I Come From The Dark

Overcast

"I need you to repeat your name so the camera can hear it correctly."

"Aiko Fujiwara,"

The two were sitting on opposite sides of a metallic, rusted table. The entire scene was tense, and some loud, infernal screams could be heard coming from the other rooms. A fly zapped around the only source of light in the room--a dim, white tubelight.

The camera facing Aiko gleamed amidst the harsh brightness of the room--the room, or the ward as it should be said, had a white single-bed at one corner, and there was nothing else in the room as if it was empty on purpose. There was a window at the other end of the room--it was sealed shut though, with nails and rods, as if someone had been continuously trying to escape through it.

On the other end of the table, facing Aiko, sat Tasuko Honjo. He was a psychiatrist. And it had been almost three decades of him working in that juvenile rehabilitation centre. He'd seen many cases of broken, dysfunctional teenagers, but there was something about Aiko that was frightening him.

"Right," he passed a fountain pen and file to Aiko. He had a generous smile. "Please sign at the bottom of the agreement. It just says that you're agreeing to receive care and support from this rehab, after, uh, what you did to that girl."

Aiko looked at him with a cold look--she grabbed the pen and signed. She passed the file to Tasuko. But kept the pen.

"Alright," Tasuko exhaled. He looked at the long white paper in front of him. There were details written on it--about Aiko. And they weren't quite good. "I'll now ask you some questions. And I require that you answer them righteously. Okay?"

Aiko grunted. In a weird, wild, irritated manner. Tasuko let out an awkward sigh.

"Okay, so Aiko," he clears his throat. "How are you feeling, dear?"

Aiko sat expressionless, staring into Tasuko's brown, dark eyes. She had no idea what she'd turned into. "I don't know. Sad? Happy, perhaps?"

Tasuko smiled. "That's cool."

Aiko sighed.

"So do you have any thoughts about the past sometimes?" Tasuko smiled his weird doctor smile. "About Mei, to be more precise...? You had a crush on her, right?"

Aiko flinched--it wasn't an ordinary flinch though. It was an uncoordinated, subtle flinch. It was hard to analyse what it meant. The camera zoomed in on her.

"I do think about her sometimes."

"Yeah, I get that."

"Do you know how it hurts when the person you love with the bottom of your heart, hurts you the most? How dreaded and shivering it feels?"

"I'm sorry you went through all that. It wasn't your fault. The best for you was to forget what had happened and move on."

Aiko exhaled, firming her grip on her seat. Her tone deteriorated. Her pretty face shrinked demonically. "Yeah, right. She called me a 'gay whore'. You really think something like that can be forgotten that easily?"

"That word. That harsh tone. That disgusted look on her face. Everything added up. The girl I loved hated me. All that I was to her was just a 'gay whore'." tears spurted off her eyes. Her tone gradually became harsh and louder. She tilted her head downwards. "But that was not much to the insult. She decides to beat me, ruin my name in the entire town and when everything had already been destroyed, the whore decides to hurt my father. Wow."

Tasuko stared at her. Speechless. He didn't know what to say. He knew that anything he said would only fuel Aiko's growing frustration.

"Well," Aiko slowly raised her head. There was a creepy smile on her face, and sheer darkness in her eyes. "I really don't know what you'd do, but to me, the best option seemed to put her to an end. I was just so done with that retard of a girl."