Emergence: Roots Of The Past

Chapter 12: The Past Unraveling, Part 2

The three adults nodded as all of them moved to two separate couches, each on opposite sides of the room. There was an awkward silence until Fuyumi decided to be the one to speak up.

Fuyumi: I'll start. Thirty years ago, when I was around 27. Before Jake, I was with another man. He was around two years older than me, with brown hair and ocean blue eyes. His name was Shiro, and he was the kindest person I had ever met. Everything was going perfect, until—

Fuyumi suddenly paused and almost looked as if she had zoned out. Jake and Saki took notice of this surprisingly fast.

Saki: Fuyumi...are you okay?

Fuyumi snapped out of her trance. She immediately looked at everyone around her.

Fuyumi: I'm fine. Sorry about that. After knowing each other for about a year or so, he invited me over to his place. It was some form of...temple, I think. But the technology in it...it was way ahead of our time. When I looked into his eyes...they weren't the ocean blue anymore...they were blood red. After that, he...h-he...

Jake: Would you like me to continue?

Fuyumi: Please do.

Jake: Right. so anyway. Basically...he knocked her out, and the next thing she knew was that she was chained to a wall. It was in the bottom part of the temple.

Fuyumi: After two hours of being chained, he came into the room, and...well...

Fuyumi couldn't say the word, so she did a simple hand gesture, involving one hand making a hole with two fingers and the other hand going through it with one finger.

Ayano: So...he raped you, basically?

Fuyumi:Yeah...I was chained up, so...no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fight back.

Rohan: That "thing" used Fuyumi for its twisted pleasure for three years.

Saki/Ayano: THREE YEARS?!

Fuyumi: Yeah...he still kept me fed and in health, though. Heck, he actually cooked my favorite food every once in a while. Whatever was controlling Shiro sent out a decoy that looked exactly like me...like, some form of Terminator. No one could tell us apart.

Both Saki and Ayano felt a pang of empathy for Fuyumi. They couldn't believe that she was stuck there for that long—it could mess up anyone's mind permanently.

Ayano: What happened after the three years?

Rohan: That's where me and Jake come in. You see, one of Fuyumi's friends figures it out and called in for backup. Sadly, I don't think they made it...a moment of silence for them.

All of them sat in silence, paying tribute to the lives lost that day.

Rohan: Now, where were we? Right. We infiltrated the temple, and almost half of us were wiped out instantly. There were these metal men attacking us. Think something like War Machine from Marvel but with two shoulder cannons instead of one. We fought against "Shiro" for what seemed like forever, with me and Jake being the only survivors. In the end, we managed to put him down, but whatever that thing was, it fled from his body, making Shiro go through all the pain. But instead of crying out in pain...he thanked us and made us promise to watch over Fuyumi. By that time, Tenko was already three years old, and Fuyumi was pregnant with Harry and Kaede.

Saki nodded...but something caught her off guard.

Saki: Wait...Kaede isn't your biological daughter, Jake?

Jake: No...but did that stop me from loving her now? No. Years later, when Matt was kidnapped, Tenko and Harry snuck aboard in our little operation, and in the end, were both crucial to getting Matt free. However...both of them died in the process. As for the entity, we were able to see its true form. It was some form of smoke demon. That's all I remember.