The days of the week are so insecure. They always want to be someone else. Monday through Thursday, it felt like Friday all week, and when Friday finally arrives it feels like a Tuesday. It's like everyone wants to be Friday, but Friday just wants to be someone else. I mean, seriously! They're all just days of the week! They should stick to their respective days! Why can't Monday just be happy because it's first, and Wednesday be happy because it's the turning point? But no, they all have to feel like something else. Geez... Anyway, I'm going to a dance with all of my friends tomorrow. That should be fun.
From Mari's perspective once again, here's chapter 15.
My stomach feels like an empty pit. It constricts and grumbles, begging to be fed. Did I forget to eat last night? There should still be a bit of food left over, right? Usually I'm the one who stops the kids from sneaking downstairs for a midnight snack, but maybe I'll make an exception.
Wait, isn't this bed a little too soft? I crack my eyes open to almost complete darkness. In the corner of the room, a small oil lamp still burns on, although it seems to be nearing the end of its lifespan. Even in the dimness, I can see the expansive frame of the bed I lay in. Where am I?
Sliding out from under the covers, I discover an airy silk nightgown draped over my body. I take the cloth between my fingers in confusion. Groggy, I decide to leave it until morning. What I want now is food.
I pad across the floor, soft carpet instead of splintered wood, to the grand door at the other end of the room. I stare in wonder at the eloquent golden handle before laying my hand over it. It's not even halfway pulled down before it seizes. I try again, getting the same result. Pushing or pulling, the door does nothing but rattle on its hinges. Giving one final heave, I collapse against the door. I'm too tired for this, but my stomach feels like it'll eat me if I don't find something to put in it. And now I also feel how dry my mouth is, deprived of water.
Glancing around, I find a sizable window blocked by heavy drapes. Perhaps I can slip out that way. I haul myself over, my body not wanting to obey. The drapes are made of a smooth material I'm unfamiliar with, but I don't dwell on it as I yank them back. Metal bars encase the window, like the prisons I've read about in books.
Finally sensing alarm, I stumble back to the door and renew my efforts to open it. No matter how hard I pull or shake it, it stubbornly refuses to budge. I pound my fists against it, but find myself to be straining just to stand. My hand barely makes a sound as it harmlessly lands against the polished wood of the door, little force put behind the fist despite my desperation. I simply lack the energy.
Is it...some sort of medicine? Is that why I feel so weak? There are a few herb mixtures that make the recipient drowsy, but this sort of lackluster is unusual. I mean, I can barely keep on my feet at all.
And then there's a click and the handle pivots downwards. I tumble back, narrowly missing getting slammed by the door as it swings open. A large silhouette of a man blocks the doorway, his features invisible due to lack of light. When I say large, I not only mean tall. It's hard to miss the wealthy roundness of his body. A small speck of light fizzles near his face, a lit cigar casting a horrendous stench into the room.
"Sir," I cough, doing my best to write off the smell, "I-"
"Trying to escape again?" he growls, puffing a cloud of smoke into the air. "You're pretty, but you aren't very bright, are you? How many times must I discipline you before you get it?"
I gawk. "Um…"
"Stand up!" he barks. Startled, I obey, scrambling to my feet and swaying. Too fast; the blood has rushed out of my head. Black spots swim in my vision for a moment as I shake my head in confusion. He nods his head to an unlit fireplace. "You know what to do."
Having no idea, I stand still. Does he want me to light it? Can't he just ask me to start the fire instead of treating me like a slave? Who is he, anyway?
"Get on with it!"
The sternness of his voice as my motivation, I trip over my feet to get to the fireplace. There's a similar, albeit less ornate, fireplace on the main floor of the orphanage, so lighting it isn't much trouble for me. Once the wood has started to burn, I look back to the man chewing his cigar. What was the purpose of me lighting this, exactly? It's not like it's all that cold in here.
When he notices I've stopped, he sighs and half stomps, half waddles his way towards me. "What are you waiting for? Have you forgotten what to do?" I stare at him blankly. "I swear, your memory is worse than that of a puppy." Unexpectedly quick, he grabs one of the fire pokers and stick it in. He doesn't move any of the wood, instead just holding it amid the flames.
"Um, excuse me-"
"I never gave you permission to talk," he snaps, not even looking over at me. "A wife's role is to help the man quietly from the sidelines and serve his every whim. How many times must I teach you?"
