Eternal Ikiryo

Dread, a friend or foe?

A cricket. That's the first thing he hears. The wind chime right outside the window is the second. Somehow, both feel like gunshots that never reached him. He could feel the ringing in his ears, but at the same time, he felt the sound simply pass through him as if he were an open door rather than a wall. As if he could combine with sound itself. The light was hitting his eyes; he knew it by the way they were blinded and watered. Yet even with the sting from looking at the light, he couldn't feel any heat. On the contrary, it was freezing, like laying in snow without a coat. The wooden boards were somehow burning underneath him, though he couldn't see any flames. He stood up to get away from the heat, but this action was not taken without trouble, as he couldn't seem to be able to place his feet on the ground without sinking through. A sensation that he couldn't quite explain, almost like stepping in water, but his ankles could feel the floor boards it was next to or in to, he supposed. He could feel the heat coming from the sun's rays hitting the floor boards on his ankles. As he tried and tried to walk, he ended up just floating, finding it to be surprisingly easier than walking. He looked around, making sure to avoid the sun, and finally recognized where he was.

The living room of the Zoldyck Estate.

Well, one of the many living rooms, of course. It was close to the back door and the cemetery. It looked completely abandoned, empty and hollow, finally a physical representation of what it had always been mentally. The only items around were empty boxes and broken furniture. It's ironic how this had been his dream for all the years he lived, an illusion he got comfort from, and yet now that it's real, all it brought was dread.

The place was destroyed. Broken doors and windows. Graffiti filled with protests about the Zoldycks mere existence. Slurs and insults he had known all his life and had heard directed at him time and time again. But for them to be on the walls of his prison only served to feed the dread. Feed the fear and apprehension that this place is no longer what it used to be. And how was he to know if that was progress or a descension into madness?

He moved through the place, his feet barely grazing the ground. He looked at the glass on the floor, the paint cans on the ground, the bullet holes on the walls. Some he recognized, some he didn't. He remembers the story behind every bump on the wall and crack on the floor. The times Milluki would bash his head against the wall when he was five or when Mother threw a knife that went through Milluki's leg and to the floor as punishment for daring to do so. He would say it was a bit extreme even for their family, but they all knew how obsessive their mother was over Killua. Milluki knew it more than anyone; he just chose to either ignore it or challenge it, depending on your perspective.

As he moved to the back door, he made it to the staircase to the basement. The staircase to Alluka. Every instinct in him said to run down there and slam the door open. That there was no one there to stop him anymore. But that was the thing, there was no one there. That was the truth.

A truth he didn't want to face. A truth that hid behind metal doors and the estate's floors. A truth he could find in the cemetery but refused to look. He walked away from the stairs. Away from the back door. Away from the graves. Away from the dread. 

He stared at the floor, only raising his head every couple minutes to glance at his surroundings, doing his best to keep his eyes off the sun. The grass looked healthy, minus the pieces of trash littering it. The trees, on the other hand, had bullet holes, ripped pieces, and broken branches; some weren't even standing anymore. It all looked like it'd been left alone for a while. But for how long?

He had already figured he was dead, or at least something like that. It was freezing. He could pass through anything. He couldn't even open the door, and he was floating. Looking at his surroundings, it looked like years had passed since someone stepped foot on the estate. It was most likely that he was gone. He just didn't know where he went.