InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Black Cherry ❯ Just a Nightmare? ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

By: Erikah

Chapter One

Just a Nightmare?

I felt cold and comparatively nauseous.

Fear was practically breathing down my neck and trying to burst open my heart in its boorish clutches, but with every heartless attempt it made to squeeze it, it slipped out from underneath its fingertips and the whole battle-for-death thing started all over again.

I salvaged what little I could of the whispers currently filling up the car and fending off the pregnant silence. But I was far from satisfied. I could hardly make out any words and was left arranging sentences while my thoughts drifted aimlessly in the dark. So far, my results were: “She must be taken to Tasha,” and, “Why? He would heal her.”

Remarkably, this one by far was the most intelligible: “I dinky's hot.”

These poorly cooked up sentences raced through my mind repeatedly throughout the entire ride and slowly chased away the fear simmering in my chest, only to replace it with peaceful thinking and emotions. But as soon as the vehicle jerked to a complete stop, simultaneously did all of my sweet and tranquil feelings and supposedly paradisiacal ponderings. I sensed the return of both loneliness and fear shuddering up my back like claw-tips dancing threateningly along human flesh.

I whimpered like a child isolated from the reassuring warmth of her parents and thrown out into the uncaring cold to provide her own warmth…her own means for protection. The heartless chill wrapped about my body like a vivacious rope of ice and left a discomforting feeling of distress and pessimism in its windy, slithering wake.

Please, I kept pleading inside my throbbing head. Just let it stop. Oh please…just let it stop.

In the long run, I was relieved for a couple of things: First for the capsizing of my thoughts. And second for the pleasant vacuity taking over my mind.

However, such a feeling of happiness, of stress-relieving thankfulness, was short-lived. A burst of red flashed behind my eyes like fireworks skyrocketing up into a moonless, jet-black sky. Once the vehicle reeled to a stop, I was left strewn raggedly along its bumpy floor, packed in tightly by the backseats and the smooth hind of the front seat. I could've sworn something in my body popped out of place, but I furiously displaced the thought. As I tried to grab hold of something sturdy, something that could help me gain back my bearings, I murmured darkly beneath my breath, “What more can possibly go wrong now?”

Two doors opened and slammed shut at the same time, like the prelude to an ominous hymn.

I could feel the hairs on my back slowly begin to stand on end as I allowed the silence to sweep me away with its cool, ghost-like fingers. I couldn't breathe and, suddenly, the car that I was in seemed to be closing in on me as it transformed itself into a nice compact made for two inside my mind.

Oh…god…

I quickly scrambled into the backseat, deliberately choosing to ignore the fact that my skimpy, leather skirt was diminishing into nothing right before my startled eyes, baring my already cold hips to the world. I dully realized that my feet were stinging and crying out for relief. Just barely curbing my heavy, uncontrollable pants, I sunk further into the leathery cushions and spent a long couple of seconds blinking my eyes, unable to do anything else to subdue my jittery nerves. Furtively, I reached out to jiggle the handle on the door nearby only to realize that a mere child lock separated me from wide, open plains of freedom.

To say I felt suffocated was quite an understatement.

To say I felt scared was as oversimplified as feeling suffocated.

I sucked in the sides of my mouth as I tried to collect what little of my composure remained beneath the frenzied chaos of emotions raging inside me. I barely noticed when the door beside me flung wide open and revealed a menacing shadow that emerged as a male bodybuilder inside my thought-muddled mind.

I hiccupped…nervously.

“You're coming with me,” a deep voice rumbled, almost brimming with hostility.

No, I take that back. It was brimming with hostility.

I whimpered and reeled back to escape the large, hairy, brutish-looking hand lunging for my arm. I lost my bearings completely when I struck the backseat huddled on the far left, my hands zipping through the darkness and seizing blindly, clenching and unclenching in an effort to find some imaginary, guide railing.

I can't believe this is happening!

