Faded

Slowly but Steadily...

                For a long time, it seemed Wadanohara and Samekichi were going to be the last two left alive from the plague that now seemed to disappear after the unfortunate death of the destruction devil. The nurse would aid the shark in any way she could; spending more time with him than she ever had before. Since it was only the two of them, they went out of their way to slowly seep in stronger displays of affection, such as more passionate kisses, more embraces and snuggles… nothing to the extremes.

 They would go out walking through the open fields beyond the doors of the rehab center; sometimes going for a swim when the weather permitted (and the water wasn’t too cold). As time went by, Samekichi began to grow weaker and weaker in his stability; soon categorized to a bedridden state in time. That did not seem to faze the witch’s efforts, for every day, she would bring him his meals and sing to him the song that seemed foreign across her tongue… Pure Imagination. No one had ever spoken of Satanick since his passing in that unfortunate warfare; she prayed to the bottom of her heart that he was well.

As time continued to take its everlasting stroll, the shark was growing weaker and weaker. No treatment seemed to help him… at all. His heart was growing worse; Wadanohara could tell by his breaths. He seemed to be suffering from some form of memory loss; simple things slipped his mind easily, but perhaps that was something else. She would remind him of what he had forgotten (like his father’s name, why Satanick’s horns were in her room, etc.), but not all things could be regained; he began to ask her things that she would have never expected to hear from him.

“Why does my brother hate me so much? Did I have a mother? Who was she? Where did Sal go?”

Such simple phrases that held such a larger meaning that the witch could not begin to comprehend. She didn’t know the shark long enough to recite his childhood back to him; she never really interacted with anyone as important to her now as ever before. Sal’s origins still remained a mystery to her, and the story between the shark trio perplexed her to no end.  

Slowly and slowly, there seemed to be a looming silence in the rehabilitation center. Samekichi barely spoke up now, and he seemed to be muttering something under his breath at night; his eyes screwed shut as tears barely managed to seep through them. He held his hands in a prayful position, as if praying to something or someone… as to who, the nurse could not guess. What did he have to pray about? As far as she knew, he was healthy, yet slowly losing his memory and… heart condition growing unstable.

From that point on, Wadanohara kept him on a machine that measured his heart beat at all times; listening to the sullen beats of the monitor slowly ticking away, as if counting down the minutes he had of life. His expression seemed extremely gloomy the less he interacted with Wadanohara; even when she offered to take him to the beach for a relaxing swim, he refused. This shark was unwilling to move; unwilling to go anywhere… unwilling to show himself after what he had done. He was a disgrace in his eyes; his brother was probably trapping his heart within those silky gloved hands of his, waiting for the right moment to pounce. He could never tell her… if he did, all she ever lived for would be ruined.

The nurse worried for her husband, even if he was her last and final patient. She had to at least let him live… she couldn’t let this life slip from her fingertips. If she did, she didn’t know how she would feel… these powers would only be a hoax; no witchcraft could bring them back, or at least not as many as the one’s she had lost. Every effort the nurse made ensured the survival of the shark. Wadanohara was determined to help him hold on to ever last minute of the day; every descending motion of noon; every glimmering dream of the night… Samekichi had to live.

Wadanohara cared for everyone this same way, but it wasn’t so strong of a bond as a marital one that she had with Samekichi and Samekichi alone. She had already failed to keep Satanick alive; Sal obliterated him until he was nothing more, and Idate finished him off by digesting him bit by bit; leaving his horns behind to bestow upon the nurse as a token of a false appreciation and remembrance of the devil.

Every day, the horns appeared more disheveled, and every time she lied her eyes upon them, they appeared to… weep oh so gently. The roses were no longer present; their petals shriveled up and died; Wadanohara taking the time to slowly sweep them out and let them flutter through the wind outside as a sign of his freedom… at least he wasn’t cooped up in a glass case, or at least, the roses.

It wasn’t until this day that Samekichi’s spirit finally seemed to begin to slip… begin to disappear… began to fade away.