⸸|ＨＵＭＡＮ ＭＡＳＫ |BSD [Rewriting]

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End of the act.
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When everything calmed down, the agency took care of me. They gave me a new clean slate and sent me to asylum. I couldn't even take care of myself, I just stared at the ceiling for hours or fell asleep. I didn't talk much, almost nothing. I didn't want to eat, I didn't want to drink. I wanted more than that.

I hated doctors.

But there was one nurse I liked. She took care of me so that I wouldn't hurt myself, and ate, and drank, and lived. However, they quickly put me in a straightjacket because I kept scratching, snapping and biting my fingers. Gave me medicines in the hope that one day I would be able to cope.

Unfortunately, I didn't believe it.

My memory was so damaged that I forgot almost everyone I knew. I didn't even remember who the man Dazai Osamu was with whom I wrote letters. At some point, he stopped writing back. Never asked why. I was afraid to hear.

I had a small window in the room for the cliff and the beach, so I suspect I was somewhere close to the sea. I always wanted to go out on that sand. Touch it, enter the water. Feel something.

After a few months I looked like a skeleton.

Doctors also tried to cut my hair because it was difficult to take care of it, but each time I regained consciousness and I didn't let them. My hairalways had to be tied up in a braid. Don't remember why, but it must have been a braid.

And all this happened until one day when I heard new voice outside the room.

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My mother was a strange woman.

She always walked around with that fake cold empty smile of hers, trying not to cry over anything with a pitiful expression on face.

She carried my sister close to her heart, putting her in scarves, always singing lullaby. She never put her down, almost never. Even at night, she came to my room, with my sister in her arms, making sure I slept. She held my hand, put her on my forehead, and checked my pulse.

She didn't talk much. Very little.

That's why I learned to speak very late. Mainly from books because she taught me how to read when I was five. She taught me everything, even several languages. Often changed the language she spoke to me.

Every morning I went with her to the city, where she bought things to eat, and I always went to school. However, I didn't like people. I preferred my own company.

When I came back home, I played with my sister for a while and my mother cooked us dinner, checking every now and then to see if everything was okay.

That empty smile. I was afraid of it, she was a bit scary.

The father never stayed at home, he was a soldier and was not very good at raising children. That's why every time he came to us, he would approach us with a problem and start to get angry, yell and...making fuss...but my mother quickly calmed him down so that he wouldn't do anything to us. I didn't like him very much.

Mom probably didn't love him either, but he loved her very much.

'Ilia, you are very much like your father,' my mother said to me in Russian as usual. Please, do not say that. I'm more like you, we have the same eyes, and body structure...same eye expression. Empty. Mom, I don't feel, exactly like you.

Mom, don't cry.

I didn't answer further as I read the book. I fliped to the next page.
My mother stroked my sister's head.
She moved closer, cuddling up to me.
'I'm sorry"

No, mom, don't apologize.

My father appeared over a hill full of daisies. He waved at us with his military cap, walking with wooden cane and a bandage on his leg. He lived.
I ran to him and hugged him tightly. Mom will be happy.

'Ilia, take care of your sister all right?'

I stared at her grave, holding my sister's hand. The father knelt next to, crying over this misfortune.

I also cried for the first time.

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◇Ilia [Eliash] [Russian name]