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I was 13 when I met Kazuko.
She was scary, at first, looming over me with that cloak hiding all but the red glow of her eyes. Her fingers were claw-like and I was sure they would be my end. But she surprised me. (She always would.) She circled me, movements jerky and excitable, like a puppy, with that curiosity of hers. (Endless. Overflowing.) When she spoke, it surprised me even more. This... monster could speak? (It would be hard to get her to stop speaking, actually. I should have found it annoying, but it was one of the things I loved the most about her.)
I had stumbled across a “liminal space” after school and accidentally traveled to the Shadow world, supposedly. It was obvious that the world was not the same one I lived in, but... it was so hard to believe that there was, and always had been, a world existing parallel to mine that just had... cryptids? (Kazuko assured me that there were many Flatwoods Monsters, not just the one humans gossiped about. She had been interested to hear about the stories humans would spread about them, and laughed when I told her the vast majority of people did not believe them.) It was hard to be a skeptic when you were sitting on a detached, decrepit train station completely surrounded in darkness with the—a Flatwoods Monster.
She asked—begged, even—me to come back and talk to her again. She had so many things she wanted to ask me about the human world, things she wanted to see and know. At the time, I was having a hard time in school. I was smart. People said that saying that about yourself was cocky and they disliked me for it. For someone who always had to sell herself to her parents for them to pay even the barest amount of attention to her, it was foreign. I pulled back, because I learn quickly, but it was too late. The people who had already knew me had already made up their minds about me, and I couldn’t connect to the new ones. Getting no love from my home either, I felt... isolated. So, when this new creature expressed any interest in seeing me again, I couldn’t help but say yes.
I visited her often, sometimes bringing in gifts or books I liked. Kazuko ate it all up, eyes glowing visibly brighter every time she saw me standing at the train station. She was my first real friend; the only friend I’d ever had that my parents hadn’t assigned me. I would come home dizzy with giddiness and would walk the halls of my school as if gravity suddenly wasn’t weighing down on me as much as it was before. Perhaps, I thought one day, being around Kazuko so much has taught me to float as well.
It was silly, maybe, but it was the happiest I have ever been. I am convinced it is the happiest I ever will be.
Just before the start of my 3rd year in middle school, Kazuko surprised me with a new appearance when I came to meet with her. At first, I was confused, and wondered if another human had accidentally stumbled in just like I had almost two years previously. But the way her eyes lit up when she saw me, I knew it was her. It was joyfully familiar. I couldn’t believe it. How had she done it? Why had she done it?
She asked me if she had done well. She looked down at herself, tugging self-consciously at the capelet she couldn’t bear to abandon, her hood down for the first time. She had freckles, and an absolutely awful (perfect, wonderful, endearing) middle part. I couldn’t help myself. I ran over, held both of her hands in mine, and told her she had done well through tears and a grin I couldn’t fight down.
I brought her with me to the human world, pulling her along with me, her still holding onto one of my hands. After we had crossed back over, I felt her stiffen and grip my hand tighter. She was frightened. She told me that my world was too big. She stared up at the vast early evening sky, nearly shaking in her fear, and I held her hand tighter, and told her only to look at my back. We would nearly be at my home. I would take care of her. She believed me.
It was so simple back then.
She explored my home freely, sometimes jumping up and down on the spot to “feel the ground pulling her back in”. My family wasn’t an issue; my parents were rarely home. She stayed with me and slept on my floor even after I told her there were beds for her if she wanted to use one. She told me she wanted to be with me, like it was the easiest thing in the world. I believed her; that was all I wanted, too.
She would read my books while I was at school, or play with the toys from my childhood. She was always there, waiting for me, just like at the station.
When my parents made their appearances at home, Kazuko would hide under my bed until they left again. We would giggle together over our shared secret, and how they never found out.
If I always had Kazuko, I would be alright. I knew this, without a single doubt. She had finally given me the real meaning of “home”. It was her. I didn’t need anything but her. And she didn’t need anything but me. Her “home” was me, too. It was my room, and the quiet evenings when she would peer over my shoulder and do my homework with me, learning extraordinarily fast. We ate dinner together, faces dirty from cooking together, baking together, everything always together. This was what my parents had never been for me. I felt like I was seeing the world for the first time.
And then it ended.
I was 16 years old, and I was going to enter high school. I had been accepted at Shori Academy, but there had never been a question about that. I had put on my new uniform, excited to show it to Kazuko, but when I entered the room, she wasn’t... looking at me. She was staring out a window. Caught off guard, I asked her if something was wrong. She put her hand up against the glass, and without looking at me, broke everything.
“I want to go out there, too.”
I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough for her. This wasn’t enough. Panic began to set in, but I tried to keep it at bay. When I asked her if our home wasn’t enough for her, she finally turned around to look at me with her same big smile, her same sparkling eyes. It felt like I was being stabbed in the chest.
“I want to experience everything, Miyu! Home is great, but there’s so much out there, right? You tell me about it all the time! I want to go to school, and meeting all those people out there. I just know they’re going to be interesting.”
She had looked out the window again as she whispered the last sentence before whipping back around and rushing over to me, taking my hand. I don’t know if she realized how much it was shaking. She pulled me along behind her, like I had when all of this really started. Breathing became difficult. We were moving quickly, and she was taking us towards the stairs, and I knew it was because she wanted to leave. She was going to leave me. She was leaving me. She didn’t need me. She was leaving.
“I want you to come along too, Miyu--”
I didn’t hear what she was saying. My body moved on its own. My hand was ripped out of hers, and I just. I pushed her.
She ended up falling down. She hit her head on the way down, a loud and sickening thunk, and then she was lying motionless at the foot of the stairs. The world seemed to stop. I couldn’t breathe. I screamed her name, but she didn’t move. I ran to her and held her, but she didn’t wake up.
I don’t know how long I sat there, just holding her and sobbing, before They contacted me.
I had spent nearly 3 years with a cryptid, but meeting a literal God was unexpected. They came to me in the form of a softly-spoken blue butterfly. Their voice was so gentle I almost did not hear it.
I held Kazuko tightly as they spoke. They said they could help Kazuko. Kazuko could live, if only I promised to help them in return.
I told them that all I cared about was Kazuko being alright. I needed her to be alright.
They told me she would be. I believed them. But, then the reality of the situation crushed me. Kazuko would hate me. My breathing stuttered, and I stared at the only person I truly loved in this world, lying there in my arms. The image of her pushing me away too, disgust and loathing on her face nearly had me sick.
I begged them through hiccups and sobs to make her forget me. I wanted her to be alive and happy—but even the thought of her being happy without me was crushing. I needed her to forget about me, and I needed her away from me.
The God was fine with my “terms” and assured me that they would take care of things. They settled down on her forehead, and told me they were taking her now because she had so little time left. Kazuko disappeared in a blue glow, and I was alone.
I screamed until my throat was hoarse and sobbed until my head was throbbing. There was a massive hole blown open in my heart and it truly felt like I would die without her. I needed her, I needed anybody, I would have even taken my parents at that point, anyone--!
No one came.