His words strike some sort of chord in me. "I am certainly not your wife, and I have no plans to marry! And the role you describe is nothing more than that of a pathetic pet! Don't you have an ounce of common decency towards women? Didn't your father ever teach you to be chivalrous?"
He pulls the poker out. In the dim light given out from the fire, I can see his scowl. "You're talkative tonight, aren't you? Is starving you and restricting your water not enough of a punishment?"
Starving? Restricting water? That would explain the emptiness inside of me, as well as my dreadful thirst, but how long have I been here? I don't remember seeing any of this before! Who is he, and what am I doing here with him?
"We'll have to take it another step farther, again," he says, finally glaring over at me. Then he whips out his hand and whacks the glowing red poker against my thigh. Screeching, I fall back and try to cover the burn with the hem of the nightgown. As I do so, I finally realize just how skankily short it is and flush, both the embarrassment and pain flooding heat into my face.
"What was that for?" I whimper, hesitant to touch the burn.
"If you have to ask, you obviously haven't learned anything." He whips out again and I cry, retracting my feet and cringing at the new, raw welt forming atop my right foot. Again and again, he strikes me, and every time I release a cry stronger than the last. Why is this happening? What did I do to deserve this?
Eventually, the hits just become thumps. With so much agony causing my body to writhe, there just isn't any more I can possibly feel. I've gone numb to any more pain. It doesn't take him long to realize this, apparently, because he stops with a huff. Tossing the poker back next to fireplace, he leaves without another word to me, the door clicking shut behind him.
I can't even summon the willpower to check to see if it's locked. Something inside me tells me that it is, and always will be. Numbness the only thing flowing through my blood, I unsteadily force myself to my feet. The room brighter with the fire, I examine my body. When I see multitudes of scars, large and small, patterned across my skin, I can't bring myself to so much as worry. Only bewilderment comes from the sight. Where did all of these come from?
Closed burns that show signs of having been infected still sting if I add pressure atop of them, but I don't even flinch. My body...this body seems used to it. Hurt is no stranger to it.
Glancing down to see my wrists, I find bandages wound tightly around them. For some reason, perhaps curiosity, I undo them. They hide a dense collection of barely healed slits that seem to have penetrated deep into the veins. I didn't do that. Was it him? I'd be willing to bet that he's the one who inflicted the other wounds.
As I stare at the wrists that don't seem to be mine, the numbness brought on by the onslaught of pain fades. Realization jolts into place and I lose my footing again, gasping as I tremble on the floor. I can't tear my eyes away from the cuts, even when my vision begins to waver.
I would never do something like this! Just the thought of trying to kill myself triggers a gag reflex. But even so, I'm clearly in control of the hands covered in scarring. Who….whose body is this? Who am I?
Then I shift the wrong way and I scream, the traces of the most recent beating baring their true weight. Tears welling up, I bite down on my hand to keep quiet. My entire body aches. When was the last time this person ate food? Or drank any water? Is that man trying to kill her?
But...I'm in this body, now. If he kills her, he'll kill me. I am her. But who is she?
Doing my best not to move my head, I search the room for a mirror. There's only one, too high for me to see myself from the floor and on the opposite side of the room. If I stand, I should be able to see mys reflection, but will it be bright enough to make out my features? And what if she's a stranger? Just knowing what she looks like, just being able to recognize that it isn't my body doesn't tell me anything about who she is.
I can't bring myself to move, though. I really should go check in the mirror. I should confirm my suspicions, see who I've become, but...I can't. I just can't. Because...what if it isn't another person? What if I'm wrong, and it's me reflected in it? What would that mean? What would happen then?
A small sob escapes my lips. Leaning back against the wall, I shut my eyes and will it all away. I wish everything to return to normal. When I open my eyes, I'll be back in the orphanage, Mother downstairs preparing breakfast for all of us unmotivated to get up. But, of course, I'm not. I open my eyes to the flickering, uncertain light of fire instead of the resilient bits of sun that seep through those ragged curtains every morning.
Someone, I silently plead, someone help me! I don't know what to do!
Images of the twins flash by in my mind and I stop. Breathing, blinking, I do none of it. Then I choke, inhaling the best I can with this cracked throat that is currently mine. That's right! The twins! The elf, the nymph, the unicorns! How could I forget all that? Where are they? All of them, I was with them until just a while ago, wasn't I? The twins...they were raging through the town and I was going to stop them. They're my familiars! The one's who've vowed to stay with me my entire life and protect me with all their might! So where are they now? That wasn't...just a dream, was it? It couldn't have been! This has to be the dream, then, right? Like those one's I've been having lately about Chiyoka?
