Once the men left the room... Chouko crawled out from under the bed. Terrified and shaking after all of that, having kept quiet with the bed as cover and safety... she- she comes out to see the resulting scene. Reaching out for his hand, holding it gently.
"F-Father, they're- they're gone," Chouko tells him, smiling lightly at him. "You... you don't need to..."
...
It's gone limp.
Chouko... spent an eternity at the man's side, her hands shaking as she held his hand. His lifeless, limp hand. One that doesn't respond to the fidgeting, shaking of hers. The father who's held her hand and guided her these last four years, the one who comforted her when she was scared.
Charles's body lies before her, just... dead. Gone.
Chouko's smile, gone at this feeling, as her eyes gaze upon her father. Staring at him in the condition he was left in, struggling to- feel any sort of life remaining in his body. Unable to feel his pulse, his heartbeat. If not for the... blood... coming out of his head, she would have thought his blood stopped flowing entirely. The blood coming from his head, horrifyingly draining out in a subtle puddle against the carpet.
The sight was too much for this little girl. Chouko feels nothing but a... a sense of dread. Hollow, hollow dread. An overwhelming feeling overtaking her, being left alone like this. The air she breathed a putrid, rotten smog, almost pricking her with needles with each tremble. It takes her ages to register the fatal wound. Seeing the gunshot in his head, engraving in her a morbid feeling that she didn't want to understand.
The girl hoped with all her heart, even with the sight before her, that her father would wake up. That... that he'd be okay. That he'd see his daughter and hug her, hug her close, hug her tight. Hug her and keep her safe and reassure her that she didn't need to be scared and that there was no reason to be scared. The men were gone. It's just him and her.
As much as Chouko tried, as much as she could hope for the best, Charles cannot do that anymore. Charles will never be able to keep her safe ever again.
Chouko clings to this hope, stares in complete and utter silence, hoping that he would. Her small hands holding the cold hand in front of her. Left all by her lonesome, alone in that room, the truth of the matter closing in. Almost freezing every single... ounce... of Chouko's body. A cold chill shuddering through her veins, causing her to helplessly sob a waterfall of tears down her cheeks.
The world began to cry for Charles as well. The overcast weather of the city turned to light showers. Chouko hears the sounds of raindrops falling against the patio, the sound ringing out to her right. Thoughts rushed and roared into Chouko's mind like a storm, her lingering words the lightning and thunder. The image of her father warping before her very eyes, obscured by the sorrow that clouds her vision. Covering his body in a thickening fog.
Death... death was no foreign concept to her, it- it should have come as naturally as words on a page. Its prevalence in Shakespearean works, the fate that befalls all. Chouko understood death, it happens, it's natural. This should be natural to her, she- she shouldn't be this shaken.
This shouldn't hurt, this- it shouldn't.
... and yet, it does.
Why?
Why does it hurt?
Why does it feel like this?
Why is it- hard to breathe right now...?
Why after why flooding Chouko's head, head riddled with nothing but questions. Questions she didn't know the answer to, questions she scavenges her mind for. Desperately scraping for them, the hands in her mind tearing page after page out of it. For every word she couldn't find, however, the sight before her speaks thousands upon thousands of words. Smothering her body in a landfill of pictures, burying her frail body at the very bottom, making her drown in her own questions.
Death never made sense to Chouko. Her father's death doesn't make sense. Charles was- Charles was a good man. Good for his country, a businessman of high upstanding... a good friend to- to many people that she got to see... he- he was nothing but a good father! So- why? Why would someone do this? What would drive someone to take him away from the living, pry his soul from his body and drag him up and away from this mortal world?!
Chouko's hands tighten their grip on Charles's, refusing to separate from the hand of her father, wanting to keep him here. Here, in this room. Wanting him to open his eyes. She doesn't want to let him go, she couldn't. She couldn't let him go. Not like this, not like this. Not like this!
Desperately asking over and over again: why? Why? Why, why, why, why, why?!
Chouko wanted to cry out in anguish, wanted to scream out to whoever could hear her, hoping that her father could hear her. Her fingers tightening on his hand, hoping that some miracle would occur to bring her father back to life. Something had to be out there, right? Those stories of revival, of rebirth. Tears wouldn't bring Charles back, so something else is needed. A whimsical potion, a wave of the wand, a star or a genie or even the paw of a monkey, there had to be something else... right? Right? Please, please let there be something, please...!
