Until It Hurts | Part 4 x reader

9

(sorry for the short chapter!)

----

"She's still here..." (Y/n) mouthed to themselves, barely saying the words aloud. "... As expected."

They dropped themselves next to a maggot-stuffed body, eyes as dull as ever as they stared into a lifeless woman with blonde hair and murky green skin. 

"(Y-Y/n)?" Shizuka mumbled, hesitant as ever.

"I'm home, mom. I made you wait."

Shizuka shuffled over to rub their back, a feeble attempt at trying to comfort the already broken person. They hadn't even reacted.

The very first thing they had seen upon opening the door to (Y/n)s old home was the corpse of their mother, limp on the floor with rotting teeth and torn fingernails.

"I'm sorry about her. You must have seen quite some awful stuff, a long time ago" Her words almost fell upon deaf ears.

"It's alright. I never dared coming back here, but now I feel slightly better." (Y/n) stared blankly into the carcass, as if looking at something that wasn't there. "Maybe I'll get to see her soon, if we fail to find a cure."

Slowly did they turn to face the girl fully, face tugged into hopeless expression as their eyebrows knitted together. "Do you believe there's something after this life? I don't know anymore."

Shizuka merely shook her head.

"No, huh? Can't say I dont share that same idea."

"I know it might not be what you need to hear right now, I'm sorry." Though on the outside she was stable, inside she was tearing herself apart. (Y/n)s words sound so depressed, despite the chuckle laced through their breath.

"No, no need. It just means I need to focus more time on the present to find a solution." Their legs almost buckled beneath them the moment they attempted to get up, but with the help of their companion, they managed to get back onto both feet again. Barely. "I'm already glad I got to meet some wonderful people in this life."

As much as she didn't want to spare it a second glance, Shizuka couldn't help but find herself staring into the corpse of (Y/n)s mother, searching eyes landing on a rather shiny ring looped around a bony finger. "What... About your father?"

"I'm not a hundred-percent sure, but I think my mother killed him in the bathroom when she turned..." (Y/n) eyed a door off to the side, presumably the bathroom in question. "So I'm not going in there."

Shizuka couldn't say that she wanted to go in there either, she's seen enough corpses to last a life-time. 

"And don't worry," (Y/n) continued, shrugging her hand off their shoulder and wandering off, "I'll do my best to let you go back to your family... You wont have to end like me, yeah?"

"You're the one keeping me here with your mad search." She managed to laugh, rolling her eyes as though it was some playful joke and not the blatant truth. "But I'm glad I'm not alone."

"Is that a positive thing?"

"Yeah."

"Good, then." (Y/n) dropped the frame they had picked up, shuffling over to a lengthy hallway and trudging down its carpet. "I'll... I'll just have a look around, so please wait for me for a second."

"You got it."

Not even a moment later, they disappeared behind a splintered door, leaving Shizuka alone in the painfully quiet kitchen, and forcing her to listen to the maddening hum of dying mechanisms in the wall.