InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sleep Paralysis ❯ The Loneliness Which Consumes Me ( Chapter 3 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Kagome stared at the knees of the nervous girl who stood before her, attempting to introduce herself to Kagome who just seemed to utterly ignore her complete existence.

“My… name is Keikan Sango... uhm…” Sango looked down at the top of the girl's head, noting the unhealthy limpness of the midnight blue-black hair. The slight girl didn't move, didn't speak… and hardly even breathed. It was as if her life was composed of making sure she went unnoticed.

A living statue.

“I… was just wondering, if I could sit with you… I'm new. So… I thought… maybe…” Sango found herself trailing off, at a loss of words at the simple fact the girl did not even state anything to her.

She hadn't responded to the sound of Sango's voice. It was so queer, that Sango wasn't even sure how to respond to the given situation. No one had outright ignored her before, like she was nothing but thin air.

I don't even know her name...

Looking around, she found no other spaces vacant. It seemed as if the entire corner was specifically designated for the obvious outcast.

At the thought, Sango's heart gave the slightest sympathetic spasm.

No one seemed to even notice it was there. Sango fidgeted, wondering if it was all right...

No time like the present...

So, Sango sucked in a huge breath, and just sat.

Yet, no verbal reprimand came. The girl just sat there, looking slightly in the opposite direction. Though, occasionally, she did take a small bite of her sandwich.

Nothing more.

With nothing else to do with herself, Sango sat there in silence, eating her own food.

What was she to do? Other kids seemed to detest Sango because of her American accent, despite the fact she was fluent in Japanese and clearly at least part Japanese… she was mixed, what could she do about it?

Besides, it wasn't uncommon those days anymore. Everyone was a freaking mutt.

Was this just a stuck up side of town, or was it just her?

Sighing heavily, Sango just finished off her lunch. There was nothing else to do, besides just continue on with her day.

The fact her father got a job here couldn't be changed.

So she'd just have to make the best of it.


The next day, Sango found the same girl in the same place with the same expression and the same reaction to her being. She seemed to be not unwelcome, but inversely her presence did not seem to be on hospitable grounds with the girl.

All Sango could do was just sit down, and continue with her meal quietly.

This very thing continued for several days on end, and very soon Sango began to grow restless of the never ending silence.

So she talked, even if it was one-sided.

About the stupidest things ever…

Books, sports, friends, art, school, family, nature, religion, mythology, ideas, boys, girls… the whole nine yards. Whatever was on Sango's mind, she talk about relentlessly, just for the sheer and simple fact that it was better than listening to the noiselessness.

The white static of the nothingness behind her…

And this girl had never made any indication she ever heard a single word Sango had ever said.

She wasn't deaf, Sango knew, because she heard the bell whenever it sounded.

Was she… well, mentally challenged? She felt guilty for thinking such a thought.

But for the life of her Sango couldn't figure it out.

And Sango certainly started letting her curiosity get the better of her… her mother had always told her that her nosiness had always been one of her worst habits.

Always butting into other people's business, especially when she wasn't wanted.

Eventually after about two weeks of the silence, Sango noticed the bruises on her for the first time, carefully concealed by way Kagome wore her uniform. She had chosen the knee-length skirt, and had long sleeved shirts, even in the midday heat. It didn't keep her from noticing the huge bruises on her inner thighs when she went to reach for a chopstick that had fallen down underneath the table one day.

But Sango couldn't bring herself to say anything about them.

Faded, barely there, but always there.

Always new ones.

Always fresh ones.

Too precise for anything to make sense. Or perhaps, making too much sense.

The thought that the girl was being abused crossed her mind, drawing Sango to her more than ever. Her inherent nature to want to help people, to be their savior making Sango want to get to know her better...

So Sango began to watch her from afar, watching this new infatuation in the shadows of the passing days. She had concluded it was the only way she'd get to figure out this walking engima somehow, someway. Someway to help this poor girl that was so locked inside of herself...

Not like she was going to divulge the secrets of her heart to Sango tomorrow.

Sango snorted at the image, so utterly ridiculous it was.

Though she noticed in all her snoopings no one else talked to the girl. No one noticed the girl as she glided through the halls ethereally, or tripped for no apparent reason, or breathed heavy against the wall with fluttering eyelids as if trying to supress an extreme discomfort.

No one noticed the pained winces, the weakness in which the girl held herself.

