This'll probably end up being terrible, but bear with me (or not, it's your choice).
Currently in the process of being re-written.
Through With You by Cult To Follow
Synopsis:
------
As far back as she could remember, Misaya Reirokan has always had crink in her neck that she could do nothing about. The only she could, was let it subside, back into the recesses of her flesh. Back into the darkness of her mind. The pit of her soul. She had no help from her father in coping with this knot beneath her skin—this thorn prickling her insides. Her father, abusive and trapped in the past, saw nothing but a wish he could never obtain, a fleeting memory that had long since shriveled and died. She was always alone in her struggle.
All of this changes, one day, when she is given a taste of something red.
------
(Special thanks to those who helped me get this out).
Small Notice: So, the mental mailbox I keep open for any potential ideas gets overstuffed frequently and usually this is after I re-read chapters I've already written. Most often, I think of things I can squeeze or add into these already written chapters, expanding and hopefully fleshing them out. So... uhh... just a heads-up if someone happens to come back and see new chunks in the story that weren't there before.
It's just my brain throwing up stuck content.
Small Notice #2
Small Notice #3
Chapters:
One
Two
Three
Four
I. Misery
A crimson moon, hovering high above a bleak sky filled with dark clouds, casting a sinister hue over everything caught under its luminescence, painting the barren landscape with its sanguine brush, and dripping with the screams of the dying, the dead, and the damned. The wind as it howled, carrying the voices along, unifying them in a distorted harmony across the nothingness, rising in volume, crying out, and cursing the world. Rage-filled anguish that tore through an ever perpetual darkness, birthing hatred. Then, utter silence.
Curled in a fetal position on her bedroom's hardwood floor, staring at her hand and the twinkles of dust dancing around it, bathed in the warmth of a tangerine-colored dawn, hearing the chirp of bird and buzz of insect outside the window, that was what Misaya saw in her dreams whenever the real moon was full and bright. Whenever her neck hurt the most.
Porcelain-white replaced by blood-red fright.
On nights like this she could do nothing but wait it out and hope for the best. Endure it until it subsided, unable to sleep and unable to dream of anything til after it did. The dream always came afterwards, and at least by it she knew she had survived another one. Another long struggle against insanity-inducing pain.
And, gathering the strength to stand, she went across the hall and into the bathroom. Brushing her hair aside, sticky with sweat, Misaya looked into her eyes. The edges of her irises were red. Bloodshot from a lack of sleep, and running her fingers through her hair, pulling wet dead-ends, she rubbed the dark circles underneath and yawned. Washing her hands and splashing lukewarm water on her face, she twisted the rusted valve tight til it strained and shouldered her schoolbag, knowing class was already in session, had long since been, and that she was once again late.
In the living room, her father still sat on his knees in front of the altar, face filthy, hair greasy, and beard untamed. Just staring straight ahead, possessed by the portrait of her long dead mother, a stranger she'd never had the privilege of meeting, as she passed him by with not a word, already out the door and trekking her way up the dirt road toward the hill the school rested atop, braving the swelter of a semi-tropical summer.
When she finally made it, her eyes wandered to the chicken coop outside the church she never attended right next to the school. Another one had went missing, not that she really cared, and, continuing inside, head down, trudged her way through the deserted halls of the school to her classroom. Standing at the door, peering inside, Ms. Lisle was at the board, writing what appeared to be a simple math equation, explaining it as she went.
Taking a breath, Misaya knew the chance of her tardiness going unnoticed was nil, same as all the others, and slowly turned the knob, hearing the tail end of what her homeroom teacher was saying as the door shut with a groan behind her.
"... and, taking into account Ms. Reiroukan's slight hesitation at the door, we arrive at our solution: forty minutes and thirty-one seconds late. Twenty minutes shorter than the last time. An improvement."
To the onlook of the other students, she took her seat, ignoring their stares, and, when she laid her head on her desk, their whispers. Ms. Lisle called for silence, chalk in hand at her podium. Telling them to continue with the next equation on whatever page they were on prior to her calculated arrival, the woman swiftly approached her desk. Knocking on it, she told her to wake up and join the rest of the class.
Groggily lifting her head, Misaya looked around. The other students appeared to be buried in their textbooks. Thirty years behind the time, they barely qualified as current reading material and were one of the only sources of modernization the island had. Really, she knew they were straining to hear her response, unable to peel their eyes away from the newcomer—their only entertainment in the past three months.
