Lily of the Valley

Lily of the Valley: 1-6

MARI was standing atop a valley. She looked down at herself. She was wearing a white one-piece dress, and she noticed she had a straw hat on. She looked up at the sky. It was blue, with minimal clouds. The wind blew harshly. She grabbed onto her hat, and squinted as the wind attacked her. When she looked behind her, she noticed that just a few steps backwards and she’d fall off the valley.

She heard footsteps. She looked in front of her again. A boy was approaching her. He had a face and wore clothing that was all too familiar to MARI. It was SUNNY, who had a neutral expression on his face. Delighted, she tried to sprint towards him to give him a big hug. But, for some reason, her feet would not let her go more than a few steps off the edge of the valley. She tried and she tried, but her body wouldn’t move. Eventually, her bad knee began to hurt, and she had to stop struggling.

When she looked in front of her again, SUNNY was almost right in front of her. His eyes were beginning to widen upon examining her closely, and she began to see him sweat. She wanted to get closer to him, but for some reason, once he was close enough, she began to back off. She didn’t mean to. If she could, she would embrace him this instant, but as SUNNY got closer and closer to her, MARI could only go further backwards.

Eventually, she realized that if she kept going back, she would fall off. She wanted to scream. She wanted to call out to SUNNY for help, but she realized her voice wasn’t able to come out. She wanted to plead SUNNY to stop, to please stop walking. Despite now looking absolutely horrified of what he was seeing before him, he did not stop walking. Almost as if he wanted to corner her - wanted to make her fall off.

She didn’t want to die. The horrors of this situation began to sink into her deeper. She began to despair as she could not stop her steps. She began to cry; her voice would not come out but her tears did. MARI was so afraid. She couldn’t tell if this was a dream. Even so, her overwhelming fear of death consumed her, and she could not think rationally. She finally reached the very edge of the cliff - one more step and she would fall to her death. Only then did SUNNY stop, right in front of her.

The wind flew by again. MARI’s straw hat flew away. She began to lose momentum. SUNNY pushed her.

The scenery changed to that of their house in an instant. She was laying down by the bottom of the stairway in their house. She couldn’t move her body. She could see the ceiling. Then she could see SUNNY, rushing over to her, crying and calling out her name. He shook her again and again but she couldn’t answer him; her voice wouldn’t come out again. She wanted to caress his cheeks and tell him everything was going to be fine. But she couldn’t. She wondered if this is what SUNNY was seeing when he was lying on the ground, bleeding to death from his own self-inflicted stab wound.

In those last moments, the only thing she could think was: Oh thank god. SUNNY’s fine. He’s okay. That’s all she needed to know.

MARI woke up. She yelled out SUNNY’s name. She was sweating. She was breathing in and out so fast that her lungs were going to explode.

MEWO snuck up to her and put her head against MARI’s thighs. MARI noticed her. She began petting MEWO. MEWO purred. MARI began to calm down. She smiled at MEWO.

MARI was convinced she was losing her goddamn mind.

Ever since the ‘picnic’, she had been going outside less and less. After a certain point, she started to neglect her curricular duties. She still saw HERO at school, but she hadn't seen KEL, AUBREY or BASIL since then. (And even HERO, she hasn’t talked to in some time.) And SUNNY... Things were improving, but they still felt distant.

At home, she spent all her time in the piano room. She didn’t want SUNNY to feel afraid of going outside of his room. She wanted him to get better, to go outside, to stay friends with the others. If MARI was bringing him down, she would gladly move out of the way. She wanted her friends to stay together; if she was the glitch in this equation, she would simply eliminate herself from it. She would become a martyr.