I fell until I came in contact with something hard and unyielding beneath my fast-settling weight. My head jerked and bobbled until some imperceptible force lobbed it upside the ruthless surface of the foot of the passenger door. I gasped softly as dizziness pervaded my body and my mind. The large shadow before me blurred and wavered until it became so indistinguishable that I actually thought I was looking into an endless void of black.

And it wasn't long before I truly was.

ii. Interlude

“What is it that you want from me?”

“What I want is for you to start acting like a mother instead of some unkempt whore!”

A slap and a piercing gasp resounded through the cold darkness swarming the spacious bedroom.

Dappled moonbeams explored along the folds of the lace curtains covering an opened window nearby the bathroom door. It billowed languidly like oceanic waves, moving with the gentle flow of a whistling breeze. Quietly, it continued to dance to some unheard rhythm even as a voice poisoned with disdain, breached the barrier of silence.

“How dare you. How dare you!”

iii. Mr. Man

I aroused, head spinning, in a world of darkness.

The air was insufferably chilly and my skin felt tight and scaly with rabid goose bumps. My tongue wriggled slightly, bringing forth to my attention the uncomfortable amounts of dryness settling inside my mouth. I frowned and moved my head to the side, sighing noiselessly at the soothing flood of softness that rose up to caress my warm cheek. I sighed even louder once I felt the same, familiar softness float up to greet my achy arms and legs, lending some leisure to my sore joints.

“Oh God,” I whispered, the words falling from my mouth in a hiss of released air, “I must be in heaven.”

But where are the bright lights? I guess Satan is just trying to butter me up before I set foot on his actual grounds.

“Hmm…heaven, huh?” a smooth, gentle—non-hostile, I noticed—voice slipped into my ears like liquid chocolate, a voice from one corner of the murky emptiness surrounding me, “But if you think so, go right on ahead. Meh. But I do think Inuyasha's bedroom is a whole lot better. However, I can't hold this room up to such high standards while regarding the fact that this is nothing but a tiny island compared to his vast isle.”

I didn't feel like coming to an upright position to look around. Instead, I felt more comfortable just lying down on my backside, continually wondering, Why in the world is this person talking about bedrooms of all things? And who is…Inuyasha?

No reason as to why the person was talking on and on about bedrooms came to me. Neither did a good hunch as to who this Inuyasha person could be. So I sat there quietly, listening, hoping, and sharpening my awareness to pick up on anything that sounded the least bit like a clue on how to get out of there. Yet, I knew. I didn't need a six pound, pink elephant to suddenly appear out of nowhere and tell me that there were no possible beneficial points that I could reap from a lecture about bedrooms. It just wasn't probable.

Once my mind was just beginning to run astray, the voice concluded with a deep sigh, “I'm boring you with my long digressions, aren't I?”

Blinking my eyes a couple of times, I wasn't expecting for the darkness around me to dematerialize so quickly into a burst of blinding, coppery light that stung my eyes like acid and caused me to recoil pitifully like a snail. I made quite a laborious effort to make a larger dent in the flat thing cradling my weight so that I could hide from the light, so that my valuable eyesight could still be deemed “valuable.” But I already knew from the get-go and the get-around that that was the most futile thing in the world to do.

“Ahhh…I see you weren't prepared for that…” came the voice again, yet it held a smoother and gentler edge to it.

No duh, Einstein.

Blinking my eyes and adjusting them to the lights, I folded my legs to the side and sat up. It didn't take long before my eyes landed on a semi-muscular figure dressed in an elaborate, storm-gray vest with a dressy, red, silk shirt that completely covered his thick arms. He wore pants the same color as his vest, and shiny, black shoes that glimmered as if just purchased from an upscale shoe store. His hat added a nice finishing touch to his admirable ensemble with its wide, gray brim and crown, which was trimmed in the same rich, satiny material that made up his shirt.

But his genial, stark-lavender eyes stood out acutely amid his garb like two swore thumbs. They opened the windows to my soul as if it were nothing, and left a very warm feeling to settle in the pit of my stomach like lava. The lava soon began to bubble and rise, shedding the warmth to uncomfortable sectors within my chest and around my heart, pooling there, just gurgling and waiting for my cataclysmic emotions to cause a shockwave that would unleash a devastating eruption.

