Chapter Text
*Beep! – Beep!*
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*Beep! – Beep!*
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*Beep – Be-* “Ughh!” You turn off the alarm clock. It’s already morning. You turn around on your bed, still half asleep. Maybe you can get at least a little more sleep, at least five more minute. Yea, that’s right. You should do that.
You lay there for less than a minute before you sit up. It’s Friday, you’ll have time to sleep longer, tomorrow. Today, you have to go to work, after all, you still have to revise for the play. You are an rising musumeyaku after all, maybe one day.
You slowly stand up and go take a quick shower and brush your teeth. After you finish doing that, you’ll go and put on a cute short summer dress with a floral print and put on some light make up. You look at the time.
‘I still have some time before the train comes. Well, it’s always good to get there sooner.’ You think.
As you walk out of your room , you see your brother.
“Don’t you have work today Gorazd?” You have a feeling that you already know the answer, but ask anyway.
“Oh, haven’t I told you yesterday?” Gorazd yawns, he probably just woke up. “I got fired.”
You sight. “Gorazd! Again!?” You raise your voice. That seems to arouses him a little more.
This is Gorazd’s third job since he graduated, which is barely a month. You remember when your mother talked to you four months ago. On her death bed. She talked about how she failed with your brother, that he doesn’t want to do anything with his life, that he doesn’t have any passion in his life, that he’ll won’t even manage to graduate from high school. You were reassuring her back then, that it will be ok, that he’ll be ok, even after she’ll die.
You did manage to get him graduate, but that’s all. Maybe she was right after all. Maybe he won’t ever find any passion in his life.
“Come on, relax a little y/n.” He says to you. “Did you at least start looking for a new one yet?” You say, a little more calmly now. “Don’t worry, I start looking for one as soon as possible.” Gorazd smiles. “And when will that be?!”
“Ughh! You’re always like this!” He starts walking towards the bathroom. You also turn around, about to walk downstairs, but what your brother says stops you.
“You’re starting be just like our mother, a pain in the ass.” How dare he. It wasn’t even four months since she died. How can he talk about a dead person like that. “Are you even listening to yourself now?” You hear Gorazd stop in his steps. “Our mother wanted the best for us. Even her last wish was to see you graduate.”
“Yea, her last wish was to see me graduate from an elite school that she chose for me!” He turns around to face you. “She would always talk about how she just can’t wait to see me go to university and become a doctor or some well respected job like that! Never once has she asked me what I wanted! She had already decided what I’m going to do!” Gorazd continued yelling. It looked like he was finished talking, for a while. But then he just had to open his stupid mouth again.
“After all what else what she supposed to do, after her only daughter decided to become a dyke actress.” You don’t say anything, standing there, not moving. “What? You think that I never noticed the disappointment in her eyes? In the end, it must have been hard enough for her to raise a daughter of a man that left her as soon as he learned that she’s pregnant.”
‘Don’t snap. It’s ok, he does not know what he’s saying.’ You say to yourself in mind, but still feel tears forming in your eyes.
“You’re still quiet? . . . I don’t think that I’m the disappointment out of the two of us y/n.”
“That’s enough!”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about!”
You both stand there in silence. You remember that you still have to get to the bus in time.
“We’ll continue this conversation once I get home. You better start looking for a new job by the time I get back.” You walk downstairs and leave the house, that’s where you fully break down into tears. You refused to give Gorazd the satisfaction of seeing you cry because of him.
You stand in front of the door, crying, until you calm yourself a little, then you walk to the train station. You just barely catch your train which takes you to the main city center. You walk for a few minutes until you finally get to the theatre where you’re rehearsing.
You check in and walk to the dressing room and you put down your bag there.
“Good morning!” This startles you. You turn around. “Oh, good morning Kanazuki.” Kanazuki’s expression changes rather quickly, from smiling to a concerned expression. “Is everything ok senpai?” ‘Shit, is it really that clear that I was crying?’
It might be. Maybe you can still lie yourself out of it. Kanazuki is the last person you want to know, that something is bothering you. You wouldn’t heat the end of it. She is a nice girl, don’t get it wrong, but she can be a bit . . . overwhelming. And by a bit, I mean a lot.
