InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Genesis ❯ Six ( Chapter 6 )

A little blurb so this will be easier to understand; Kagome's father was abusive, and she's reliving times when he would lash out at both her and her mother. In this case, in her mind, it's her mother she's seeing.

 

 

 

Kagome locked the door behind her and sank down against it. It hurt to fight with him, it hurt to argue. She didn't understand, and the more she thought about it, the more she realized the better off she'd be if she didn't try to understand it. He wouldn't be here much longer, he would be gone for another thousand or so years, and she probably wouldn't even remember this. So why did she want to remember so badly?

She brought her knees up to her chest and crossed her arms around them, resting her head on her forearms. Her hair pooled around her loosely but she didn't notice or care, and she tried to fight back tears that were suddenly rising. She felt confused and dazed, she was homesick and she wished she could just wake up from this terrible dream. She didn't like fighting… She didn't like yelling.

“You're so stupid!”

A tear fell and she didn't bother to wipe it away, allowing herself this moment of self-pity.

“I'm sorry! I'm sorry!”

Yelling was painful. Fighting was painful. Apologizing, thinking, speaking, feeling; it was all too painful. It reminded her of too many horrible things, too many things from before. Before they had become happy. They were happy, right…? Everything was fine… her mother wasn't depressed, and her brother was doing fine in a stressful environment. She was fine, wasn't she?

Another tear fell, and they continued to flow from her tightly clenched eyes. She had tried so hard, and now she felt alone again. She had tried to rebuild a family that had been so strong, so steady, but she couldn't do it alone. Her mother failed to invest time in them and shut herself in her room, missing meals. Her brother tried to show her he was happy but she could see it in his eyes and hear him when he cried himself to sleep at night.

Was it her fault? Was she so wrong, was she so different that maybe she was the problem? It was hard to cling to dreams that were so fleeting. Some days she felt like giving up and others she wanted to work harder to improve, but in the end it wasn't really making a difference. She needed her mother's help. She was only seventeen; she needed someone who would hold her when she cried.

“Kagome…” A soft, familiar whisper floated through the air and she froze. She sniffed, her nose stuffed from the tears, and slowly lifted her head. She couldn't see over the counter in her position, so she moved to a kneeling position and cautiously looked up to the mirror over the nearby sink. Her eyes widened, blinking with spiky, wet lashes. Her hands gripped the counter so tight her knuckles turned white, and she shakily rose to her feet.

In the mirror was her mother, but at the same time she wasn't. This was her mother from before. This was her mother who had comforted her, who had waved her off to school, who had woken up early every morning to make sure she had had a nice homemade lunch. This was her mother vibrant, full of life, optimistic and a strong foundation for her children. She smiled at her with bright, loving eyes, and Kagome noticed, her hand was clasping her brother's. He was shining with youthful innocence, the look only one with a limited knowledge of the world could have. He beamed at her, and held out his hand.

“Come on, Kaggy! Let's play!”

She smiled, her eyes drying up, as her mother offered her other hand as well. The mirror and the bathroom around her blended into an entirely new world of its own. Flowers blossomed around them in a bright summer's day, clouds scattered in the never-ending azure sky. The sun shone down brightly upon them, and she smiled. It was so easy to accept what she was seeing if only because it had been something she had dreamed about for so long. She wanted her family back. She wanted to be happy.

She took a step towards them, but stopped, warning bells ringing inside her head. Hadn't she been happy once? There had been a time when they had laughed together, curled up on the couch on a Saturday night eating popcorn and watching movies. They had laughed together, and cried to together and it had been worth it. That's what a family was, wasn't it? For her to have worked so hard, and for everything to finally, almost magically, come together it just… didn't seem right. Something held her back and she began to think that she didn't want to join them, that she didn't want to throw everything she had worked so hard for away. And, she thought, I have something else to fight for.

As quickly as the flowers had bloomed, they began to sag and wilt into a sickly brown. The clouds multiplied until they covered the entire sky, blocking out the sun and casting a shadow over the land. Her mother stopped smiling, and her brother let go of her hand, running off to the side until he disappeared. She took a step back, slowly, cautiously, as she struggled to maintain eye contact with her mother. The uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach began to grow, and she reached out behind her with her hands, walking until she felt the cold, smooth unmistakable surface of a mirror.

She turned, running her hands over the giant mirror that blocked her path. It stretched beyond farther than she could see in any direction, and looking up she saw it reached to the top of the sky. She looked around for an exit frantically, and her eyes caught her mother advancing on her, a strange glow about her. She wanted to turn and run, but her feet were rooted to the spot she stood, her palms beginning to sweat against the mirror, her breath coming in shorter and shallower as she fogged the space in front of her mouth.

