Marionette

Cosmos, Chapter Sixty Eight - Kiru [切る]

[Authors Note: This is a tough chapter to read. Reader discretion is advised]

Blood and Rust were her companions.

Her sole confidants.

Her ever-present constant in a sea of terrifying variables.

If life was meant for naught but suffering, terror and pain, then she was top of the class.

The ground flashed by beneath her form as she barrelled down city streets, ears drowned in the deafening roar of her own racing pulse tearing through her. Every breath she took felt like she was breathing fire, her heart screamed as if something had latched its claws around it and begun squeezing. Terror fueled her every step, blinded her to the startled gazes of the city dwellers she shoved her way past through the crowds. Tears spilled down her face, faster and faster with every twist and turn she took through the city streets.

She had lost her bag somewhere along the way.

Fallen in the crowds.

Forgotten in the wake of her fleeing form.

Words rung in repeat inside her head, fueling her violent dash all the more with each and every passing second. Amid the scarce snippets of information she'd gleaned through her growing panic during that phone call, only one thing repeated ceaselessly in the forefront of her mind.

She messed up.

She should have listened to that gut feeling of hers.

She should never have left her siblings to walk to school on their own.

Now they were gone, and it was all her fault.

Time was of the essence. If she dallied there was no telling what would happen. Every passing second was another nail in the coffin, every strike of the hammer a grain of sand falling through the hourglass.

She had to find them now, before it was too late.

Flashes of de-saturated colour flickered through her peripheral vision as she threw herself across the bonnet of a car stopped at an intersection, sliding across the shiny silver surface and directly over the next vehicle. Indignant shouts echoed after her, peppered with the obnoxious blare of car horns as she kicked off the side of the third car and threw herself swiftly across to the other side of the street.

Her breath was labored, each gasp burning like she was breathing fire instead.

Where in Gods name was she right now?

She didn't recognize anything around her.

Nothing eluded to the whereabouts of her precious siblings, and that was all that sunk in on her as her feet slammed against the pavement on the other side of the street and propelled her onward into the startled crowd of strangers ahead of her.

The Arcade next door to that Supermarket hadn't seen her siblings in weeks.

The only familiar face the Supermarket staff had glimpsed was Karma's just three days ago.

Yuta's favourite book store hadn't seen anyone in a little over a week.

Reiko's preferred candy store had only seen her walk through the door with Mako and Koichi over the weekend.

Nobody anywhere knew anything.

Nobody had seen a god damned thing.

She was running out of places to search and barely operating on desperation.