She couldn't blame them. She and her father were on an island far out from the mainland where the only thing being weirder than being a light-skinned foreigner was being a light-skinned foreigner who also happened to be of the same ethnicity, or close to it, anyway. A close-knit community for all the idiots of Japan. That was why all their attention was on her and not their tall, curly haired, homeroom teacher who, in addition to being one of the only two Europeans on the whole island, miraculously spoke the language.
Which, she wasn't even speaking anymore.
Having shifted from Japanese to English Ms. Lisle continued to talk, chiding her over still not doing what she told her to. Not that Misaya was listening to a damned thing the woman said, leaving her bag untouched against her chair, having tuned her out.
Eventually, Ms. Lisle gave up, went back to the front of the class, and began going over the equation the majority of them probably didn't do, occasionally glancing in her direction.
Absentmindedly thinking of the latest chicken to have went missing, the fourth one since she and her father had arrived on the island, Misaya wondered if anyone else had even noticed.
The rest of class went by with her doing nothing as usual and, now, elbow propped on her desk as she sipped a carton of juice, her gaze was half on the measly lunch she bought and half out the window, looking toward the chicken coop for the second time today. She leaned back in her chair, arm hanging lazily over the side, eyes travelling over the others in the class, before going back to it, still wondering about the drastically decreasing number of chickens in the short period of time she and her father had been on the island as she took another sip of her juice.
Her answer?
None of them, probably.
Though, reaching for her bread, she could certainly think of one who might have as she felt a sharp jab and twitched.
It was acting up again, and she ignored it the best she could, straining as she chewed, a searing pain coming from the back of her neck. Pain that dulled and deadened the senses beneath her skin. She rubbed it, trying to cool the heat before it ignited, and winced.
Something was wrong.
She had to leave before it got any worse, palm pressed down in an attempt to smother it, resisting the urge to scratch. To dig. Yet, when she tried to rise, couldn't concentrate—only registering the pain—hunched over. Shaking the haze from her vision, wobbly as she wearily pushed her chair back and held onto her desk, she put a foot forward. If she could reach it before she succumbed—and that was when everything went blank.
When she woke up, Misaya found herself on a creaky bed, covered in a stained white sheet. Sitting up, the muscles in her neck quivered, and she let out a groan, peering around at her new surroundings: the tiled floor, full of cracks, bare walls with long since faded paint, the dinky overhead fan that looked about ready to fall on her head any moment, and the cloth screen hiding her from curious eyes. Taking it all in at once, it was a sight she'd only seen once before, during her brief tour when she'd first come to the island.
The school infirmary.
It smelt nauseatingly of blood and disinfectant, pulling double duty for both the students and residents of the island, and she frowned, head lowered as she touched the back of her neck. The pain always came and went on days like this, and was bearable, but not like this.
It were as if all the short bouts were happening at once and she'd been so careful in avoiding others when it struck, the thought never crossed her mind that she would succumb to it so quickly, but, that had been when the pain was less severe—less like white-hot needles stabbing into her spine and more like red-hot iron pressing into her back. Like it was now, as she clenched her jaw.
She had to let it pass, had to let it cool, like all the other times and, gritting her teeth, holding fast to the sheets of her bed, had to let it ebb away. Let it become cold. Slowing her breathing, she was having a hard time just doing that, and closed her eyes and huffed. She was sweating profusely now.
Hearing the school nurse's voice, she looked up, seeing a dark, distorted blotch on the other side of the cloth screen. From what she could make out, Mrs. Wetson had something in her hand and was looking at it carefully and Misaya raised her head again, only to be blinded by a harsh light as the screen was opened. Mrs. Wetson said something, and the sound of her voice boomed into Misaya's ears and she crumbled forward, hearing it reverberate like an echo. Over and over again, and shrinking further, it wouldn't stop.
She wanted the pain to just stop. Why? Why wouldn't it just stop?
Clutching the back of her neck and recoiling from the heat, she couldn't take anymore, wanting to scream, melting as her body burned, insides boiling. Being cooked from inside out, hot tears streamed down her face as she blinked rapidly and tried to keep from shaking any harder as something cold pierced her skin.
Entering her body, it froze her pain, and her sweat dissolved back into her skin, feeling much cooler than before. She no longer broiled, grasping her chest and taking in large gulps of air. Clearing her senses, it calmed the noise, and she could see better than before, eying wholly the cross that dangled from Mrs. Wetson's neck as she moved back to her chair with a thin smile on her face. As she sat down Misaya heard her words clearly for the first time.
"You look better already."
And, just like that, the torment was over. Misaya fell back on her pillow in disbelief. Just like that, her pain was gone.
"How are you feeling?" Ms. Lisle was standing over her, face contorted in worry. In her hand was a cup of water, and, snatching it, she greedily drank until empty and, swallowing, watched the fan overhead as it spun tirelessly, squeaking as it strained, lying now in confusion and awe. The pain was… gone. Just like that.
