Marionette

Cosmos, Chapter Sixty Three - Kanjō [感情]

The night had been an unpleasant, perpetual cycle of misery and apathy.

It was spent lying in the egg-chair in her attic, staring out at the darkness outside the lone window that peered into her little personal piece of solitude. When Amaya didn't weep, she lay listless in her own shell. And when she wasn't trapped in her own shell, she wept. Even in those throws of apathy with little going on inside her head, she couldn't sleep.

She was awake the whole time, torn between two conflicting states of emotion.

She scarcely remembered what she even did when she had finally dropped off Karma's belngings, nothing came to her mind even when she tried to recall her actions, or even just where she had been.

What Amaya did remember was that her phone had been a shrill, incessant reminder that she felt more alone than ever before.

Somewhere after returning to the darkness of her still-wrecked house, her phone had started rinigng without end. The first of the calls had rung out as Amaya carefully worked to clean up all the shattered glass throughout her kitchen, chiming a chilling tune throughout the darkness. She refused to so much as look at the device, let alone consider answering it.

And yet, it didn't stop.

When the call would cut out, within a handful of seconds it would start ringing again.

Over and over the incessant phone rung, as if someone were desperate to get hold of her.

And then, when the phone stopped ringing, there was knocking at her door.

The knocking was loud and erratic, more resembling the sound of a closed fist pounding against the reinforced door than someone casually knocking on a stranger's door.

She knew who it was at the door before she even heard them try and call out to her.

And she knew she didn't want to let him know she was even there.

She heard her name called, louder and louder with every repetition.

And yet, she refused.

As the minutes grew longer and longer as calls both at the door and her phone continued, she had given up.

She had retreated quietly up to her attic, and hid there for the rest of the night.

When Amaya had emerged from the attic just shy of 8am, greeted by the eerie silence of her empty house, she could only stare.

The house did not feel like sanctuary, in spite of the actions she had taken so far to shut Karma out. It did not even feel like her own home. It felt like she was in some strangers house, one that was incredibly similar to her own, but there was a striking absence of life in it that just felt, off.

It felt very wrong.

And all shewanted to do, was disappear elsewhere.

Her phone had definitely been bombarded with more missed calls, Amaya noted as she reluctantly decided to check her device. Her device, which usually lasted a few days before requiring a recharge was almost completely drained after just one day. The screen showed that apparently, there had been thirty seven missed calls since she had discarded it onto the counter, and at least three times as many emails sitting in her inbox.

And the majority of them, were from Karma.

There was only three emails that were from somebody else, both from Isogai. The first was advising her that her siblings had been safely collected from school, the second informing her that they were safely at Maehara's house for the night. The third was informing her that they had been escorted to school, and that message had been received just shy of ten minutes ago.