“Why wouldn’t something be ok?” You say, acting oblivious to Kanazuki’s question. “And we’ve been trought this already, don’t call me senpai, it’s y/n for you.” You also decide to change the subject. As much as great liar you are, Kanazuki can tell when someone’s lying. She’s like a lie detector, sometimes it scares you a little.
Luckily, she’s also really easily distracted, which means that you can easily change the subject. “Oh, no. I can’t possibly do that!” Kanazuki blushes a little. “You are my senpai after all!” You roll your eyes. Sometimes you question if Kanazuki doesn’t have a crush on you, she does tend to act a little weirdly around you.
Kanaziki’s four years younger than you, unlike you she is an otokoyaku and she’s also not a up and coming junior.
“Huh? What is going on in here?” Another woman walks into the dressing room. “Oh, good morning Hibiki.” You welcome her. “What are you doing, Kanazuki?” Hibiki asks again. “Take a guess.” You say.
“She still can’t stop calling you senpai?” “Hello! I am still here girls!” Kanazuki reminds them. Hibiki rolls her eyes, she’s not a big fan of Kanazuki. Thay don’t really get along together. “Well anyway, I will get going. We’re going to start the rehearsal in a few minutes.” She reminds them. “Oh, that’s right. We should also get going Kanazuki.” You don’t want to be late to your rehearsal.
The day goes by normally. You attend the rehearsal, then go eat lunch with some of your co-workers, then attend the second rehearsal. You finish you’re work. There’s still some time till you’ll have to get to the train station so you decide to take a walk through the city center. You walk and look around on the shops. You come across a familiar bakery. Sometimes you go there.
It looks like they have chocolate mochi today, your brothers favorite, . . . maybe you should buy him some. Now that you think about the morning, maybe you did take it too far. You should make up, after all you are living together and now that your mom is dead you need to stick together.
You diced to go into the bakery and buy some of the mochi. You walk out of the bakery holding a box with the mochi . You should get going to the train station now.
You’re about to leave, when suddenly the ground starts shaking, you even drop the mochi. ‘An earthquake?’ You think.
Suddenly the sky turns purple and something that looks like a big eye appears there. It starts sucking everything from the ground: small stones, tables, trash cans and even people. “Quick come here!” You turn around and swiftly run inside the bakery, right before a large table flies right into you, for a few seconds it’s right on you, keeping you on the ground, but then it flies off again. The eye also starts sucking you in, but luckily one of the women that works in the bakery grabs your hand and starts pulling you in, the second lady in the bakery also joins and they manage to get you into the bakery, then they quickly shut the door.
“Oh my God, are you ok?” You are laying on the bakery ground now, all you can feel is pain. The table sure was a big one. But your right leg hurts the most. “Broňa! Go and get the first aid kit!” The lady that saved you shouts at her co-worker. ‘Why do they need a first aid kit?’
You slowly sit up and right away notice why. “My goodness!” You notice that your right leg is really bloody, like really, really bloody. That will probably need some stiches. The second lady comes with the first aid kit and they attend your leg. First they disinfect with a disinfection and then they tight wrap it with a bandage. “We’ll get you to the hospital once this all stops.”
You look out of the window and see the chaos that is happening outside. “It looks like we’re safe here.” The lady ads.
It's 20:00 now, and they finally let you out of hospital. Soon after the whole thing, the girls from bakery helped you get to the hospital. Here, the doctors stitched up your leg.
You waited for around 2 hours till, the doctors took you in. There are a lot of people to this very second that are hurt and waiting there.
While waiting in the waiting room, you couldn't help but notice some really different . . . species. They had to come from that catastrophe. But, what exactly are they?
There were some snake people? and also some snail people? and goblins? You thought that they only existed in the folklore and legends.
But, they do seem to know how to speak our language, or at least English. But as far as you know Ericano doesn't have any of this species. In Ericano, there are people just like you. But where do they all come from?
You leave the hospital and get to the train station as fast as you can. 'I really hope that Gorazd’s ok.' You think to yourself. Since the catastrophe, you couldn't stop thinking about him. What if something happened to him?
