Fractured Memories- Oboro Shirakumo

~Chains~ A Nightmare

...
It started out beautiful. They were outside, together- just the three of them. Hizashi, Shota, and himself. They were walking along the path, enjoying the fluttering, sweetly-scented pink petals from the tall lane of cherry trees, chatting and laughing each in his own way but somehow all connected together. That was one beautiful thing about friendships.

A fresh spring breeze cool on his face, friends by his side, Oboro was happy. So happy it felt dreamlike, even now and possibly on the day it took place too. An abnormally blue sky and abnormally cheery conversation; this was how friends should be together. This was how life should be for his best friends, they deserved the world -and he'd give them what he could.

It had been an abnormally good week for all three. Hizashi was keeping up on his homework, Shota was growing more confident in his abilities and well- Oboro had been testing the introvert with his new scarf abilities  and was happy to say Shota beat him up in under five minutes last time, despite his best use of his cloud quirk.

...So okay, he guessed that now the only issue in training now was Oboro himself. But it was all worth the bruises -that Shota apologized for fervently afterward- to see his close friend smile so widely. And to see Hizashi smile when Aizawa smiled.

So he didn't mind if his abilities had lagged a little behind them because he'd spent so much energy for them to be this happy. He wanted to become a hero, sure; but if it meant they could all be happy together then his friends could get there first. He'd learn at his own speed, pour his heart into training and watch his friends' confidence grow, and he'd smile along with them.

And he felt genuinely happy as they walked along together, just enjoying an unusually good day.

...

But then the scene shifted.

Another day, another place.

He was running, screaming, for his friends to help him, to save the kids who were in danger; avalanches of rock were hurtling from the buildings to crack against stone sidewalk— with a force that made him stumble as they crashed around him.

Dust stained the world white and grey and made his lungs ache so for a moment all he could do was cough blindly as he prayed he'd have time to get them to safety.

And then- they all came crashing down on top of him—

...

Then— He was awake again. He was in a cave. Well, not so much a cave as a prison cell. The walls were stone, there were bars on the door. The place was overgrown- not with vines, but chains. He didn't want to be locked away, he didn't want to scare his friends because they didn't know where he was; but he had no choice: if he attempted to break out he might never be able to see them again.

He was the prisoner, and Kirogiri had the keys.

There was pain- in his chest, in his neck- in the dark. Chains wrapped themselves around his spine and limbs, dragging him down, nearly crushing him with their harsh tugging; he felt like he was pulled from so many directions that one wrong move would shatter him.

He was trapped in his own mind.

...

The world was dizzy, hazy. His friends were calling him, he heard them even from under the crushing rubble; somehow though he was no longer trapped but alive- awake. Just not awake in a way he'd ever wanted to be. He couldn't move, everything hurt. And out of the dark came those dark reflective glasses, that painfully white lab coat; it was the doctor, the doctor who came from his worst nightmares, but he approached and the pain felt suddenly so real, he knew it was more than a nightmare. It was a memory.