The Sleeping Darkness

2. The Mansion

Opening his eyes felt like the hardest task of his life, and he wasn't sure if he really wanted to open them, at all. The last time he could glimpse at reality, it wasn't a reality he liked very much. In his ears, Wadanohara's desperate screams for help were still echoing while he was unable to move even a muscle to help her, forced to watch the bloody scene unfold in front of him while begging for the first time in his life so to just make this gruesome display of violence against her stop.

But it never did anything, and he had to watch her break apart until he couldn't bear it anymore, until he collapsed from the heavy weight of exhaustion on guilt. It was all his fault, after all.

And when he came to back then, the sweet girl he once knew had been replaced by something he couldn't explain to himself.

While he was in that cell, he spent his time thinking about the past when his momentary consciousness allowed him to, but more and more, he felt himself retreat back into his head, away from all the pain around him, from the witch in the red dress who sometimes looked as happy as her past self. At times, he would just go with the belief that she was happy, and delusional tears of joy would find their way to his eyes.

At least Wadanohara was happy, he would gladly take being tortured in that cell if it meant she was happy.

But he knew it was a lie, to make himself feel better. He couldn't do anything else, even if there had been a little bit of fight left within him. Her mind had been twisted into something that would fit the depraved urges his brother had, and he felt himself lose his grip on reality more and more.

Sometimes, the red witch would come to his prison alone, and it was those moments he was most conscious, he could observe her if his mind allowed it and see how she always came back to heal some wounds and talk to him, asking him if he finally felt better, and if he was happy now.

If anything came close to happiness back then, it must have been the fact that she hadn't completely forgotten about him.

But her face didn't look happy, as much as she always told him she was. She firmly believed it, but her features were those of someone in constant, invisible pain.

It made him hurt inside and retreat back into the farthest corner of his head, away from the evidence that would speak of his failure.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He had hoped that, after she regained her memories,he could now spend his time at her side again, after the had driven the Sea of Death away. There were many things he had not told her, not explained to her yet.

The worst torture was seeing the only person in the world he loved in constant pain, caught in a reality fabricated only for her.

The last coherent memory he could recall was of her stroking his face, telling him she would do something for his tail but that she wasn't feeling well and couldn't do it.

And then there was darkness again, and after that there he was, struggling to open his last remaining eye.

That was right, he lost an eye. It had been cut and Wadanohara had not been allowed to treat it.

It felt like a far away thing now, like it had been an eternity since it happened.

Samekichi felt very conscious, something he probably last felt a long time ago, probably on a night with a full moon. And something was different about his surroundings, he could feel it, smell it. He hadn't smelled anything else than decay in a long time, but this was definitely different.

What was it? Some kind of plant?

His head also felt pretty light. Maybe it was one of the strange dreams his subconsciousness used to lull him back into his usual state of comatose uncaringness.