It rains.
It came down in torrents during the night, and still continues unabating now in the morning. There are puddles strewn everywhere in my path, countless reflecting pools of all sizes dotting the grey concrete.
I run.
I'm not certain why, or ever whether I'm running towards something or away from a threat. All I know is that it's vital, so I keep running down the grey corridor and through the faceless crowd surrounding me at all sides, with no end in sight. My heart pounds like no tomorrow, but I feel neither pain nor exhaustion.
This is a dream.
But it doesn't feel like a dream. The raindrops hammering against the concrete and the murmurs of the crowd, the soaked clothes against my skin, and the musty air I breathe are all real.
And so is the voice, pleased, taunting, almost regal, eerily familiar in a way that leaves me comforted in an strange, removed fashion, and beyond that fearful without being able to explain why, but above all simmering with an explosive rage, ready to burst...
"What is your name?"
"Alraune! Alraune!"
I tried to respond, but something soft was in the way of my mouth, and the best I could come up with was: "Mmgph."
An impatient hand shook my shoulder, determined to rouse me from my stupor. "You're doing it again, Alraune. I told you to watch where you sleep."
My eyes fluttered open, more due to the constant shaking than any concerted effort from my part. I was lying flat on my face on the field I lived on, with lily-of-the-valley leaves and my bangs plastered against my mouth, and my arms dangling uselessly before me. All signs pointed to the fact that I had once again fallen asleep on my feet, and collapsed right where I had stood. I didn't know how long I had been out of it, but it had clearly done me little good: there was a strange buzzing sound ringing in my ears, and all my senses felt delayed and muffled. I could barely muster the energy to remove the hair and leaves from my mouth before my head sunk back onto the ground.
Medicine prodded my shoulder, not quite painfully, but with great determination. "Are you listening to me? You're crushing Su-san by lolling around like that."
"Sorry," I mumbled, and slowly rolled onto my back, wary of crushing my wings. Gravity was at full force, that was for certain it was as if invisible hands from Earth's centre were holding onto me, keeping me nigh paralysed and attempting to pull me through the ground. I swallowed. My mouth was dry and tasted like almonds.
When I finally managed to crack my eyes open again, Medicine was hovering slightly above ground, she and her faithful fairy doll peering down at me with matching frowns and folded arms. "This is the second time I've found you like this. Why?"
"I don't know," I answered truthfully. My leaden eyelids shut on their own, but I forced them back open. "I think I'm just really tired."
Medicine huffed. "From what? Excessive napping?" I could tell from the faint smile on her lips that she was joking, but she had a point: I spent more time asleep than in the land of the living in general, and there was no reason why I should suddenly struggle to stay awake for more than a few hours at a time, let alone collapse without warning.
I rubbed my eyes. "I don't know. Maybe it's autumn sapping my strength away." I finally pushed myself up and looked around the valley surrounding us. Autumn was well under its way, but apart from a few dead leaves nothing on the Nameless Hill indicated that. Lilies-of-the-valley swayed gently in the breeze, and would continue to do so until the first frost.
Lilies-of-the-valley only bloom in spring.
I snapped to attention and stared at Medicine. "Huh?"
Medicine's frown deepened. "Well?"
I hesitated. She was clearly expecting an answer, but what was I supposed to say to that? "But they must bloom in autumn as well. They're blooming all around us." I helplessly gestured at the flowers around us for emphasis.
Medicine gave me a long, searching look. "What are you even talking about? I asked whether you were seeing your friends today."
"Oh." That definitely made more sense. I shook my head wildly to rid it from whatever fragments of dreams stuck to it had made me hear things. "Yeah, I am. I should leave now, actually. I accidentally missed our last meeting."
Medicine quirked an eyebrow. "Sleep past it?"
I hung my head. "Yeah."
I looked around and found my dark green scarf lying a few feet away from me. I had found it hanging on a tree branch this spring, and it made for a useful shield against the spreading cold. I wrapped it around my neck, careful not to get it tangled with my hair or my wings, and barely suppressed another yawn. If anything, my impromptu nap had left me even more drowsy, and I yearned nothing more than to lie back down on the flowerbed and doze off once more. Instead, I rubbed my face in an attempt to both invigorate myself and to remove the imprints the blades of grass and flowers had left on my cheeks.
Rain...