At first you wanted to go check on him as soon the catastrophe ended, but the two ladies from bakery dragged you to the hospital.
Luckily, the train station has suffered little to no damages and it started working again in a matter of few hours. Which means that as soon as you got there, you got on the train.
It feels like forever until you finally get to your destination. You are the first person that steps out of the train. You run through the train station almost running into a people or two. You get on the street and continue running. After around 5 minutes you get your house. "Gorazd!" You yell as you enter your house, but to no avail.
"You yell again: "Gorazd!" No answer. You look through the whole house but Gorazd's nowhere to be seen.
You look through the whole garden, but Gorazd still nowhere to be seen.
"Don't panic yet y/n, this does not mean that, that strange portal took him." You tried to reasure yourself. 'That's right, maybe he's just in hospital, like I was.'
'Oh God! Maybe he's in hospital!' You swiftly run out of your house and take a bicycle with you. Your leg hurts like hell, but you don't care. If something happened to Gorazd you have to know.
You start ridding the bike, when suddenly, you hear a familiar voice.
“Y/n!” It startles you so much, that you end up falling from your bike.
“Oh my! Are you ok?” The woman that called your name runs to you.
“As much as I can be.” You answer her.
Hana is your neighbor, she lives right next your house, with her family. She is a few years older that you, but you were pretty close growing up.
Hana hugs you. “I am so glad that, that thing didn’t take you.” You hug her back. “We were all hiding in the house, luckily.” She adds.
‘Hana was here the whole time? Maybe she’ll know where is Gorazd.’ You think.
“Have you seen Gorazd?” Hana’s silent.
“Do you know where he is?” You ask again. You have a bad feeling about this, something happened to him for sure.
“I’m sorry, we couldn’t do anything.” She apologizes. You slowly look up at her: “W-what happened to him?” You ask.
“That thing . . . it took him.”
Tears start making their way into your eyes. "I'm so sorry." Hana apologizes again. She hugs you even tighter.
You both sit like this for a few minutes, until Hana speaks up: "The street is filthy, we shouldn't be sitting here. Let's go to my place and I'll tell everithing."
"Is that ok with you?" She asks. You just nod. You're still procesing the fact that, that thing took Gorazd.
You both get inside of Hana’s house, her two children and wife are also there. She makes you a tea and you both down is the living room. Hana starts telling you the whole story about what happened to her.
“The morning went as usual for me. I woke up and made lunch for Takara and Makoto, Takara also started. Makoto turned out to be sick so she didn’t go to school today. Takara went to work and I took care of my two little boys.” Hana takes a sip from her tea and continues talking.
“It was around 18:00 when I saw Gorazd outside. We talked for a little, he told me about the fight you two had in the morning and that although he’s still really angry at you, he started looking for a job. But then, suddenly an earthquake started and soon after, that thing on the sky appeared. It started sucking almost everything, Gorazd tried to get inside but that thing also started taking him.”
“I tried to grab his hand bit it was too late. I quickly got inside and saw him in the sky, as that thing was taking him.”
“ . . . I’m sorry.” She apologizes again. You process everything that Hana told you for around minute until you speak up: “No, don’t apologize. It’s not your fault, there was nothing you could do.” You grab Hana’s hands she gives you a small smile, she must feel so guilty.
You look at the clock that are on the wall behind Hana. “It’s almost 21:30 already. I should get going back home.” You say. “Do you have anything to eat? If you want, you can stay here for the night. I know that you feel uncomfortable when your alone at night.” Hana offers to you.
You stop in your steps to think about her offer. Hana’s right about the fact that you don’t like being alone at night, after all, she does know you really well. But at the same time you don’t want to bother them. They all must be already stressed and you spending the night here would just add up to that, not to mention that, that thing must have been hella traumatizing for the children.
“No, it’s ok. I’ll be fine.” You say to Hana as you walk outside. “Goodnight Hana!”
“Good night to you too !” She shouts back. You get back to your house and close the door.
“Oh God!” You fall on your knees and start praying: “Please make sure that Gorazd is ok!” You feel that tears are making their way into your eyes
“Please! Make sure that his guardian spirit will protect him!”