gentle angel • kousano

III. oh, dilute me, gentle angel

The way Yosano awoke was a stark difference from the way she had last felt. Previously, she was freezing, in extreme amounts of pain, and absolutely miserable. Now, she was freezing, in minimal amounts of pain, and terrified.

Scratch that; her situation wasn't all the different.

Last she remembered, she was screaming in agony on some sidewalk; now, she was god-knows-where wrapped in plush white blankets and fully clothed.

Panic started to bubble in her chest as she felt the sheets begin to suffocate her. She trashed and kicked at them, unable to think clearly enough to slow down and get out of bed like any normal person, but eventually, she was able to make her way onto the floor sans the thick-ass blanket.

Now, feeling a little less claustrophobic, she took in her surroundings. Yosano was trying to keep a level head, but the room looked as though it was closing in on her. Her breaths came in short gasps, and she searched rapidly for the door.

Once she had finally found it and started to make her way toward it, a knock sounded.

Then, nothing.

It was just the knock, nothing more.

Nobody barged into the room or said a word, but Yosano stood there, shaking in fear and in chills. She heard no footsteps. Obviously, the person outside the door was waiting for her to answer.

Yosano continued to stand there, frozen in fear, until, suddenly, the person spoke.

"May I come in?"

It was a woman's voice, and she asked the question not unkindly. Her voice was smooth, and maybe, under different circumstances, it would have been calming. Alas, they were not under different circumstances, and Yosano jolted in fear.

She hurriedly began searching for anything she could use in the room to attack her kidnapper, and after ravaging the room, her eyes landed on the holy grail: a baseball bat behind the bed. Not an uncommon thing for people to put there, it was something that people who didn't own guns used to quell their fears of someone breaking into their home and killing them—Yosano scoffed—as if a baseball bat was going to be any help against an armed criminal.

Regardless, she picked up the bat and staggered to the door on shaky feet.

She swallowed a few times, trying to smooth the roughness of her throat and be sure her voice wouldn't crack when she spoke. Eventually, she worked up the courage and answered the woman on the other side of the door.

Her voice came out pathetic and frail, but she was far too preoccupied with preparing the bat to hit the woman who was opening the door as quickly as possible.

Slowly, the door began to open, it made a low creaking sound, and once the woman on the other side saw that Yosano had a bat in her hands, she gasped.

Yosano didn't let that second of shock go to waste, and before the girl could regain her composure, she swung the bat directly at her head and knocked her out.

She fell limply to the floor; she looked like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

She was a pretty girl, in a regal sort of way, with fiery red hair that framed her pale face elegantly, and seeing such a girl passed out on the floor in front of her was an odd experience.

Yosano didn't dwell on it for long, though, the panic still rising rapidly in her chest at the situation, and she slowly backed away from the body, tripping on the duvet she had thrown to the floor and landing on her ass.

Perfect, she thought distantly, this is a spectacular place to have a panic attack.

At that moment, the only thing she thought she knew for sure was that she was dying. She was incapable of getting any air into her lungs, and the girl in front of her, her kidnapper, was definitely going to wake up soon.