"Alraune!"
I flinched and opened my eyes. I hadn't even realised I had shut them again. "What?"
Medicine placed her hands on her hips, the doll mimicking every movement. "Did you hear a word of what I just said?"
"No. I'm sorry." I looked at my toes as a blush of shame rose to my cheeks. What was I, a baby? Couldn't I go five minutes without falling asleep? There was no reason for me to be this tired.
I never slept enough.
I froze in place. I was certain Medicine had said nothing, so what I had heard must have been my own thought. It was a thought that made no sense: even before the recent wave of exhaustion, I had always spent a lot of my time asleep. Whatever was making me so tired was clearly preventing me from thinking straight.
"Do you know diseases that cause sleepiness?" I asked Medicine.
Medicine shook her head. "I know nothing of the illnesses of fairies. Ask one of your friends."
"What about poisons? There must be poisons that cause drowsiness."
Medicine's normally closed-off face lit up, and she smiled dreamily into the distance. "Oh yes, plenty of them...so many beautiful poisons..." She sighed happily, then frowned. "There are, but I don't see how you could have come to contact with any of them. You haven't touched me, nor have I been manipulating any, and it surely isn't caused by Su-san. Not that Su-san's poison has an effect on Su-san's fairies in the first place."
I nodded, defeated. "I'll ask my friends, then."
Medicine nodded, and turned to leave, still frowning. I took to the skies, heading towards Misty Lake, struggling to stay focus, and doing what I could to ignore the seed of concern growing in my mind.
"Alraune?"
I looked up to see Mystia staring at me. We were all sitting under a large tree Misty Lake, waiting for the final rays of the sun to vanish beyond the horizon. "Yeah?"
"What are you thinking about?" Mystia looked a little cross. "You missed the whole story."
"Sorry." I felt a pang of shame, and looked at the sky, a faint orange from the sunset, with only a few fluffy clouds to see. "I think it's going to rain."
Mystia looked skywards and frowned. "Why is that?"
"I can hear raindrops." They echoed inside my head. When I closed my eyes, I could see them in the darkness: thin, but unquenchable rain flowing through the void, ringing deafeningly in my ears. As I concentrated on the alien sensation, slowly my vision became clearer and more life-like: the background went from a void into a foggy, indistinguishable mass of colours and shapes, mostly grey and beige, ever shifting, impossible to pinpoint. Beyond the rain, I heard other sounds, the clamour of people, a strange, eerie female voice ringing on top of everything, drowning out even the rain.
I shivered as a spate of cold coursed through my veins and opened my eyes to see the same orange sky from before, but still feeling the drops of water on my skin.
Skin? I had covered as much of it as I ever could with my red hoodie.
"What's a hoodie?" I asked out loud.
Cirno shrugged. "Some kinda food? Never heard of it."
The others made similar non-committal comments, and I was left with a lingering unease, as even now that I could see my arms and see they were as dry as a desert, I couldn't shake off the sensation of water drops on them. And what, exactly, was a hoodie? Had I made it up without even being aware of it?
You have forgotten something.
It was as if a spellcard had gone off within my body, momentarily filling me with light and erasing all other thought; I returned from it shivering, and all the more confused. My head began to droop again from the exhaustion clinging to me. I looked at my feet, and saw my feet, clad in bizarre brown shoes, in a puddle of water. I rubbed my eyes, and when I looked again my feet were on dry grass, bare as ever, but I still felt the chill of cold water on them.
"Alraune?"
I blinked and looked up? "Yes?"
"What's wrong with you today?" Wriggle asked, frowning deeply, and as I looked around I saw the rest of them wearing matching frowns. "I've been calling your name for a minute now."
A trickle of cold sweat ran down my spine, feeling no less real or fake than the water I must have imagined earlier. "I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you. Maybe I fell asleep again?"
"I don't know," said Dai-chan. Was I just imagining it, or was that fear on her face. "I watched you the whole time: your eyes were open, and you were moving your lips like you were speaking to someone."
I grimaced. "I'm sorry. I've slept weirdly lately. That's probably why."
Dai-chan didn't look at all convinced, but nodded anyway. "If you say so."
"Alraune?"
