and a traumatized boy suffering from night terrors only halted by a warm, mothering caress.
And then her. Mute, smiling, her warm demeanor was only broken when her visions resurrected, telling horrific stories of demons and slaughter and things an innocent girl should never see. Despite her imaginings, she was always cheerful, only reacting if they tried to take her away from him, remove her from his side. Just the touch of his hand on her arm was soothing to her.
He sometimes wondered if the fact that her touch calmed him, too, was the only sane thing in his world.