How?
"You took a nasty fall." Plopping down on the edge of her bed, Ms. Lisle tapped a spot just above her left brow. "I'm glad you weren't hurt any worse."
Misaya touched the bandage above her eye from the close encounter with the edge of her desk, recalling the moment when she'd started walking, only to teeter, dizzy like a drunk from one booze too many, hitting it, and slamming into the floor.
If... she... also… remembered right, Ms. Lisle had been the one to carry her here.
"It scared me." Ms. Lisle looked away then, and, after a moment, opened her mouth as if to say something else, then shook her head. "I need to get back, but I want you to speak with me once school's over." Standing up, she went to leave.
Staring after the nakedness of the woman's neck between her back and hairline, Misaya sucked in more air, still thirsty. One cup wasn't enough and, as Ms. Lisle closed the door behind her, she heard the sound of a pen scrawling away, her attention brought back to Mrs. Wetson again.
"I'm writing a request to your father." Mrs. Wetson said at her desk where the medicine cabinet was located above, folding a slip of paper and tying it to that same small glass bottle from before. "Your medication needs a re-fill." Spinning around and getting up from her chair, she placed it on her lap, patting her shoulder before going back, "Get some rest."
Staring at the bottle, a minuscule amount of thick, red liquid visible at very bottom, Misaya squeezed, brow furrowed. What was this…? When did…?
The slip of paper attached to it.
Addressed to her father.
Eyes on the ceiling, she frowned.
Her father…
… as if he really…
It's your fault.
You're the reason.
It's all your fault.
You're the one to blame.
If only you never existed.
… cared about her.
She squeezed the bottle tighter and, cracking the glass a little, dropped it. How had she...? She blinked. Her strength must have come back, but, so fast...
Closing the hand into a fist, it must have been the medicine's doing and, licking her lips, she rubbed two fingers together, tasting something sweet and falling back to the bed again, for some reason, medicine had never tasted so good as it did now.
How long had she suffered for? With nothing but her willpower alone? How long, had she lay scrunched up in some corner, in agony? Without something to help ease her anguish? How many years? And, now…
Gone. Just like that.
She woke again to a purple afternoon, hearing cicadas and feeling a cool, gentle breeze as she sat up, parted her hair, and rubbed her eyes with a yawn. Sleep was something she never got enough of, but, after being given that medicine, she felt more well-rested than ever before, and stretched, looking around the room. She was alone. Mrs. Weston must have stepped out for something and, pattering over to the sink next to the desk, filled another cup of water, took it all down at once, then, did so again.
The school had no funding for proper filtering, even in the school's infirmary, and drinking from the faucets was bound to make one sick, but she was so thirsty she didn't care, as she now downed a third, wiping her mouth and tossing the cup in the trash, glancing over at the window, wondering how long she'd been asleep. Gazing up at the clock, it was after school hours. Homeroom was in the mornings at 8:00. It was now a bit after 3:15. So, five hours. About the same she got on a good night, rare as that was.
Ms. Lisle was probably still in the building and she slipped on her shoes with a half a mind to not actually go, but knew the woman would find her no matter what. Hunt her down, if need be, and, besides, even though she never paid attention in class or did any work the woman always let her leave class in exchange for a reasonable explanation.
Always.
While, on the other hand, he had already given up a long time ago. Beating her whenever she brought up the truth he couldn't see anymore. Neglecting her when she didn't, lost in his delusion. Loving something that wasn't real. That wasn't there.
Looking down at the bottle, its existence didn't change those facts, and, thus…
"I know how much you're struggling..." Ms. Lisle said, hands folded in her lap. On her desk sat a stack of manila folders, each labelled and organised by grade, class, and individual, complete with a red marker and stamp nearby, cap on and case closed. "... and I know your father is also struggling..." she continued, looking down briefly.
Misaya felt a sting. Her father, struggling? Her mind flashed back to when they first arrived on the island. Her father, dragging his feet off the boat. No, he was well past the point, and she remembered the briefcase bumping behind him, the clatter of…
"... so, again, if you ever need anything, or just want to talk..."
... the clatter of bottles…
"... know that I'm here for..."
Time seemed to stop as the memory paused and was played back.
Her father.
A briefcase.
The clatter of bottles.
That medicine.
Trying to recall more of the memory, she turned to leave as Ms. Lisle began leafing through the stack of manila folders, still talking. She couldn't waste time her time here anymore, and, sliding the faculty room door shut, stomping her way through the sparsely populated halls of the school, went to her locker and tore her schoolbag free from its hanger. Slinging it over her shoulder, she checked to make sure the bottle was safe, and made her exit.
