Story: Bloody Remembrance (all chapters)

Authors: xxEasilyAmusedxx

Back to chapter list

Chapter 1

Three gunshots resonated throughout empty streets on the outskirts of the urban Japanese city. The victim of the shooting hit the ground with a dull thud as the shooter's footsteps could be heard, racing out of the secluded alleyway. In the shadows of the alleyway, a young woman, just leaving her teenage years, lay dying, soaking in a pool of her own blood. Snowflakes began to fall, quickly layering the sidewalks and streets with the thick heavy flakes of a mid-December snow. The young victim's breaths puffed in the air in a short, ragged rhythm. '... The wrong place at the wrong time... The police describe a lot of victims' deaths like that... but was I really in the wrong place at the wrong time.. or was someone waiting for me?' She walked the same path every night after a class or work, cutting through this alley, which was used as a short cut to get back to the apartment building more quickly. It wouldn't have been hard for someone to have known that, had they seen her every night walking through.

 Serenely, she turned her head to gaze upward, studying the white-gray light the wispy snow clouds cast on the dark winter's sky. She wasn't panicking for some odd reason. Maybe it was the cold, numbing both her body and her emotions. Or maybe it was the fact she knew she would soon see her mother and father once again. The only thought that disturbed her state of serenity was knowing she was leaving Karei behind, the woman she'd been with since she was fourteen years of age. At the thought of her lover's face, the dying female's lips twitched upward into a dazed smile. She could clearly see the yellow-hued female's face in her mind; her typical smirk set in place in her features, her eyes alight with a fiery personality unmatched by any other.

 Tears brimmed in her eyes, though the smile remained. Her life seemed to flash before her eyes. Starting with being a small child, first moving to the city. It was the earliest memory she had of her life. It continued to skip through the short course of events on the time line of her life, going through numerous birthdays, first days of schools, and other important events until she reached a specific event; an event that stuck out in her mind like a lone red rose among a field of white.

A trail a crimson crept down the sidewalk of the sloping hill, beginning at the corner of Kanagawa and Hiroshima. It caught the eye of passing pedestrians, those out 12:30am anyway, yet none followed it, fearing what may lie at the end of the trail. Though two concerned teenagers, both nearing the age of adulthood, stopped out of curiosity. Both were female, dressed in high school uniforms. One, smirking and obviously the sarcastic fiery personality-type, bore dark hair falling just below the bottoms of her shoulder blades and luminescent yellow hues. The other, smiling kindly and eyes alight with a warn glow, bore red-brown tresses falling just below her waist and bright crimson colored orbs. The dark haired female's right arm was draped about the other's waist. The crimson eyed female's head rested on the other's shoulder. It would be quite obvious that there was more than a simple friendship between the two teenagers.

"Mariko... I smell blood..." The female with the yellow hues stopped walking, looking back over her shoulder to see the trail of crimson.

"Blood...?" The crimson-hued female, now identified to be Mariko, quirked a brow and glanced up the steep hill. At the very top, one could see a form, obviously male, lying motionless in a pool of crimson, a trail of which was now creeping down the steep decline of paved way. He seemed to be wearing a utility belt, that of a policeman. The dim light of the few working streets lights cast enough of a glow on the still form to make out a navy blue policeman's uniform. "... We should go see if whoever it may be is still alive.." Mariko broke out of the other female's grasp and began to walk up the hill. She was afraid that it may be someone her father or grandfather knew on the police force. She already knew they were dead, seeing as though she didn't hear anything from the victim's mind. Even in an unconscious or sleep state, there were subconscious thoughts or dreams that occurred.

But what the two females came across upon approaching the fallen officer was something they would have never thought to be.

"... D-... Dad?" Mariko's eyes widened, tears brimming in her eyes. She dropped to her knees beside who she now knew to be her father. She was in a state of shock. She had been prepared for it to be an officer she knew through her father... but never had she thought it could have been her father.

Karei simply stood beside Mariko, eyes wide. She was in as much shock as Mariko was in. She took a quick glance over Mariko's father, Rae, quickly finding four... five.. six gunshot wounds, all in either his throat, his torso, or his head. She knew he was dead, as she'd heard no heartbeat, even as they'd been approaching. His eyes were wide open, gazing blankly up at the night sky. His eyes were already beginning to glaze over, yet it seemed he hadn't been dead for too long. The blood still smelled fresh. She could guess which shots had been fired first, but she tried not to think of it for Mariko's sake.

The shock of the event was beginning to wear thin and all at once, the realization that her father was dead and a wave of crushing sadness hit her as a large wave crashing against a cliff wall would. Mariko's emotional stability crumbled as tears spilled over her lower lids. Sobs rose from deep within her chest, her body beginning to tremble.

Karei dropped beside Mariko, gently pulling Mariko into her arms as vermilion tears began to pool in her lower lids. She remained silent as streaks of crimson trailed down her cheeks. There was nothing she could say to do in the situation to make it any easier; any less painful. All Karei could do was comfort Mariko and do her best to be strong for her.

Mariko didn't struggle against Karei. She allowed her eyes to drift away from her father's corpse. She didn't want to look anymore. It still felt like a terrible nightmare, just like her mother's death had. This was another nightmare she couldn't wake up from.

'... Four to the chest, barely missing any vital organs...' The tears brimming in her eyes, once warm and fresh, were now cold like ice, slipping down her pale cheeks. 'One to the throat, just barely nicking his carotid artery...' The puffs of breath in the air were slowing as it became harder and harder for Mariko to breathe. '... and a final shot to the head to end it all. How much could he have suffered?' She thought, the edges of her vision blackening. What little background noise there had been was fading in and out. 'Karei was there with me through the whole thing when my mother died, too...' She knew she was in pain, but she was beginning to feel it less and less now. She wondered where she'd been shot... She couldn't remember anymore. As the edges of her vision blackened, her body became colder. Her eyes drifted shut. She was so tired... so very tired. '... I'll just rest for a while..' She though. She knew that wasn't the case though. "I'm... sorry..., Karei.. I.. just wasn't... strong enough.." A final puff of breath in the air could be seen, then all in the small secluded alleyway was still.

[End notes: Hope it didn't blow. ^-^]

Back to chapter list