I tried to respond, but to no avail. I hazily felt that several minutes had passed without my knowledge, but as alarmed as I was, my eyes wouldn't stay open. The buzzing in my head had only gotten worse with time, drowning out the words of my friends. I forced my eyes open and could tell they were all looking at me, eyes wide but with otherwise unreadable expressions, and could make no sense of their words.
This is wrong.
I opened my mouth to say something, to call my friends' attention to my predicament. No sound came out, as there were no words. I couldn't think from the buzzing, and it left me mute. Helplessly, I glanced up at the sparse clouds lazily making their way through the evening sky once more.
It rained. It should be raining.
I shuddered.
"Alraune?"
I turned my head at the words and gave a start. I was face to face with an entirely unfamiliar girl with a black bob cut and a snub nose. I stared.
You know who that is. It's your sister.
I don't have a sister. In a way, all fairies are siblings, but not in the literal sense. I have no family, so why would I ever think that? And yet, in some twisted, bizarre way, it felt right.
It is right.
"Alraune!"
Now they all were staring at me, unfamiliar faces that despite all evoked in my gut a strange sense of familiarity.
It's your sister. It's your parents. It's your home-room teacher. It's your best friend.
No. I shook my head wildly, covering my ears with my hands and squeezing my eyes shut, trying to shut out whatever was making me think the bizarre thoughts. You're wrong.
I'm right. It feels wrong because you have slept for so long. You need to wake up now.
I cracked my eyes open, terrified and curious. The strange faces were still there, sporting looks of concern. I brought my hand forward to touch them and see if they were real.
And I froze. In place of my hand there was another, darker and more robust, leading to an arm wearing a red sleeve...
The next time I opened my eyes, Dai-chan was holding my hand (my normal hand, thank the myriad gods), and all my friends circled me, looking seriously spooked (save for Rumia, who was instead looking at the tree next to us.)
"Are you okay, Al-chan?" Cirno asked, looking unusually discomfited. "You wouldn't say anything when we spoke to you, and then started screaming and just kinda...collapsed."
"I did?" I asked, and then immediately winced: the mere act of uttering words made my head throb like no tomorrow. I don't remember that.
"Yeah, it was pretty freaky," said Wriggle. She shrugged. "You sounded like Mystia trying to imitate a banshee."
"Hey!"
"Well, she did!"
Dai-chan was still stroking my hand. "Are you feeling any better?"
"I guess..." though I wasn't, not really. If anything, the earlier buzzing had spread into my entire body, twisting my guts and making my stomach churn. I felt like throwing up.
You should. You need to get rid of whatever is poisoning your mind.
"Alraune?" Dai-chan blinked, then frowned. "You're shivering."
I clutched her hand, too scared to speak again. But then, as I looked at Dai-chan's hand, I saw she was holding two, overlayed with one another. My own arm, with the ghostly image of the redclad arm surrounding it...
"What's happening to me?" I gasped, no longer caring that I was causing a scene.
Cirno leaned in closer. "What's wrong?"
I shuddered. "I'm not sure. I think I'm seeing things. There's a voice inside my head telling me to wake up, and—"
Cirno, who had been listening to me intently, suddenly raised her hand to interrupt me. "Sounds like you're possessed."
"Possessed?"
"Yeah. Like, there's another spirit inside you messing up with your head." She shrugged. "We'll just have to go see Reimu and ask her to deal with it."
No. We don't have enough time. She will find us out.
"It's telling me not to."
"What is?"
"The voice."
Cirno placed her hands on her hips. "Then you definitely should. We're taking you to Reimu right now."
I neither could nor wanted to protest as she and Wriggle hauled me up on my feet and held me up, gently raising me into air as the others took flight towards the shrine.
Glad of not having to expend any of my own energy to move, savouring the cool breeze around as we rapidly approaching the shrine, I began to doze off once more.
You can't fly.
I looked up and saw the ground far beneath us.
Humans can't fly!
My blood ran cold. intrinsically, without being able to put it to myself, I knew the voice was right.
"Get me down! Get me down!" I all but screamed, panic seizing hold of me and refusing to release me from its grasp even when I squeezed my eyes shut to look away from the suddenly painful-looking ground looming below me.
"Why?" Cirno asked, a touch impatient. Any other time, I might have understood her exasperation a little better, but right there and then I nearly began to shriek out of frustration.
"We can't fly!" I yelled back, shivering.
"Why not?!"
"Humans can't fly, that's why!"
