(A/n): I'm starting to get hit with that feeling of not wanting to do anything. It's coming to the point where I am procrastinating on hobbies and I want to literally do nothing all day.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dinner passed quickly, and awkwardly. With only the occasional "may I have the salt" and small talk about the weather.
Standing inside her assigned room, K-423 didn't know exactly what to do. She hadn't slept properly in a while.
Despite her persistent worries, she still fell into sleep after the inviting comfort of a bed hit her at full force.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She woke, startled.
Her hands were damp, and a foul smell permeated around her. Raising her hands up into the moonlight, she discovered them to be covered with blood.
She stood and ran to the restroom, turning on the tap and creating red streaks of blood against the cold metal tap handle.
As the water flowed, she watched as it washed and washed but failed to wash the blood away.
She turned the tap off, then on, then off again. Trying, hoping that it would change something. But, nothing changed, the blood multiplied, festering like a hive being only culled by that of the clear water flowing from the tap. Crawling up her arm like a parasite.
She pulled her hands out of the water again, as they still dripped with the red substance.
Looking back at the tap, water wasn't flowing anymore, instead, the blood seemed to have infected it as it gushed out of the still-flowing tap.
Feeling her breathing hitch then hasten, she tried to turn the tap off, but the handle wouldn't budge. The sink was overflowing now, and the floor was covered with blood.
In a last ditch effort to rid herself of the blood, she plunged her fist down to destroy the tap. Yet, what met her wasn't the feeling of crumpling metal, but the sound of her hand piercing through flesh.
She wasn't in the restroom anymore. She wasn't anywhere really. A dark, liminal space met her eyes as she gazed in horror at what she had done.
Her hand was through Himeko's chest.
Blood dripped slowly down her arm. Pooling on the ground.
As she attempted to remove her own arm from Himeko, the red headed Valkyrie rose her hand up to grip it, keeping it in place.
"Why?"
Her amber eyes were now baring down on K-423, furious but also betrayed.
"Why couldn't you just follow instructions? I didn't have to die. Why weren't you more careful? I didn't have to die."
'No'
K-423 thought to herself. This had to be a dream, it had to be fake. Yet she couldn't find a rebuttal to Himeko's words
"Murderer"
"You run away from your past. You run away from the truth."
The pooling blood wasn't just Himeko's now. There were thousands, if not tens of thousands of bodies scattered around. The Sky turned sickly yellow, and a burning city was around her. The ground was cracked with dirt, and it was uncomfortably silent.
K-423 glanced around. She didn't recognize these faces, but she knew that every life that she had taken had now caught up to her.
"I'll never forgive you"
Himeko's eyes were dull and unblinking, her skin pale. As she chanted these words, the bodies together spoke in a hymn of fury. Insults, lament, hatred, K-423 felt it all.
"I had was going to get married." a bisected man on her left whispered.
"I was going to turn nine." the severed head of a little girl spoke at her feet.
"I was going to retire." Himeko added in front of her.
She couldn't take it anymore. They made accusations of her, they made her guilty, and indeed she was.
Focusing all her strength, she ripped her arm out of Himeko's chest. Awaking from her dream and sitting straight up in her bed.
Checking, then double checking her arms and hands for traces of blood. She then marched over to her restroom and turned on the tap for a while, seeing if anything other than water would come out of it.
Confirming that nothing demonic was going to spawn out of her tap, she adjusted her nightgown. Opting to go outside instead of sleep more, she made her way to her favorite place: the kitchen, not because she liked to cook (or could cook), but because she liked eating.
The moon shone through the windows of the kitchen as she made her way in.
Scouring the cabinets for instant noodles, she eventually found one. Placing it down on the table, she moved on to her next dilemma.
She had no idea how to boil water. However, a machine sitting on the counter seemed to be her solution: a microwave.
She poured herself a glass of water, then placed it into the microwave, setting it for 2 minutes. Staring blankly through the clear part of the microwave at her rotating water cup, she was in a complicated mood after...whatever just happened to her in her own dream.
'Remind me to never sleep again' she thought to herself.
A noise startled her out of her thoughts. Turning her head, she was met with the same red-haired woman that tormented her in her own dreams...though much more alive and breathing.
"Couldn't sleep?" Himeko asked.
"Had too much to think about."
Himeko briefly took a moment to observe K-423 as the microwave beeped, signaling that it was done.
"Had a nightmare?" She asked.
Almost fumbling her grip on the cup, K-423 placed it down gingerly before turning to Himeko.
"...how?"
Letting out a small chuckle, Himeko replied, "This isn't the first time I've seen you have a nightmare, you know? It got easy to tell eventually".
Sighing in resignation, K-423 turned her head away in embarrassment.
"I guess I did have a bit of a nightmare."
She stiffened as she felt arms wrap around her. Looking down in shock, she discovered that Himeko had hugged her.
"I don't know what you are going through, and you were never the type to willingly share."
K-423's shoulder's relaxed a bit. Feeling an emotion that she hadn't felt for a long time. She returned the hug.
"I'll tell you eventually, I promise."
Breaking from the hug, Himeko noticed that K-423 had visibly stiffened, staring at her cup.
"What's wrong?"
"My water got cold..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(a/n): Always fun to further traumatize characters who didn't need it.
Anyway, this is shorter than usual I know, but I also do feel like I need to start another project as I am starting to burn out on both Honkai and my creativity for this concept. I still have ideas but none are concrete enough to make full chapters out of yet. It also doesn't mean that I am dropping this but that I will be updating slower (probably, unless I have a sudden surge of inspiration guided by the writing gods).
As for a new project, I'm currently debating between Fate and Azur lane, dunno if people would read either though.
YOU ARE READING
CHRONONAUT | Honkai Impact
FanfictionWhen time and space get really, really messed up in an already messed up world. Time had stopped for an unknown reason, luckily, two people are already on the case! What's that? They're going to mess it up more? ...
