The stars soared over her head like broken halos, unstrung constellations that did little to make her forget how each breath tore at the skin of her throat from the cold, the soon to be midnight winds watered her eyelashes with each blink, stray tears slipping down star-kissed cheeks before hastily swept away by her fingers. April, although fairly warm during the day, birthed what Nora believed to be arctic nights— even as she unchained her bike, her hands felt numb when grasping its grips.
Exiting the complex, the girl rode past the lone street light and the convenience store with the drowsy clerk, past the laundromat and ramen stalls that homed few souls, before using back routes lit by sickly, fading orange lamps, strewn with bottles alike; unfinished cigarettes engraved into the asphalts, carved names in the crevices of the walls with thrown away condoms below, the stench of piss and stray cats.
The moon light didn't reach these hell valleys.
It wasn't long before a shouted whisper of her name halted Nora's peddling, the force at which she hit the brakes almost sent her flying. Just before the apartment address Fukuda told her of, standing anxiously in the alleyway across was the aforementioned girl as well as another, Chiyo Hagiwara.
Witness a girl versed in the language of selfish bitch who'd unhinge her jaw and swallow the sun whole of it meant she could keep it for herself; let the world drown in darkness. She's a dagger in your side, twisting and churning at your insides for a slow death, she was hallowing winds at rickety doors, cracked craniums chock-full of rotten raspberries and devil's advocate playing angel.
Short version: Nora wanted absolutely nothing to do with Chiyo Hagiwara.
Fukuda wasted no time in wrapping her arms Nora ( holding her for some seconds too long ), her fingertips pressing tentatively into her spine and she could feel the teary-eyed girl's anxiety & paranoia permeating her skin. Body stiff, Nora moved from the embrace and turned to the orange gym bag that had been dropped onto the floor.
Seemingly noticing where her attention was focused, Hagiwara answered, "It's the dead dog."
"Dog? Wait- what?"
Hagiwara's head moved faster than her green hair could follow, "You didn't tell her?"
A scoff followed by a sniffle, "Oh, I'm sorry, maybe I was too busy freaking out about the man's body bleeding out in the fucking shower."
There were occasional pools of blood on Fukuda's clothes, yet none on the bag which carried the dead dog. Nora didn't want to know why.
At that, Nora had heard enough. "Forget, I don't wanna know about it. After whatever this is, I mean it, I'm done with you." Fukuda wasn't the only one who had wondered if her words truly carried any weight ( she had come running in the dead of night after all ) but they had stilled everyone into a silence, broken by Hagiwara snatching the bag from the floor, her grip looked so tight that her nails may of been impaling the smooth ridges of her palm.
"We have to get rid of this."
No one questioned why Nora knew of a place to bury dead things.
In the forest, along the banks of a gentle river, three pairs of hands dug into softened soil, two bikes rested upon a tree. The water wasn't warm nor cold, and she wondered if it was because a chill had already made a home inside her bones or that the forest at night belonged to phantoms of vicious intentions. That's what she believed at least, with every shadow that moved to stretch towards her form and across the curves of her face.
1 tell me where young souls lie
Start from the beginning
