Dawn

Prologue: Faked Darkness

Her weakened body laid on the wooden floor, her placid eyes staring at the ceiling. She pensive about them. The happiness and joy they brought her, replacing the bitterness inside of her. The insanity---it was gone, it didn't linger around her anymore. All of the excruciating torment and torture since infancy was over, now being eaten away by an unknown rapture. She had never been so . . . carefree. She cherished every moment she had with them. The foreign feeling of laughter, the words that she managed to spoke, erased from her once happy childhood. And now she wonders, why did they take her away? They could have saved the trouble, just slaughter her without a second thought like an animal. Why would they want her?---she was a monster, a beast that should have been left in the wild to die. But still, they took her in, treated her like a human. No maltreatment, as if she was just a mere creature. Like she was human.

She could hear the clamorous thunder, fighting the shifting sea. She remembered when she was just a little girl, she and a fear of thunder. She remembered that her "mother" had comforted her, saying that it was just god moving his furniture. And then she asked: "Why does god move his furniture so much?" and her mother would just feign a smile, made by her years of acting. How gifted she was at acting, she easily deceived the gullible girl.

The memories of her infancy was just a sweet nightmare. She was never truly loved. She was just given false sweetness, being fondled by her mother, who forsaken her at an early age, allowing her to sink into true bitterness. All through her life was torture, up until these past few days, with her captors who managed to make her laugh. Laugh. It was a peculiar feeling, yet so sweet.

And now her life was being thrown back into darkness. She had been toyed by the three: false sweetness, genuine tenderness, and unfeigned sourness. Have she been through faked darkness? She probably never will.

"Of course I love you, sweetheart!'

Those words that she thought were real. They resonated through her head endlessly, haunting her. The past is in the past, they say. But those recollections were cursed. They were old. But why did they still continue to linger in her mind? Those words should already be incinerated. They shouldn't be here.

"Of course I love you, sweetheart!"

Lies. Lies galore everywhere. Just a fake statement that was never meant to come. Just a sentence that was never meant to be said. They only wanted her gone, they only wanted her life to disappear. Because she held that incurable disorder. Why did she abandoned her? It wasn't contagious. She wouldn't become infected. It just wasn't fair. Her life could have been normal and happy, even if an ailment stood in the way.

"Of course I love you, sweetheart!"

Why was she disposed of? The agonizing screams in her head, being tormented by voices of the past. Her mother was the only person she had. Her father, Haneda Takumi. A fraud. He never cared about her, always doing his things. Her siblings. Five other children. Three boys, and two girls. She was the oldest child, yet they've never paid much attention to her. She tried to play with them. But they just ran away.

She becomes envious every time her mother played with them. Much more joyful, because they weren't diagnosed with a frightening illness. Because they are normal.

"Of course I love you, sweetheart!

Those bland words that was forced to come out of her pink lips, trying to be vehement. She had heard the parents said that too. She noticed how they were different. How genuine it was compare to the rancorous mouth of her mother. But of course, being the naive child she was, she just shrugged it off, thinking that they were the one who was fake.

She felt a wet tear form in the corner of her left eye. She felt it streaming down. And then she started weeping, rivulets endlessly falling. Shanks. That was his name. Beckman, Roo, Yasopp, and other members of the crew. They made her happy. And then it faded away, because of these voices. All of the hard effort was suddenly swept away.

"I love you."

The words of hatred, burning vehemently, yet they were hidden. The last moment of her life. Dying in sadness, instead of the anticipated joy. No smile, just a frown.

"I . . . I'm sorry . . . th . . . that I wasted your . . . efforts . . . ." She hugged her knees, waiting for death to greet her. All of those ecstatic memories prevailed by recollections. Her life is fading.

"SATSUKI! WE FOUND A CURE!"

A sudden miracle.

Faked darkness.

***

This is for shibalove's continuation of Dusk.