Let The Sun Shine by Pangoo

In The Red...

"And what is actual is actual only for one time. And only for one place"

It was dark, and the darkness was overwhelming.

It was cold, oh so bitterly cold, and she felt like crying.

But most of all, it was empty.

An endless emptiness, so starkly forbidden, so furiously condensed in this shabby space,

that when a small breeze moved the bamboo blinds she surprised herself by not failing into the nothingness, which she felt hovering only inches from her. Biting her lip, she narrowed her eyes into, what she had hoped looked like a scrutinizing look and tried not to curl her toes. A habit she had picked up while still a young child.

"It won't ease your pain."

If she hadn't heard the rustling of silk being moved into place before the older woman spoke up, she surely would have fainted. But it was more the words that caught her off-guard then the sharp movements. Pain. Pain? Ah, yes. Of course, pain. What else could she be talking about?

It was after all the whole purpose of their meeting. She, slightly bowed trying not to shiver too much in her thin yukata and doing her best to draw her eyes away from the older woman's very warm, very thick and very comfy awase, was here begging the old female, who sat opposite her on the moth-eaten tatami floor in her very warm, very thick and very comfy awase to accept her as her apprentice.

"Probably not," she murmured through her half stiff lips.

"And your memories? Surely you would not -"

"They are mine!"

"Oh, I would not dare to say otherwise."

It was silent again and this silence was slowly suffocating her. Not because she had problems with breathing, the tension made her already cold body stiff and numb, but it was more the fact that she remembered. When the elderly woman ignited her worn tobacco-stuffed pipe, she was positive that she heard someone calling her name from the flame. Someone she knew, knew well in fact. But with the exhale the heavy smoke broke the spell. Looking up, startled at the woman she nearly missed her next words.

"Leave..."

Looking dazed at the aged mouth she was fascinated with fine movements. How each syllable was formed and escaped the confinement of the blood red lips.

"...and pray that what they say is true."

Hmm, this redness... Now where did I see it again..?

"Pray that tomorrow truly is an another day."

Relief or disbelief, whichever it was, it left her body weak and clouded her mind. She could only gasp at the deep shriek, before she really comprehended what she was doing.

"MOVE!"

The bark of a command shot like a bullet through the haze of heady comfort. She scrambled to her feet and rushed to the door, but not before bowing low several times. Once outside the door, she let out her breath slowly, as if not to disturb eeriness of the dim lit corridor. Only then did she close her eyes, only then did she breathe in the dusty air and only then did she truly remember everything. The sudden remembrance clenched her heart, constricted her muscles, wound a tight rope around her throat and left her failing helplessly to the floor. Later she would wonder whether she heard the breaking of glass before or after the fragments had wrung themselves into her skin. The only clear memory of that night, being that of a sharp pain in her back and the lack of air in her lungs, faded not into the black dizziness of unconsciousness, but blurred with all other colours into what resembled the horrid red of blood.

TBC