Down the Rabbit Hole... To A Brighter Place

Take a Deep Breath... and, wait-

Kokomi is going to be the main POV until the Heartslabyul chapter, in which Ran will join in. I'm taking extreme liberties with this.

My Pov

It had come to this. My sisters and I were really going to go through with this.

"One last time; is everyone sure about this?" Hikari asked. All of us looked at our sister. You wouldn't know it by how she took charge and look after everyone that she was actually one of the youngest out of the twelve of us. The chronical order of us was Hikari, Emiko, Tora, Sayumi, Yurina, me, Nagisa, Fumino, Ran, Azuna, Arisa and Mikan.

"We've been over this, yes." Tora said. Tora was the third oldest and she was like the protector out of all of us. She would be the first one to jump to someone's defense if we were threatened.

"We've all agreed. We've no other choice." Nagisa sadly said. She was the eighth oldest, but you'd think she was the youngest with her quiet and timid personality.

"We've discussed this for the past month." Fumino said.

"We've been living in hell for this past year." Azuna said.

"We've tried balancing work and school, but it hasn't worked out." Arisa said. Arisa and Azuna were twins, but Azuna was born on the 20th of June and Arisa was born on the 21st.

"We all even dropped out of school to work full-time just to have enough money to live." Sayumi said.

"Even though the main reason we all dropped out was because of the constant harassment from our so-called classmates and teachers." Mikan said.

"With all of us either getting sick or that shitty landlord screwing us over, we barely have enough to eat half the time." Emiko said.

"We've basically been threaten with eviction and are faced with possibly living on the streets." Ran said.

"We have inheritance, but none of us can gain access to it until we all turn twenty." Yurina said.

"So, we've all come to the conclusion that we won't be able to survive another four years like this." I finally said. Why was Hikari asking? Maybe deep down, she didn't want to go through with it? Hikari then sighed.

"Just checking. If even one of you were having second thought about this, then we all agreed we'd wait it out another day." Hikari said. Ah. That's why. We had actually tried toughing it out after our mother passed away, but everything seemed like it was on a loop; go to school where multiple people harassed/bullied us, go to work where were berated by customers/staff and then overwork ourselves to the point of exhaustion.

"Mom would be disappointed in us." I said. Everyone shot me a look. Not a glare, but a look that said 'Yeah... we know'. What were we doing? Well, to put it bluntly; we were all collectively ending our lives. It had gotten too difficult and too straining for us all, but mostly Nagisa. I had come home one day and found her trying to sallow a fistful of sleeping pills. That was nine months ago. That's when we started having discussion. Every week, we would talk and ask. Nagisa was the first, then Fumino, then Mikan, then Arisa, then Ran, then Sayumi, then Emiko, then Azuna, then Tora, then me, then Yurina and finally, Hikari.

"Well, let's go." Hikari said, climbing up to the ledge of the bridge. Yeah, we were going to collectively committed suicide. One-by-one, my sisters climbed onto the ledge.

"Kokomi..." Nagisa said, holding out her hand. Ran stood opposite of her and held out her hand. I took both of their hands and they pulled me up to the ledge. I looked down at the rushing water below. I took a deep breath in. Three... Two... O-

*WHINNYING*

We all turned our heads to see two scary-looking horses running right toward us. That's when they suddenly jumped, heading right for us. The next thing I knew, darkness consumed us.

...

...

...

What's going on? What were those horses? Did they run into us and knock us off the bridge? Am I dead? Where is everyone else? Am I alone now? Was I in Hell? Am I floating? It was so dark, I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. I reached out and made contact with something solid. I placed my other hand on it and pushed. Whatever I had my hands on was heavy. That's when I heard something on the other side of whatever this thing I was in. It sounded like scratching. That's when the top of whatever I was in popped off.

Light suddenly filled my vision as I fell onto the ground.

"Ow!" I exclaimed. I lifted myself up and rubbed the sore spot on my forehead. "I hope that's not going to leave a bruise."

"Whaaaaaaa!" a voice screamed. My head shot up and quickly scanned the area. Wait, why are all these coffins floating? Why are there coffins here anyway? Where in world am I? "Why are you up?" That's when I spotted the source of the voice. It was... a cat?

"A t-talking cat?" I said, still not processing what was going on.

"Who are you calling a cat?" the cat asked.

"Umm..." I muttered.

"I am the Great Grim!" the cat proclaimed. Grim? That's when I heard several creaking noises from around me. I saw each of my sister coming out of coffins. That's when the multiple screams sounded.

"What is this?!" Tora exclaimed.

"Where are we?!" Sayumi exclaimed.

"Why are there a bunch of coffins floating?!" Hikari exclaimed.

"Are we dead?!" Fumino cried. That's when the cat named Grim jumped.

"How many of you are there?" he asked, clearly not counting on multiple people showing up. That's when my sisters' attention turned to Grim.

"Aww... what a cute kitty!" Yurina and Ran exclaimed.

"I'm no cat! I am the Great Grim!" Grim exclaimed again. That's when Grim spouted small balls of fire at us.

"AHHH!" we all cried.

"RUN!" I yelled. All twelve of us scrabbled out of the room and ran outside. As we ran, I took in the sights I was seeing. It looked like we were at a castle. Was it because of that carriage? Where are we? We finally had to stop and catch our breath. We ran into a room that looked like a library.

"What's going on? Where in the world are we?!" Nagisa and Arisa cried.

"Those scary-looking horse had to have brought us to... where ever this is." Azuna said.

"What do we do?" Mikan asked.

"Girls, just take a moment to breathe." Emiko said. Before anyone could, blue fire suddenly surrounded us.

"AHHH!" we cried. Grim appeared from the fire.

"Did you really think you'd get away from my nose? Dumb humans!" Grim exclaimed. Tora, Hikari, Azuna and I stood in front of everyone else.

"What do you want from us?!" Hikari asked.

"If you don't get roasted, one of you better-" Grim started, but was interrupted by the sound of a whip being cracked and him suddenly being flung to the floor. "Buwah! Ow! What's with this rope?"

"This is no mere rope. This is a lash of love! a voice said. Then a man, seemingly out of nowhere appeared in front of us. He was dressed rather strangely, but the most strange thing was the mask that resembled a crow's beak that covered half his face and the fact he had pitch-black wings!

"Wha..." several of us mumbled. Okay. It was official. We CLEARLY weren't in Japan anymore. In fact, we probably weren't even on Earth anymore.

I'm NOT making light or mocking suicide AT ALL if the tone comes off that way! Suicide is a serious issue.