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I was alone.
Nobody can live all alone.
Without others to share warmth or feelings with, can you truly be considered living?
Well, that is how humans perceive it.
I am no longer human.
My death felt so long ago, naught but a distant memory.
Why does one even need to hold on to things like memories?
I lived my lonely life in the present, challenging youkai after youkai for no reason but to gain some sense of living.
"That's the girl who sees things", they said.
"No wonder nobody wants her", they said.
They thought I was not listening, ensnared by my own fantasies of creatures they could not fathom to be.
Humans are foolish creatures.
•
My daughter was born normal, and I could not have been gladder.
Only I had to see the hordes of monsters who followed her every step, hungry, but unable to do anything against her.
She died young in an almost peaceful manner, her husband crying over her body while cradling their newborn son.
•
The green eyes of my grandson, however, gazed directly at me.
Those eyes of his plagued his life like they did mine.
I could do naught but watch him endure the same suffering I had so long ago.
He, unlike me, though, did not give up on humans.
Where I turned to the youkai for comfort, he continued to run to the light that burned him time and time again.
Trust did horrible things to the boy who wanted nothing but the embrace of another human.
That was, until, a certain couple stumbled info his life.
With the Fujiwaras, came opportunities.
Opportunities for acceptance.
The boy shunned by other children, now greeting friends and classmates alike with a smile.
The boy desperately hiding from the shadows nobody else could see, now frolicking with them as the sun set.
The boy I once watched staring emptily at a new doorway, carrying a small box of the few belongings he owned, now happily calling out "I'm home" at the end of every day.
The burns heal.
As I notice my body finally fading away from the mortal realm I had held on to for so long, I think to myself.
He is going to be okay.