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Pulling her face out of the bright, slimy grass, Kumatora's head throbbed. Her mouth was numb and full of bitter saliva. She couldn't bear to keep her eyes open, but it was too painful to keep them shut. Her entire body was sore and soaked with sweat, like she'd taken the worst nap of her life. Nothing could get her off the ground if she tried.
The wind danced around in her ears, swirling around and punching her eardrums in. Kumatora began regretting ever coming to in the first place, not that she could control it. It wasn't something she could change now, either, because the motherload of sensations were too much to just sleep on.
The air kept singing to her in a ruptured melody, composed of distant, monstrous groans and shoddy reconstructions of passing voices. If she was some sort of fool, she'd think someone was calling her.
She stretched her fingers out, which must have been in place for hours, as she struggled to sprawl them out flat on the ground. Her nails were full of dirt — actually, she was generally covered in dirt, which looked a lot more like brownie batter with a maroon tinge than plain ol' dirt. The humid breeze was still twinkling past her, beckoning her to go.. somewhere. That reminded her...
...Lucas? Boney? Duster?
Sluggishly, she rolled over onto her back and pushed out a lengthy, winded sigh. She wasn't by the shore anymore, that's for sure. Looking to the sides, there was nothing but blotchy green trunks and fluffy, fuzzy treetops. A few of them leaned and twisted unnaturally to the sides, politely providing her either an exit, or an entrance deeper into the forests. In her dazed state, even then she knew she didn't want to get lost any further.
Standing herself up was a struggle. It felt like some magnetic force kept pulling her back to the earth, and even with a strained, straight posture, her head kept wobbling and hanging low. Her brain felt like soup, sloshing and splashing around inside of her skull. With a weak slap from the left, and another from the right, she set herself in motion, stretching her back and swinging her arms.
Muddled silhouettes kept skipping and hopping in the woods, endlessly chittering. The incessant hee-hees made her head tighten and ache the more she heard. What only made it worse was glimpses of bright pink hair popping up in the corners of her eyes. It was always accompanied by the quick swish of flowy, pink fabric and white, stainless ruffles. The laughter that rang out of this figure was insufferable, it was so high pitched, and girly.
Her steady steps devolved into drowsy stumbles. She couldn't keep her head up, nor her eyelids open, and soon her mouth shut. That familiar, slippery slobber that formed when she had to puke started pooling under her tongue. She had to find a tree, or something to lean on, some way to help her hold it in.
"Peeekaaboooo~! Ahihihihi...."
A huge breeze blew into her face, sending leaves all about the air. The cold gust wrung her neck and nearly pushed her over. She whipped her head around, but there was no one behind her, no one trying to spook her or rope her in. Just that stupid giggle. Too many sudden motions... she gagged a little in her mouth and bumped her head against a tree. Shouldn't have strayed from the group — but she doesn't even remember how she ended up in some secluded clump of forest, anyways.
"Pssst!!! Heeeeyyy~!"
She kept pushing her forehead into the rough bark, squeezing her eyelids shut. It wasn't Lucas, it wasn't Duster, it wasn't anybody real, or anybody who mattered, and she shouldn't listen. Whatever this thing wanted to say to her was nothing of use. But it was a voice like her own, and it took more than she thought to keep herself glued in place.
There was a sort of presence wandering around her. It was the feeling of someone constantly hovering behind her, trying to fit their head over her shoulder and start yapping at her. Kumatora kept her head down, digging her palms into her eye sockets as she slipped between the trees. Her ears were ringing crazily, and she just wanted to fall asleep again, but that presence kept following her. All she had to do for now was meet back up with the others for some semblance of peace.
Her breath caught, almost making her choke when she was stopped and pulled back by a hand.
"Can't we talk for just a second? Hihi~"
"Who the hell are you?!" She lashed out, turning around at light speed. Another wrong move, as her vision started to spin and twist again, but she couldn't mistake the figure of what stood before her. It clicked in an instant. The bright purple eyeshadow, the fluffy, curly, highlighter-pink hair hanging just below her chin, the irritating, pink and white uniform. Somehow, she was standing before herself, but at the same time, it wasn't her. It was Violet.
"Don't act like you don't knoooww," Violet sang, "you know everything about me, stupid!"
Standing next to this dead ringer of herself made Kumatora even dizzier. Violet was radiating some sort of aura that smelled like a whole bottle of perfume and rotten vegetables. The stench burned her nose and stung her eyes.
There were no words. She had no idea how to react. Was she supposed to say something? To herself? An uncanny remake of her own face that stared back at her with cheap mascara and bright pink lipstick? She knew what to do when the four of them were faced with duplicates of familiar faces, but she was almost dumbstruck in the presence of “herself”.
"You look like you've seen a ghost. I know you don't like me, but there's no need to be rude!" Violet flicked her on the nose. Her hand was stone cold and lacked any sort of visual texture, not even a fingerprint.
Breathing should've helped weaken the illusion. But the more she inhaled, she just nauseated herself, retching a few times before stepping back in an attempt to run off. It amounted to nothing as she tripped on a rock and promptly fell down, Violet leaning over her with a jovial smile. Looking at her teeth was like a flashbang.
