One Tainted Secret
Chapter Five: In Dreams and Discipline
By: Michelle
It was a depression she was not prepared for. It clashed with her daily, the feeling of inadequcy the moment she opened her eyes to a new day.
In training for the tournament Xiaoyu was at the stage of one difficult realization: she only had herself. All difficulties, dangers, and discipline depended on her mind set. On bad days, she would think so badly of herself she never left the bedroom, never slept well and, eventually, never ate.
After many bad days in a row, she shrunk in size, becoming so skinny she had no energy to practice or run. Her gait was no longer graceful. She slouched, her eyes became puffy, and she rarely spoke because she couldn't gather thoughts. Thoughts of the tournament came to her like nightmares, bullying her, questioning her ability to perform much less succeed. Try as she might, it crushed her emotionally, as it did when she was a missing child, the feeling of worthlessness.
Unlike Jin, who was under Heihachi's firm enforcement, Xiaoyu did not have that push. She was not told what she needed to improve. She was not reminded what her capabilities were if she worked hard. Her grandfather words were not here for her to militantly obey. Coachless, with no wise words to follow, she forgot her grandfather's teachings altogether. Her mind, deep in the fog of weariness, needed to be sharpened before it wasted away with bad thoughts.
It was a dismal time while autumn set in. The entire manor fell silent and mysterious. Xiaoyu spent most of her time in the library because Lucy did not bother her there. School days drifted by unattended. Calls made by classmates were not returned; she forgot their names.
Jin never showed up to dinner anymore, not since their tryst in her bedroom. This was a silent catastrophe for Xiao. Usually she woke in the mornings with a happy hope of seeing him. Running into a shirtless Jin at the dojo or watching him from a window. It gave her happiness, appreciating his existence and wishing him well.
Heihachi, for some weeks, never spoke to anyone a word.
The hallucinations started around this time, during her depression Xiaoyu saw and heard things. A pair of red eyes appearing at her from random areas in the manor, gone the instant her eyes shift its direction. The flapping of wings much larger than a bird or vulture outside her window at night. Odd markings would appear on the walls, a strange language. Sometimes, while walking back to her bedroom, the light in the hallway would dim with every step, dimming softer with slower steps, dimming out completely if she stopped. Her ears faltered because the sound of her name could be heard barely.
When asked about these things, Lucy hushed her and said it is probably the animals in the forest, the manor is surrounded by it. When Xiaoyu told her about the odd habit of the lights in the hallway Lucy reminded her that she was missing too many school days and that she needed to keep busy or the mind will wonder.
She did not go back to school. It wasn't a priority with the tournament to prepare for. After some time she came to realize why her body felt sloppy, why it was difficult for her to concentrate, why she couldn't get up in the morning and missed many days of school: there was no plan, there was no focus, there was a severe lack of discipline.
So there was a plan. To start things off, the plan was kept simple. She removed herself out of her element. Xiaoyu started a five-mile run every morning through the foggy, shifty surrounding forest she had followed Jin into, the entire grounds untrodden of its difficult topography.
Nothing within arm's length, at four o'clock in the morning, could be seen. The density of the morning fog was thick and isolating. Animal sounds flickered in the air above her, rustling the leaves around her, the noise of their eating, their digestion, their hunting. When she kept running, these sounds were merely sounds of life in the forest. If she paid attention to it, it would pay attention to her. If she stopped to listen closely, it would swallow her. It was quick how the fear came, like a net over her soul.
Within some persistent weeks, almost magically, Xiaoyu evolved a swift agility to dodge anything, almost instantly, that came up in her path without having to see it or hear it. Practicing attention to the noise around her, senses and instinct became strong and constant like a pulse, the sound of her heart was the only beat she listened to.
Deep in the forest, near the lake she swam across every morning, there is an empty tree trunk housing baby boars and a paranoid mother boar. Every morning, upon passing this trunk, Xiaoyu is chased by the protective mother. The snarl, the savage gallop of its hooves behind her, its snorting and cruel squealing sent a powerful fear through Xiaoyu.
Her mind reeled, clouded and unbalanced, lost itself in the net of fear. She was no longer agile and her speed faltered; her foot stumbling she lost her balance and twisted an ankle. Looking behind her instead of focusing forward had her run smack into a tree, in which the mother boar came at full force slamming into her side with its heavy head. The animal reversed and did it again. When Xiaoyu did not react after the fourth slam - a limp, bloodied and crumpled over surrender - the mother beast went away.
From then on, Xiaoyu ran her mornings with the boar entourage behind her, the babies having grown bigger than their mother. It took time to be able to do this, waiting for the fear to quell, but she was patient. She kept her mind fresh with encouragement, whispering to herself from time to time the awesome things she could do to chop the dummy mannequin in half, the unbelievable height in which she could jump in one standing spot and land in the branch above her.
When courage finally came she grabbed hold of it and used it persistently. Outrunning the wild boar became a goal to reach by the end of the week; she would make a timeline of such things, amongst other small achievable goals, to be accomplished and eventually mastered.
