Chapter Text
Her arms stretch as she struggles, clawing fiercely at the muddy earth that crushes her. Her lungs burn intensely and her nose aches as the liquid forces its way in, but she fights on.
Her body moves in a visceral, instinctive response, seeking survival above all else.
She is not sure why, but she feels she must not die—even when she knows that she once entertained the thought, though she wasn't entirely clear on the reason.
But now, fear devours her with terrifying urgency. Her fingernails break as she scrapes against the drenched soil, finding nothing but blind mud and roots that slip through her fingers like wet vipers. She tries to scream, but only thick bubbles emerge from her throat. Water invades her mouth, her chest, her consciousness.
She is trembling. Not from the cold, but out of pure instinct. Her entire body is a single impulse, a mute plea for air.
The pressure of the mud on her chest suffocates her, forcing her to sink deeper, to yield. But she doesn't.
She kicks hard, though she cannot see where to, though she does not know if there is an up. Her legs get tangled in something—a branch, perhaps, or the remains of what was once a path—but she pulls away from them with blind fury.
And then, for a second, something gives way.
A breath of space, a rift between the earth and death. She clings to it. She doesn't think. She doesn't reason. She only climbs, claws, roars with lungs full of mud and despair.
She doesn't want to die. Not here. Not like this.
Not when something inside her, buried as deep as her body is right now, still beats.
Her nails tear through the surface one last time. Something yields. The mud opens up, spitting her out as if rejecting her too. She breaks onto the surface with a gut-wrenching gasp, an animal sound that shatters the silence with violence. The air cuts through her lungs like frozen glass. Coughing, vomiting, mud. Pain.
She breathes.
Again.
Once more.
She crawls out of the mire, trembling, drenched, half-blind. Her skin burns. Every muscle quivers with an exhaustion she cannot comprehend, as though her body remembered battles her mind has forgotten. She collapses onto the damp ground, flat on her back, and stares up at a sky she doesn't recognize. There are no stars, only a thick haze hanging over the trees, dark as diluted ink.
She feels cold. But it isn't just physical.
Something is missing.
Something that should be there, inside her chest, behind her eyes, on her tongue. A name, an image, a voice.
She searches inside herself like someone groping around in a dark room, but there is nothing. Only the hollow echo of a question she doesn't know how to phrase.
Who…?
She staggers to her feet. Her legs fail her at first. She braces herself against the trunk of a tree as if it were a saving wall. Her breathing is still ragged, but fear has given way to something else. Emptiness.
She looks at her mud-covered hands. She looks at her arms. Old scars. Stains she cannot tell if they are dried blood or something else.
She doesn't recognize them.
Nor does she recognize the voice in her head that does not exist, the name that refuses to come, or the body she inhabits. Her skin hangs on her like someone else's coat. She feels too large and, at the same time, too small. As if she belonged to someone else. As if someone else should be breathing in her place.
She blinks. The mud stings her eyes. The silence of the forest is dense, hostile. There is no birdsong, no hum of insects—only the distant murmur of water moving beneath the earth. Perhaps it is her imagination. Perhaps not. A breeze brushes against her. And for a moment, she almost flinches, as if fearing that something else might come to drag her out of there. As if, by breathing, she were signing a debt she does not understand. But no one comes.
There is only her.
Alone.
Alone, with a beating heart and an empty mind.
She lies there a while longer, gasping as if every breath anchored her a little more to a body she never asked for. The cold begins to seep into her bones, mingling with the mud that still coats her, clinging to her skin like another layer of silence.
The ground is no longer an enemy, but it is no refuge either.
She cannot stay there.
She slowly pulls herself up. Every movement hurts. Her bones creak, her joints protest, her muscles tremble with a fatigue that seems centuries old. She looks down at her bare, mud-covered feet. Her clothes—if they can even be called that—are mere tatters clinging to her body. She takes a step. Then another.
The forest wraps around her, still, as if watching without judgment. As if it knew something she doesn't.
She walks without direction, without a destination. Simply because staying still feels worse. Because the void inside her head is louder when she doesn't move. There is a word stuck in her throat, one she cannot form. A memory creeping like a ghost behind her footsteps.
She walks.
Branches snap under her feet. Shadows open and close around her. The mud weighs her down, but she doesn't stop. She doesn't know where she is going, but she feels she must go somewhere. Perhaps, if she keeps walking, she will find something. Someone. Or an answer.
Maybe a name.
She wants a name.
Though, for now, she knows she doesn't need one.
