Tadpole Diaries

Nami

Entry: Nami:

-July-

She came here back in March. Nami didn't have a permanent father growing up. Her mother had been through four boyfriends by the time the little girl was eleven. Only one turned out rather decent. The last man who live with them was an abusive drunkard. He would always beat on the girl's mother. Nami couldn't understand why she stayed with someone who made her cry. She couldn't remember a night where there wasn't fighting and screaming. When she was a child, the girl would hide in her room and covered her ears, praying for the bad man to one day go away.

Chou Mori was like this bad man. Only, the abuse was happening to her instead of her mother. Nami couldn't remember the last time she slept properly. She sat against the wall unresponsive. Her mind felt distant from the last round of drugs they injected her with. Different memories flashed in her head.

"You can do no wrong, baby," her mother told her after that horrible night. "I will always love you."

Some love that was.

Nami couldn't remember how or why she ended up here. Was it that bad man? No, that couldn't be possible. Her mother swore up and down that he was gone. That was the reason why she called her home. Nami now wished that she had said no.

Her eyes shifted to her right as she heard someone breathing. The sound alone was enough to rouse her back into consciousness.

"Who's there?" she whispered. Rustling in the dark made her heart beat faster.

"Who are you?" she asked. "What do you want with me?" A tiny pair of good eyes reflexed back at Nami in the darkness. A sense of ease washed over her.

"Oh, it' you," she said.

-January, Two Years Later-

Nami tried to live a normal life again at her school. It didn't help that she was starting to remember her months back in Chou Mori. She had practice of pretending that everything was fine. Nami was good at hiding it from her mother and friends.

Then January eleventh happened.

Nami's day started with serious headaches. She woke up wanting to throw up. The ringing in her ears didn't help. Nami couldn't even keep food down when she ate.

"What's the matter, baby?" her mother asked. Her daughter shook her head and shoved away her food.

"Nami... -chan?" her mother asked. The girl got up from the table and walked out the door.

Namie walked to school with a pain in her head didn't go away. She tried to take slow breaths as she walked. Wishing away the pain would be a dream if it actually worked. Nami went as far as to not make contact with any of her classmates. Their voices sounded so distant and underwater to her. Maybe she could go to the school nurse for pain medication.

Nami found it hard to focus in class. The writing on the board made her eyes string. The teacher's voice sounded muffled and drowned. Nami panted as she could barely write anything on paper. Her body broke down into cold sweats and trembling. She threw down her pencil when it got to be too much for her.

The former patient couldn't remember much of what happened to her from the moment she dropped her pencil to when she locked herself in a bathroom stall. She thought the teacher was calling out to her and running down the hall. Right now, Nami sat on the toilet seat panting with her hand to her chest. The ringing in her ears raised high even to rupture her ear drums. Nami drew her knees to her chest, wishing that she could make the pain go away.

Suddenly, she felt a rippling sensation in her hands. Nami lifted her right hand and water came gushing out of her palm. It didn't take long for it to register in her brain. She could only manage a choked-up scream as the water wouldn't stop flowing from her hand. Buckets and buckets poured out of the stall and flowed the floor. The tadpole girl tried to cover her hand, but the water still came gushing out and flooding the tiny stall. Before she knew it, the rising flood came up to her knees. She looked around the metal walls of her cage.

What am I going to do? If I don't get out of here, I will drown in this stall. Her eyes darted around the trap with her heart racing. She breathing increased as she tried to think. Through her panic, Nami unlocked the stall door and ran out of the girl's bathroom. More water trailed behind her. Halfway back to class, Nami collapse to the soaked floor on her hands and knees, panting.

The last thing she could remember was a world of black before she passed out.