"Yes they can! And we're not humans!" Cirno yelled back, a note of annoyance emerging in the timbre of her voice.
"Just get me down! I'm begging you. Please!"
Even from behind closed eyes I could tell Cirno and Wriggle looked at each other over my head, but then, mercifully, I felt the familiar jolt of an approaching landing in the back of my stomach, and soon felt solid stone beneath my feet. As soon as Cirno and Wriggle loosened their grip, I sank to my knees, shaking like a leaf in a breeze.
"What's wrong now?" Cirno asked. "Is it the voice again?"
I nodded feebly, and heard Cirno sigh. Dai-chan, Rumia, and Mystia had now caught up on us, and too landed on the narrow landing in the middle of the stairs to the Hakurei shrine. We had made it surprisingly far before the evil spirit within me reared its ugly head.
I'm not an evil spirit! I'm trying to help you, you stupid—
"Dai-chan," I began, desperate to drown the deceitful voice away. "How many steps are there?"
"I don't know," she replied, wearing the kind of expression you might wear on your face when visiting a seriously ill friend who you didn't know how to comfort. "We can make it on foot, though."
"Can you stand?" Wriggle asked. I nodded, but it still took both her and Cirno's strength on top of my own to get me on my feet. After that was done, however, I found I could stand relatively well.
"Okay," I said, then took a tentative step forward, landing my foot on the next step with reassuring ease. "Okay, I think I can do this."
There was no response.
I turned around. "Guys?"
Again, there was no response, but that was no longer my first concern. I stared, then rubbed my eyes, but this time doing so didn't change what I saw.
The sky was a uniform purple, dark and featureless as far as I could see. The shrubs and bushes around the steps, as well as the forest in the distance were pitch black, like silhouettes, motionless and eerie. The steps were pure white: gone were all signs of wear and tear, now the surface was entirely smooth and flat. A suffocating silence reigned, surrounding me like an oppressive force field.
I hugged myself, wide-eyed and shivering. There was no sign of my friends anywhere, or of any other living soul.
"Dai-chan?" I asked, my own voice sounding distant in my ears. "Cirno?"
"Alraune."
I swivelled around. Two steps above me stood Miss Yukari, holding her parasol with both hands, her voluminous skirts and long tresses billowing softly in the air despite there being no wind current. She gazed down at me quietly, with a fixed smile on her face.
I opened my mouth to greet her, but no words came out; an acute burst of pain temporarily blinded me, and it took all my strength to keep myself from falling onto my knees and tumbling down the stairs.
"Alraune."
I looked up. From an askew angle, and with my sight still blurry, Miss Yukari looked like a hazy apparition of gold, white and purple, almost as if I was seeing her through a sea of rain.
It rained that morning.
I winced and squeezed my eyes shut, riding another wave of agony.
"What's going on?"
"I have transported us into a temporary pocket dimension. There is no need to be afraid." Miss Yukari gave me an oddly serious look. "You are in pain."
I saw no point in denying it: I could feel cold sweat on my forehead, and no doubt I looked absolutely wretched. So, I nodded. "But why did you bring us here?"
Miss Yukari made no response. She removed one hand from her parasol and extended it towards me. "Come. I will take the pain away."
I swallowed, and held out my hand. As I raised my foot to take the one last step that still separated me from Miss Yukari, I suddenly froze, my feet refusing to budge, like they had been nailed into the stone.
"Well?" Miss Yukari asked, not impatient, but clearly expecting me to move and fast. I tried again, but no matter what I remained as still as a statue.
Don't listen to her!
"Is something the matter?" Miss Yukari asked, the slightest sign of curiosity showing up on her countenance.
It took me a moment to realise I had been shaking my head. "No. Yes. I..."
Get away from her! Now! Run!
I gave Miss Yukari a helpless look. I didn't want her to be angry with me, so I tried to convey to her with my eyes what my mouth refused to, that it wasn't my choice to stay put. Fortunately, Miss Yukari seemed to have noticed my exasperation, because she showed no signs of getting angry. Rather, she moved closer to me, leaning forward.
"What is it?" she asked, her voice almost gentle.
I opened my mouth, but the best I could manage was a squeak. The voice in my mind screamed.
Don't let her touch you! SHE'S THE ONE WHO DID THIS TO YOU!
