DOG TAILS | KIBA INUZUKA

14. The Forest

Driven by a maddening sense of self-loathing, I plunged through the dark forest, dodging trees, leaping over bushes, and stumbling over rocks. Never before had the forest seemed so vast and the trees so alive; they towered over me like giants, and when I slammed into them, they struck back with twice as much force. I didn't mind all that, though. What I hated, what really tortured me, were their voices, shrill and accusing, unwilling to listen to what I had to say. Every time I ran into their trunks, the trees reminded me why I was running away, why I would never get my body back, and they spoke in voices familiar to me.

"You take people for granted and think only of yourself."

"She's nobody's friend. Ikuko only cares about herself."

"She's a spoiled, selfish girl, just like her mother."

"People don't exactly come running when the name Ikuko Matsubara is mentioned."

"Nobody would've showed up if I'd said we were gonna look for Ikuko."

"They might be glad she's gone. Maybe they never wanted her in the first place."

"Nobody likes her. Everybody's glad she's gone."

"Ikuko, if you really are gone, I hope you stay gone."

"Ikuko, stop being so selfish!" Kiba shouted at me.

I slammed into the ninth tree again and again, wanting to hear more of Kiba's cruel words, and over and over, he repeated himself to me. "Stop being so selfish," he said. "Ikuko, stop being so selfish!"

After slamming into the tree for the sixth time, I collapsed to the ground and started sobbing. I can't do it! I don't know how to stop. I have to be selfish — I have to care only for myself — because they never cared. My own parents never cared!

I stood up and shoved my shoulder into the tree, just because I wanted to hear Kiba's voice, but the tall tree was silent. Still, pathetically, I tried again and again, stopping only when my shoulder began to throb, and then I switched to the other side.

I don't care what you say, just say anything!

I must have rammed into that tree at least twenty times, and still it refused to make a sound. I kept on trying; like a fool, I wouldn't give up, but the only voice I heard belonged to me, and maybe it had always been that way. 

After all, trees couldn't talk.

I found myself looking back the way I came, and I couldn't help but wonder what Kiba was doing right now. Had he noticed my absence? Was he out looking for me? Part of me hoped he was, and a larger part of me wanted to turn around and go back to him, back to the only place that ever truly felt like home. 

But then there was another part of me, an even larger part, that reminded me that I didn't belong there. I didn't belong with him. I didn't belong anywhere. I listened to that part of me, as much as I despised it, and I just continued on through the forest.

I hated the second part of the forest more than I hated the first. As I passed by the trees, I was being chased by multiple forms of me, each at a younger age than the previous. No matter how fast I ran, they just kept following me like fifteen little lost puppies, and they all kept begging me to take care of them. The little ones would clutch onto my fur and cry about how badly they wanted their mother, and the older ones would lash out at me and scream that they hated me for abandoning them. 

And the entire time, all I could do was blame my mother ... for everything.

She appeared then, my mother; right in front of me, she stood with that same cold look in her eyes, with her arms crossed over her chest, refusing her child even the tiniest shred of affection. Those arms had probably never once held me, not even when I was pulled from her womb. No, I knew she'd rejected me right from the start.