She drops his hand, and- grabs his arm. Crying into the fabric of his bathrobe, clinging to his lifeless arm. Using all of her to keep him here, to pull him back. Attempting to share with him some of her life, using the- the magic of her heart to revive him. That- that should be enough, right? Giving him some of her youth, helping him lose some of his years, right? Right?!
... hands begin to pry Chouko away from her father. People starting to discover the sight, hotel staff entering the room and quickly trying to get the little girl away from the corpse. Arms wrapping around her, trying to comfort the child.
"L- Let go of me! Let me go!" Chouko yells as she's separated from Charles, pried away from her father. Her small, little lungs screaming out with all their might to deaf ears, left hyperventilating into the body of a monster. Unable to see her father as she's escorted to a false safety, she screamed out for him, calling for her father, struggling to escape.
Helpless to do anything for him as she's taken from the room, unable to do anything to save Charles. Having been unable to do anything to save Charles.
She was taken out of the hotel room as the entire hotel was in an uproar. Guests now aware of the break in and subsequent murder, with staff swamped all over to ensure people's safety. Chouko escorted to the ground floor for the time being, supposedly being kept safe in the lobby far away from the crime scene.
"Hey- little girl... Miss- Miss Ashford, right?"
Chouko's watery eyes look up, staring at the lobby receptionist of the hotel. Staring at him. Staring at the person that wasn't her father.
"Listen- I- I need to call the police, to help your daddy..." The receptionist- looks around, picking up a nearby teddy bear to hand to the girl. "H-Here, Buttons here will keep you company, I'll be right back..."
Chouko stares at the bear for a while. The teddy with soft, brown fur. Its innocent little smile as it gazes forward with its black button eyes. She stares back with her red gaze, silently keeping it in her hands. "..."
The receptionist quickly moves to the landline phone, taking it off of its place and dialing the number for 911. On phone with the police, starting to inform them of the situation. How- how the esteemed Charles Ashford was found dead in his king suite by some neighboring guests. Beginning to answer as many questions as he could. The address of the hotel, the condition that the body was left in, the gunshot to the head... what staff were doing and all.
In his call, he made one error. His back was turned to Chouko.
The receptionist was informing the police of the little girl that was on the scene, when the body was found. When he turned back to check on her, he... only saw the teddy bear in her place. No girl in sight.
"... uh-! Uhm- little girl?! M-Miss Ashford?!" the receptionist calls out. "H-Hold on, officer, I'll be right back-" Quickly running from the phone to look around for where she could have gone.
Suspecting the worst, he ran out of the hotel entrance and looked around, looking to see if she fled the building. Quickly asking any pedestrian passerby if they saw a little girl leave, with no answer as to where she could have gone.
The hustle and bustle of New York City's population enough to hide a little girl that was running through the streets. Chouko running as fast as her ten year old legs could carry her, running surprisingly quick.
Abandoning all sense of rationality, not knowing what came over her in that instant. Running past crowds upon crowds of people, aimlessly running on her own. Stepping and stomping through each puddle, the rain glistening her hair as it blows in the wind.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Chouko doesn't keep track of how long she's been running. Building after building passing by her, the golden headlights of cars and street lamps brushing past her as she runs down street after street, crossing intersection after intersection. No destination in mind, aimlessly using the cover of rain to hope no one recognizes her.
Nothing in her mind made sense right now. It was all just a blind static of useless information. Without Charles, without her father, without- her mentor, her teacher, her guardian, her guide... she didn't know what to do. She didn't know what she could have done.
Everything that could have been possible, coming into her head like a roaring river, the one that she was currently running along. If she had been out on that balcony, the- the man who entered that way would have found her. It was by some- miracle- that she decided to hide under that bed.
And further miracles echo in her mind as if she was desperately trying to find some alternate outcome. Shutting down each- possibility, whatever rationality she had devoted to explaining why it was impossible to do anything for Charles.
It wouldn't have worked if she came out of that bed and tried to attack those men. It wouldn't have worked if she threw her book at the gun to try and fend him off. It wouldn't have worked if she turned on the television to distract them, momentarily.
Chouko was only a little girl, a ten year old. She wasn't a knight, she wasn't a fairy, she wasn't anything important. Trembling as her supposed intelligence amounted to nothing, losing sight of what made her special. What good was any of it, now that her father was gone? All the information she had useless, the information she doesn't have now out of her reach.
Ultimately, she felt- helpless, useless, powerless. In this moment, running was all she had. She wasn't even athletic, it was just a lingering impulse. Inspiration from the stories of a hero going on a grand adventure, far away from their beginnings. Hoping for some respite from this...
