Act 7, Autumn
She carefully opened her heavy lids, finally awakening from a seemingly bottomless sleep. Her body was so much lighter than it had been for days that she was almost floating. The fragile, pallid light that was coming out of the only window seemed artificial in the expanse, otherworldly and curiously detached. As Tomoyo blinked once again, vast whiteness was revealed before her sight as if mist had just ascended all around. The feeling brought her a sense of tranquility which consequently confused her somehow.
The room, if it was in any way a room, was empty save the bed beneath her. There was something peculiar about this arrangement, something that she couldn't place.
"Where am I?" Her musical voice rang in the emptiness that flowed everywhere.
The question wasn't supposed to be said out loud but she anyway found her thoughts effortlessly falling out of her mouth.
"I have found you."
It was wild impulse that she immediately removed herself from her current sitting position, running to the only exit that appeared to flee from her outstretched arm. It wasn't long before she realized she couldn't chase the door anymore because it disappeared just as she could finally enclose her fingers on the silver knob. That consuming dread washed the stillness away in an instant.
"Tomoyo."
"Get away from me!" The frightened girl yelled back to the deep, haunting voice that echoed in her head. "Must you follow me everywhere?"
The noise of her furiously beating heart greatly resounded in her ears, overwhelming her more than the distorted variety of Sonomi's voice even when she tried to cover her ears to block the noise.
"I have found you."
Amidst the rising fog, a towering silhouette startlingly came into sight, moving agonizingly listless towards her direction, a slow torture to some extent. Blood left her face, and by instinct she stepped back, endlessly trying to escape until her back connected to the cool wall. The other sides of the bare space had rapidly closed in on her as well, suffocating her in the induced claustrophobia.
"Please, okaasama," Tomoyo painfully begged over and over again, echoing to no avail, unable to stop the tears from streaming steadily down her paler cheeks. Her wide amethyst eyes could only horrifyingly watch the growing shadow take her mother's tall form. The specter twitched once, twice, rising above her quivering shape. "Don't do this anymore."
"Tomoyo."
At that moment her name was said in the faintest inflection, and fleetingly she thought she was imagining that the voice was much more different than the last.
"I have found you, Tomoyo," the shadow whispered softly, altogether pacifying her and dissolving her fear and that thunderous drumming sound that filled the air. The pressure was lost all of a sudden as if it never existed.
"Wh-who are you...?" Her breathing returned to normal as well.
Little by little the mist was lifted, and ultimately revealed the phantom's bluest eyes.
He didn't seem to have understood the question as he refused to acknowledge it, yet eventually, he closed the gap between them and stood right before the former heiress, looking real and ethereal at the same time.
"I have found you."
When the unnamed ghost's amazingly warm hand tenderly touched her face, a soft light enveloped them and swallowed the emptiness in that breadth.
