Dein Weg ist Mein Weg

Chapter 6: The Fire

Maho awoke from her fresh nightmare with a scream, and bolted upright covered in sweat and short of breath. She had faced the darkness in one way or another for as long as she could remember, and rarely had she been this terrified. The pain in her chest was a sharp reminder of the terror she had just witnessed, and as she sat on the side of her bed, grasping the sides of her head and trying to understand what had brought it on, she found neither answers nor comfort. She reached over to her nightstand and opened her phone, scrolling through her contacts. Her thumb was shaking, hovering over the call button, before she turned the phone off again and threw the phone on the bed beside her. What good would calling him do me? It's not like he'll pick up... she thought to herself, and put her face in her hands, sighing to herself as she did so. Despite the sluggish unresponsiveness her body exhibited, she stubbornly willed it up from her bed and towards the shower so she could clean off. With every step she forced her body to take, the pain in her chest only grew.

She showered as quickly as she could in an attempt to not be reminded of the battle and rain, and once she was cleaned off, changed the sheets in her bed for fresh ones. She warmed some milk to calm her nerves, and headed to bed once more. The lateness of the hour soon lulled her to sleep, but not to peace.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Her nightmare played out as it normally did, thankfully with no special additions or changes. She watched as the Panzer III fell into the river, and fought to get free. She fell, and found herself in the cramped tank filling with water, and her old teammates cried for help. Help she was unable to provide. They would all fall silent as they drowned, and she once again woke up in the rain, watching the small tank fall anew. The nightmare repeated itself time and time again, until it didn't. During one of the many repeats, as Maho struggled against her restraints, she was not being held in place by her mother as she usually was. Behind her stood her two flaming dopplegangers, holding the ropes binding her. The ropes burst into black and purple flames, which slowly crept towards her while her captors stood silent and unmoving. She desperately struggled to get free, but to no avail. The flames were drawing nearer, licking at her flesh. Soon enough they were upon her, engulfing her body in searing flames. She screamed from the burning pain, and was once again awake.

The sun was high in the sky, and when Maho looked at the time, it became clear she had overslept by quite a bit. She contemplated rushing to be in time to at least the afternoon's classes, but ultimately decided against it. She had already involuntarily skipped so much of the day, what point was there to rushing to catch the rest? Still, she got up from her bed, and changed into some fresh clothes. Since she wasn't planning on heading to school anyways, she put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and covered it with a black leather jacket. She left the apartment, locked the door, put her hands in her pockets, and just walked. She didn't know where she was heading, she just knew she had to get away for a while. She walked up and down the small town streets of the Zuikaku, not paying any particular attention to her surroundings, instead just taking turns at random whenever she came to another crossroad. Not that her surroundings mattered very much. Wherever she went, color and light seemingly vanished from the world, as the darkness made its mark on her surroundings. After a while, the world itself seemed to respond to the darkness' whims, and it began to rain. Not wanting to get soaked through but also not wanting to go back home, Maho headed to the lower decks to continue her walk. As she kept on taking random turn after random turn, she soon found a strangely placed door. Not keen on backtracking, she pushed it open, and continued down the hallway it opened up to. As she kept walking down the corridor, she was given strange and bitter looks from the many girls lining its sides. They were all clearly delinquents or other troublemakers, but no one caused her any trouble apart from the many eyes glaring at her. The filthy corridors and unkept state of the girls reminded Maho of the old quarters on the Graf Zeppelin. The 'ghetto', as it was called, were some of the worst dorms on the entire carrier. They were the furthest away from campus, had next-to no cleaning or maintenance staff, and were where troublemakers, students with particularly poor performance, or those whose parents simply couldn't afford the more well-kept dorms were squared away.