"Look at that! How many times have you fallen already?" She reached a hand out to the girl, pulling her up by force when she sat there in silence. "You just can't help but disappoint, can you?"
"What... do you want? What are you trying to do?!" Kumatora's voice trembled as she screamed at her. Sounding tough was difficult when she was juggling approximately 4 different feelings at once.
"Nooo, what are you trying to do, silly? We're one and the same, don't forget it!" Violet wouldn't stop laughing.
Kumatora wouldn't be caught dead admitting this, but she was shaken, she was terrified. Experiencing Violet as her own person morphed her into a reminder of what the poor princess never liked about herself.
Every urge to run, scream, or cry, was overshadowed by the urge to just knock her square in the face. It was an impulse. The best course of action for her.
A fist flew towards the doppelganger's cheek, blocked by her dainty hand. "Of course that's the first thing you think to do. Ahihi!"
She crushed Kumatora's fist uncharacteristically tight, making her wince and try to pull her hand free. "You're so violent... you're nothing like a real princess!"
"Sh-shut it! I don't wanna hear it!" She ripped her hand out of the icy grip, shaking off the pain. Her hands kept colliding with Violet's arms, missing every single blow. "You don't know anything about being a princess, alright?!"
"Pfft, that's rich!" Violet let out the heartiest guffaw Kumatora heard from her in the last 15 minutes. "You're not even an actual princess."
She paused, lowering her hands. There wasn't much left in her brain at that moment except for Violet's words.
"...Huh?" She wasn't sure why it affected her so much. Of course she's the princess, why would she believe something that isn't even there?
"Oh my," Violet taunted, "nobody's told you? I thought you were smart enough to find out on your own, dummy!"
Violet approached slowly, backing Kumatora into an open patch of land where the sun drowned them with light.
"Do you actually think you're a princess?" She stuck her face up in Kumatora's personal space with a smug grin. "You don't even act like a girl!"
Kumatora's gut churned as she failed to escape the acrid fumes. A lump swelled up in her throat, her expression distorted with resentment. Her fists started quaking, squeezed so tight her knuckles were pale — she could shut her up so fast, but she hesitated.
"You should be more like me. People liked you more when you were me." She tiptoed around her in circles, humming gleefully.
"They only liked you 'cause you were pretty." Kumatora warbled, following her somewhat elegant movement. "Q-quit acting like we're the same person! You don't even sound like me anymore."
"At least they liked me!" Violet played with her hair, worlds shorter than her own. "Who likes you?"
She slapped her hand away from her head. "That's easy. There's Lucas, Duster, Boney, and then there's Ionia, Doria.. all the rest of 'em- they raised me, dammit!"
"Do they like you... or did they just have to?"
"Of course they liked me!" She threw another punch at Violet, striking her shoulder. Obviously, it didn't affect her, as she just snickered.
"Some princess you are... so much denial! Ahuhuhuuu~!"
She took Kumatora's pendant in her hands, seemingly staring at her own reflection that just wouldn't show up on the gem's surface.
"I mean, supposedly, all you are is a princess, but you don't even do that right. Whaat a jooooke!!"
Her face was starting to heat up. The way she just stood there, letting a figment of her imagination poke at her deepest insecurities, it was pathetic. She wasn't behaving the way she should. This wasn't the Kumatora she taught herself to be, so she had to stop it now.
Violet kept playing with her outfit, lifting up her baggy and disheveled sleeves. "Daughter of King Osohe... Pssh, as if!"
Kumatora grumbled, gritting her teeth. She pulled her arm back and delivered a hard slap to her face. The sound echoed comically loud like thunder while Violet slammed into the dirt. Her stare was now full of unadulterated rage, tears peeking out of the corners of her eyes.
Wordlessly, she kicked and stomped her with no remorse. Violet was abruptly silenced mid-chuckle, reduced to pained grunting and wheezing. No breaks to be taken, just beating her into the ground. Head to toe, she was covered in bruises and footprints.
Only chopped up sounds and letters could come out of Violet. She was still trying to tear away at her, but she was physically unable to. There just wasn’t enough oxygen in her lungs to muster a word. Weak arms kept trying to block Kumatora’s heels, to no avail. They were repeatedly folded back to her chest and crunched down.
As her boots tirelessly crumpled her body, the sight of her as a whole started fading and disintegrating. Even her voice was melting into animalistic shouts and roars. Her hands morphed into the palms of an orangutan, and her teeth grew into large tusks. Kumatora was overcome with a sense of relief watching her vanish.
She kicked her boot into the dirt to clean it off. Admittedly, she was a little guilty for beating some sense into the chimera before her, but at least it wasn't dead, just tame, and running away into the dense woods. She filled her lungs for the first time in a hot minute, and immediately, the contents of her gut came up, forcing her to get the rest of it out onto the floor. It poured out of her mouth like a waterfall of neon, unnatural colors. Seeing it seep and settle between the blades of grass made her skin crawl.
Now that her head and her stomach was empty, she should get to finding the crew.