It was a clear Sunday, the first thing Himari did was head down to get breakfast. Her parents weren't home, so she started watching TV by herself. She had forgotten what they were supposed to be out doing. She can't remember what she was watching, she just remembers the TV was on before hearing the door open. She first saw her mother with her head hanging low. She felt a pang of concern for her, then Himari's eyes met with her father's.
It all started at that moment.
The next time Himari went to school, she broke down in tears. In the middle of the class, she began to weep on her desk. An unhinged cry no one in her class could ever expect to hear from her, some of them were downright confused.
The next day she stopped going to school. A couple of days after that she went to the beach with her parents. Usually there would be a tension of sorts between them, but throughout all of the journey they almost looked happy. She remembers the last day they were at the beach vividly because that was the first time she began feeling a sharp, stabbing pain in her stomach.
She clutched her mother's hand all night long the first time she had to stay at the hospital. From that moment onward, one of her parents would stay with her all day long. Sometimes another close relative came to visit and looked after her. Even her friends came to visit her sometimes. A lot of people got to see her slowly waste away into oblivion.
Day and night began melting into each other and dates stopped meaning anything to her. Her parents felt the pain of their little angel on their own flesh, tortured by an impotence that made them question their entire lives. But despite how much they wanted to share and soothe the pain of their daughter, they were mere spectators. No one could begin to understand what it felt like to be in her shoes.
No one knew about the time she woke up alone in the hospital room at night. It was dead silent save for the cold machinery that kept her alive and meekly lighted up the crushing darkness that poured into her soul. She was so afraid, but she couldn't cry out for help anymore.
However, something in that deep darkness heard her silent despair.
The next morning, strength returned to her and doctors began talking about miracles. It was like everything had been a bitter nightmare. She could hug her parents again, she could move again, a couple of weeks later she was sent back home. But there was something wrong. At the beginning she felt a confused guilt about the fact that, despite everything returning to normal, she couldn't feel happy.
She could tell that something was wrong with her the first night she lied on her own bed again. She couldn’t sleep, so she looked at her darkened ceiling illuminated by a glowing gem she always carried with her. It felt cold and lonely, like death.
That feeling tainted every aspect of Himari's life. She felt it as she found it harder to care for school or her friends' trivial drama, she felt it as her parents’ affections with each other grew cold and even hostile, she felt it as her little hobbies and interests turned into absurd nonsense.
People began looking at her differently. No one really knew what to do with her, not even her closest friends. The looks of worry and compassion began transitioning into disdain and slowly every friend of hers began leaving her life. One day she turned off her phone and she never turned it on again.
It was only at night that she could stop this terrible corroding feeling from completely taking over her life. The melancholy and anxiety of everyday life were replaced by a blind will to live, a mindless impulse to keep going despite everything. It hadn’t always been like this.
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The first time she had to confront a witch she saw a scary, inhuman monster that needed to die. The second time, she felt a deep sorrow for the twisting, helpless creature she had to put out of its misery. From the third one onwards, she saw the meaning of life.
It was so simple, so primitive. She began seeing it everywhere too, in the way animals evolve abilities that allow them to kill more effectively, in the way people go through great lengths to prolong miserable, doomed existences.
Every animal that dies and kills, every war that is fought, it is all for the sake of it and nothing else. Eating to keep oneself alive., keeping oneself alive to continue eating. That was it. And the alternative to that was a stillness and a silence so deep it cut through everything life had to offer.
She is in her classroom, sitting at her desk, filling out random dots in the answer sheet, pretending to read the questions on the exam. She is just waiting for time to run out and turn the exam in. She'll probably score the lowest grade in the entire school, but she doesn't care. For a couple of months now, pretending that she can continue living like this has become increasingly hard.
Every night she goes out, dressed in black sports clothing. She rarely sleeps or eats anymore. She has learned to shut off unpleasant sensations from her body like hunger, or the perception of cold and pain. She spends most of the day completely numb.
She only had to walk a couple of blocks to find a witch, but lately she had to walk further away. Moving around was no problem for her, and lately she had been growing daring and trying to go further and further before returning home to meet the sunrise. Or maybe, just maybe, not returning at all.
She thinks about people while she walks alone at night: the sleeping housewives and salarymen who will continue working until they can no longer go on, their kids with their heads full of mindless entertainment or pipe dreams, the countless people that in that very moment clung to life on hospital beds, hidden from the public view, alone. She thought about witches too, the people they used to be, their families, their pain. Sometimes she could see it reflected in their labyrinthine and intricate barriers. There’s no animosity towards those creatures or a sense of duty towards people, it all came down to a mere primitive act.
She takes a turn on a quiet street and her mind shuts off everything that is not related to her immediate survival once she detects the hellish physical manifestation of someone's suffering nearby. And then the hunt begins.
Her dark clothes change into something garish, summoned out of thin air. She remembers feeling simply amazed at the design and the colors the first time she saw such outlandish clothes, like something out of her most childish fantasies. But what really amazed her to the core was the light she emitted from her hands, her power. It was a beautiful and intense color. With that light, she could harden the air around her and protect herself from the furious blows of the creatures she met. She could also crush through the ghoulish defenses of her enemy, tear apart that life denying corruption with her immense light. It all looked so nice back then, so magical.
There was no fear in her heart as she charged into the mouth of hell. All her fear had stayed in one single dark room, and whenever that place popped up on her mind, she could feel herself running a little faster, jumping a little higher, punching a little harder.
Brainless little creatures are crushed as she makes her way to the twisting figure in the center of a luminous hall. The air is inundated with a cacophonous melody emitted by a small group of ghastly, inhuman beings playing instruments for their master. There is an almost royal feeling to the scene, a throne like a heap of trash, a deformed, doll-like animated statue as a queen.
Here and there, her body is lacerated and mutilated. Her costume is torn and drips with blood. Her flesh is assaulted with joyous cruelty by impish creatures she is completely indifferent to. Her own fury and fear allow her to tear apart the pathetic world of illusions the witch made out for itself.
Another colorful world of pain begins fading into the cold and dark street where someone finally gave up hope. Himari consumes her price, looks up into a starless sky, and resumes her lonely patrol.