𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 ; 𝙆𝙉𝙔

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄

WARNING: References to blood/gore, violence and murder; cults; very very very minor character deaths; child neglect
Timeline: Douma's eight, Kokoro's nine, this is the year Douma's parents die, but it hasn't happened as this takes place

THE HALLS of this place are eerily silent, nothing like the busy town Kokoro is used to.  The whole place radiates a wrongness she cannot place; she knows she doesn't like it.

She arrived at the 'Paradise Faith Cult' a few days ago, after her village was attacked by something—she can't quite remember what.  She knows it killed her grandmother and brother, but not much else past that.  She remembers her older brother's blood splattered on the walls, and him croaking out in a voice so different from his usual teasing quips: "Run, run far away."  She had been too terrified to argue.

She ran through the forest—that part is kind of a blur to her, she can't recall it very well—until she ran into two people walking through the forest.  They saw that she was covered in blood—not her own, her grandmother's from where it had gotten on her when that thing attacked—and one immediately scooped her into his arms and they began to walk through the snowy trees toward a towering building.

The usually-emotional girl had been in a kind of numb shock since then.

But apparently, the building she's been taken to and cared for in is a cult that worships some kind of oracle that she has yet to see despite having been here for six days now.

This brings us to the present, as she walks aimlessly down the halls of this building, clad in a red and white kimono with her auburn hair styled in an elaborate, pretty updo that one of the female members had been keen on pinning up.  Kokoro had been quite insistent that hair cover her right cheek.  The female member didn't ask questions, she simply obeyed, and left two small sections of auburn hair out of the ornate hairstyle.

The wooden floors are cold on her bare feet but she hardly pays them any mind; she must have walked all these halls at least fifteen times in the little time she's been here. 

She turns a corner and suddenly crashes in to someone.  Upon glancing down she realizes it's a kid around her age with peculiar, silvery hair and kaleidoscope eyes which she thinks are pretty.  Seeing this boy makes her come to the startling realization that she hasn't seen any kids around the temple building since she arrived.

She musters a smile (that she's not sure looks genuine) and offers her hand to the boy.  He looks up at her blankly, hesitating only a moment before taking her hand.

"Sorry about that," she says. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

He just stares at her.  She tries to hide her unease at those unique eyes boring into her.

The silence is almost suffocating when, at last, he says, "Is something the matter?"

This startles her, making something in her click back into place like it hasn't since her grandma and brother were killed.  Suddenly, she's feeling all of the appropriate emotions flicker and fragment across her face, like her brain was lagging but now it's catching up.  She's a bit proud of how easy she fixes her face into the politely neutral expression it was before.

"Yes," she answers, before pausing to look at this boy in front of her: his robes too big, the weird hat on his head a bit too bulky for a normal kid, the vacant look in his rainbow eyes, the way he's a bit too hollow in a way no usual eight year old (or person in general) is; everything about this boy seems almost fake, like someone tried to model him after a normal child and he didn't come out exactly right, like he turned out a bit too empty for a young kid.  "Are you?"