Night 63: F1-F10 Hallway

[she_is_ruin]

Dreams had never provided much solace for her in the past; it was ironic now that they were all she could turn to. Before, she had dreamt of silly things. Sad things, as well, on occasion--of a family barely remembered and of a life never lived. But when she’d woken, those dreams had all but been forgotten. Reality had occupied her body and mind. Ruminating on insubstantial dreams had seemed childish when she’d had a life to live.

Now, though, there was no life to live. She was like a shadow passing through a world that no longer accepted her. (The eternal march for the eternally damned.) With dreams came peace and forgetfulness, things she could no longer find while conscious, and so Yomi gladly gave herself up to sleep. For a while, there was no Landel’s, no Coliseum, no morgue. No nothing. Peace. At intervals, a voice had intruded on her slumber, but every time Yomi had rolled over and soon enough, the voice left her alone. Time passed that way--for how long, she didn’t know. A part of her hoped that it would never end.

But another part of her knew that eventually she had to wake, and eventually she did, groggily and unsure of her surroundings. It was dark like the morgue had been, but she’d learned from her initial resurrection that the darkness was no more than an illusion.

She was, regretfully or not, still alive. She accepted it, even if the knowledge caused a cold, hard fist to close over her heart every time she swam back into awareness.

But why… was it so hard to see?

For a long time Yomi laid there in her bed, gaze fixed unseeingly on the ceiling as her eyes adjusted to the blackness. Where she was seemed obvious. Landel’s Institute had been a constant part of her existence for almost a month. But when was she? It was so dark…

"I'm alive," she whispered, and the desire to hear her own voice surprised her. It was so dark and--

I'm afraid.

"I’m alive."

Comments

F1

[she_is_ruin]

It wasn’t until sometime much later that Yomi finally maneuvered herself off the bed. At first she only shuffled toward her desk and stood there clutching its edge to hold herself up, panting into the silence.

How much time had passed? What had happened while she’d been asleep? The possibilities frightened her. She didn’t want to be stuck in this cycle again--the cycle of fighting day in and day out under Landel’s watchful eye with nothing ever changing. The only things that differentiated one day from the next were the obstacles involved, not the game itself. And she… she was a part of the game. A pawn that never changed. She would be like the sesshouseki, a fixed and constant menace until Landel grew tired of her. That also frightened her.

When you outgrow your usefulness, maybe he’ll stop bringing you back. But that was the dream of a naïve child.

She had made her wish, and now here she was. She’d wished that the sesshouseki would stay with her body, and it had, spreading its fingers over her mind, healing her slowly from the inside out. She could almost see it, even in the darkness. Its dark crimson bloom.

A shuddering breath left her, became an uncertain pause. A few more moments passed in this manner before Yomi left the desk behind and started groping at the walls, hands searching for the one bastion of familiarity she knew must be there. Landel might have robbed her of her chance to die, but he’d given her the opportunity to shed as much blood as she could while she existed in this man-made purgatory. When her hand found the Shishiou replica’s hilt, she was not surprised. Yomi lifted the katana, holding it in both hands with something like hesitation.

Game on, the monster inside her whispered. You’re back on the field. Now go do something about it.

And with halting steps, Yomi did.

[she_is_ruin]

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