Dairy Of Ellen

Awakening (3)

That day.
It was a rather clear, windless day.
The boy came to visit in the early afternoon.
I met him in the entryway and invited him to come inside as usual, but he stopped me.
"Hey, Ellen. You wanna play outside?"
"Outside?"
I stopped with my hand still on the handle.
"I... can't go outside."
"Why not?", the boy asked with honest eyes.
With my eyes swimming around, I said "Um, because, I'm sick."
"Sick?"
The boy carefully looked me over from the red ribbon atop my head, to my one-piece, to the ends of my toes, and laughed.
"How? You're totally healthy, Ellen. Just come out for a little bit, you'll live."
"......"
I said nothing.
"There's this HUGE bug on the log over there, and I wanna know if you know what it's called."
The boy innocently ran off.

...You can't go outside.
The black cat's voice came back to me.
Just afterward, so did the boy's.
...Just come out for a little bit, you'll live.
A sweet invitation.
I pursed my lips.
...Yeah. Just for a little bit.
I was already imagining playing with the boy in the garden a few seconds ahead, and put one foot forward.
And in the next moment -

Wham.
I felt like I was whacked in the head with a mallet and fell to the ground.
Suddenly, my vision blurred. I felt sluggish, like there was something big on top of me.
The boy noticed and hurried back to me.
"What's wrong?!" He held a hand out to me after my trip.
Trip? No, I had not tripped. A sharp pain attacked my joints, rendering me unable to stand.
"U-Um, I just..."
I held my aching right eye. It ached? Why? I felt pain behind my eye, and noticed something warm leaking through my fingers.
"Eek...!"
The boy leaned back, realizing before me that it was blood.

Overreacting to his rejection, I insisted I was fine and forced a smile.
The skin on my cheek heated up and crumbled.
The boy's face went pale and he backed away. He was already quite far away - now it looked like he was about to run.
His frightened face... His eyes were like he'd seen something inhuman.
I was confused myself, but tried to deny what was happening.
"N-No, you see, this is -"
"WAAAAAHHH!!"
Before I could finish, he turned his back on me and fled. He ran desperately, almost tripping over himself.
I reached my arm out for him.

...Why? Why are you running? We'd played together. You were my friend. Why...
I couldn't manage to yell.
My hand became a claw, reaching for the shrinking boy's back.
When I saw the skin on that hand red and swollen, my eyes flew wide open.
"Aaahhh..."

At some point, the black cat had appeared next to me as I lied on the ground.
He had vanished entirely since the boy came along.
"I told you you couldn't leave the house, Ellen," he said, in a sing-songy "I told you so" way.
"After all, Ellen. You were sick, weren't you?"
As if that word were a signal, my whole body shook. A familiar pain crawled up my legs and face. I felt a chill, yet the swollen areas of my skin and the backs of my eyes were horribly hot.
I looked down at my red, sore legs, then frightened at the cat.
"My sickness wasn't cured?"
"'Course it wasn't. You didn't do anything."
I felt like I'd been pushed off a cliff.
I thought everything was settled when I became a witch.
When I became a witch, had I not been reborn?

"You lie."
"I don't," he said with a swing of the tail.
"You can be healthy inside the house. Because you're protected by magic. But once you leave, it wears off. And you're back to normal. Particularly since you were sick, it's really best not to go out. So now you know."
The black cat raised an ear.
"And now you've made another one run."
"Another one"?
His phrasing made me s.h.i.+ver. Because it made me feel like he knew my past, and how my parents gave up on me because of my sickness.
The fleeing boy overlapped with the images of my abandoning mother and my father who never looked at me.

"But it's alright, Ellen, you see? Even if you can't cure your illness, a witch can't die."
"...What do you mean?"
"I mean you can live forever."
Since he said it so casually, I didn't immediately understand the gravity of it.
Forever?
"That's right," the cat answered to the voice in my heart.
"Even if you let your sickness advance, and your legs rot away, and you go blind, and your face gets so swollen you can't even tell who you are, you can live," he grinned, "forever. Because you're a witch."
His words circled around in my head, and my vision went black.
I had delighted to see myself in the mirror. Now, in my imagination, the mirror was cracked, and crumbling to pieces.
...Forever?
Would I live, still sick, forever?
If I couldn't be cured, wouldn't everything be the same as it had been? No, it would be even worse. To keep living with my sickness. To not die even as it worsened. I wouldn't be able to leave that house. Would I be bound to live there - forever?
Because I was a witch.

Because I was a witch, he said.
I wanted to tear at my body, like I'd done before. But I resisted it. Because I knew it wouldn't solve anything. And because someone else was watching. And his heart would be pleased to see my emotions s.h.i.+fting.
I trembled face-first on the ground, and prayed that this was just a dream. But I couldn't calm my labored breathing and just let time pa.s.s.
Gradually, the impatience and sadness swirling inside me consolidated into a single emotion.
It was hatred for the black cat.
I endured the pain in my legs to stagger to my feet. Grinding my teeth hard enough I thought the back ones might break, I looked down at him.
I had meant to glare at him, but with the stinging pain in my eyes, I couldn't focus. Still, I stared down the black demon before me.
He was waiting for me to take refuge back inside.
He was waiting for me to complain and plead for help.
I wouldn't grant him that.