... this...
... grief.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. The five stages of grief.
On Death and Dying, 1969. A foundational study based on interviews with patients, focusing on the feelings of patients to alleviate the pain of loss.
This- this was just a momentary incident...! Chouko- found herself smiling. Seeing a ray of hope forward, realizing that this ends with- acceptance! Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance! It was so simple!
Chouko brightly beams and smiles as she continues to run, as the rain falls and she smiles through this pain. Knowing that, at the end, she'll feel better, that she will go through acceptance! That she'll accept...
Accept... that... her father was...
...
Chouko's smile faded as the light fades, as she continues to run in the dark overcast. Each shaky breath escaping her lips.
Chouko was going to accept that her father is dead.
That's... that's something she's going to feel. Acceptance that he's gone. She'll look back on this day, suffering this grief, and accept that Charles died.
Those words, repeating in her head. Accepting that he died. Accepting that he was killed. Accepting that the men who broke into the hotel room killed her father, the man that did no wrong in her eyes. Through some means, Chouko was going to... accept... accept...
Is... is that what... why is... what...
...
"... h... haha... hahahahahaha..."
Chouko's eyes trembled as she started to laugh, as her mouth contorted into a smile. As she found herself slowing down, a hand covering her mouth.
This confused her. Why was she laughing? Why was she showing signs of... happiness? Why was she happy? Chouko pressed her hands against her mouth, choking back the laughter that escaped her lips. She- she shouldn't be feeling happy, she shouldn't- shouldn't feel this at all. What she should feel is grief, sadness, this absolute, mortal terror. The fear coursing through her body as she flees, as she runs. All she should feel is the aching pain of witnessing her father's... corpse... the man's death engraving itself into her memories. This feeling of misery, this anguish and pure fear...
But... she was laughing. Eyes wide, gazing forward at her late father, each ounce of her innocence being bled through her eyes, escaping through her lips a corrupted delight?
Her mind trailing her back to that room, seeing the horrific sight before her again. Her eyes blinking as the fresh scent of blood fills the air again.
"..."
Her eyes look around, glancing at this image. Seeing the images of the two men before her, or- at least, what she saw underneath that bed. Chouko found herself locked in this thought, her imagination creating the entirety of the room before her.
Starting to lock herself in this scene, lost in thought. In a space of her own to really think about it, to visualize it all as if it were a book unfolding before her. Separating the her thinking about it from the her in the image. Chouko- walked around that room, lightly lifting the cover that concealed the bottom of the bed. Seeing that terrified little girl with her book and everything.
Chouko has already thought about the "what ifs" to prevent Charles's death, and why they don't work. There was nothing else to think about, so... what exactly...
... The Count of Monte Cristo. The book that was under the bed-hiding Chouko's arm.
Chapter 15, page 115.
He told himself that it was the enmity of man... that had thus plunged him into the deepest misery. He consigned his unknown persecutors to the most horrible tortures he could imagine... and found them all insufficient.
Chouko felt a... flickering light in her eye, one she needed in this darkest of moments. For all she's read, The Count of Monte Cristo was... the book that alluded her. The one that she claimed was her favorite, for its complexities and such. A book she wanted to read because of the cover, because it was a large and lengthy classic.
Chouko never understood why she liked it, why she liked this novel. But it dawns on her that she was simply... too young to get it. Too innocent to understand Dantès, completely. The book was, in truth, dialogue heavy and difficult for her to go through.
However... however, Chouko was reaching a revelation, that she wasn't that innocent girl anymore. Cracking a smile, staring at this truth uncontrollably, that she... could put herself in the footsteps of this man.
"H... Hahaha... hahahahaha..."
While the work is complicated, the idea behind it wasn't: Dantès was driven to revenge. Simple as that, to seek vengeance on those that have wronged him.
Chouko sees herself in that scenario. Locked in her own prison, this despair and anguish coursing through her veins. Clarity coming to her mind as her body shakes and trembles. With not a soul around her to help, she confided in her own thoughts... starting to- embrace this laughter.
As her mouth contorts to a smile. As she was unable to contain a single laugh. Thinking to herself: Charles is dead. And accepting the truth of that is inevitable.
But she has mistakenly generalized acceptance. What she didn't accept was that he "had to die". That these men had a reason to kill him.
