Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Children of Shadow ❯ Truth ( Chapter 16 )

Me: Hiiiii! Me ish a slacker. U_U

Marik: You've mentioned that before…

Me: Yes, but now I really mean it! I'm antiwork! (To quote Riff.) I- I have responsibility-phobia! I want to stay a middle schooler forever and zone out in front of the compy and have no obligations whatsoever so I never feel guilty about not completing them! I-

Kaiba: *eye twitching* If I say the disclaimer, will you shut up?

Me: Whu-? Okay! ^^

Isis: Maybe that was her plan from the start…

Me: Don't be ridiculous, Isis! I'm too idiotic to think up something like that! *thinking* She's on to me…

Kaiba: I heard that. *sigh* AMK does not own Yugioh… just this crappy fanfiction.

Me: *whacks Kaiba with a piece of polyurethane tupperware stolen from Uncle Rico* (Napoleon Dynamite- OMG that movie is fricking hilariously stupid. Go see it once and you'll never want to watch it again. But you'll laugh. A LOT.)

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"As some of you may or may not know, I came here to live with Ryou after an… accident happened. My parents…" Cassie swallowed hard, feeling her throat contract. "They… couldn't take care of me anymore."

"What-"

"I'm getting to that, Honda, no interruptions, thank you." Cassie glanced at Ryou. He was looking at her intently, his eyes reflecting something that could have been sympathy. Cassie bit her tongue and looked away before continuing.

"Everyone said it was 'terrible'. They acted like it was some big tragedy- and maybe it was. But no one knew how it could have happened. So they labeled it as an unexplained, phenomenal event and never tried to solve it.

"But I know what happened. And I'm the only one who does." Cassie paused, taking a deep breath. The entire room was silent. Even Jou was keeping quiet for once. Cassie briefly wondered if she should do this- if they would reject her once they'd found out what she'd done. She was dangerous- even she knew that- and they were already suspicious of her as it was.

Could she go through with this?

Cassie began to speak again, before she lost her nerve. "It was about… a month ago." Somehow, when she said it, it sounded like such a short time. Life had felt like an eternity since then. "I was in the living room, having a 'talk' with my dad. He had just got back from a parent-teacher conference and he was ticked off… I think it was because I kept skipping out on my psychology sessions."

Staaaaaaare.

Cassie could mentally envision a giant sweatdrop forming on the back of her head. "Yes, I went to the school psychologist- for a while. I got bored, and besides, it was my parents' choice, not mine." She sighed. Just talking about them like they were still there… it almost made her feel normal again. She would have felt almost comfortable- if she didn't have to finish the story. "Of course, he might have been mad because I flipped off this one kid and we got in a fight- which wasn't entirely my fault, by the way, the guy was acting like a complete ass."

More staring. Cassie felt like one of those people in the movies, when they walk in a room and everyone stares at them, and you know they've got a dorky hairstyle or something, but you can't see it yet because they have their back to the camera. "Or it could have been-"

"How much trouble did you get into at your old school?" Otogi blurted out.

So much for 'no interruptions'. "A lot," Cassie said shortly. "And I actually think I was in trouble for boycotting P.E."

"Why would you do that?" Mai. "I thought you liked gym class."

"I do," Cassie replied, "but the teacher wouldn't let me try out for track because there wasn't a girls' track team. And I knew for a fact that I could run faster than most of the idiots on the team. So I stopped going to gym."

"That's it?" Honda asked, an eyebrow raised. "They had a conference over you cutting gym class, but not getting in a fight?"

"It sounds like the case of one too many straws on a camels back," Yami mused. Cassie blinked. She had almost forgotten he was there… (AN: To tell you the truth, I kind of did too… heh heh. Oops.)

"All right, I'm going to assume that whatever Yami just said is what happened," she continued. "Anyway, my dad and I were talking- or rather, he was lecturing me and I was sitting there not listening.

"So after a while he realized that I wasn't paying any attention, then he got really P.O.ed, and started yelling at me about respecting authority even when you don't agree with it, and learning to deal with problems instead of wanting everything to go your way-" Cassie broke off, blinking back an almost non-existent tear. She wished so badly that she could go back to that moment in time, to take back everything she had done, to make it right. To go home.

"And I-" Cassie broke off, taking a shuddering breath as she felt everyone's confused stares on her. She was, after all, being very uncharacteristic of herself. "I mean, I love my dad and everything, I really do, but he was shouting at me, and I probably don't need to tell any of you how bad my temper is…" Cassie swallowed. "I didn't mean to do it…"

The atmosphere was so tense, a single sound could have shattered it. Cassie looked at Ryou. His soft brown eyes gazed back into her blue ones. Ryou. Her cousin. She didn't want to tell him this, she didn't want to lose the only real family she had left- but she couldn't stop now.

"I got- this feeling- in my head. Like something was buzzing against my skull." Cassie saw Chrissy's eyes widen in recognition- and understanding. That's right, dollface, she thought. Only for me, it's worse. "And I was so pissed at him, I didn't try to stop it. I didn't think- didn't try to calm myself down- I never do. And the more I ignored it, the stronger it got- like my head was about to burst open- and then it happened."

Cassie paused, letting her sentence hang in the air as she tried to steady herself. "What happened?" Yugi asked quietly. Cassie looked over at him. He had the hugest violet eyes, and right now they were the widest Cassie had ever seen them.

