Ink Stained

46: slipping sanity (1)*

滑る正気

Eight.

It is going away.

Nine.

The blackness crawling like animate liquid over the back of her hand is dissipating, lessening, vanishing, slipping back into the nothing it is born from. As it does, the pressure built up to a raging crescendo in her stomach slows, gurgles, bubbles until it is almost gone.

Ten. In the blink of an eye the blackness disappears, and the pain with it. Why do you call it that?

What?

Blackness. As if it is tainted. It is not.

She tips her head back on the one white wall of the two white walls of the three and four white walls that surround her, blockading her, keeping her in when all she truly craves for is out. She stares at the white light fixed into the ceiling until her eyes water, burning. Then she closes them, but it is still too bright, still too light. The back of her eyelids are pink where she wants them to be black.

Why does everyone think black is bad? She asks curiously. Death is not bad.

Death is not bad. Kuniumi repeats.

Death is not bad. She says again. I know you remember it. No people...no feelings...it is just a death, she lifts her hand again and summons the blackness to swim over her hand again before she lets it go. A death that is black and small, like watery clay.

Death is not black, Kuniumi answers. She sounds confused. It's white. Death is the world before we coloured it in.

This one is black. She replies bluntly. This is yours. It's the darkness in the shadows people are scared of.

Are you scared of it? Kuniumi asks, curious.

She can perfectly picture the look on her face – if she knew what Kuniumi looked like. Kuniumi only ever shows herself in reflections on glass, in mirrors, anything that can throw back the perfect rendition of oneself back at them. Even then it is never Kuniumi that she sees, but other women she has known in her life.

Sometimes it is her mother. Sometimes it is Shiori. Sometimes Obaasan. Sometimes Midori.

Scared... why would I be scared of myself?

The harsh fluorescent white light blinks out, and her cell is plunged into darkness. No warning. No telling. One second the world is light and bright. The next the world is dark and lonely.

Lights out. Time out. Knock out.

Time to sleep. Time to rest. Time to recover.

Then go back to being tired and drained all over again.

She sighs heavily and pushes herself over to sit on the edge of her cot. She kicks her white shoes off and lays back, resting her head on the hard pillow. She flicks the thin blanket up before burrowing under it and letting it fall over her curled body again. She grows heavy as sleep creeps up on tippy-toes to her. She lets her eyes fall closed, wondering if she will be able to let sleep claim her tonight.

Kuniumi? She calls out.

We're here.

Can I sleep?

A beat. You can always sleep.

No. Will you let me?

If someone like Akira comes for you again, she coos in a reassuring voice that does anything but comfort. Or Yamato, we will wake you.

She hesitates. What will you do if someone like that comes?

She can feel the feral grin sharpening behind Kuniumi's words. It is a dark, twisted thing, cruel at the very heart of its nature. And lonely. So, so lonely. It writhes in her stomach, aching for release, longing for a shower of hot red. An electric sting burns the back of her hand. She lifts it, squinting through the darkness. She is just barely able to make out the crawling black liquid that swims over her hand, winding around her splayed fingers and snaking down to coil around her wrist. Her lips pull up over her teeth. She is trying to learn to control the power, but it is hard.

Sometimes, Kuniumi lets it out for her, and controls it herself. It annoys her when Kuniumi does that. It only serves to remind her that she is linked to Kuniumi in ways she does not fully understand.

The grip of the liquid darkness tightens ever so slightly, as if bidding her goodbye. Then it eases away, and she can see it no more.

We will show them that the Yomi-no-kuni is not so lonely a place to wander. We will show them that the torments of the world of darkness can come to them even here, where they think themselves safe.

She hums in satisfaction at the back of her throat, dropping her hand to lie on her stomach. Her eyelids are slipping, tripping, closing. Her breath inches to a snail's pace. Sleep stretches its long fingers over her body. It draws her further and further away from the waking nightmare people like to call 'reality'.

She is strong now. The sanctity of life no longer matters to her. Not as much as it once did. Now, if someone wrongs her, she has no qualms with ending them. If she is bathed in blood, she will not cry and torment herself over the pain of others. If the roles are reversed and it is her blood on someone else's hands, someone who wants to hurt her, they will not feel for her.

Caring for the living, about the living, is so tiring. It is better not to care at all.

×

Kuniumi does not wake her. She keeps her word only to wake Pai if someone comes into her cell.

No one does.

She stirs, coming to full consciousness on her own. She sits up on the cot when she hears voices outside her door. Muffled snippets of conversation, hushed, hissed through clenched teeth.

Angry. They are angry.

Frowning, she pushes the blanket aside and shoves her feet into the shoes she keeps at the ready by the foot of her cot. Her steps are quiet as she approaches her door, sturdy metal fortified with steel. She presses her ear against it.

There, she can just make out two voices. They sound familiar. She can't tell to whom they belong. That annoys her.

She wants to know.