"Did what?" I asked without thinking, my vocal chords suddenly obeying. A shadow passed over Miss Yukari's face.
"I think I know what the problem is," she said quietly. She still didn't look angry, but it was difficult to be sure: my vision had once again gone blurry, and instead of a golden-haired lady with a parasol, I saw both her and a void, super-imposed with one another.
I held my head as darkness once again threatened to claim me.
Run! Run! We have to get away from her or we'll never get back home!
But before I could act, before I even understood what the voice said, Miss Yukari made her move. She took my hand resolutely in hers, her elegant lily-white hand clashing with my grubby paw.
"Look at me."
I didn't want to. I really didn't. I was scared of what the spirit inside me would make me see in Miss Yukari's stead, and even if that hadn't been the case, right then I was afraid of Miss Yukari anyway. But look I did, as if compelled to do so by some outer force I had no control over.
Miss Yukari wasn't smiling.
That's what struck me as horrifying, rather than any hallucination or vision of terror. Miss Yukari always smiled. Even when she wasn't literally smiling, there was always a hint of a superior smirk in her eyes when she looked at me, and curled up lips to match her gaze were never far behind. At least she didn't look cross, but the seriousness and strange earnestness of her expression paralysed me with fear all the same.
She felt my hand gently, and placed her other hand over the first.
"It is never good to remember too much," she said, her words quiet, but ringing loudly in my ears, further emphasised by the silent void around us. I stopped breathing. "All it brings forth is pain."
"Miss Yukari..." I stammered, the voice inside my head curiously silent. For some reason, even though the spirit wasn't saying anything I could suddenly tell how it was feeling, like the boundary between us had grown thinner. There was incandescent rage, and it made my pulse raise as if it had been mine. But there was also fear, a hesitation, even some acknowledgement that Miss Yukari was right, even though the spirit wanted to deny it with all its might. It struggled against something I couldn't see or sense, and while it no longer spoke, its pain screamed in my veins and made my limbs shake.
Suddenly, feeling its fear so acutely, I was no longer afraid of it. Now, I almost pitied it. It was clearly in enormous pain, in even more pain than I was in. Perhaps it truly had meant to help me. And perhaps, what it had tried to tell me, what it had said about Miss Yukari—
I felt Miss Yukari's hand on my forehead, cold to the touch, pushing aside my fringe. I closed my eyes—
—and opened them to see an emerging dusk, a few lazy clouds slowly making their way towards the orange horizon, Miss Yukari standing in front of me with an oddly strange expression, holding her parasol with both hands.
I blinked. "Miss Yukari?" I looked around, and realised i was standing on the stairs to the Hakurei shrine. When I began to ponder how exactly I had gotten there, Miss Yukari spoke.
"How are you feeling?"
"Um..." I thought about it for a while. "Good. Really good, actually." I hazily remembered having a headache earlier that day, but now the crystal was clear and everything felt wonderful.
"Did you have some business at the shrine?"
I raked my fingers through my hair. "Not that I can think of."
Miss Yukari smiled. "That is good. I believe you have plans to play with your little friends tonight."
"Oh!" I didn't bother to question how Miss Yukari knew. Miss Yukari knew everything she wanted to. "Can I say hi to them from you, Miss Yukari?"
Miss Yukari smiled at me with a hint of sarcasm. "You may, my little friend."
"Okay, I'll be going then. See you, Miss Yukari!" I waved, then turned to leave.
"Alraune?"
I turned around on my heels, slowly lowering my arms back to my sides, and looking back in askance. Miss Yukari had opened her parasol again, and stood unmoving in the middle of the step, like an incredible life-like statue. She had a strange look on her face: very serious, the kind I hardly ever expected from her for all her smiles and playful teasing. Her eyes were almost black beneath the shadow of the parasol, and for a moment I had the strange thought that she was impressed by something.
"Yes?"
For a brief moment, Miss Yukari looked me straight in the eye. "You are strong."
I laughed. "What are you even saying, Miss Yukari? I can't even make flowers bloom."
"Indeed."
When I blinked, she was gone. I idly wondered about the meaning of her words, then shrugged and launched myself into the air, enjoying my flight under the evening sun. It wasn't like a little lily-of-the-valley fairy like me could ever fathom what was on Miss Yukari's mind, so I might as well stop worrying and enjoy life.