08.10.08

Mitsuko's POV

People have a tendency to spot only the things they want to see. Subconsciously or not, humans are incapable to decipher even the simplest riddles with the sole reason that they are… terrified.

The mere thought of discovering something that would prove their greatest fear, that the world is not a two- dimensional state, petrifies them completely that it renders them ignorant. Ignorant to the stories behind every forged smile, beneath each string-weaved lies and in identifying those who are genuine from the paramount actors and actresses whose life has become the border between reality and the world of make believe.

For humans are easily swindled creatures… they are susceptible to deceptions …vulnerable to manipulations… feeble against death's whim.

"Pathetic…" the word fell into deaf ears as the cold wind blew, signaling the impending cold season.

"All of them…" I mumbled, standing in my place above everyone else. I grasp the wire fence separating me from the fall I'll have in a few more steps and gazed down at the chattering people below. Some students looked up and gave me a wave of recognition, shouting gibberish.

I mindlessly returned their smile and with a final grip on the fence, I disappeared from their line of view, my smile finally morphing into a sneer.

It's time for the Final Act, and the curtains are about to close…

I slyly made my way through the crowd, aware of the little girl tracing my footsteps all those time. However, I didn't pay any heed, the final call was nearing but yet to come…. Till then, the script shall be acted out.

As if on cue, I stood up from my designated seat and stood on the podium as soon as the ceremony started.

I flicked the pitch black notebook with silver tendrils open and stared at the bare pages.

With a shrewd glance, I started to speak.

"You've looked but you have yet to see…" I said in a mesmerizing tone. Blood started to sip through the pages. "You have heard yet you've failed to listen. Have you been born handicapped or not, it seems the line distinguishing them and you have come to cease."

"Why don't you resist fate?" I asked in an agony, my voice resonating. Dozens of name formed on the once blank pages, all in live crimson blood. "Do you not know that there is no such thing as destiny's carved on rock… for no one is truly omnipotent enough to do such."

I caressed the pages lightly, never breaking my eye contact. "There is only the puppet and the puppeteer… the manipulator and the manipulated. Everyone has a choice to be which, yet all of you chose the latter."

"And so…. It is your choice that attached and sealed the strings on yourself. You shall bend and suffer to the death god's every whims and desires… be the puppet and the manipulated" I stated with conviction. "And you shall exist but will never live… cease to be but will never find peace…..in the end, all the blame rest in you."

I slammed my hand on the written pages, smearing the bloody names in messy and unrecognizable scrawls.

The screams and howls started and were like music soothing my ears. In my eyes, the writhing figures on the floor were perfect portraits. The pain filled expressions swimming in the depths of their orbs brought incessant exhilaration…

A little disheartened when the blood vanished from the pages once again, I closed the notebook and tuck it obsessively in my chest. As soon as I stepped down the podium, a stronger scent of blood assaulted my senses. I stepped over the piles of body bathed in crimson liquid and headed for the door. Before I slip out, I turned my head back for the last time.

For once, a genuine smile graced my lips.

End of Mitsuko's POV

Hisae's POV

A single tear trickling down your cheek is a drop of water wasted… unused… a simple garbage disposal secreted by the body through the tear ducts whenever triggered by the simplest emotions…

A single word that flies out of a mouth, unstopped by the pursing of your mouth and the grinding of your teeth: YesNoMaybeSureNopePerhaps- single words exhausted into a mere confirmation that alters a life story or simply turns into a rejected idea of nothingness…

Wasted… Rejected… without purpose… Exhausted… Like people of everything and nothing at all… at all…

Like…

ThEm…

"Hisae… Hi-sa-e…" A soft voice whispered behind my ear, tickling my neck in sweet sensation that closes my eyes without my consent. "Do not close your open eyes. You'll only fail to see the absolute completeness of your own faults."

"Yuki…" I breathed out, clutching a battered and deformed plushy that's mysteriously comparable to a distorted bunny.

