to be, or not

1

She felt it sting long before she registered understanding. A burning numbness, the prickle of brimming tears spilling down a swollen cheek. Pain and panic crashing together, frothing like waves on a sandy shore. Her mind muddled and clouded by flashes of adrenaline and desperation. She shut her eyes and dreamed she was elsewhere, that she was someone else. Someone more brave, stronger in spirit - and quicker to action.

A scream. A name. Whose name? Hers?

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Or maybe not.

Who could say?

She hated the sound of it coming from his lips. She liked her name usually. It sounded like music, rolling off the tongue as a melody would, but he made it sound discordant. He spat it like a curse, snarling it out as his face twisted with hideous anger. Like that, he seemed more a beast than a man. A monster keen to watch her shatter beneath the pounding of his fists.

A strike to her jaw made her vision blur as she retreated further into herself. Her mind felt fuzzy, thoughts trapped within a haze. Then the wailing of an infant pierced through the fog, ringing and ringing like a persistent echo, a plead for her attention.

A wish, a prayer, bottled inside in a litany of desire. A wellspring of wrath and desperation, overflowing and abundant. Too much. Cracks spread, unable to contain the stress.

A curse. A name. Whose name? Hers?

Ye—no! Maybe? She didn't know anymore.

She wished it wasn't.

It wasn't.

It——

The infant wailed louder.

Another hit to her face.

She couldn't take it any longer.

Kotoha shattered. And although she desperately tried to piece herself back together none of the pieces would fit right. Kotoha was gone. Or maybe not. Did Kotoha even exist in the first place?

She was different now, somehow.

And perhaps her husband saw that difference flashing in her eyes moments before she bit two of his fingers off.

::

She took Inosuke and ran. The coppery taste of her husband's blood still coating her tongue even as she stumbled blindly about. She had no time to think of what she'd done. She couldn't think of anything other than getting away. That, and the thick wall of denial she'd built around the truth of her newfound reality. Though, 'reality' seemed now an ill-fitting term.

She was mad.

She must've been.

How else would she have deluded herself into living out the life of a character? Why else would she have delusions of a past existence? It felt real, deceptively so, but she supposed the conjurings of a madman would feel real to them.

How should she feel? What should she believe? Who could she trust if not her own mind?

She could not answer.

Was it more maddening to question the nature of her madness, or to delve into it? To preserve her sanity, could she accept fiction as fact?

Inosuke whimpered softly, curling into the warmth of her breast.

Of course, Kotoha thought with sudden certainty, poised and comforted by the weight of Inosuke in her arms. Of course...

It was better this way to err on the side of caution.