Forget-Me-Not (Assassination Classroom Fanfic)

Chapter 3

That day, Akira awoke to darkness and muscle cramps. Rubbing her eyes, Akira stretched and whined, "Jin-kunnn. My back hurts."

Silence.

Akira blinked and looked around, surprised.

'Must have gone home without me," she sulked moodily.

With nothing left to do, Akira stood up, flung her bag over her shoulder, exited the dance school, and began to trudge home.

Well, it was some sort of home to her, but she slept and ate and did her homework in a graveyard, next to her family's graves.

Strange? Definitely.

Creepy? Definitely.

Sensible? Not really.

Well, Akira eventually reached the graveyard and started going through her usual routine: Eat her packed dinner, wash up in the usual washroom nearby, sit on a wooden bench, start reading a book, and if she had finished her book, do some homework.

All this would go on till dark. Then, she would creep into the shadows and watch and wait for the security guard to lock up and go home for the day, before slipping quietly into the eerily quiet graveyard.

Then she would seek out her family's graves, kneel down respectfully, mutter a quick prayer, and then proceed to lie down onto the graves, and she would cover herself with a woolen jacket and try to sleep.

Every day she had dreams.

Sometimes it was nightmares, other times it was dreams of the perfect life she wanted, but could never attain.

This time, she dreamt of her siblings.

They played happily, together, rolling and tumbling among the lush green grass.

They played pretend, house, hide and seek, and Simon Says. Any outdoor game playable without items, you name it.

When was the last time she felt such euphoria? She never wanted this day to end.

Then she saw her parents coming out and standing in the doorway, her father's arm around her mother's waist. They called out to the children to come in, for dinner was ready.

Akira tried to see her mother's face, but was to no avail, and saw only a blurred image.

Her smile fell, but was soon replaced by broader grin as her siblings reached out to her and tugged at her, pulling her towards the house.

"Onee-channnnn, come quickly, me hungwy," Akira's brother whined cutely, with an adorable pout on her face, causing her to laugh.

Her sister watched them with a fond smile, amusement tugging at the corners of her mouth, tempting her into a wide cheshire grin, as she grabbed Akira's hand and placed her brother onto her back and she piggyback-ed him, while pulling Akira along, as they skipped to the house.

As they stepped onto the threshold, Akira suddenly felt her vision swim.

She fell onto her knees and held her pounding head, squeezing her eyes shut.

When the throbbing lessened, she glanced up, shot up and fell back onto her back and scrambled backwards, trying to detach herself from her sister as she saw her family smiling at her from their respective positions, their figures changing into winged demons as the house caught on fire.

Akira was frozen in shock now, as her fami-no, the demons barred their fangs at her and hissed, "Weak. So weak, you couldn't even save us. You killed us. Now you shall die with us. It's not fair we died and you lived."

She cried as her sister-turned-demon yanked her into the rising pillars of flames with a grip which probably broke her bones.

She was tied to a pole as the flames swarmed around her, flickering and licking at her clothes, then her clothes were gone and she felt someone touching her, as she desperately tried to cover her body, but failing, and reliving another of her nightmares.

The flames died down, and then she was feeling huge wave of water crashing down upon her weakened form, the impact of the solid wave collapsing onto her, crushing her body.

At this point she could only whimper at the pure agony she experienced, feeling the pain and a sudden fatigue sap away her strength, her identity, her soul, and then her very existence.

The water vanished as quickly as it had come, and her ropes disappeared too. She slumped onto the ground, in so much pain she was numb, and finally witnessed her home tearing down onto the ground, and her family's motionless, pale bodies littering the ground, and the demons' final words haunting her.

Her body reached its limit and succumbed to the pain, allowing her to experience a few seconds of it which disabled all five of her senses.

She didn't know when she passed out, but eventually, she did, her white, milky eyes rolling into her head as her body arched back and was once more consumed by reappearing flames.

Akira jolted awake, slamming into a nearby grave with a force that left her with a familiar throbbing pain.

That hadn't been her first nightmare, and definitely not her worst.

Confronting all her fears in a single dream wasn't unusual.

Akira couldn't control them, and she knew it, and it haunted every second of her existence on the face of earth.

She could suicide, she knew, and instantly end her pain, but she was a coward.

And she was weak, as her dream demons had so obviously pointed out to her.

She was ashamed and couldn't do anything about it.

So she was left to pant heavily, stand up, picking up her bag in the process, and going about her usual morning routing to prepare for yet another dreaded school day.