Chapter Text
A lullaby breaks the silence of the sundown. It’s so familiar, pulling Yoshihide from a dream. A cold, empty dream under fluorescent lights, offsetting the heat of the daylight hours with an endless sterility.
The song pulls her from her restless sleep, dragging her forward by the hands like a puppet by threads, off the metal table in this strange, empty facility with an acrid smell like an ink wash in the air. It’s a broken melody, and Yoshihide finds the notes under her breath as she hums. She finds herself without her sword, only a red rope tied to her wrist.
She grumbles. It’s foolish to have thought she wouldn’t be divested of her weapons when she was taken in by FEMA. It was even more foolish to believe that She wouldn’t send someone or another to take the camp down. She can imagine seeing that awful pale man now, and the very thought verges on giving her a migraine.
The way out of the camp is interrupted only by piles of hazmat-clad corpses. It’s almost sad, really.
When her shoes touch down on soil, she breathes a sign of relief. The night has fallen proper, and she can start down the road.
Her eyes drift up to the moon overhead: It’s nearing its zenith, and she has to quicken her pace. She’s been on the move for hours already, but the houses around are all dark. Open and empty.
Except for one, on the horizon, with a single light on. The door is ajar, but there could be someone still inside, maybe? She approaches, climbing the porch stairs with heavy steps. Breaking the silence is a small voice, a quiet sobbing from within.
“...Coming in.” She calls—warns, really, knowing full well how far alienated she is from humans—as she steps inside. When her voice rings out, the sobbing abruptly stops.
She sweeps the house, clearing each and every room carefully. The living room is a mess, furniture overturned and walls with holes punched in them. A struggle, for sure. The kitchen is empty, knives half-pulled from a block set; and then the dining room houses a lunch left for the mold and ants.
She rounds a corner into a hallway with bedrooms lining it, each empty.
The master bedroom is the one whose lights she saw, and her eyes land squarely on the quilt hanging half-off the bed over something that barely pokes out from under it.
“I can see you.”
Silence is her only answer, as though if the little lump just didn’t make a peep, the big bad Visitor would leave it alone.
Unfortunately, Yoshihide is not quite so merciful. She kneels down, lifting the quilt, to see a little girl. Tears stream down the child’s face near uncontrollably and she shakes like a leaf in a typhoon. It’s pathetic, really. She could just snap this child’s neck and be done with it, and she really should—
“Don’t be scared. I’m not going to hurt you.” Is what leaves her mouth instead, and she ruffles the kid’s hair lightly.
When the girl looks up at Yoshihide, her dark eyes widen in awe.
“Mommy?”
Yoshihide blinks. What?
What?
“I knew you’d come back for me!” Yoshihide suddenly gets the distinct feeling she’s stumbled into more than she bargained for. The kid crawls out from under the bed and hugs her tightly, like she’s scared to let go.
She’s not this kid’s mom. But when her eyes flick about the room, she sees a photo that looks so startlingly like herself, that…
…She doesn’t want to think about it. It could mean anything.
“Mommy… I’m so glad you’re back. I could’ve sworn I heard…” The child begins to shudder as she’s brought to tears again, and Yoshihide, ever so tentatively, closes her arms around girl like a bear trap.
This body… Isn't hers. Neither is this child. But at the same time, she can't help but feel… Pity, maybe?
She scoops the child up, and puts her on the bed.
“It’s dangerous here alone, kiddo.” Yoshihide states. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow night, we’re going to be leaving.”
The child stares at her for a moment, looking straight into Yoshihide’s face, her flat expression, her red eyes in the dark.
“Araya,” The kid replies. “My name is Araya.”
“Araya.” Yoshihide affirms. Has she finally figured out she’s not this kid’s mom?
“Are you going to sleep too, Mommy?” Maybe not.
“In a few.” Yoshihide replies. “I have to check on something.”
“Mhm.” Araya nods, and shimmies under the covers, little round face still red with subsiding tears. Yoshihide leaves the room, closing the door softly as she does.
She stares out the living room window of the house. She can see him, slick and sculpted dark hair, ribcage practically bursting from the taut pale skin, long legs leaving him to hunch over when he folds his hands politely.
He’s standing right outside the door, that ever-present smile painting his face like a botched photo job. Tch.
“I know you’re in there,” He calls softly from behind the window, low and singsong. “We need to talk.”
“We don’t,” Yoshihide refutes, voice practically a growl. “Go and scurry back to those five who actually listen to you and leave me be. I didn’t need your help.”
“Let me in.”
Yoshihide’s eyes glance about the room, glinting off furniture, the deadbolt lock, the doorknob lock, the chain lock… She darts to the couch and pushes it up against the door and clicks the three locks into place.
They won’t stop him if he really wanted in. But it will buy her some time, and that’s all she needs.
She waits for the other shoe to drop, tensed to bolt and grab the kid her daughter Araya.
It doesn’t.
“It’ll happen eventually. If not tonight, tomorrow. If not tomorrow, the next,” The pale man replies, still full of an aloof mirth. “It’s not your choice.”
Yoshihide can hear his lumbering footsteps down the creaky porch stairs, but she doesn’t relax. She remains tensed, a spring without release.
He’s not wrong, and she knows this all too well. It isn’t her choice. It’s Hers. And She is not able to defy Her nature, so how could Yoshihide? How could anyone?
Is it better to excise this innocent diversion now, or to let it grow, fester like an infection, and have the ebb and flow wash it away, instead?
...Maybe it would be best to bring Araya to a human, instead. Someone who could care for her, who could protect her without the looming Death eating their insides. Someone whose fellows don’t look at her like she’s nothing but a hapless dog waiting to be put down.
Someone who doesn’t talk about her like she’s a distracting toy to be thrown away.
Yoshihide has six hours until sunrise. She and Araya can find another house before then, surely. The outskirts aren’t too far from here, and she’s traveled the roads before. And who would possibly deny a mother and child?
She makes her way back to the master bedroom, peeking in to see Araya laying there, wrapped in her mother’s quilt.
“Araya, change of plans.” Yoshihide says, quietly. “We have to leave now.”
Araya grumbles and sits up, rubbing her eyes. “Why d’we gotta go right now…?”
How could she possibly answer that without scaring her?
“...Someone reminded me, is all.”
It’s close enough to the truth.
“If you’re too tired, I’ll carry you.” Yoshihide offers. “You can sleep in my arms.”
Araya seems to consider it for a moment, before holding her arms up and out in acceptance of the offer. Yoshihide hoists her up into her arms, and even takes the quilt too. Something for Araya to keep. Something important.
She looks at the stitching, the threading of each patch on the quilt. It looks handmade.
When Yoshihide leaves with Araya, it’s through the back door. Despite the child in her arms, she manages a dead sprint down the road. Better safe than sorry.
It won’t be, shouldn’t, be too long until she reaches a house on the outskirts of town.