"I close my eyes and dream, and contemplate and do nothing and something at the same time. Am I quite wrong to think of wasted humans that breathe the life offered by their mothers who suffered greatly just to provide their egotistic needs? Do-" I paused immediately, my viridian eyes sweeping fluidly towards the bright, bright skies and withering light clouds towards a billowing curled tresses obscured by the thick wires wrapping around each other like mating snakes.

I smiled sweetly, a static energy forcing its way to a disturbing headache as my eyes threatened to flash neon blue despite the large crowd striding past and over my small form. Yuki snarled, clenching his fist tightly.

I turned my large curious gaze to Yuki's face- twisted into a façade that barely conceals his irritation.

"Yuki…" I said softly, letting the plushy dangle on my side whilst letting the other hand tug delicately at his sleeve.

His forest green orbs flicked towards me, then past me as it blended into a deep crimson shade.

"I… hate being unable to see a person's future. I…" his eyes glared at the form standing still by the rooftop. "I hate her."

I blinked, an innocent mask draping on my apathetic face. I swiftly turned to the still girl as she weaved through gravity and into the auditorium as quietly and invisible as she can. I perceive the fact that no human eyes were able to see her quick movements.

I retraced her steps, in my own small and easy steps whilst clutching the bunny tightly to my chest, a deeper understanding carved in my consciousness. Yuki has not left his place yet, and won't until I told him so. When I was a meter away from him, I turned and stared at him over my shoulders, and then, smiled wickedly.

"Yuki, mada mada dane." I said, and he nodded in understanding, following my little steps with his graceful stride. The wave of human heat breathed past me as I entered the crowded room of the proud graduates whose ribbons of bond were entirely biased and disgusting. Hums resounded- across and back- the whole room as the program started and, I made my way towards an elevated stage as my name was called, being the class representative.

I opened my black, black notebook with the azure butterfly and silver web twinkling at me. My eyes became bright with hidden excitement. The noise dissipated as I looked at the throng of students sitting in their own arrogant poise, and, even from afar, I could hear Yuki's menacing sneers.

"Whining and sobbing and crying out loud has your mother naturally brought you out to experience breathing and see, for the first time, the blinding light of the world be it daytime or night time.

"It is especially as the rule goes that all debts must be paid and all sweats must be rewarded. The only consequence of those who had never paid will be given as a gift to the gods of death who sits idle and waiting behind these boundaries set by the avenging gods of heavens." I chanted in a sweet melody, leaving the people in a quiet trance as their duplicates started to appear on the blank pages of my notebook.

The ribbons started tracing all connections these people have, all the bonds they formed in their ungrateful lifetime, so I continued, tracing the thread with the tip of my fingers in a feather-like pressure.

"Unused, unneeded, misplace and mistaken are you, people, who cannot repay as the shinigamis do." I intoned now, slowly piercing and cutting the ribbons of bond.

"So, you must wait for your judgment in the purgatory where there is something but nothing at all. You shall all wait in that mute pit, with you people wailing through the deafening silence of eternity. You are not marked in favor of your savior, and lest she awakes from her own nightmares, you shall all suffer greatly in response to the shinigamis' mirth."

I smiled widely at their hazy eyes, and jumped down, leaving my notebook open for a moment. Yuki was beside me as soon as I walked past the lost throng of people, whose minds hold nothing.

Closing the door behind me, I saw the still girl fluidly whisking past with her long curly hair billowing with motion, her skirt fluttering with the blood of every person she passed by. For a fleeting second, I saw her eyes and she saw mine, and I detached the piece of the page from the notebook, crumpling it and hearing bloodcurdling screams of people being crumpled like their duplicates in the paper.

I threw the crumpled paper in the ground, where it was twisted by Yuki's moving feet…

Normal POV:

A piece of crumpled paper flattened under the pressure of Yuki's feet, and the screams ascended in pitch, singing like nails on a blackboard. Finally, the sadistic boy smirked and tossed the paper with his foot…

Then there was nothing.