✃ click green flag ✃ story below, why does everything i write turn into angst ;-; and i listened to isabella's lullaby (slowed and reverb) while writing this, it fits so well. you might want to do that while reading it because it is just so perfecttttt
♢ backgrounds: google ♢ title from hurricane by fleurie implied violence! --- In her fourteen years of time she'd spent on earth, Kiyoto has imagined many different scenarios of her dying. Usually just for kicks, because when you are awake and staring at the ceiling at three in the morning, you don't have anything else to do. This is something she's never imagined. All around her is a deep, dark blue, small little bubbles rising to the surface. She drifts down, and down, and down, until she can't see the splatter of light on the surface anymore. She is freezing. Or is she burning? Kiyoto can feel the air rushing out of her lungs. She can feel her limbs numbing. But despite all that, her mind is oddly serene. She hasn't accepted death. She doubts she ever will. But her brain doesn't race with panic, and her body has no reason to move. Her head begins to cloud, and instead of seeing the void all around her, memories flood into her vision. She isn't in the water. She isn't drowning. She isn't about to die. Instead, she is yelling as her brother runs across the bridge. It crumbles behind him as he stumbles towards her outstretched arms on the other side. She knows this. She knows every single movement he is going to make, every crack on the bridge. And she doesn't want to live through it again. "Kiyoto!" he cries out as she trembles. A tear appears in front of him, and he jumps, expecting her to catch him. So much trust. Wrongly placed trust. Kiyoto grabs his hand. He dangles down below, and she tries to hoist him up. But she herself is slipping, and her palms are sweaty and her breaths are coming out in gasps. That one touch is the barrier between life and death. The black churning pit beneath her brother's feet is death, plain and simple. The light above is hopeful. Life. But she lets him go. Out of some stupid instinct in her brain, she lets him fall. Kiyoto watches as he tumbles, screaming her name, as her angry, desperate tears follow him. She had clung onto the hope he wasn't dead. Maybe he really wasn't, even now, when she was witnessing this traumatic event all over again. Something feels empty inside her. Hollow. He could have made it if he had just leaped over her. She had seen him jump. She knew he could have. Instead, he had trusted her. The scene changes to a house, lit with flames. Kiyoto is standing inside, screaming at the top of her lungs. Her body feels noticeably smaller. She's ten years old. Her powers have awakened. Fire curls around her feet, yet she feels no heat. Her family is waking up, and her brother is staring at her in surprise. Reliving the memory is awful. Burning timbers crash down on her parents. She reaches for them, but the flames weave towards her brother, and she hurriedly pulls back. The sirens are sounding outside, and she backs away and runs out. She's a coward. She watched her parents go up in flames. Doing nothing at all to save them. The cool night air is comforting, but only slightly. Firemen run out of the house, carrying out her little brother, but nothing else. The house slowly crumbles to the ground, and Kiyoto stares with dry eyes. She's too afraid and confused to feel anything. "What am I?" she whispers. "You are the villain of your own story," the voice in her head replies. "No," she says. "I can't be." She wonders briefly how she is speaking if she is underwater, but she doesn't really care. All she wants is for this to be over. "Please, make it stop!" she hisses in desperation. Her brother envelopes her in a hug. "What happened, Kiyoto?" She doesn't answer. She can't. Black edges push into her vision. A strange sensation overtakes her. Fading. Kiyoto can feel herself falling. Her stomach sinks, her hair blows. Or maybe this is what dying feels like. --- "Kiyoto!" A voice, faint and tiny, makes it to her mind. She feels tired. So tired. "Kiyoto! Wake up!" She recognizes the voice, but she can't put a name to it. Suddenly, Kiyoto is coughing up water. She curls up in misery, shaking and sobbing. "It's all right, Kiyoto," another voice says. "You're safe now. You're okay. You're alive." She knows that will never be true.