"Oh, c'mon, Ellen. Don't give me that look, you're embarra.s.sing me," he said, not at all perturbed.
I took a breath before yelling at him. But I didn't yell, and instead spoke across a long breath.
"...Why would you do that?"
My voice came out lower than expected.
The black cat didn't answer.
I continued.
"What's the point?"
He said nothing.
I went on in the verge of tears.
"If this is, is how it's going to be, then I, I'd..."
"Rather just die?", he interrupted. My body shook.
I'd rather just die. I opened my mouth to agree, but only a slight breath escaped; my throat would make no sound.

The cat shrugged his shoulders.
"Weren't you cold, in that alley? You didn't have a house or anything anymore. You wanted someplace warm."
The cat spoke in his usual way. He wasn't scorning me, nor acting c.o.c.ky.
"I gave you what you wanted. I wouldn't think you should hate me for that. Warm food, knowledge, friends, oh, and I'm a friend too. And a healthy body to boot. Well, or so it seems, at least."
I heard my pulse starting to pound.
"You didn't even know. But you needed to."
"Know what?"
I tried to stay strong, but my voice trembled.
"Just how unhappy you were."
I looked at the black cat with an expression of disbelief.
He paid it no heed and went on.
"A human who doesn't know warmth simply freezes to death. But one who does knows they're cold as they die. So they're unhappy. Get it? You were unhappy. But if you died like that, you'd be happy. You should have known your unhappiness."
"Don't be ridiculous!"
I screamed, turning pale. I didn't want to hear any more. The strain made either blood or tears flow from my right eye down my swollen cheek.
I should have known?
"That's ridiculous..."
I felt my feeble resistance crumbling. I was dizzy, and about to faint.

I couldn't fully understand what the black cat was saying.
But I felt I had the gist of it.
I'd learned all manner of things in this house. I had the freedom of a healthy body. The enjoyment of learning things I didn't know. And I could play with friends. I had all kinds of possibilities.
Now that I knew all these things, the reality of my sickness, compared to the time when I knew nothing, was much more severe.
I felt like I was being made to dance on his palm. The black demon's eyes saw through everything, forgiving nothing.

All of a sudden, I noticed I was gripping a knife materialized in my right hand.
The cat who had yet to show any movement s.h.i.+fted his gaze. He saw the knife and whistled.
"Just destroy everything you don't like, eh? Nice. Nice and simple. I like the cut of your jib. But I think there's another way."
I screamed and swung the knife down on the black cat.
It didn't matter where I hit. I just wanted to make the slightest dent in his carefree tone.
He didn't dodge.
The knife slipped right through his ribs, the blade sinking pleasantly deep into his organs.
He showed no pain, bulging his golden eyes up at me.
I didn't take my hand off the knife, and he didn't take his eyes off me.
"It's important that you shout "it's cold," Ellen."
Behind his usual carefree voice was a sharp coldness.

I wanted to run away right then and there, but my eyes only swam, and my body wouldn't move.
The cat nimbly leapt up and pushed me down.
He forcefully stepped on my swollen cheek with a front paw.
I screamed. The intense pain of him directly touching the nerves in my cheek rippled through my body.

The cat brought his face close to me and opened his mouth. The knife still protruded from his side.
He whispered.
"You just want to live? Live a long life? No, you have a desire. Say it, Ellen. Tell me what it is you can't bear not to have."
...He was right, but I didn't want to tell him.
I turned away. But he wouldn't let me escape, and continued to whisper.
"You weren't loved. Not by anyone. Your father didn't look at you, your mother abandoned you. Even though you weren't loved, even though you wanted to love them. Yes, because of your sickness, you weren't loved. How strange. There's no reason not to. You really should have been. Say, even that boy abandoned you when he found out you were sick. How cruel. It's all because of your sickness. You know what you want, don't you? What you really want, from the bottom of your heart. Don't you? You can't go back to that cold, dark alley."

His every word stabbed at my heart.
I didn't want to hear it. I shouldn't have. My ears tried to filter out every word, every syllable he said.
"I..."
As I moaned, enduring the pain, I found my moaning turned to wailing.

...I knew. He didn't have to tell me.
I wasn't loved. And I wanted to love. So I wanted a human friend. I longed for someone else.
But wasn't it all a lie?
Even the boy ran away when he saw the real me.
Just like mother and father.
I would forever be unloved.
Because the curse of my sickness would go on forever.

I cried, like a deserted child. Like a child realizing no one would come to pick them up, so they just kept crying.
I thought I would never have anything ever again.
With no one loving me, my spirit would rot in this house.
All because of my foolish choice.
Because I had naively accepted to become a witch.

My heart sunken into despair, I could see nothing.
There was no ray of light in the darkness.
Just when I was about to hear nothing as well,
I heard him whisper.

"I'll teach you a spell to cure your illness."

My ears rang and my hair stood up on end.
I stopped crying and stared at the black cat. I felt the warm sunlight on my skin again. Come to think of it, it was still early afternoon.
The cat stepped off my body. With a whip of his tail, my body returned to as it had been.
I felt the pain and unpleasantness soften. The appearance of being cured calmed my heart.
The black cat confirmed the hope in my eyes and spoke.
"How, you might ask? Simple."
He wore his usual innocent expression.
"Just feed me like you did before," he moved his mouth.
"I gave you magic because you let me eat your father and mother. Same thing," moved his mouth.
"I told you there was another way, didn't I?", his mouth.
"That's exactly what this house is for," it continued to move.
"Feed me more people. And I'll teach you a spell to cure yourself."

The cat trotted toward me. He casually put a paw on my shoulder, coming near enough to my ear to eat it.
And I heard his mouth smack open as he said,

"You can have anything you desire. Because you're a witch."