Painful Secrets

.:Walk With Me:.

Running my temporarily ambulatory hand over the rusty windowsill, I could not help but felt I would soon lose something very precious to me as this moment passed. I was going to leave this place in a matter of seconds. I was going away, and maybe I would never return; I wasn't sure. I didn't want to leave this place, not yet, not when I started to feel like I belonged here.

Funny, wasn't it? How would a person, if I was still considered as one, liked this place? It was cold, solitary; a place where people only acted kindly toward one another because they were supposed to. I could see through them; and they knew I could, but they and I, we were still acting like nothing was solved, nothing was understood. We were still living as we were supposed to. But it wasn't just that; nothing had only one side, for there was always another side to everything, another side that wasn't exposed to a person when they were caught up in it.

Since I first came here, I had always dreamt of escaping. I knew it was impossible, for me anyway. I was, at the time, like some useless doll, some useless being who had all her circuits switched off. I became handicap after the accident. My body wouldn't move most of the times; they purposely betrayed me, making me sick of them to the core. I usually threw a silent tantrum, something I had to endure only with myself because my vocal refused to cooperate. My hands and feet wouldn't move, and I was sure if it wasn't for the wheelchair supporting my back, I wouldn't be sitting up. Only my eyes spoke for me. One blink meant yes, and two blinks meant no. When I had an itch, I wanted nothing more than to use anything nearby to help me relief myself; but, as always, I was such a failure that moving my body weight against something, something such as the surface of my metal wheelchair of which I was seated on, was a problem.

The feeling, that feeling felt to me like hell had just come back, dancing before my eyes. No, I couldn't say that, it wasn't true. Hell seemed more attractive, more terrifying. I had seen hell once, felt it once, and was now suffering from the impacts it had left me. My parents... I saw them, and I still could see them each time I closed my eyes. When the plane crashed, my legs were smashed under the crumbled kitchen cabinets. They were bleeding, blood were running from them like the rushing water you'd see after you twisted one of the knobs of the bathroom sink; but I didn't feel any pain. I was numbed, and, I guessed, that was a good thing.

I'd felt his hand, my brother's hands, when he pulled me out. He'd used all his strength --I had felt it-- when he'd thrown me a couple of feet away from the plane. Ironically, that was when my mind had become clear, registering in what was happening. I'd my mom's half chopped off body; the part that I was able to see was laying in her pool of blood with her eyes opened, staring questionably at the sky. And a few feet away was my dad, he was still struggling, trying to reach my mom's already cold, broken up body. He looked at me and smiled, the smile that I had come to love. I saw his lips moving, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. But for all that I had left, I bet everything that those words were: "I love you, Rin."

My brother, my eyes frantically had searched for him; landing on him, he had this stupid look on his face. How I had loved and hated that look. He'd given me a thumb up then, winking in both pain and pleasure right before the explosion broke out. There, I was trapped in a protective bubble, the one my family had given me, as I watched with cold blood, feeling the coldness of the blazing fire.

The people, the ones that helped people when their services were needed, came way past a little too late. My eyes were barely opened; they were blurred by the gasoline of the dying down fire when I'd seen a human in suit, a human in protection. Drifting away in exhaustion, I'd regained my path back to the livings a few days later. I was in a hospital, they told me. The news people, the nurses, and the doctors were all surrounding me, claiming I was a lucky one.

Soon, they found out, found out my disabilities... Researches showed that somehow I had become mentally ill. My body wouldn't function, my voice had refused to be heard, and the possibility of my regaining a normal life was less than twenty percents. A few weeks later, when most people had moved on with whatever they had been doing, I was sent to Crystallized Gems, a place for people like me, people with no identification or relatives.

I laughed everyday, but no one heard me. How could they? They couldn't read minds. How could they not know of whom I was? It was easy, nothing that was that far beyond the light. I was Iida Rin, the one who every girl was always wishing she could be because I was filthy rich. I was on a magazine front page each month for my cuteness and specialty. I didn't look that bad, did I? I didn't look that far from my original self, did I? Then, maybe I had. I had no way of proving to people that I was myself. I was rich, but now I was not. 'I am now just a girl who had been in an accident and had become mentally ill.' How could I be me? How dared I to claim myself as me when the me now had not a penny to her name when the me before had everything?

I remained silent, waiting, waiting in a little corner, hoping a miracle would come to seek me, to bring me back to my home. And that was how I had become one with this windowsill. The little corner I had glued myself to was none other than this very spot, the spot in which the windowsill resided.

Eventually times speeded up without my knowing. It was hard for me to accept, but I guessed it was wrong of me to not accept when a nice lady came by to visit me. First, a day per a month; then, a day per a week, and slowly it shifted to an hour each day. Then, one day, I came to learn the truth. She was adopting me, heard of my tragedy and had been waiting all this time just for the right moment to seize me. How did I know that she had been doing such? I used common senses, the ones that people believed I had lost. It took a few years to adopt someone, but in my case, the fastest they could do this was two years. But I couldn't hate her, ever, for not asking me first if I had wanted to be adopted. In fact, I might like her for that even, she was taking me out of this hell, the hell that I had become real in.

She suggested that I should go say goodbye. To what? I had questioned her through my eyes. Though, she only smiled like she knew exactly what it was that I would surely miss.

