in which tl;dr.
『鏡の森』 Ｔｗｅｌｖｅ ｌｏｎｇ ｎｉｇｈｔｓ ｉｎ ｗｈｉｃｈ ｔｈｅ ｍｉｎｄ ｉｓ ｓｈａｋｅｎ。
The first day in forest was all right. Indeed, the way out escaped her as time did, slowly but certainly. Sleep didn't come to her easily, but it was within the blanket of twilight when she started hearing things, saw objects that couldn't have been among the laurels and olives. At first it was easy to ignore. At first, it was just the sight of a funeral procession. Those dark coffins, so familiar, so desolate with its fine carving and polished surface, both dark and luminous in the steady candlelight, coldly glowing like their once living souls. (Canta, canta - Deus vobiscum - "God be with thee.") They were like shadows creeping quietly into thicker shadows, disappearing between the trees as unobtrusively as a bird flutters into a protective canopy. It was easy to ignore when she got over the urge to follow them, because surely--surely it wasn't real. It wasn't a comrade in that box. It wasn't Allen or Miranda, the missing, beside the hearse. It wasn't. They couldn't be there crunching the grass yet leave no footprints. They're phantoms.
Just phantoms. She's heard the warnings.
She restrained herself from drinking or eating the food she carried with her for Allen, but her stomach yowled for something after a whole day of emptiness. Her throat too rasped for at least a sip or two of water. As she chewed and swallowed, she hoped Allen wouldn't mind if she found him with only bits to spare... but the second day passed along fruitlessly. Wandering began to become tiring, and more tiring still on the third day, even when she found water to refill the thermos with. Couldn't fill it to brim though since she thought she saw the shadow of an Akuma. ...but those things couldn't have been here either, if only because the Earl wasn't there. (Of course she had no clue of the truth.) Still, she could have sworn she saw Eshi's beastly grin stretch upon the rippling surface, framing her with his pointed fingers.
｢ＴＩＴＬＥ： Ｌｏｓｔ ｇｉｒｌ ａｔ ｔｈｅ Ｌｏｎｅｌｙ Ｂｒｏｏｋ」
Nightfall was hardly a boon, now. It heightened her imagination, sharpened her memories of a time she tried to forget. At this point, sleep became as elusive as her friends or that exit. Her dreams were dark and indinstinguishable. Perhaps because the illusions had grown stronger through her lack of nourishment, or perhaps she always had a tendency to submit to her fears when their prescence felt as real as the bark that scraped her arms. She thought she heard her brother in her dreams, calling her to rise, to find him.
"...Komui? But why-- where are you, brother? Brother!"
(Homesickness, hunger, and thirst.)
His voice rang out for only a few minutes, escaped her in the sunlight until it everything was coated with thick azure and powdery coal. "What's your secret, Lenalee?" He chuckled and his laugh faded into none and all directions. She spun around and around in that darkness following that sound as it beckoned her deeper into the maze. (She didn't suspect it was a trick. How could she if it was her dear brother? Even if it was just smoke and mirrors, he wouldn't lead her away from safety--)
And as if the poltergeist sensed her doubt he asked her again to hurry to him, he was just there (behind that tree, up those cascades, across that ditch). He asked her to hurry because he couldn't make coffee like she did; it always came out too bitter or too sweet. He couldn't tidy his office like she did; things just got worse and that lady secretary was always so harsh.
She chided him but it ached her heart (it was only harder to look for him with tears in her eyes). "Brother! Where are you? I miss you! Please come out... please..."
(Homesickness, hunger, and thirst.)
Time trickled on with a consistency at first seamless but now broken, patched, and distorted by her urges to sleep away the growling and the throbbing pains throughout her body from endlessly walking over stones and thorns, through rivers and mudbanks. She washed sparingly, if not only to clean wounds, for she'd seen things in the water that belonged in her nightmares. Though she told herself they weren't real, it panicked her to be alone. She told herself, "Akuma can't be here, the Earl isn't here to make them." (How wrong you are, dearie.) Despite that the sounds only got louder and the chased her: the mechanic clunk clakkity clunk of Akuma joints, the buzz of a Level 4's wings, its lethal porcelain finger lifting out of the corner of her vision, silent as a dove. If they truly were to appear, she was defenseless against them. Innocence couldn't work their either. It could have been so much easier if she could fly, but all she could do was hide.
(Homesickness, hunger, and thirst.)
Then she thought she saw him--him? Oh, yes, Allen. That's why she was in there in the first place, right? ..."There"? The forest started to look different to her, more like the evergreen woods she ran through when she was younger, to get away from a fate that fettered her before she was born. ("God's plans", said beguiling whispers. "Obey and be blessed." -- Rubbish.) She remembered: bleeding feet, tear-swollen eyes, lungs burning with winter frost, her legs scratched, punctured, and bruised--then she felt it, like an injured rabbit hunted by wolves. She saw them coming for her to cage her.
Another voice that sounded to her worse than a monster's wailing said, "Come along now, Lenalee."
So she ran.
[ ➜ NETWORK ENTRY. ]
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