Yet a wave of coolness snuffed out the blistery heat lapping at my innards as I scrutinized the eyes a bit further, a bit more thoughtfully. “Your eyes…” I murmured.

The young man walked over to the edge of the vast bed I was sitting on. Casually, he sat on the sparkling, gold comforter and stared at me with a friendly smile on his face and a foreign glint in his eyes which easily made my heart jerk against my ribcage.

My eyes widened slightly. I gulped and blushed before opening my mouth to say something else, but, thankfully, I was interrupted by the man's voice before I could start fumbling with the first word lodged in my throat.

“What about my eyes?”

“Well, ummm…” My hands roved down to the soft material bunched beneath me, clenching, groping, and moving along it nervously.

“Do they make you…melt?”

“They're deceiving,” I quickly blurted out.

“Deceiving, eh?” he sounded shocked, yet his smile stretched against the release of wholesome laughter and proved differently, “That's quite the first. Most women say that my eyes take away from the most unappealing of my assets.”

Instinctively, I asked, heart pounding brutally against my chest like a caged bird and keeping most of the words I was prepared to say shackled inside my throat, “And…what…necessarily…would those be?”

His dark eyebrows waggled at me noticeably as the grin on his face diminished into a devious leer and a hand wrapped in a black, fingerless, leather glove and reddish-brown beads, inched toward me like a spider crawling along a web.

“Miroku!” A new voice exclaimed warningly from the opposite end of the room.

Impulsively, my head shot up to acknowledge the door to the bedroom, which was hanging wide open to accommodate the broad-shouldered figure slumped against its doorframe. My lips formed a slight `O' as the figure's eyes cut deep into my own like sharp, otherworldly, golden blades. I suddenly grew unaware of my rumpled state even though I knew I looked as if the cat probably dragged me in.

My thoughts, my eyes, were glued strongly, heavily on the strapping, young male who stood in the doorway with his arm pushed sideways against the wooden frame and his head lazing just barely across his knuckles as if he were about to doze off.

His expression was breathtaking, a beautiful mix of serenity and boyish grandeur. His eyes were soulful, brimming with emotion. His hair, oh his hair, was very long compared to my own and it glistened an unforgettable color with a type of a brilliance that emulated that shed by the strands of Indian elders.

I wanted to believe for a moment that he was some irresistible, pretty boy who probably modeled for a wealthy line of undergarments and was the apple of every woman's eye. I even wanted to believe that he only came there to sweep me up into his arms and lock us both away in his bed chambers for all eternity, but that seemed a little too extravagant.

The man sitting on the bed sighed and got back to his feet, all plans that he might've had in store for me pushed aside. The springs squeaked happily as he hoisted himself up from the foot of the bed and trudged stagnantly in the direction of the door.

I just kept staring.

“You're supposed to be with the other group,” the man's low voice floated to me almost inaudibly from the doorway, making my legs melt some into the comforter and a soft breath to spill from my chest through my mouth.

“I know,” Miroku answered and peered vaguely over his shoulder at me, a licentious shadow playing along the rim of his gaze, “But I couldn't resist the alluring, unprotected game that lay so innocently before me.”

I swallowed and flushed deeply as my heart began to bounce up and down, choking me momentarily and causing a little cough to leave my throat. Idrew my hand up to my chest and looked down at the bed timidly.

The other man brusquely exhaled a terse snort of laughter through his nose. The sound probed temptingly at my curiosity and made me glance up at him with startled, owlish eyes. Dimly, I noticed that he was wearing the same outfit as Miroku, glove, beads, and top not included.

“Innocent,” he said, as if testing the word on his tongue for even halfway decent flavor, yet failing miserably, “She's a street-side hooker, Miroku, not some majestic angel from heaven.”

Miroku's eyes promptly swerved to land on the ones adjacent to him, a light smile playing along his lips. He stood there silently for a couple of seconds before I actually saw his jaw move subtly along with his lips. He was talking so softly now that I couldn't make out a single word.

