Dairy Of Ellen

Black Alley Meeting (5)

I stood in a daze. 

My right arm was heavy, as if taken by a demonic spirit. Blood - who knows whose - dripped off the end of the knife, making stains on the floor.
Father collapsed on top of mother. I saw the two overlapping corpses as leaving no room for me to come between, and it irritated me.
He clung onto mother to his last moments.
Father saw nothing but mother. A life without her was too painful for him. Right. So this is for the best.

I slowly backed away. Then I noticed that the door to the other room remained half-open.
Father's room. To be exact, father and the woman who was once mother's room.
I couldn't take my eyes off the crack in the door. My heart beat fast, yet steady.
There was a sweet scent unlike mother's coming from the room. As if being pushed from behind, I opened the door with my knife-holding hand and stepped inside.
All I could hear was the creaking of the door. The room was filled with the sweet scent. Enough to make you choke.

It was very dark inside.
There was a single bed along the far wall. A candle on a table cast an unreliable light on the interior of the cramped room.
On the table were plates and bowls, as well as a thin cylindrical object. Smoke fumed out of one end, and I knew that it was a smoking pipe.
Father's, I suppose.
This was where the sweet scent came from.
I sluggishly walked to the bed. Things were scattered all over the floor, so I could trip if I wasn't careful.
I reached the bed and sat down. It was harder than my bed, and uncomfortable to sit on. Did they give the good bed to me? Thinking that made it hard to breathe.
I couldn't know for sure anymore.
I gazed at the smoke from the pipe. Soon, I felt like I saw a vision through the smoke. A smiling father, mother, and me. We looked like a happy family.

Ahh...
I sniffled.
Why did this have to happen?
The illusion of the happy family vanished, and I became aware of the two corpses in the entryway, and the knife I held in my lap.
Why did it end up like this?
I just wanted to be loved.
I wanted to love them.
But n.o.body loved me.
My eyes hurt. Perhaps the smoke was seeping into them. Every time I blinked, my vision seemed to get blurrier.
n.o.body loved me.
Why?
...Because I was sick?

I touched the bandages on my face, a mess of sweat, tears, sprayed blood. As if checking something, I touched my cracked skin.
"Uuugh..."
I scratched my reptile-like sore skin. It hurt. Yet as if possessed, I kept scratching.
Because I was sick - because of this -
n.o.body loved me. Everyone ran from me.
Father didn't look at me.
Mother abandoned me.
What am I?
Ellen. That's my name. But what is Ellen?
An awful, ugly, sick child? A doll who just stares at back alleys? A girl, who will never, ever be loved?

"AaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

Unable to stop with just my face, I started tearing at my hair. My hair went in my mouth, becoming covered in drool. It hurt. It hurt. But my heart screamed louder.
Just then, I heard a window clatter open, and I returned to my senses.
A strong wind blew in from the window. Just then, the lit pipe fell off the table and started to scorch a piece of cloth on the floor.
A few seconds later, my brain reacted. It was going to cause a fire. I hurried to my feet.

...It has to vanish.
Suddenly, my thoughts stopped.
Vanish?
Why?
...There's nothing left in this house, is there?
I backed away from the fire, spreading and burning hotter, then sped out of the house.

In a back alley in the dead of night.
I was quickly short of breath, and couldn't even run more than two houses away.
My bare feet struck the chilly pavement.
They were dyed red with my blood, and the blood of others. Surely, I was leaving footprints. Perhaps I had been born wearing red shoes. I walked as I thought.
The knife I gripped melted into the darkness and became a part of my body.
There were no streetlights in the slums. It was the middle of the night, so there wasn't even any light from the houses.
All that illuminated me was dim moonlight. No one was around to blame me for my actions. Those who would judge me had put away the scales and slept.

On the way, I tripped and fell over in a place full of garbage.
There were piles of raw trash, sc.r.a.p metal, and other junk.
My chest and stomach hurt, and I lied down face-first. I had no energy to get myself back up, only turning my head aside.
I let out a cold white breath and was suddenly overcome with fatigue.

In my right hand, I still gripped the knife.
The dirty blade dully glowed, and my exhausted fingers trembled.

"Will you die?"

The knife seemed to ask me.
I feebly shook my head.
I can't do that. Because you are my fangs. A cat can't bite its throat with its own teeth, can it?
I closed my eyes.

What would I do now? I'll wake up tomorrow, first of all. But what about the day after? Or the day after that?
s.h.i.+vering in the cold, weeping from the pain in my legs, facing sleepless nights with an empty stomach, I would soon cease moving, no doubt.
And then perhaps someone would bury me.
Perhaps a kind hand would guide me to a bed in the soil.