The basement.
She remembered him, going there when they'd first arrived.
She'd never been, off-limits to someone like her. Though, she knew. She knew whatever was down there would be the answers she wanted. The ones she needed and, as she walked across the courtyard, wondered those what might be, thoughts wandered back to the faculty room, the look that was probably on Ms. Lisle's face when she looked back only to see her gone, as if she'd vanished like a ghost.
Of course the woman didn't know about her father. How could she? How could anybody? It wasn't for them to see. It wasn't something anyone was supposed to know. Something the world wouldn't see—couldn't see—that wrapped itself around their house like a veil. Hidden from prying eyes, none would know what went on behind those closed doors.
The manifestation of his rotten soul.
Coming out the school gates, going past the chicken coop and church, she was barely down the hill when an obnoxious noise blasted behind her and, before she had any time to act, the mud-covered hunk of junk that heaved to a sputtering halt alongside her.
"Hey, Misaya...!" It was Ms. Lisle, waving in a boorish attempt to get her attention.
Not that she was paying attention, head lowered in the hopes that the mosquitoes would stop biting at her bandage and the woman would leave her alone along with them, as she kept on.
"Earth to Misaya!"
She didn't want to deal with anyone right now. Not her, of all people. A nosy, kind-hearted person like her. Yet, despite how much she didn't, the truck, trailing black smoke, continued to follow her as Ms. Lisle leaned out the passenger window from the driver's seat.
"Come on, get in!"
There was no choice. No way to convince someone such as her. A nosy, kind-hearted, and tenacious person like her, and thus, climbing into the passenger seat, let out of a sigh. Always.
"Glad of you to join me," the woman said with a grin, as she began fiddling with the radio dial, shifting through static and all the channels detailing the war in Vietnam until something came through, leaning back with one hand on the wheel, satisfied. Pulling back on the stick between them, the truck lurching forward before going shakily along, she tapped to the beat of whatever song was playing. "This'll be faster than walking, trust me."
Misaya glanced around the interior with disdain.
An ashtray and crushed cigarettes were up on the dashboard, filled to the brim. The floor was littered with crumbled pieces of paper and scattered beer cans, and she wrinkled her nose at the strong odor of tobacco that was sure to cling. Hanging down from the rearview mirror was some stupid, little, green tree, and stuffed into the side compartment was a comic stripe with a fat, cat-looking cartoon character with large eyes and a bunch of ripped open envelopes.
A fan was set up on her side, moving back and forth between them, probably there in an attempt to combat the heat, but it only managed to blow even more hot air in her face, as she brushed off a coupon that promised five percent off on the buyer's next six-pack, and, giving that buyer a sideways glance, she couldn't fathom how someone could be so... double-sided.
"Oh, sorry 'bout that. Forgot to clean this morning."
As the coupon was carried out the window by the fan, she looked at the trees that passed them by in a blur, catching a glimpse of the sun and sea before a cluster of buildings, all of them old and poorly maintained, blocked them from her view. One of two decrepit reminders of a once prominent American military presence during the Second World War still left on the island and not invaded entirely by vegetation, the other being the school, entry to it was barred by a long stretch of fence, decorated with bright yellow warning labels and barbed wire. Before long, the scenery changed from abandoned military base back to the sun glistening on the sea once more.
A little ways more and they would reach her house.
"Hey,"—Ms. Lisle's eyes flickered in her direction in the window's reflection—"Up for talking now...?" Stifling a laugh when there was still no reply, the woman snorted. "Yeah, figured. Well, offer's always open," she then said, as they came to the front yard, a jungle of weeds. To the average outsider, it looked like her father wasn't—or didn't care—for appearances.
And that was exactly the case.
He barely sleep, hardly ate, she hadn't remembered nor wanted to recall the last time he'd given himself a bath, and most of his days were spent either in the living room staring off into space, like this morning, down in the basement, or, sometimes, out in the land of the living, in the village.
She didn't know what he did outside the house and hadn't care before, still didn't, but now she knew what him being gone meant for her: an opportunity.
And, as Misaya let herself out, Ms. Lisle called out to her one last time, and she turned to a piece of paper being shoved in her face as the woman leaned over and out of the passenger window, taut in her reach.
"Take this! For when you... need me!"
She took it and watched the woman putter away to then disappear round a bend out of sight, and without a second thought up slipped it into her pocket and opened her schoolbag. Taking out the bottle, she glared at the red barely there—one lick away from empty.
Steeling her nerves, she had to find out more.