Chapter 8 Homu Kurusu: Lost sister

Warning: Depictions of loss, mental illness and grieving

It had been three months… Three months since it happened.

It was still extremely painful to think about it, and would probably stay that way for who knows how long.

It was an accident. She didn´t remember any of it, and maybe that was for the better.

Her twin sister… her other half… whom she loved dearly… died. The doctor could not do anything for her, her sister was too injured.

She felt like she had drowned in the deepest pits of despair. Nothing mattered anymore. She would never be whole again. Her sister was lost forever. She wanted to grieve, cry and rage but only felt numb and disassociated. It felt all like a really horrible and prolonged never ending nightmare

Her parents had taken it not much better. She worried about them with what little energy she had to worry for them. They had just barely picked themselves up again, and she… she was powerless. Her strength had been broken and she couldn't help them, and not even herself at all. There was no energy left, she could barely keep going.

She was injured only slightly-that is physically injured, but psychologically-that is a whole other story.

The diagnoses are: Acute stress disorder (it may be too early to tell, but it would obviously become Post traumatic stress disorder), Dissociative amnesia, Depersonalization, Derealization and Depression.

Acute stress disorder: Avoidance of anything related to the incident? Check. She hated being in a car and being driven around but managed to force herself to get through with it.

Nightmares? Check. She would not remember anything of it but she would wake up screaming and crying almost every single night.

Flashbacks: Probably. Sometimes she would black out during car rides without remembering anything afterwards, but always felt very pained.

Negative Mood: Check. She couldn´t feel almost anything save for deep despair, emptiness and numbness.

Dissassociative Symptoms: Check. The doctors told her that it was a survival mechanism which would protect her from her trauma until later when she would be able to handle it. When would that time even come?

Dissassociative Amnesia: Yes, she could not remember the incident itself and actually could not remember anything beyond one week before the incident.

It took her a month before she started to remember. She woke up in a hospital bed from a nearly catatonic state as the nurses said.

Depersonalization: She could not even refer to herself in first person anymore.

Derealization: Check. The waking nightmare would never end for her.

Depression:

Low mood: Check.

Low self-esteem?:She didn´t even think about her self-esteem. I didn't matter to her.

Loss of interest in normal interests: Check, she felt purposeless.

Low energy: Absolutely. She had come to school, but it was a struggle to do anything. She actually still followed the class subjects but it took her all her might she still possessed.

Pain: Too numbed to feel any. But the despair counts.

And how could she even get back on her feet, if she was such a mess now?

Simple. She did it for her sister and for her family. They wouldn´t want her to give up, fail her education and die, not after her parent already lost her other half. So. No matter What it took, no matter how hard it would be, she got up onto her feet and started staggering forwards again.

The people around her were feeling pity for her. It didn't matter.

She would get through this. She would make sure of it with all her power and if she failed it would not be her doing. Her grades had dropped but they would recover. She would get to go to Akademi eventually, after all this is what her parents and her sister would want of her. There was no Hope for the future but she had to do this for her family.

They said that she was friendly, warm and cheerful once but that was before it.

Now she was just an empty husk.

Suddenly someone talked to her. She almost jolted but didn´t.

"Uhm h-hi. Who are you? C-can I help you with something?"

Reflectively she turned her head and said "I´m fine".

The stranger was a grey haired girl that had dull eyes. The grey haired girl held up a piece of wood with a hole inside it and gave it to her.

"Look through this. There may be something important you might want to see."

She automatically took the piece and looked through it.

AND WHAT DID I SEE?! MY SISTER! OH MY SISTER I MISS YOU SO MUCH! SISTER I CAN´T LEAVE YOU! IM SO SORRY! I NEVER WANTED THIS TO HAPPEN OH FORGIVE ME PLEA-

By now I was lying on the floor shaking and felt the immense pain but the worst-

I was suddenly sitting in the car at the same horrible spot where IT happened the car approached and I saw it all! I SCREAMED, SISTER SCREAMED AND MY PARENTS SCREAMED! EVERYONE WAS SCREAMING! AND THEN I SAW MY SISTER BLEEDING AND LOOKING AT ME WITH WHR LAST STRENGTH! THE SMELL! THE SOUND! THE IMAGES! IT WAS ALL TOO REAL!

Mercifully she no I blacked out at that point.

When I came back to my senses I was at the school infirmary laying inside a bed.

There was the grey haired girl form before again, and she looked at me with a mixture of confusion and guilt. The there was a school nurse. She said "You passed out from exhaustion, probably. Here drink this cup of water and rest. You should take the remaining day off, and if you need, tomorrow too"

"No I can't!" I panicked and my voice was embarrassingly high pitched. "Please give me that thing you have!" The grey haired girl was about to give it to me but I could see my sister without the thing already. I could only see her faintly, but she hugged me and looked at me with concern.

I twitched but steadied my breath and calmed down enough to receive my surroundings again

I turned my head to the grey haired girl again "I´m Homu Kurusu. What is your name?"

"Ayano Aishi. I-im sorry for hurting you"

"No, you didn't hurt me! You… " "You helped me a lot! What is this thing? I can see my sister again!"

"A Planchet. It's a tool to see spirits."

Suddenly a torrent of despair overtook me. My Sister died!

A nudge distracted me from the horror. Ayano chan. It was Ayano chan.

"Try to give her a new physical body! Like in Stories and Anime!"

Wait… THAT IS POSSIBLE! I had tinkered a lot with parts and built small mechas with my sister and even an artificial robot- dog which we named Iron dog(Tetsu Inu)! I could do it! This is the solu-

I couldn´t finish my thoughts, because I suddenly blacked out.