[Nightmare--> Video [Week 12 day 2] I'll keep on bending till I break
[The dream begins like many others she's had over her lifetime, Hisana walking down an oddly deserted street in Rukongai, the silence pressing in on her like a weight. Everything is so quiet, and it's strange but somehow she maintains her composure. Her sandals scrape against the dirt as she turns a corner and pauses for a moment as if steeling herself before she's moving again. The path between the buildings leads to a small clearing where she spent much of her free time, and she drops to sit on the grass, tilting her head to look up at the sky.
However the dream begins to change now, twisting until she's seated in front of a small rough altar that holds a series of funerary tablets. Her eyes lock on the names on the tablets before she reaches to touch them lightly, pain showing through her normally calm expression. She picks up one in particular, fingers tracing the name engraved on the stone before she slides it into her sleeve, and then collects the others. They're not something she'd leave behind, after all. The only physical proof that she'd been happy once.
She stands a moment later, turning towards the door of the room, her expression shifting when she notices the figures standing there. The hint of panic is clear on her face as she recognizes the faces of those who went before her, and one face that was so like her own. She reaches out a hand and takes a slow step forward, as if she can call them back to life with her touch, but they turn away and she's left standing there, looking smaller than normal, her shoulders slumping.
Rukia turns, glancing over her shoulder back at Hisana as the others remain turned away. She is small, smaller even than Hisana but there is something about her still that dwarfs her elder. In her eyes there is no forgiveness, no kindess, no happiness. Only blame, and that seems to flow from her, from all of them, as if it is a replacement for the energy of life they no longer have.
“How dare you?” she says, and though her voice superficially sounds like Hisana’s it carries infinite condemnation that burns away the similarity. “You desecrate them with your presence. If it weren’t for you, they’d be alive.”
A few moments of silence before Hisana speaks in reply to this. ".....It wasn't like that. I wasn't even home....when.... " The words fade off into silence under the look from Rukia, her own expression stark with pain because for all her excuses, she knew the truth. It had been her fault that they had died. Her own weakness that had betrayed everyone she'd even tried to help. Hisana bows her head a moment later,
".I'm not like that anymore..." Even to her own ears, the words sound hollow. She'd never done anything except abandon others when they needed her most. She didn't deserve forgiveness and they granted her none, their expressions accusing as they reached out to her. dragging her from the house.
Hisana jerks awake a moment later, breathing strained although she tries to regulate it, her head turning to check on the figure sleeping beside her and make sure she hasn't woken him. . She closes her eyes after a moment, although she's not likely to fall asleep again after that.