She just needs to keep moving.
Keep going.
Keep breathing.
Because if she stops… she fears everything will disappear again. Even her. Especially her. So she just walks. She doesn't know why, but she does. Every step is a directionless act of faith as she pushes through broken branches and wet leaves without thinking. Driven only by the urge to move, to get away from the mud, the weight, the silence.
In the distance, a city breathes. Dark. Far off. But something—something deep inside her—pulls her toward it. She has no name. She has no memory. But her feet know where to go. So she just walks, and walks, and walks.
The change is slow, almost imperceptible at first.
The dampness of the forest gives way to thicker air, heavy with soot and rusted metal. The wet leaves beneath her feet turn to gravel, then to cracked asphalt. The city does not welcome her with lights or promises. Only with a constant, low murmur, as if breathing with effort.
She stops at the edge of the forest. From there, she can see the shadows of the buildings rising like fangs. There is no beauty. Only stained concrete and flickering lights. Something in her chest tightens. Her feet hesitate.
The city is alive. And that life does not feel kind. She knows it. She isn't sure how or why, but she knows. She feels it in her core. In her instincts.
She crosses a nameless street, barefoot, trembling. A car passes close by, its horn blares, but she doesn't react. She looks around like someone who has fallen into someone else's dream. No one stops to look at her. The city doesn't, and she thinks that is for the best, because being noticed feels like a danger.
Her feet leave muddy tracks on the sidewalk. Her clothes, wet and torn, draw a glance or two from a few people, but no offer of help. Some avoid her. Others frown, ignoring her altogether. A woman on the corner, wearing revealing clothes, glances at her sideways and murmurs something she cannot understand before lighting a cigarette.
The world goes on, and on, and on. And she, nameless, goes on too.
At some point, she sits down in a dark alley. Not for shelter, but because her body simply gives out. She curls up among wet bags, breathing heavily. The smell of trash is sour. The flickering lights make everything feel like a hallucination.
She is cold.
She is hungry.
And she is afraid. Truly afraid. Because everything else, even the mud, felt more real than this.
She closes her eyes for a moment. Just for a moment. And she dreams; she dreams of falling petals, of a name slipping away, of bright blue eyes looking at her with love and silver hair that reminds her of safety. She dreams of purple clothes on the body of a faceless girl that reminds her of the warmth of a challenge. And she dreams of black eyes looking at her with coldness, but also with hidden affection. She dreams of blood on her hands, of screams, of pain.
She dreams, and when she wakes up, she knows her name is Sakura. But she knows nothing else.
And that is okay, she thinks. Because at least she knows she has a name, and if she has a name, it means she exists. And existing feels good.
Sakura likes existing.
.
.
.
When she wakes up again, wet trash surrounds her, and a sour smell lingers nearby. The air tastes like rust. Like old blood. Like pain.
Sakura groans as she slowly pulls herself up from her hiding place among the garbage. It is still dark around her, and the alley does not feel like a safe place. She knows she has to find one.
She gets up with aching bones, moving in silence until she stops at the edge of the street. She doesn't know exactly what a city is, but she understands that this place is dangerous. Her gaze travels up toward the rooftops. A dark shape is watching her. Sakura growls. Her body tenses. Something at the back of her neck tells her to observe, to measure, not to step forward without thinking, to hide from the dark shape looking down at her.
But once again, there are no thoughts. Only impulses.
She crosses the street. Something roars in the distance, and she bolts into an alley before the lights can touch her. Her chest heaves faster and faster. Fear returns like a wave of mud that refuses to let her go.
On the alley walls, there is graffiti written in languages she doesn't recognize. There are torn posters. Shadows crawling without moving. And noises. And the dark shape is hunting her. Sakura doesn't know how she knows, but she knows. So she runs, and runs, and runs.
Sakura doesn't want the dark shape to catch her. She doesn't know what it is or what it wants with her, but she doesn't want to be caught. It could hurt her. Or it could do something worse—like making her cease to exist.
Sakura does not want to cease to exist.
So she runs and runs, until she stumbles into another alley. And then she hears them. Voices. Footsteps. Laughter. A bottle shattering. And that instinct kicks in once more: Keep your back hidden. Make no sound. Stay low.
She obeys it, without knowing whose voice she is listening to. Though something tells her it belongs to someone with silver hair, she isn't sure who.
Her hands tremble as she leans against the wall. The concrete is cold, rough. The mud on her body begins to dry, leaving her even stiffer. Uncomfortable. Still terrified.
