InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Heart-Shaped Box ❯ Heart-Shaped Box ( Chapter 1 )

The Heart-Shaped Box

 

Forest silence surrounded me, the silence that is filled with the whisper of trees and life of animals. The type of silence that is not silence at all, yet never draws attention.

 

It was a perfect night, because it was the darkest one of all. No moon to peek, and a blanket to cover both his senses, and my presence.

It was a perfect night for this.

 

I sat, alone in the meadow, a sea of murmuring green grass, fireflies painting the dark in flying lanterns. But nothing could guide my way.

Not tonight. Not this time.

 

I try to calm myself, to breathe, to gasp air, to draw it in, but I can't. There is a burning sensation in my throat and nose that blocks both taste and smell. There is something squeezing my heart so hard I think it might shatter. There is a pressure on my chest that will not let me breath, live.

For tonight, it's just too much.

 

I feel all the horror which I can't outrun, which I can't hold back. All the demon's which I can't hide from are coming out of their shadows and into the deepest of caverns in my heart. It's a naseuating feeling of pure sorrow, pure mental pain. The lump in my throat is my heart, trying to escape all this feeling.

All this guilt.

If only I could be as happy as I pretend to be...

No. That is not true. I do not pretend. I wear no mask, no facade, no illusion. I simply push everything down, bury it in the grave I have dug myself, locking it up in a heart-shaped box, deep within my soul, my mind, my spirit.

Each time a village is slain, I add it to the box. Each time a friend is wounded, I add it to the box. Each time Inu-yasha goes with Kikyou, I add it to the box. I hide it deep inside, where it will not reach my eyes or smiles.

Where it taints, but does not show.

But the box will break. Suddenly, it will hold too many things, and it bursts, all those pent up feelings must come out, one way or another. Tumbling, screaming, crashing. Ripping, killing, stealing.

 

It's raining hard and cold. The drops are freezing and bitter against my lips, and I wonder why they taste so sad. I wonder why I can see the stars. I wonder why this rain only runs down my cheeks, why it only falls when I feel like I'm as close to dying as I can get.

This pain is unbareable, and yet I hold it close to me, sharing it with no one. I let no one see me as I strip myself of my defences, naked to world to see, exposed in a self inflicted light.

I hit the ground until the grass is crushed. Until the dirt is fine as sand. Until my skin is upturned and my knuckles raw and bloody.

Until I can lock the box once again.

 

My limbs shake, they tremble. My body burns with this pain that reaches past the rushing of blood, and into thoughts, through something deeper, more hidden, more torturing, and I hate it. For tonight, I am free to hate. To hate myself, my feelings, my destiny. To hate the love I have for things and people which to not return it.

Which do not deserve it.

And that thought makes me hate myself even more. Loath myself even further.

Tonight I'm free to feel.

 

I'm the girl which came from a world which was different. Different in neither a bad, nor good way. It was different in a different way.

There are things in my time which are much sicker than in this era. People who are more cruel than Naraku. Organisations that are more evil than wars. Weapons which are more comon than curses. Yet I came from the part of the ignorant world, where I was safe. Safe from myself, self from the world.

I was sure of things which were real, and which were not.

 

But now I am no longer safe. I am not protected from knowing. I am not ignorant. I am not in bliss.

For I am a murderer.

I am a fool.

A single mistake which cause uncountable lives to perish. Which caused a sorrow beyond reason, a horror which can not be explained, only expirianced. I did more harm, by shattering the jewel, than that crow demon could have ever done.

I am guilty as charged, and it eats me from the inside. A presence under my skin, a desease not ment to kill, but fatal nonetheless.

 

I see the devastation I have caused in a world I don't even belong in. In a world I haven't even been born in. I see the blood, the bodies, the death. I see the famine of families broken, I see the haunted eyes, the lost faces, the crumbled worlds.

I see Shippo the orphan. I see Sango, alone.

I see death, I see misery, I see what I have caused.

I have been in battle, useless and in the way. I have experianced terror in thinking death is the taste of bile on my tounge, thinking those I love most will perish. I have covered

wounds inflicted because of me. I have whispered to hearts which's cracks i made.

 

I see this, I feel this, in my heart-shaped box, and I hate myself more than stories can tell.

But I loath myself because part of me is happy I shattered the jewel, that I caused this peril.

 

There is a man I love more than pictures or words can describe. I cannot forget him, or do I want to. He is everything I want, and nothing I can have. He is perfect, with all his flaws. He is half-half, and completely whole.

He has more heart than he could ever show. He is more brave than heros could claim.

My heart bleeds for him, thickly, swiftly, in a never ending flow. I crave his love like my throat water, but I am denied it, even though it's there.

Even though it's real and ready made, I am unable to be comforted by it.

Never for always with him.

 

My sobs are subsiding. The burning deminishing. The pain drawing back. Dawn is close, and I'm supposed to be on the other side of the well. I'm supposed to be `home'.

This anguish that grips my stomatch like a sad story, like a tragedy, is hiding once again. There is only a lingering guilt, for I am not with Inu-yasha in the night he needs me.

But I needed this more.

The box settles inside me. It calms. The tide is crawling back.

The breath I draw is shaky, a reminder that I'm not alright. That things are not ok. That, if they change, it will not be for the better, for it they change, it will be to end this cruel fairy tale.

 

I stand up, knees shaking, legs cramped. Hours, I have sat there, under the new moon. There is a puddle of sorrow where I lay. I can see it there, in the bends of the grass and the stirred dirt. It's an ashamed creature which sleeps with its mouth downturned and with quiet whimpers as snores.

 

I grab the bows and arrows I have taken with me, though, fortunately, I did not need to use them, to kill and protect. To save and sadden.

I sigh, another scar in the wind. It has stopped raining, andIi am greatful. Rain so cold it makes me feel like I'm about to snap, to break.

It hurts more than any other.

 

With non-hesitant steps, I head to the bone-eaters well. My love, my curse, my blessing. The source of my happiness, and my sandness. A jouney began with a bang of explosing magic. Of lust for power, death, love.

 

I lock the heart-shaped box, binding it securely.

I musn't show them what lies inside.

 

Time enfludges me. It goes so fast, it stops, just for a second. And then I'm home, and so far away from it, that I'm torn in two.

I climb out. I forget.

I catch my mother's face in one of the windows, the look of relief as she sees me close the shrine door. I see how tired, how worried she looks in that instance when relief takes over. Guilt rises.

 

I hold it close, and hide it in my heart-shaped box.