I wasn't alone, forgetting that I wasn't alone sometimes was one of those precious things that they, the ones up there, were blessing me with. Many times I had wished, prayed with all I had left, for them to take my sight as well. It wasn't hard, it wouldn't even take that much of their time. I never wanted to see again. What was the point of seeing when I had no one left to see? No one was there for me... I was left, completely alone in a silent awkwardness. So hollow, the feeling disturbed me to no ends, but there was nothing I could do. I was and would always be useless, of no values to anyone.

Glancing slightly upwards, the emptiness in her eyes was starting to portray a new person, a new woman, not the one I had gotten accustom of, was standing before me. She was... I meant, her eyes were in a drifting state, a period, of which I had experienced over and over again.

Was she sad? Was she afraid? Was she angry? Or worst, was she alone?

I mentally shook my head, a self-resurrection I was in habit of using. She couldn't possibly be going through that state; maybe she was looking at the scenery. Through the window's glass was a place that spoke of reality around here. Or maybe I had too much times for myself that my thoughts consumed what my mind was trying to release. And from there my mind started its process from the beginning, a process of which I'd forever be caged within.

A movement from the corner of my left eye; a movement by my company, provoked my curiosity. Her unhappiness was quickly demolished; a foul look, a fake smile she picked out from her rusty pocket... a smile she had used repeatedly. Perhaps it was, too, used toward others and not just only me.

"Let's get going."

I was afraid, afraid of an unknown feeling; a shadowy sentiment was lurking in the darkness, waiting, contemplating for its moment to seize upon me when I wasn't expecting it. They were always so tricky, thinking they were clever and acting with great kindness. It was true that I was only a child, a child who was in need of helps and special attentions; but I wasn't that dumb, not on the level they were believing me to be. It would take more than they could ever imagine, more than they could ever think to be possible to win me over. I was abandoned; nothing was easy to heal when it was wounded, tarnished.

Blurred by the lightness in my head, blurred by the increasing speed I was being handled with, my eyes reached their limits and gave into the two most known colors to mankind --black and white, two simple colors to define.

For a few seconds, after I felt she had come to a stop, I unfortunately regained my vision, returned to the colorful darkness of which I loathed. At this moment, by the attitude the sun was pounding on me, my brain spat its radar reading --it somewhere around two to three in the afternoon.

Gruesome breezes I had missed, had been living without, marched over her body and mine, sculpturing their values and marking their names; summer was coming to an end, at last autumn was starting to breathe.

The coolness of the leather seat in the night colored limousine silently awakened my body. Seated by the left side door, she was sitting across from me. Her eyes became listless once more, and her mind dulled of everything that was occurring in her environment; I couldn't help but let my mind shifted to her.

What was she in concern of? Was her state of mind right now comforting? Did she find it suitable for her, find it comforting to her reluctant nature?

Uncomfortably, her eyes and mine intersected, she must have been feeling the warning within herself that she was being watched. "Is everything all right, Ai?"

Ai was a replacement name, very much like the now me; I had become the replacement of Iida Rin, but no one was informed about the news. Yet Ai was the name that was known by people, fooling them to such a state that would bring them great shock whenever they'd come to the understanding of the truth; or maybe they would not be reasonable enough to accept what the truth was.

I blinked yes, but she probably couldn't see in the shadows. She smiled, mumbling an apology. And after a few more eerie moments of her waiting for an answer, she apologized again. "Sorry. I haven't gotten use to the habit. You know how I usually ramble. I almost forgot about your illness." she paused, smiling again. "Don't worry, sweetie. I'll make sure --you have my words-- that there will be all the helps there are to cure you. This is insane! No one is sinful enough to carry this heavy burden! Certainly not you!" She quickly gathered herself over to where I sat and hugged me; her head rested upon my right shoulder-- that was something my mother used to do...

My pupils darted toward the windows, consuming in the million traffic lights that were overshadowing the darkness in the busy city and a darkness that had been ignored as people went on.

In the heart of this city, feeling of insecurity began to overwhelm me. The lights, the people, and the noises that they made as we passed by echoed repeatedly inside me, telling me something, screaming something toward me... hoping I would understand what they were trying to explain. Round and round my environment wavered, a strange kind of dizziness, an unknown feeling emerged from its hiding. And there, some missing pieces of my puzzle drew together, enlightened me and brought me toward...a step closer, a step stronger than yesterday. I was on my way toward finding myself.

Forcing my lips to curl up, I recuperated myself, collecting back my being. I glanced toward the back window that was starting to frost up by the gentle rain. Leaving the caged world behind as the city faded away, I was now ready to say goodbye.

My feeling of excitement and anxiousness had subsided as I became captivated with the rhythm of the precipitation. Slowly its beating increased, and slowly I began to become aware of the tranquility I was receiving from myself.

No more regrets, no more turning back. This was the end of my dreams and the start of everything.

'A kindness from stranger to stranger, I will survive.'

.:Inuyasha © of Rumiko Takahashi

.:Update: 2.11.06

.:Non-edited.

A/N: I know its start is a little too slow, but bare with me. I'm not sure if this chapter has ruined it for your view on the whole story. Please leave a message if you are still interested in this story.

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