Marionette

Skies, Chapter Thirty Seven - Shinsui Torikago [浸水鳥かご]

An otherworldly chime echoed through the depths of her slumber, bouncing all around the darkness inside her head.

It was a familiar sound, one she hadn't heard in many years though she'd never forget it.

It reminded her of the limelight waters, of a room with no visible walls, of a world she longed to never recall again.

But at the same time, it reminded her of a woman she could never see in the world of the living.

Melancholic, apathetic, and perhaps the embodiment of despair.

It was a sound that reminded her of just one person in the whole world, one who exhibited those three words at the very same time, throughout the whole stretch of time Amaya had known them.

And it wasn't her mother.

Amaya's memories of Yukariko were often conflicted – The Yukariko before her illness set in was always so heartbroken, lost in a world of bittersweet regrets, while the Yukariko that Amaya remembered most clearly was already broken, far beyond repair.

The other woman that existed in memories sewn into dreams was just the same, though in an opposing way to how Yukariko had been.

Heartbroken, forced to watch on the sidelines, and already broken to pieces inside. However, unlike Yukariko where she lost her will to live, the other clung to her regrets desperately.

It was because of this that the other woman was still in the world of living.

The otherworldly chiming eventually tugged at her, drawing her back to the waking world. It was almost by instinct that she woke up to this sound in her dreamless sleep.

Because much like her other dreams, it would lead to sewn memories before long.

The world around her was dark as Amaya found herself waking up, perhaps the early hours of the morning?

She had no way of telling as she was, and in truth she honestly couldn't care less about what time it was.

Because the more of her senses she regained, the more she began to realize that there was something very, very strange going on.

Or rather, that something strange had happened.

She found that she wasn't asleep in her room, and she was still dressed in her school uniform. What was stranger still was that the television was on, and a DVD was playing the looped menu animation of a different movie over and over again, casting faint light over the living room.

Amaya didn't quite recall the events that had lead up to this point in time – In truth, the most she remembered was that she had come home alone after Reiko had decided to stay at Shigure's place to spend more time with Yuta.

The rest of it was blurry, probably because she'd been so mentally drained.

And it wasn't helping that she was still feeling the effects of that damned can of gas Terasaka had dosed the classroom in – Her head was a little stuffy and her sense of smell was still out of whack.

She didn't take a lot of notice of the fact that she was upright for the most part, her arm not squished against her side lifting so she could absent-mindedly rub the sleep out of her eyes.

At least until felt something resting atop her head shift slightly, causing Amaya to freeze up from the fright.

It was this second that she actually began to pick apart her current situation.

Upright, in the living room, and as she managed to shift her rather squished arm, she realized she was propped up against something.

Or rather someone, causing her to begin to panic inside.