Sango knew the girl wasn't stupid. She was taking a few honors classes. Sango had a couple of her normal classes since she had transferred, and a few others were in the same building.

And all this confused Sango to no end.

What's wrong with her...?

She was determined to find out, whatever it was.

And she had a feeling it wasn't good.

At all.

Kagome stared at the same exact sandwich her mom had made her for the past four weeks straight and she very nearly wanted to scream at it with undiluted hatred and rage and throw it to the ground. Stamp on it like a child.

Something has to fucking change already!

And if couldn't be her fucking life, couldn't it be the stupid shit that changed? Like a peanut better and jelly sandwich…?

How about peanut butter and banana?

Anything… absolutely anything… the consistency was torture and routine made Kagome restless to the point of insanity.

Grimacing slightly at the thought, she forced down another bite.

As if I'm not already…

According to the psychologists, she was completely insane. But only subconsciously. Her conscious mind was healthy and kicking, according to them.

But then again, what did the fucking ordinary masses know?

Absolutely fucking nothing…

Turning her head slightly, she noticed the new girl who addressed herself as `Sango' approach the table. Again.

She had been coming to that table for very near three weeks now, and she couldn't understand why. Moreso, despite the fact Kagome said nothing, the girl talked. A lot.

Some things interested Kagome, some things didn't. It was that simple.

Half the time she was too dazed to understand the conversation. It was getting harder and harder to step into the waking world, fatigue gripping the edges of her mind and blurring the world into one unrecognizable mass.

Is one girl talking to another who doesn't even say anything for days on end really considered a `conversation'? Doesn't a `conversation' take two people?

Kagome seriously considered this.

According to `normal' people, yes.

But Kagome found herself speaking to nothing but air plenty of times, despite the fact she both knew and didn't know better.

Her instincts said she was answered every step of the way, and her logic told her that was the insanities of a sleep-depraved mind.

According to those doctors, you tend to hallucinate after a certain amount of days with no sleep.

But then her rationale always attacked her logic ferociously.

It's wonderful the amounts of physical damage those hallucinations tend to leave.

That always shut her logic up, and that was because that line of thought brought her to a subject she wasn't interested in exploring. She wasn't about to go there.

And 'going there' implied self mutilation, and Kagome wasn't ready to admit she was that crazy just yet.

I don't wanna think that I'm so fucking nuts that I do terrible things to myself and then hallucinate it was something else...

...I just did though, didn't I?

“So, what do you think?”

The words brought Kagome out of her thoughts, trying to blink away the lingering vestages of words that were already sinking into the blankness of her mind.

Kagome knew the girl expected no answer, and yet she questioned why she still bothered asking. She knew the very response she was going to get.

Nothingness.

Kagome's persistent muteness seemed to trouble the girl, and Kagome wanted that.

There's no point getting attatched...

When they got close enough for her to open up... and then when they realized exactly who she was, or what she was... or fuck, if they even did believe her at all...

And when they did believe her on that rare instance, what happened when they did….

They went running for the hills.

Every single one of them.

Every. one.

It was better for the girl just to move on to bigger and better things, and just to leave Kagome the fuck alone already.

But that apparently wasn't what Sango had in mind.

Actually, Kagome had no idea what the girl was thinking.

“…do you think I do not see you?”

Kagome's head lifted wearily as if that gesture alone took a great effort, the simple sentence enough to enrapture her entire attention.

She wanted to know...

What do you see...?

“…All I want is to be your friend. Can't you see that? Can't you give me a chance? Do I suck that much?"

Kagome flinched as those words were spoken, as though she had been physically burned.

Friend…?

A friend…?

“I know you're lonely. I see it, just as I am. But I'm trying. I'm trying with you. And you're the only one I've been interested in so far. No one else gives a damn honestly. At least I can tell you're paying the fuck attention to what I'm saying most of the time."

Silence still answered Sango only so well.

“Please?”

Kagome slowly turned her eyes to Sango, and Sango very near gasped at the initial frozen storm that was this girl's eyes. The torrent, the turmoil… the shocking blue that faded to very near black midnight that capture Sango in their depths. The mysteries they held, the endless amounts of pain…

What for?

What from?

And her soft voice, barely above a whisper came to greet Sango's awaiting ears.

“…why?”

And Sango smiled, because she knew… finally, she had gotten somewhere.

So perhaps… maybe the loneliness won't be so hard to bear…
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