Date: February 14th 2010
Rain fell down. Heavy. Dripping down onto the benches, the trees and the rest of the empty park aside from a couple of people. It worked overtime. She sat down on the bench, completely drenched, the water seeping between her thighs and down her face.
Reina stared forward, at absolutely nothing.
Her blouse clung. Her skirt dripped. Her short orange hair hung like wet ink.
She blinked once.
"I want to disappear," she murmured softly, lips barely moving as water rolled off her chin. "They were jerks, even if I was a witch, they shouldn't have done what they did to me. I guess I don't really like them" She tilted her head slightly, watching raindrops hit her knees, her hands wandering over the bruise on her stomach. "I don't like me very much either."
She sniffed, staring down at the blood on her hands.
"…Do normal people feel this heavy all the damn time?" she asked the air, voice warm, curious, but the sky did not reply. "I guess no normal person would kill their own parents."
She started laughing wildly, her pupils dilating as she dug her nails into her forearms, drawing blood from her flesh. "I'm a murderer, I'm a parent killer."
"I'm glad, I'm glad that they're dead," she whispered, smiling faintly. "I can't believe I managed to withstand their abuse for that long, it's almost impressive." She exhaled slowly, calming herself down. "Where am I supposed to go now? It's not like I can just…just go back to the house. If I stay here I'll definitely get taken away won't I?"
Her eyes drifted slightly to the side towards a single person walking through the heavy rain. She didn't react very much. Just observed calmly from the corner of her vision.
"…People are still walking," she said quietly. "The world didn't end. That's kinda rude."
She looked back forward.
"I've finally escaped from them, "she continued, speaking gently as if she was telling a bedtime story to herself. "They always used to say 'You're a disappointment Reina' as if that was the only thing that came out of their mouths.'"She blinked. "I don't understand why they would ever hit me."
Thunder rumbled.
She didn't flinch.
"…I don't want to be a punching bag anymore," she admitted, her voice shrinking slightly. "But I don't know how to be a working adult. Nobody trained me for that part."
She poked her own cheek with a finger.
"Do people just… wake up and know what to do?" she asked softly. "Like… 'Today I will go to my 9 to 5 and go home back to my loving wife and children.' Is that how it works?"
Her eyes shifted again briefly toward the same guy.
"…That person looks normal," she noted. "Suspicious."
She rested her chin on her palm.
"I thought if I ran away from them, I'd feel free," she said with a tiny laugh. "Turns out I just feel unemployed and wet. Mostly wet."
She looked down at her chest, frowned faintly.
"…These are heavier when soaked," she commented thoughtfully. "Fuck, how am I going to pay off my old man's debt? I really should've kept them around." Reina circled the wound on her chest with her finger and winced in pain. "What choice do I have now? I don't want to get into prostitution, I don't want to sell myself off to some random stinky guy."
She sighed.
"But what choice do I really have?" she continued. "I'm tired of everything, why the hell did I have to become a witch?"
She closed her eyes.
"…Maybe I should just stay here until I melt away," she whispered. "Like ice on a scorching summer day."
A long pause.
"…I wonder," she said suddenly, opening her eyes, "If I just.. ended everything here?"
She pointed a steel barrel to her forehead, her fingers shaking on the trigger, her thumb pulling back the hammer, she swallowed then…..
She put the gun back into her pocket.
"I'm too much of a pussy to kill myself. If only I had the courage, then all my debt, all this guilt," Reina grasped her chest, clawing away at the wound. "It would all disappear, in a flash."
Her voice became very small.
"But I don-I don't want to disappear," she admitted quietly. "I don't know how to stay either, if only I had someone else to teach me."
She leaned back slightly on the bench, staring up at the pouring rain, the drops pouring down onto her face.
"…Hey," she said to the skies, her voice soft and curious. "Do you ever think I'll be a good person?"
She blinked at the rain.
"Will I be a bad parent when I grow up as well? I don't want my kids to feel the same way I did, I want to shower them with affection and teach them everything I know."
"…If I had someone I really cared about next to me right now," she added thoughtfully, "I think I'd ask them something really important."
"…Like where they bought their shirt," she finished, nodding faintly. "You can tell a lot about a person from their shirt."
"…I'm not very good at being sad properly," she muttered. "I keep getting distracted."
Her lips twitched slightly.
She stood up from the bench, walking towards a tree, staring at its large stature. It felt like a large pair of hands, shielding her from the rain, like a father protecting her daughter. She plopped down at the root's base, hiding her face between her legs.
"I want kids, I want a family, I want to care about someone and someone to care about me. I hate this feeling. I don't want to be alone."
Rain kept smacking the leaves above her like someone was tapping their fingers on a desk. The roots were cold, freezing even.
She drew her knees tighter.
"Maybe..Maybe I don't deserve to be happy."
The stranger finally passed the tree. He paused and looked a few meters ahead, looking over his shoulder. Not with concern, more like curiosity, like he was trying to decide whether she was some kind of forest cryptid or just a drenched college student having a breakdown.
Reina lifted one eye over her knees, hiding the blood by turning her hand over.
"…Keep walking dude," she whispered. "Nothin to see here, I'm just a crazy bitch mumbling to herself."
He didn't hear her. He simply walked on through the mud, shoes squelching with each step. After a few seconds, his figure dissolved into the gray of the rain.
"I really should get going, I'm going to get hypothermia." She held herself in her arms, rubbing a thin layer of iridescent mana across her forearms to heat herself up.
Her stomach growled.
"I haven't eaten in days, but I don't really think it's time for this." She leaned her head against the bark of the tree, as she breathed in and out, it felt as if there was a steel anvil weighing down on her chest.
"I'm having a moment here, you can't ask for snacks like that."
She rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand, smearing blood along with the rainwater across her skin. She reluctantly stood up, her hand still holding onto the cold handle of the gun in her pocket, just to prove that it was still within her grasp.
"What's up with this shitty universe, no wonder people pray to the primordials, but I guess I don't have that luxury, I can't really force myself to believe in something like that." Lightning flickered, lighting up the park. For a split second, the trees looked like cathedral pillars and the wet grass like stained glass.
Reina let out a shaky breath, her forearms freezing from the cold rain.
"I don't know how to work," she confessed to the sky above. "It's not like anyone is going to hire me, I'll never get a regular 9 to 5, I'll never be human, I'm a damn dirty witch after all." She stared down at her hands, the blood had been washed away, the blood of her parents, murdered with her own hands. "I heard that the government is currently accepting students. Damn."
She limped out from under the tree, rain swallowing her silhouette as she walked toward the city, clutching her chest wound with one hand and her future with the other. "I guess it's either being used as a tool for war or a tool for pleasure."
She wiped her nose with the back of her wrist.
"I don't like either."