Post by Suzuko Tsukino on Mar 24, 2015 22:10:35 GMT
Anguish. That was all Suzuko felt the moment she was thrust out of the dream world that had cursed her sleep, if it could even be called that. A scream pierced the air as she tried to still her frantically beating heart, trying to assure herself that it was just a dream. Of course, it had to be a dream...there was no other explanation. There was no possible way Suzuko's mother could have been brought back to life only to die....and by these hands. These cursed hands that had brought so much death before, even the end of her accursed father...but never Hana. Suzuko would have never touched a hair on her mother's head, Hana was the one person she had truly loved...what possible reason was there to harm her.
That scream...that anguished scream still haunted Suzuko as she remembered how horrified she had felt when she heard her mother's voice. How long had it been since she had last heard Hana's sweet, gentle voice? She had given up ever hearing that voice again until it was her time to join her parents in the next world, whatever that might be. Never would Suzuko have dreamed that she would hear that voice again... Trembling hands clenched fistfuls of hair as Suzu tried so desperately to block out the sound of the scream that still rang in her ears. If only she could block out the sickening crunch that had started it all when that damned proxy had forced her to kill the only person in the world that she had loved. Perhaps the only one who still loved her, even after all the blood she spilled.
But what could she have done differently? Her hands had been tied, quite literally by that damned proxy. Hana didn't have to die! Not again, not ever! There had to have been another way! That damned proxy....what did she know of her life...what had she known of Hana... Nothing. How could she have possibly known what comfort those arms had brought her, how many hurts her gentle words had healed...how could that damned witch presume to know anything about the nightmares Hana's beautiful voice had chased away. She never had to die. It was hard enough watching Hana just waste away as a child, knowing there was nothing she could do to help. Suzu would never forget those words of anguish or how Hana had been crying for her, as if she had done something wrong. That was the furthest thing from the truth! Hana had never done anything wrong!
Hana didn't have to die...she had done nothing wrong! It was these hands...these bloody hands that had killed so many people. All for the sake of money, for a reason to end the miserable life of the very people that had looked past her plight. Those had been her reasons, warped beyond recognition when her father had turned against her. He had been the first to go, and it had been sweet revenge at the time. It had been enough to watch him waste away just as Hana had...but what was the point? Suzu was alone, just as she had always been, and she had thought that was enough, that there was no point in trusting anyone anymore.
Hot tears streamed down her cheeks as Suzu tried so desperately to forget the way Hana had cried for her, how she cried out in anguish for her. Suzu didn't deserve it, she knew that all too well...not after what she had done, the lives she had taken.... Hana had even tried to say something with her last breath...but what had she been trying to say? The damned proxy's taunts still rang in her ears...
“Forgive? Forget? Stop loving you? What cliché thing could she have said?”
That question haunted Suzu as she slowly unclenched her fists and looked down at her trembling hands through her blurred vision. It wasn't until she blinked away the tears that she realized that dirt and flowers, the same flowers she saw in the dream, covered her bed. That wasn't possible...not unless...it wasn't a dream. Another scream escaped Suzuko as she fell out of the bed with a loud THUMP and scrambled away from the evidence that last night had been real. But....how...? That meant that she had-...Hana had died because of her.... No, surely this was some mistake, perhaps one of her pots had broken and simply fell onto the mattress. Yes, that had to be it...that was the only explanation.
Standing up, Suzu slowly, carefully walked over to the bed to see if there were any shattered pieces of pottery in the bed as well. Part of her hoped that she would find broken pottery pieces there, if only to reassure her that it hadn't been real. At the same time, another part knew she would find nothing to give her another explanation to the torment she had endured. Sure enough, there were no broken pieces of pottery on the bed, no trace of broken stems or roots even. Not only that but there was something else that had been brought back from the dream world. There, on the shelf above the bed, was the head of what looked like her mother. The same one she had seen in the dream, broken and battered by the shovel that the proxy had forced into the skull. Yet, after all that....Hana was still crying for her...
Why? Why had Chaos chosen to torment her? The bitch had said something about a trial...but if that was the case, why bring in Hana? Why bring the only person that had meant the world to Suzu back to life only to strike her down. No...worse...to force these hands to kill the one person she held more dear than life itself. Her mother hadn't been a part of her decisions, there was no reason to force her to destroy the only life Suzu had truly valued. Fighting back another sob, Suzu carefully picked up the doll's head and looked into its eyes, rubbing her thumb over the painted tears as if she could brush it away. Suzu's heart ached just looking at the doll's sweet smile, so reminiscent of her real mother. Unlike the dream however, the head wasn't filled with dirt but with flowers and inside was a vial filled with some form of liquid. It was as if her mother had given her one more gift to remember her by...even after all she had done.
Slowly, carefully, Suzu pulled the vial out of the doll's head and slipped it into her pocket before carefully placing the head back on the shelf. It stared back at her, mocking her....an ever constant reminder of her sins, of the blood-stained hands she had committed so many atrocious deeds with. She wanted to smash it, to break the thing into pieces...but how could she? Even if it was just a doll's head, it looked too similar to Hana... There was no way that Suzu could break it...not after what she'd just done. Wrapping her arms around herself, Suzu looked away from the doll's head, wondering once again what her mother had been trying to say before death claimed her...again.
It just wasn't fair. Why would they bring her mother back like that only to take her away so quickly? What was the point in all of this? To remind her that she was truly alone, that there was no one on earth that understood her? Perhaps even her own mother hated her now…was that what she had been trying to tell her? Or maybe it was something else entirely…either way, Suzu would never find out the truth. Besides, what did it matter now? Hana was gone, again, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Normally Suzu was able to turn off her emotions and hid behind her façade. Nobody else ever saw the ‘real’ her, and that was how it should be. Now though, there was no possible way she would be able hide behind that mask…not after what she’d done. Nothing she had done meant anything anymore so why even bother? Mother was gone and Suzuko had nobody else to turn to, there was no one who understood what had happened and even if there was, they were all the way in Japan. There was no chance of getting out of the toy box anytime soon however, no chance of asking those she had once called friends to take her back. The truth was, there was nothing left for her here…if the dream had showed Suzu one thing, it was that it was she was the worthless one. In the end, she was just a worm trying to crawl its way out of the dirt.
The days passed by in a blur after that and Suzu lost track of time, never mind what day it was. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep, all Suzu could do was remain curled up in her bed and watch as the world passed her by. Not even tending to her plants held any meaning anymore, no enjoyment or sense of fulfillment. The very act that had always helped her feel closer to her mother now seemed worthless. But then, she had killed her own mother hadn’t she…in the dream at least, the dream had been real though, hadn’t it. Her shop had been closed for days now and all further appointments had been cancelled. Suzu simply couldn’t handle being close to anyone, not anymore. There was no point to doing anything anymore…Suzu was well and truly alone, and she intended to stay that way until death saw fit to envelop her in his sweet embrace.
~~~
Maxine Foster