But outrunning the boars meant outsmarting all the boars. A quick right turn to trick it, a sharp change in direction to confuse it. Rapidly switching gears soon left only dust in her wake, no sign of a single snorting pig.
A month of routine and discipline built a solid strategic engine in her head. Trial and error eventually sorted out a sound method. Thus, Xiaoyu developed a grit that seemed almost far-fetched, lightning speed that a brisk turn in the neck couldn't catch up, agility that diverted nature.
She felt it. That super-human effect after outsmarting a villain (insecurity) or destroying the blasphemous monster (doubt). A sharp, highly dangerous mind had been cultivated, knowing no distraction or mercy.
Gentle warm baths were made ready by Lucy before dinner time. Xiaoyu would soak and relax the muscles every night. It pained her a little, expecting Jin to be hidden somewhere in her bedroom, the memory of their tryst still fresh.
The hallucinations, however, were still frequent. The fluttering movement under her bedsheets no longer terrified her because it was always nothing when she peeled them away. Purple hazes would follow her feet, the warming sensation hypnotizing, seducing almost, the feeling of intense pleasure crept up her spine but never reached her brain. Lucy was right about keeping busy. Dismissing it, none of it bothered her.
Xiaoyu turned out the lights and snuggled herself deep into her bed, breathed in that embracing smell pillows have when sleeping heads dream well. She thought about what her grandfather had told her, how we don't always get everything we want but in turn we have something everyone else doesn't have. Every night, at the cusp of falling asleep, Xiaoyu made sure the last thought before she fell asleep was a good one.
The dream was a strange, exhilarating one. There was Jin dressed in a long dark overcoat that covered him down to his feet, only his head exposed. The big gaping hole in his face was his mouth, wide as an apple, his eyes shut tight. Find me. Wind and leaves rustled by when she heard this. A flying object slammed into her head, she collapsed sideways. Slightly blurred vision, she made out Jin's bloody feet a few inches from her face, he was bleeding from underneath his overcoat. He looked down at her, eyes big as coals, his mouth missing.
The morning light was awful on her eyes. Xiaoyu rolled out of bed still in the clothes she wore the day before. But something chilled her blood and stopped her on the way to the bathroom. Standing in the corner of her bedroom was a giant panda.
Heihachi explained to her the importance of safety. Many people have gone missing, bodies have appeared in gutters and trash bins. He was afraid that the list of the tournament's registered names might have gotten to the public, thus causing a spree of killings.
"She is your bodyguard," he told her. He appeared deep in thought, his eyes looking like the ones she saw in a dream, now barely rememberable.
He made sure of this, "You are going back to school. This house..." he didn't finish.
The giant panda stood behind Xiaoyu and followed her every step.
"Hello, death," Miharu greeted it, her eyes glowing with mirth. Behind her, two girls, each with different hair, eyed the panda and then Xiao. They did not question where the hell or what the hell, it was just good to have her back.
Xiaoyu was surprised to hear this welcome, recalling their faces and names again. She had been absent a month. Apparently there was a Halloween party this weekend. She was expected to be there. Miharu had an old angel costume she could borrow. First day back and already an agenda.
"Did you bring your handsome man with you?" Audrey, the brunette, asked.
Pricilla, the blonde, hushed her with an elbow.
Their hands, pale and manicured, fluttered in the air as they gossiped. Xiaoyu made sure her bruised, chapped knuckles were pocketed as they walked down the hall to class. She listened to the girls's chitchat and made no responses. The update being: Jin was missing. Not missing out on school, but literally missing. The spoof of it all was what the old man had told Xiao, before he demanded she go back to school, how bodies were turning up dead. When she told the girls this they gasped and said it's been on the news, unidentifiable bodies with eyes, fingers and teeth missing. She had nothing to say about what happened at home. Never noticed him, she'd say. He doesn't eat dinner and she hadn't seen him in the dojo and his room was on a floor she didn't venture.
Sensing the discussion got nowhere, the girls stopped asking Xiao about the whereabouts of the most mysterious guy in school.
In literature, the class read aloud a short story to discuss.
It was a story that recounted a myth that happened twenty years ago about an angel who was seduced by the devil. The angel represented the purity of a woman and the devil symbolized the evil nature of a corrupted man. The story recounted many ways of the devil's romance and seduction, the use of distracting and sultry words, the wonderful promises, beautiful displays of material wealth and security, and although the angel disregarded all such things, the devil persisted.
Daily, followed by the devil, the angel read poetry that appeared on the walls, the lighting in the house darkened to hypnotize her deeply; in the night, his arms slithered beneath her bedsheets; in dreams, he told her she must come find him. Why? the angel pleaded, grief stricken the day the devil planted his seed in her heart.
Because of love, you are not like others, your heart is big enough to store all the evil so that it will not harm others, was the devil's response before he vanished.