Dein Weg ist Mein Weg

Chapter 4: The Abyss

The wails of her teammates and the rising water drowning them all was replaced by an electronic screeching as the alarm woke Maho from her usual nightmare the following morning. She reached out a sweaty hand to turn it off, but ended up falling out of her bed as a result. For a moment she simply remained as she was, face down on the carpet and half a leg still in the bed, sighing, before she ultimately rose from the floor and turned the alarm off. She got herself ready for another day at school and, having learned her lesson from yesterday, didn't even try to pack a lunchbox. It would seem her skill in tankery was not to be transferable to cooking, so she would rely on bought lunches for the foreseeable future. As she placed a hand on the doorknob, ready to leave, she glanced at the small teddy bear she had stitched back together last night, now sitting on the counter near the door. She debated putting it in her bag for a few moments, bringing it and all it represented with her during the day. It was a stuffed reminder of what she had lost, and what she couldn't bear to lose again. Ultimately she decided that the darkness was enough of a cross to bear in her day-to-day life, clawing at her soul at every opportunity, and so the injured teddy bear remained on the counter as she left.

As she began her walk to school, her stomach gave a rumbling reminder that she had once again neglected breakfast, and so she made a quick stop at a bakery that lay along her path and picked up a sandwich. Hopefully it would be enough to keep her going until lunch. As she reached the school gates and made her way through the corridors, she crossed paths with Saori and Hana. The ginger girl almost started running towards her, but was blocked by Hana placing an arm in front of her. They were to avoid her after all. The girls shared a few glances, but Maho quickly passed the two by and continued towards the classroom.

"Thanks for getting my bag yesterday," she mumbled to the two as she passed.

"Oh, uh... You're..." Saori started to answer, but Maho had already left before she could answer in full.

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Once Maho had taken her seat in the classroom, the day passed much like the one before had. Keeping her attention focused on the teacher and blackboard during lessons made staving off the nightmare and darkness somewhat doable. But just like the day before, this technique would fail as classes let out for lunch. Today Maho had prepared herself however. The moment class ended, she packed up her things, and left campus. She picked up lunch at a nearby convenience store, and sat down leaning against a tree in a nearby park. The food wasn't great, but it was leaps and bounds superior to what she had tried to force herself to eat yesterday. As she threw the trash of her meal in a nearby bin, the next issue arose. She still needed to keep her mind occupied for another half-hour before classes would start up again. But yet again she had planned for this issue. She reached into her bag, and produced a set of pencils and the sketchpad she had found the previous evening, propping it up against her knee. She looked out over the idyllic scene, seeing the people passing by, the birds flying above, the dog playing with some children on a patch of grass. All of it she took in, and got to work capturing the scene, as she had done while she still lived in Kumamoto.

As the alarm on her phone rang, alerting her to the fact that classes would start in 10 minutes, she looked back up from her sketch. The idyllic scene remained, but her sketch had in no way captured it. The trees growing vividly and green seemed wrinkly and dying. The birds flying above had vanished, as had the clear blue sky behind dark clouds. The smiling people passing her by instead stared up from her sketch with judging grimaces. The dog and children couldn't stare at her judgingly even if they wanted to, as every one of them lacked a face with which to stare. After a few seconds of looking at the grim impression she had drawn, she closed the sketchpad and packed up her things.