“I thought you wanted to be happy, Kagome,” came the voice from behind her. Her mother's voice was clear, but there was something underlying it that made a bead of sweat slide down her back.

Her eyes widened as she gazed at the reflection that steadily came closer to her so it was only four feet away now. She wanted to move her hands, but her fingers stuck to the surface of the mirror, and she was near shaking now. Something was wrong, something was very, very wrong and it terrified her.

“I thought you wanted to have a family…Kagome.” Her fingers shook on the glass, as the reflection came and stood right behind her, her mother's head leaning over her shoulder and she could feel the weight resting on her. She shivered, and a tear leaked out of the corner of her eye.

“Come to me, Kagome…” The eyes of her mother widened, and another tear escaped her eyes, trailing down her left cheek to her chin, and falling to the ground below without a sound. The once chestnut eyes that had looked at her with love hardened, and gleamed with whispers of sickening desires. They faded into a blank gray, and then she smiled. Her smile grew, until her mouth expanded beyond what could possible be human and her teeth grew into elongated fangs, smiling at her while another tear escaped, sliding down beside her nose as she shook almost violently. Her eyes began to fade into red, that sickening red that had haunted her since she had entered this world of death and hatred.

“COME TO ME!”

She screamed, her lungs bursting and her throat burning as the once beautiful world around her blurred and faded into black and she felt herself falling into blissful unconsciousness.

 

 

^^

 

 

InuYasha grabbed a lamp off one of the bedside tables and brought it down on the doorknob violently. The base promptly shattered, and her threw the piece of garbage aside, near rage. A minute had almost passed since he'd thrown himself against the door, and the lamp joined a broken chair on the floor near the bed. Fear, something he rarely felt, was rushing through him and his mind went a mile a minute as he tried to figure out how to open the door.

Reaching for his semi-automatics, he fired five rounds into the handle of the door until it was bent and mangled beyond recognition. Using the butt of the gun, he brought it down hard, snapping the metal off and onto the floor with a clunk. Holstering his weapons, he took a step back, braced himself, then brought his leg up and kicked the door. The frame shook, and pieces of dust fell, but the door stayed in place. He brought his foot down upon it again, and he heard the crack of wood shattering on the other side. Gritting his teeth, he kicked once more and the door opened, slamming against the counter and instantly rebounding back.

He stepped in, his hand on the door and noticed the sticky, web-like substance that had kept him from entering sooner. Taking note of it, and then focusing his attention elsewhere, he spotted Kagome lying half on the floor, half in the tub, her head draped over the back at an irregular angle. Something pulled painfully inside him, as he quickly closed the distance between them and noticed that shards of glass had imbedded themselves into various parts of her body. The robe had slid off one shoulder, and he moved it back into place before carefully lifting her from the floor. He scooped his left arm under her legs, and brought his right up to cradle her head. Careful not to hit her on anything, he exited the bathroom, and then went out of the room altogether until he was standing in the middle of the road in front of the inn, wondering what to do next.

The clouds were growing and beginning to block out the sun and he didn't know which way to go. The sky over the city was growing darker, and the sky to his right was still as light as it could be. The farther away they were, he figured, the better it would be. In his arms, Kagome began to shiver and breath in uneven rhythms and he pressed her closer to him as best he could without hurting her. He needed to get the shards of glass out of her and stop the bleeding where she was cut deeply. He turned right and headed off down the road as fast as he could.

 

~~

 

He stopped in a part in the trees and, as he caught his breath, he looked around for some sort of shelter. He knew the odds were against him, but he was starting to run out of time. Swallowing to wet his dry throat, he started to run again, using all his senses to find a resting area.

About thirty minutes ago he had entered a forest that had been off the road to the right, knowing the foliage would buy them time. He had run through in between the trees, sometimes jumping higher from treetop to treetop when the terrain became too rough below. Not long after he had entered, Kagome had escalated from shivering to shaking, and he had stopped to wrap her in his coat before continuing. Her hand had grabbed onto his shirt in a death grip, and even twenty minutes later she hadn't let go.

As he ran, his nose picked up the faint smell of firewood and water. He immediately changed his course and ran towards the location. As he neared, his ears picked up the sound of a small stream, and a small hut came into view a few minutes later. He dashed to the front door and shoved it open, taking in the surroundings.