But I haven't seen her, yet. And besides, this doesn't feel like those dreams. It sure doesn't feel like I'm asleep. The pain shooting through my nerves right now can't be something made up, can it? But then again, wasn't there that one dream? So what? Is this reality or not? If there's no way to tell...then what is reality at all?
The mirror. I have to see. I have to know if it's me reflected in it or not. I have to know if I'm still real. It's not like a person can just vanish like that...right?
I grab onto the bed, using it to support myself as I stand. My legs buckle under me, but I persist until I'm at least upright. Now my form is visible in the mirror. However, I was right in assuming it wasn't bright enough. I have to get closer to make out the details.
I chew on my lip. There's nothing for me to hold onto between the bed and the wall with the mirror, so I'll have to walk without support. I don't know if I have it in me to do so right now. I shake my head, flinching when I turn it the wrong way and pressure is put on the wrong place. The twins need to be stopped. If this is the dream, I need to know so, so I can wake up and get to them. And there's the children. And Mother. If I don't go back, what will she do when she's no longer able to care for everyone? Who will help earn money for the orphanage? If that's all fake, if that all was the dream and this is the reality...then perhaps I'll have to be glad that all of my siblings, Rika, Sora, Fumiko, Pon, Matsuo, Mitchi, Ayato, Saki, Junko, Haruhi, Rin, Chisao, Ryo, Naki, Mimi, Yuji, Tatsuki, Hana, Jun, I'll have to be glad that none of them were truly abandoned. They were never really orphans. And Mimi's little sister never died, nor did the other three children that we were unable to heal, because…
Because none of them ever existed in the first place.
I thrust myself across the room, tears streaming down my face. How selfish am I? Despite all of the horrible things they've all been through, I still hope that they're real. I still hope that I haven't imagined any of it, that they all actually came to be orphaned and welcomed into Mother's ever growing family. How terrible is it for me to think that? How awful a person I must be?
And yet, when I fall against the mirror, relief floods through me. It's Chiyoka. I'm Chiyoka. It's her face, not mine, that is bruised and bleeding.
I slide to the floor, face in my hands. I'm not sure why my tears fall anymore. There're too many emotions swirling inside me to pick one out as the cause. There's the agony of physical trauma, the confusion of looking into a mirror and seeing a different face, the despair of learning of her past, and the sickening comfort that comes from knowing that it's her, and not me, who's enduring this fate.
A slam shocks me from my weeping, the door having swung wide again. The man from before storms in, waving his cigar in anger.
"I can hear your damn crying from all the way down the hall, you little wench! I'm trying to relax for the night before going to bed, and you're completely ruining that! If you're not going to be quiet, maybe you need some more training! You sure seem eager to have it tonight!"
He lowers his still burning cigar towards me and I clench my eyes closed, preparing for the heat.
Instead, sudden cold air chills me to the bone. My eyes fly open to find myself on the edge of the forest, the purple and blue glows of the trees clashing with the temperamental oranges of the twins' flames.
The next thing I notice is a weight on my legs, so I look down. A unicorn, Tamaki, rests his magnificent white head on top of my knees. His sheer, gold hair lays splayed over my legs and the ground. His white mouth is tainted pink and red, his lungs, unmoving.
It's then that I hear the faint sound of breathing, but it's not coming from Tamaki. I turn towards the noise, a child standing near my side being the source. Her long brown hair floats gently on the breeze, her usually composed face scrunched with worry. It takes me a minute, but her name finally finds its way onto my tongue.
"...Haruhi?"
This chapter actually topped 3,000 words. Good on me. I try to have a minimum of at least three full pages written for each chapter. If the content I had planned doesn't fill it up, then it makes me get creative. It's a good system, if I do say so myself. Oh, now that I think about it, there was something that I really wanted to address. Stop apologizing when you guys leave long comments. I actually really like to read the longer ones. That's not to say I don't like the short ones. I like all of the comments. Even if you're just explaining something I did wrong, it's an interaction between me and you guys. Writing, to me, is all about interactions between the author and the reader via words on a paper or screen. The longer your comment is, the more in depth the interaction. Please, tell me everything! You have no idea how much it pleases me to read them, no matter the length. I look forward to what I hear from all of you in the future.
Till then, Kisses from SnowyNeko! :3 MEOW!