The footsteps grow closer.
One. Two. Three pairs of heavy boots dragging across the filthy concrete. Drunken voices. Broken laughs. A whistle cutting through the air like a dull knife. Sakura doesn't understand the words, but she understands the tone.
Predators.
Her muscles tighten, even as her body shivers with hunger and exhaustion.
The air shifts.
It thickens with threat, with impending death. Sakura knows she has to do something, but she isn't sure what.
"What do we have here...?" one of them slurs, his voice as dragged out as his breath.
"Looks like someone lost their little girl."
Her lips move. She tries to speak, tries to tell them to stay away, but nothing comes out. She doesn't speak. She can't. Her throat hurts, and something—a dark, primitive thing—tells her it is better to remain silent. It tells her that silence is all she has, or things will go wrong.
Sakura doesn't know why she feels this way, but she reaches a conclusion very quickly: Speaking is a mistake. Speaking makes her useless. Speaking will make her cease to exist. And Sakura does not want to cease to exist.
"Look at her. Filthy and mute," one of the men says.
Sakura doesn't understand what they are saying, but she understands what they want. Instinct ignites with a violence that doesn't feel like her own, yet lives inside her. A mute roar rushing up her spine like a jolt.
One of them steps forward. He is much taller than her, but she isn't terrified. Not as much as she feels she should be.
He touches her.
And in that split second, the world turns off.
There is no thought. There is no pain. Only reflex. Only the body.
Sakura moves as if she weren't even there. Her knee drives straight into the first man's face. The crunch of breaking bone echoes out. Not a scream. A gurgle.
She doesn't stop. She can't. She mustn't.
The second man tries to grab her arm, but Sakura twists away, breaks free, seizes him by the neck, and slams his head against the wall.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Blood spatters her face, her hands, and her clothes, but she doesn't care because she is already dirty anyway. So she keeps going, without pausing, until the man's body collapses, lifeless, like a heap of broken meat.
The third man manages to grab her by the arm, yelling something at her she doesn't understand, pulling something from his coat. A gleam. A knife. A weapon. Sakura doesn't look at it. She doesn't need to. Her body has already reacted. She drives her fingers into his windpipe. She feels the cartilage give way. Her fingers dig into his flesh until she rips the throat right out of his body, the blood spraying her completely and dripping into her mouth.
The knife hits the ground.
He falls too.
She doesn't stop.
Not yet.
There is dried mud beneath her fingernails and fresh blood on her hands, and everything is silent once more.
Sakura gasps. Not from exhaustion. From rage. From fear. From something darker living in her bones.
She looks down at the bodies. One is twisted unnaturally, groaning in pain. Another has a shattered face. The third no longer moves because she tore the windpipe from his throat. Her chest rises and falls. Blood drips down her hands, down her arms. Splatters stain her face.
And Sakura knows she should feel something, but she doesn't. She feels nothing at all. Only a single thought. A brutal certainty: That was the right thing to do. That is what you do to survive.
That is the only thing she knows how to do. And that is the only certainty she has.
Then, she looks down. The trembling returns. Not because of what she did—she doesn't actually care about that. But because it felt good to do it. It felt right. It felt as if she had been born for it, because in truth, it wasn't hard. Because her body moved as if it had done this a thousand times before.
Because she still doesn't remember her face, her history, her people... but killing, that she remembers perfectly. And if she remembers it better than her own name, then she knows it is good. That it is what she has always done.
The knife lies at her feet. She picks it up. It is small. Light. Not very useful for proper defense, but better than nothing. She tucks it away. She doesn't even know where she hides it. Just that she does.
And then she hears it. A sound behind her. A presence watching her. Feet landing softly on the ground.
Sakura spins around.
Her pulse races. Her eyes gleam with fear, mistrust, and defiance.
It's the dark shape—except now it doesn't look like just a silhouette, but almost like a human creature. It is covered in black everywhere except its jaw, with pointed ears on its head.
"Girl..." the shape says to her.
And Sakura growls at it. The same way a wild beast does when backed into a corner, she growls, baring her teeth.
And when he takes a step closer, Sakura runs.
She doesn't want the dark shape near her. Because it seems dangerous, it feels like darkness, it seems terrifying, and Sakura doesn't want it anywhere near her.
So she runs, and runs, and keeps running.
For a few moments, Sakura thinks that running also feels like something she has always done. And she decides that, just like killing, she likes doing it.
And just like that, Sakura now knows three things.
She doesn't need to know anything else.