"I don't know," Cassie replied. "One minute there was all this pressure in my head and then it just… it was just gone. Like something had popped. And all of a sudden, all the lights went off. Our power just died." Cassie's mouth was dry. "And then-"

This was it. "My dad…" She couldn't say it. She had to say it. "His face started to twitch… and then he fell over. On the floor. He wasn't moving." Cassie's knees trembled. She pushed on, blatantly ignoring everyone's stunned faces. "I ran into the kitchen where my mom had been cooking, and…" She swallowed. Hard. "It was the same with her too." Her voice was little more than a whisper now, she was mumbling her words. "I didn't know what to do- so I called 911 on my dad's cell phone. When the paramedics came- they said my parents were in comas. They took them to the hospital…"

Cassie broke off, shutting her eyes. She couldn't say any more. She was struggling not to cry as it was. The silence in the room was deafening. It was suffocating her-

"Then-" Cassie looked up at Ryou. She could see small tears forming in his eyes too, see him fighting slowly to keep them back. "They didn't…" A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. "They're not… dead?"

Cassie found it hard to speak around the giant lump in her throat. "No… but the doctors said they'll never wake up either." And then Cassie's throat constricted so tightly she could hardly breathe. She felt dizzy as a wave of emotion swept through her. Straightening up as much as possible, she faced the rest of the room. Dead, dead silence. Pale faces. All of them.

"So know you know…" Cassie smiled bitterly. She could feel the tears about to pour- she was not going to cry. "Why I came here. Why I've been acting like such a bitch ever since I did."

She turned her head to look at Jep out of the corner of her eye. The expression on his face was one of unbearable guilt, and for a fleeting second Cassie almost felt sorry for him. But she quickly buried the feeling. "And why you can tell Isis to take these powers and shove them up her royal ass for all I care. I don't want them. I never wanted them." Cassie breathed deeply, her head spinning. "They killed my parents."

Cassie couldn't hold it back anymore. The tears, the grief, the pain, the realization- any of it.

She ran.

Cassie's footsteps took her down the hall, past an astonished nurse, through the stairwell door, down the winding stairs- she didn't know when the steps ended, she only knew that she was in the lobby- past the reception desk- out of the double doors- into the dark of the night.

The tears came as she ran. Cassie's vision blurred, her stomach churned. The sound of her feet hitting the pavement echoed loudly in her ears, a rhythmic thumping sensation. She wanted to run forever- run away from Domino- from her past- from everything.

Tears, streaking down her face-

Cassie wanted to scream out loud. Instead, she ran faster, not going in any real direction. She couldn't take it. Why did it hurt so much? She couldn't get Ryou's face out of her head. He was probably crying now, too- what was Bakura doing, Cassie wondered dimly.

All of them, they pitied her now, she knew- and they were afraid of her. She knew this too, she had seen it in their silent faces. They didn't know what to make of her anymore. Jep? Jep had known. Jep didn't care. He didn't, Cassie thought fiercely.

Why did it hurt so much? Because saying it made it all real. Cassie hadn't just told the others, she had told herself what happened. She had made herself see it. She had forced herself to believe it, to accept it- to realize it in her minds eye.

They're never coming back.

They're not dead.

But I killed them.

Run, Cassie's mind screamed. But she couldn't run any faster. Her lungs were burning. She couldn't breathe. She collapsed, gasping, on the sidewalk, her chest heaving. Cassie squeezed her eyes shut, flinging herself into complete blackness. Tears were drying on her face. She couldn't run anymore. She couldn't cry anymore. She sat there, gulping air, her shoulders shaking with dry sobs. How long did she sit there like that, unable to think? Probably a few seconds, maybe a little more. It seemed like hours, and every breath was costing her.

Slowly, painfully, Cassie opened her eyes. It was nighttime in Domino. Peaceful. Nothing was wrong. That was how it should be. Cassie got to her feet. How it should be. What was normal anymore?

Down the street, the faint wail of a siren grew louder. Not so peaceful after all. Cassie watched as an ambulance sped by, it's flashing red lights like a symbol of when her own life had been changed forever. Flashing lights… the moment replayed itself in her mind, in slow-motion… as she stood on her front porch, confusion all around her in the form of rushing people, her eyes fixed on the red lights that carried her parents away… the siren resonating in her ears, silencing all other noises…

Cassie watched the ambulance until it faded into the dusk. Even after it had gone, the siren lingered in the air. In her memories. Permanently.

Where was she? Cassie glanced around her. To her surprise, she recognized the intersection- it was the one she had crossed every day during the week that she had actually attended school. Wiping her face with the palm of her hand, Cassie started the walk home.

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Me: There! Wow- I almost cried while I was writing this. Poor Cassie- I'm starting to think of her as the older sister I never had. Nee.

Kaiba: That is… creepy.

Marik: *blink blink* Yep.

Me: *sigh* No one understands me… except now I feel happy!

Marik: And what does that got to do with anything?

Me: *throws him a grammar textbook* Here. Use it. And I'm happy because I finally posted and I feel all- non-slacker-ish now! ^___________^ (Yes Tabby, I stole your smiley face! Bwa ha ha ha ha! *hiccup*)

Isis: …?

Kaiba: Ditto.

Me: KAI-IBA! SAY IT SAY IT SAY IT!

Kaiba: *cough*DERANGED RAVING LUNATIC*cough* Review!

Me: Yes! Nee! Pleash! Review peoples!