I began to strain myself to catch snatches of the conversation, though I did so a little too late. The man in the doorway moved out of the way and allowed Miroku to walk past him. After Miroku was gone, the silver-haired dreamboat refilled his rightful spot in the opening, eyes watching me intently and boring into mine threateningly.

I looked at him, half-frightened and half-dazed. Wordlessly, he started for me with broad, semi-graceful strides. My eyes followed him all the while even as he sat down on the edge of the bed closest to me and reached for the drawer handle to a nightstand that I wasn't even remotely aware of until now. The drawer emitted a long hiss as he pulled it open.

Carefully, I started to ease away from him. Something didn't feel quite right.

I watched quietly, shakily as his long, slender fingers reached into the drawer and withdrew gradually. Once they resurfaced, my heart stopped and I froze, eyes wide. I gawked as the tip of a gun gleamed maliciously at me over his shoulder. When it clicked, I whimpered pathetically and scrambled ferociously to get off the bed and make a run for it. Yet, before I could even prepare to throw myself over the edge, a powerful force snagged my arm and thrust me onto my backside. Bone-crushing weight settled on my frail body and pinned me to the bed like a large boulder.

I sniffled as silver hair and amber eyes invaded my teary-eyed gaze.

“Please, no!” I cried out, “Don't do this! Please…no…please don't do this! Please!”

He was on top of me, straddling my torso with a menacing smirk on his lips and a sadistic gleam in his eyes that ushered forth a golden flame to bleed freely from their pupils. I felt something pointy frolic along my bare stomach and sobbed louder, “Please, stop! I beg of you! Please!”

I squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to struggle against him, but that only added onto the pain of him sitting on top of me.

When I reopened my eyes, I found myself staring into the barrel of a gun, his finger already poised on the trigger.

No…not this way…I don't want to die like this!

The prickly sensation lingering on my abdomen proceeded lazily northward.

I wracked against his clamping legs with uncontrollable sobs. Through the bleariness of my tears, I could've sworn I saw a fleeting glimpse of fangs before his lips advanced on mine savagely.

No, my mind shrieked, Stop it!

But my body defiantly proclaimed otherwise as I sensed several pointy tips play along the bottom curve of my right breast.

I breathed in blissfully deep when the kiss ended and his lips were but mere inches apart from mine. My fear, unfortunately, was restored tenfold when I felt something cold and metallic rub against my temple.

“Now, Kikyo,” he spoke softly against my wet lips, his breath chilling them, “where is he?”

“W—what are you talking about?”

He grinned lightly and pulled the gun away from my temple only to bury the barrel into the coverlet beside my head. He pulled the trigger and I screamed as the bullet tore from the gun's insides with a roar that was hardly smothered by the bedding's rich fabric.

Silently, his thumb curled to pull the hammer back and release it. Underneath all my fretful deluge of emotions, I realized that his nails were unusually long and sharp like…like…

Claws, I whispered inwardly.

He replaced the gun back against my temple. “I'm not going to repeat myself again, Kikyo. Where…is…he?” he questioned, his words coming out forebodingly slow and steady, eyes never leaving mine.

iv. Interlude

“How dare me! How dare me!”

Thefeminine voice flailed throughout the darkness in a rush of heatwaves as the wind picked up outside and caused the curtain's movements to hasten.

“Mom, Dad is never coming back and it's all because of you, you and your dirty life!”

“Kagome…”

“He told you, he begged of you to stop playing your little whore-games…”

An exhalation of breath…a half-sob…

“I know…I know he did, but…but that's not the reason why he hasn't come back…”

“Yes it is…I know it is. Because of y—”

“Silence! You act like you know everything when you really don't! You're nothing but a baby, Kagome…”

“Iie. I'm nothing but a teenager.”

“Regardless, you will forever by mybaby.”

A hiccup…a whimper…

“Just tell me why he isn't back yet, Mama. Just…tell me why.”

Silence.

“He's…he's dead, Kagome.”