Kuroiwa... Kuroiwa. The name reverberates in her head. "Kuroiwa". The regards to be sent from this... name. All Chouko knows is what that assassin said, the words that he uttered. Kuroiwa sent his regards. That was the name of the person who caused Charles to die. These men were here to kill him because of... Kuroiwa.
"H... hahahahahahahahahaha...!"
Chouko has glee beaming on her face, realizing that she didn't have to accept their reason.
What was to stop her from... from wishing harm on them as well? On those two men, on this Kuroiwa? That she was too young? That she was a child?
No, no, no... Chouko ignored that for a moment. She didn't see herself as a grieving child- no. She's "accepted" the death, now she... she felt herself possessed with unyielding fury. In the shoes of Edmond Dantès, a hypothetical that she was a man with everything taken from him.
"Hahahahahahaha- ahahahahahahaha...! Ahahahahahahaha!"
Standing up from the body, laughing through each ounce of sadness, purely maniacal sounds echoing off of the walls. At risk of disrupting the surrounding hotel guests, Chouko couldn't keep it in any further. Lingering thoughts develop and grow.
Chouko wanted bad things to happen to these men. Bad things to transpire, starting to lose herself in the resulting delusions.
That man that entered from the balcony... what is to stop Chouko from making it so that he wasn't on the balcony? What is to stop Chouko from... from... pushing him off?
The room shifts in imagery, the man moving back out to the balcony. Chouko reaches out, hand pressing against his body, watching as he falls backwards and...
...
Chouko rewinds this, the man rising back up to the balcony. Letting the events continue. She takes a moment to stare at her father, staring at him for some time, before- the image of him fades. Seeing what she could of the man that killed him.
Charles's anguish and terror, on this man's face. Charles's lifeless body... this man's body.
Chouko absolutely lost herself in this anticipation, her breath hyperventilating, unaware of what was ultimately happening. Whatever thought flooded her mind, whatever trope began to claim her thoughts and corrupt her soul. This growing, bubbling schadenfreude... this joy at the killer's misfortune.
Eyes fluttering as she recalls the Grimm's rendition of Cinderella. Seeing the text fly past her eyes, remembering how... how the stepsisters mutilated their feet in order to fit into the slipper, the crows laughing and mocking them for their attempts.
Going so far as to remember Act 2 of MacBeth! Scraps of the text, lingering in her head, the quotes meshing together into some amalgamation of adjectives to describe inner turmoil. The dagger, floating in the midst of the air as eloquently put by Shakespeare.
In form as palpable as this, which now she draw. Such an instrument she was to use. On thy blade and dudgeon, goutes of blood... it is the bloody business which informs thus to mine eyes. Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleep. Whiles I threat, he lives... words to the head of deeds too cold breath gives.
Chouko is... unknowingly... straying away from the path that Charles would have wanted from her. The future she was to hold, tainted by his death. In its place, the rampant make-believe that claimed her heart as the Ashford name dies in this suite, the dangerous mindset that this unfortunate child was succumbing to. Driving herself mad with glee and anticipation at what is to come.
Charles Ashford is dead, soul carried to the heavens... and Chouko Ashford, starting to rise as well. The spirit of the girl fading and rising after her father, seeking his wisdom once more... as the body that remains, it readies itself to wander elsewhere.
The little girl found herself just staring blankly as she turns around, starting to walk back to the hotel... starting to return after achieving this clarity. The little girl starting to return to a hotel of adults, seeing what fate will befall her, seeing where she will end up upon her return to reality.
This little girl stares as she succumbs further into the abyss before her, this self-induced darkness. Expelling best the misery that once remained, now feeling elated. Death and suffering is inevitable, one that befell Charles Ashford... and... inevitable to those that the girl could see before her. Each drop of suffering something to thrive off of.
This feeling clouding her senses. Sight, touch, hearing, smell... even taste. Enveloping herself in this... fantasy.
Feeling herself laughing her lungs out, even as she silently stares forward. This deranged, insane laughter persisting in her head. Incoherent static aggressively tearing away at her mind. A twisted look in what was once pure eyes, following a path she felt destined to walk. One that she and she, alone, will tread.
The girl doesn't know how, when, where... all she knows is that it will. It will happen. The day will come.
I go, and it is done. The bell invites me. Hear it not... (Kuroiwa)... for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell.
"A-Ahahaha... AHAHAHAHA...! H-HAHAHAHA- HAHAHAHAHA...!"
Farewell, kindness, humanity, and gratitude. Farewell to all the feelings which expand the heart!
"A- AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Farewell... Chouko Ashford.