Ink Stained

42: can you hear me?*

私の声が聞こえる？

Bibari. Bibari. Bibari. Paaaaiiii.

She continued to stare blankly out through her window, lying on her side with her blanket entangled around her legs. Her bones were heavy as lead. Her throat was thick with a ball of pent-up emotion she was desperately struggling to keep contained, to keep it from exploding out of her and cutting into the people around her.

Just the thought of getting up and going about the day made her stomach roll sickeningly. Her head ached with a steady pounding, and images repeatedly flashed by in the darkness of her eyelids whenever she blinked.

She was afraid to blink. She was afraid to close her eyes. She didn't want to see what was waiting for her if she did.

The black thing covering Shiharu's face leaped off a split second before it could be squashed by the train, flinging itself into the open air behind Shiharu and disappearing into nothing as soon as it was not physically touching her anymore.

Her head snapped against the metal side of the train as it drove into her body. Her arms slapped against each other, twisting at unnatural angles when colliding with the train. She could just see the beginning of blood spray out from a large gash the sharp front of the train split into Shiharu's neck and shoulder.

That is not what your heart cries over, Pai.

The voice – she – was right. That wasn't what made Pai feel like she was getting crushed under the weight of her guilt, of her indescribable sorrow. Being forever subject to reliving the moment she watched Shiharu die would be better than the knowledge that lay behind what happened; Motomi Shiharu was not possessed when she died.

Pai didn't know if she was right. She wasn't sure she wanted to know if she was. She had to force her mind away from the terrible, sickening memory every time it drew near, every time it wandered too close and threatened to drag her down into a dark pit of despair that threatened to swallow her whole. But there, just on the fringes of the memories she tried to push away, she kept seeing Shiharu's eyes widening, her lips parting, horrific realization darkening her face as she realized where she was, what was about to happen.

Pai flinched, and shut her eyes as tight as she could. Little bursts of dark red neon lights filled the blackness behind her closed eyes for a moment before she eased and opened her eyes slowly. She curled herself into a ball, pressing her clenched fists tight against her chest and trying to hold herself together, to keep from breaking apart like she so badly wanted to.

Why won't you answer us? We know you can hear. For a year you couldn't, but now you can. You can't trick us when we are here with you. Or...are you trying to lie yourself?

She refused.

She would not respond to this incessant chattering of the voice in her head. If she did, it would be admitting that the voice was real, that it was there, that she wasn't alone in her own mind. She didn't know what she was supposed to do if she let herself believe that there was something – someone – sharing her mind. Where was she supposed to run when she couldn't be in the private silence of her head?

That girl was weak. She was prey. She deserved to die. Why do you grieve so over her? Someone died, so what? So many someones die every day. The world doesn't care. It goes on, spinning and living regardless of those who aren't there to spin and live with it anymore...you think you could have done more to stop it?