It was small, and it looked as if it had been abandoned. Not too long ago, he concluded, based on the thin layer of dust and the fading smell of firewood. But it was long enough, and he shut the door behind them, walking in to what seemed to be the main section of the small building. There was a couch and he laid her upon it, tucking in the coat around her. Looking around, her found a pile of old rags and he grabbed them, stuffing them into his pants pocket. He scrounged around in one of the old cupboards until he found a pail, and went outside to fill it with water and wash out the rags, tearing them into smaller strips. He dried most of them, but kept a few wet for cleaning.

Re-entering, he walked towards the couch and pulled up a chair beside her. He carefully removed his coat, and then gingerly pulled off the robe where blood had begun to stick the fabric to the wounds. He arranged the cloth so she was decent, and then he began to assess the wounds. There was a small shard imbedded in her right shoulder, and a scratch stretching from her chin to her temple where another piece had shot by and caught her. Just below her left lung was a large chunk of glass that was by far the most serious, and there was a slow flow of blood coming from it. In her legs were a few small shards, and in her stomach, but they were minimal.

He wet a cloth and dabbed around the wound in her chest, watching her face for a reaction. A bead of sweat slid down her temple and clenched his hand, knowing this was going to hurt her. He examined the angle of entry and deducted the best way to dislodge it without causing more tissue damage. Bracing his left hand on her ribs, to keep her from jerking, he grabbed onto the glass firmly. Counting to three, he pulled, and with a squelching sound the glass came free, dripping with blood while the open wound began to flow more freely. Her body jerked, and even in sleep her fists clenched. Moving into action, he dropped the glass onto the floor beside him and quickly wiped around the wound, using his other hand and a pile of cloth to suppress the bleeding. When he had cleaned it as best he could, he took a fresh pile of cloth and created a makeshift bandage. He lifted her back just enough so he could wrap layers of cloth around her to hold the bandage in place, and set her back down.

He took care of the shard in her shoulder next, and it was easier with less bleeding. He secured the bandage by wrapping it around her just below her arms, alternating between going over the shoulder and around her upper chest again. The other smaller shards in her stomach and leg were the least of his worries, the wounds very shallow, and he cleaned them before he was finished. He wrapped her in his coat, bringing the bloody robe with him outside. He washed off the rags that could be re-used, and emptied the water in the stream, fetching a new bucketful. He scrubbed the robe as best he could, and then brought the rest of the rags back in with him. He tossed the bloody rags into a basin near the door, and put the bucket of water on the ground beside the couch. Walking back to the small kitchen area, he opened a series of cupboard doors and brushed the off with his arm before hanging the cloths and robe over them to dry.

He checked on her once more and noted her breathing was becoming normal, but she was pale. He frowned, and then rose from the chair he had been seated on, and left the hut into the forest.

When he returned, he had two rabbits, and he had managed to grab a few a fish upstream of reasonable size. He shut the door and walked over to the fireplace, if it could be called that. It was little more than a fire pit; the only difference being it had a shaft above it that acted as a release for the smoke and fumes. It was dug into the ground in a corner of the room, surrounded by stone. On the sides closest to the wooden walls, there was a stone barrier built up high enough that sparks and flames wouldn't be able to catch.

He tossed some sticks he had brought with him aside, and looked around, finding some, but not much firewood. He cleared the pit and put the few logs in. He grabbed two smaller stones from the arrangement and struck them until a spark ignited and caught onto the smaller end of a log. He grabbed a pillow from a small chair and ripped it open, using the stuffing as kindle, and he soon had a small fire. It wasn't big enough, so he stood up and looked around the room for something made of wood. He spotted a stool beside the doorway to what looked like a pantry. He grabbed the stool and looked inside to find it, unfortunately, empty. He shrugged and walked back to the fire, making quick work of the stool until it could be used for the fire later.

He took one of the sticks he had brought with him, sturdy but not too thick, and, using his claws, sharpened the ends into spears. He reached for the bucket of water at the nearby couch, and began gutting the fish, washing off the innards and wrapping them in clean sheets of linen. He washed off each fish and set them aside, and went out to change the water. When he returned, he skinned and divided the rabbits into eatable sections, preserving the organs in cloth as well. He had to make two more rounds of fresh water, one for each, but when he was done he had enough meat for at least a meal. He speared a fish and a chunk of rabbit meat, and laid them aside while he angled some more sticks together to form a makeshift holder for food. He set them to cook, and wrapped the wrest of the washed meat in cloth, setting the rest aside for later. Now all he could do was wait.