I knew that wouldn't happen.
I buried the black cat because she was a very small, frail creature. Because she was fleeting enough to carry in my arms.
And I knew the cat's beautiful figure. I knew her beautiful way of life. So I wanted to embrace her.
In my case, who would even know me? Who would have watched me? And even if they were watching, who would think I'm beautiful?
No one would lend a hand for me. Even if someone did, I would foolishly turn it away.

I imagined myself in the place of that black cat in the alley.
Ah... Perhaps it does suit me after all.
I stopped thinking about it.

Just then -

"Yo."

A sudden voice dragged me back to consciousness.
It sounded like a young boy, yet it had an oddly composed tone. I felt somehow stimulated and picked my body up.
I looked around for the owner of the voice, but saw no one.
"Over here, Ellen."
The voice spoke my name as if we had long known each other.
I looked up toward it, and found a black cat sitting up on a crumbling fence. I didn't know when it got there.

The moon floated just behind the cat, the same color as its eyes.
Naturally, I was reminded of the black cat I had buried. Its eyes were gold like hers.
But it was different. It wasn't her. Because she was a "cat."
The thing before me now was not a "cat." Cats can't speak like humans.

"You're a real help. I was gonna die, I was so hungry."
He licked his front paws with satisfaction. The movement was just like what a real cat would do.
I rubbed my eyes. It was no illusion.
"I..." I muttered absentmindedly.
"Did I give you something?"
Perhaps happy that I responded, the cat leapt as he spoke.
"Yep! To the tune of two tasty souls."
I raised an eyebrow at his statement.
What did he just say? Souls?

"Yeah, humans are made up of souls and bodies. Didja know?"
I shook my head slightly.
The cat cleared its throat - "A-hem!" - and spoke.
"A human consists of a soul and a body. You can't eat them while they're alive. But when they die, you can suck the soul right out and eat it. They aren't easy for us to come upon. That's why we do this, having somebody kill 'em so we can chow. Which you happened to do today, which sure saved my b.u.t.t! But if you weren't there, I dunno what I'd do... Hey Ellen, what's up?"

I stood up, my feet still trembling. My face was probably as pale as the night air.
"...You ate father?"
I didn't know what these so-called souls were. But it seemed like it was something important to a person.
And he ate it?
I felt like the oddly-shaped creature before me had tainted my father. Oddly, the woman who was once my mother didn't come to mind.
"Well, yeah, but..."
He showed the appearance of concern. But it was certainly only the appearance. He didn't actually seem concerned.
"...Ellen. Yeah, it might seem selfish that we do whatever with stuff that's out of reach for guys and gals like you. But even if I told you I didn't eat 'im, how'd you know for sure? And what does it matter to you if I ate him or not?"
The cat swung his long tail.
I couldn't say anything back.
It was just as the cat said.

The black cat looked down on me in silence. His eyes had a coldness like a doll's, and I was uneasy. I unconsciously looked away. My lips trembled from either cold or fear.
What exactly was I even talking to?
I sighed to push away the feeling of having no refuge.
I felt the pain in my legs coming back. My right arm ached with each beat of my heart. Thinking about how I was standing on cold hard pavement, I wanted to cry.
What was I going to do now?
I thought as I looked at the moon behind the black cat. The moon seemed to have turned an eerie red, as if a blood vessel were pa.s.sing by.

"So hey, I want to thank you."
"Huh?"
The cat's slightly high voice brought me back.
"Demons like us can get souls from kids like you. And then we can give them magic as thanks. I was thinkin' I could give you a very special spell, Ellen."
"..."
I raised an eyebrow, not bothered to do much more.
I didn't even feel like speaking.
"Ellen, I'm giving you a house."

...A house.
It made my eyes open just a little bit.
The black cat seemed to notice.
"You got nowhere to go back to, yeah? Can you keep living like this? You'll just drag your rotten legs and die in this dirty ol' town. Kinda sucks a bunch, huh? I don't wanna see that for you. Come with me. I welcome ya."
The cat's words rang pleasantly in my ears, blooming a flower in my head. A place of warmth. That's what my cold body wanted more than anything else right now...

"It's a fire!"
Suddenly, I heard a scream.
I turned toward it and saw flames where my house had been.
The flames rose up, parting the clouds around, incapable of being stopped, burning away with a thunderous roar.

I watched the fire in amazement.
The house which there was no going back to.
The house that never loved me.
Father and mother's faces came to mind. They were stained red in my memory, overlapping with the fire in the distance.
My eyes hurt, and not because of the smoke.

"How 'bout it?", the black cat asked.
I turned back to him.
I didn't care about demon this, magic that. I just knew that if I said no, I would become a cold corpse in a back alley.
...I didn't like the cold.
So I nodded.
It was a faint action, and probably only looked like I was lowering my head.
But the cat took it as acceptance, and my senses cut out like a string snapping.

People came and went, hurrying to the fire or watching it from a distance.
But no one noticed, off in a back alley, a girl and a black cat vanished as if swallowed up by the darkness.