Breath With In


Chapter 14 - One More Day

It was like it always was, the next day. The sun beamed in through the window, casting strange shadows that made the room feel weird, like it was some sort of dream world. I woke up to Yuuki, still hugging me like a human-sized pillow, her face twisted in some kind of blissful, creepy smile. She was sleeping, but it was like she knew I was awake. Or maybe she didn't. Who knows? We didn't talk about that part.

I carefully got up, trying not to disturb her perfect sleeping form, but it didn't work. Yuuki groggily opened her eyes, still smiling in a way that was almost too perfect to be real. She jumped up, faster than a rabbit on caffeine, and said, "Time to go! We have no time to waste!"

I nodded, totally unprepared for whatever insane adventure she had planned today. We both got dressed, but not in normal clothes. No, today was special. I wore a suit made entirely of glitter, and Yuuki... well, she wore a dress made of what seemed to be actual clouds. "It's for the atmosphere," she explained, though I wasn't sure what atmosphere she was talking about.

Once we were dressed like a walking disaster, we decided to go outside. The air was... weird, too. It was like walking through a fog of uncertainty and bad decisions. We thought about going training, but instead, we worked out—like, in a totally confusing way. I did squats while Yuuki did jumping jacks in the middle of the street. People stared, but I didn't care. They could learn something from us.

Then, we got into a deep conversation. Yuuki talked about her life goals—something about becoming the world's best... llama trainer? I wasn't really sure. I told her I wanted to be the first person to jump into a black hole and survive. That seemed reasonable. But we had to stay on topic. I'm not sure what the topic was, though.

After what felt like 20 hours, we decided it was time to sit down in the park. There was blood on the ground where the rabbit once was. It was the most disturbing thing I've ever seen. Except for the blood, everything else was pure white. Like someone had bleached the entire world.

We walked through the woods with Yuuki. There were no birds. No animals. Just... silence. And occasional rustling noises that may or may not have been trees secretly plotting something. I didn't question it. We just kept walking, deeper into the woods, where everything was eerily calm, like the calm before a tornado... or a disaster.

Eventually, we made our way to the park, but things had changed. The park was somehow bigger and smaller at the same time. The swings were now huge, and the trees had eyes. At least, I think they had eyes. Yuuki just shrugged it off and said, "Don't worry about it."

We sat on the grass, staring at the sky, which was somehow both purple and yellow at the same time. We talked about life. I said I wanted to own a flying motorcycle. Yuuki said she wanted to live in a world where animals were the rulers, and humans were the pets. It didn't make sense, but I just nodded along.

As the sun set, we walked her home. Her house was, strangely, a giant cardboard box. It was perfectly fine, though, because we both knew that sometimes cardboard was the most reliable material for a home. After walking her to her door, she hugged me again, and I could hear a distant rumble—was it thunder, or was the ground just angry?

We both went to bed, but I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about the eyes in the trees. Maybe they were watching me. Or maybe I was watching them. Either way, I drifted into a weird sleep, where things like flying motorcycles and cardboard houses seemed totally normal.