(WARNING: This oneshot contains character death, gore, insanity, and possible angst. Reader discretion is advised.)
Sayounara - さようなら: Japanese for "farewell;" to say goodbye forever.
"Nova?"
The house was eerily quiet. A shiver raced up Hana's back, as if spiders had suddenly started skittering up her spine. Why was she so uneasy? Nova had to be around here somewhere, didn't he? It shouldn't be too hard to find him. It wasn't like they lived in-
Hana jumped at the sudden sound of muffled retching. Immediately worried, the lamia quickly left her safe corner in the livingroom and headed down the hall. The bathroom door was open, and the smell of bile assaulted her scent glands. She flicked the light on, only to immediately wish she hadn't.
"N-nova..." The word was just barely a whisper. Hana was struggling to keep her breathing under control.
There, in the middle of the blood-splattered room, was a skeleton. It would have been impossible to tell who he was, if not for the marrow-stained galaxy pajamas he wore.
It wasn't very clear how he died. His skull looked about ready to burst, vines pushing out of his eyesockets and through his teeth in a sickening manner. A leg twisted at an impossible angle. His clothes were tattered with what appeared to be harsh, clumsy slashes from a knife. His neck had snapped, most likely from the now-cut rope on the floor.
"H U S H"
Hana jumped, hand leaping to her mouth to muffle a terrified squeak. A cold, skeletal hand gripped her wrist, too tight. The cool, sharp point of a knife was pressed against her back, just hard enough to draw blood.
She couldn't move.
In the mirror, her reflection smiled at her. Her reflection that was human. Her reflection that was wearing a green-and-yellow striped shirt.
She couldn't breathe.
The knife slowly traveled up her back, carving into her flesh. Her hand was growing numb.
"St-stop," Hana croaked, finally finding her voice.
And it did stop. Just as suddenly as they appeared, the skeletal were gone.
Hana collapsed to the ground, her back against the hallway wall. Her hands were shaky. Feverish.
...
This was all too familiar.
Except...
A young child was standing across from Hana, nudging Nova's body with their foot. The child looked up at Hana and smiled, their mouth stretched in a horribly distorted way.
"Hi!" they said, too cheerfully. The blue-and-magenta striped shirt they wore was covered in gray dust.
"Who a-are-" Hana was cut off as the child clumsily threw a knife at her, their smile growing wider, their hips bent in a sickening manner, their arms limp at their sides.
"You're silly!" the child said in an odd voice, as if it came through an old radio. They cocked their head to the side, so sharply that Hana cringed.
"I'm-" Hana coughed, the irony taste of blood filling her mouth. She couldn't see or hear anything, warm crimson liquid traveling down her jaw and cheeks.
She gasped, trying to breathe, her lungs begging for air as blood rushed inside her, filling every empty space.
The child threw another knife, this time hitting Hana's forearm and pinning it to the wall with the odd sound of bleeding flesh hitting wood.
Hana couldn't scream, couldn't move. Every scar...all the blood...
She was drowning. Her attempts to breathe were to no avail as crimson flooded her vision, her lungs, her mouth.
"Hana?"
Gold.
"Hana, I'm back..."
Golden flowers.
"Hello?"
Wilting.
"...um...Hana?"
Wilting golden flowers inside one's mind- wilting sanity. Wilting being. Wilting memories.
...
Darkness.
Empty. Imperfection. Suffocation.
Honesty is a one-way gate to Hell.
Laughter. Hysterical.
Plucking petals from a bud of never-ending lies and red and gold and worthlessness and emptiness.
...
A thin rope tied to a thick rope.
Time controlled by slipping cogwheels.
Swimming with open water in all directions.
Drowning.
A prayer written in blood.
A thread connecting all living human eyes.
A wheel rotating in six dimensions. Forty gears and a ticking clock. A clock that ticks one second for every rotation of the planet. A clock that ticks forty times every time it ticks a second time.
A kaleidoscope of blood written in clocks. A time-devouring prayer connecting a sky of forty gears and open human eyes in all directions.
Breathing God. Breathing blood. Breathing holy stakes. Breathing human eyes. Breathing time. Breathing prayer. Breathing sky.
"Help..."
But a poem never ends.
It just stops moving.
(756 words)
