http://rhiana_fayette.livejournal.com/ (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
rhiana-fayette.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tamingthemuse2008-04-26 06:29 pm
rhiana-fayette.livejournal.com) wrote in tamingthemuse2008-04-26 06:29 pm
Entry tags:
92- Center- Former Midnight- rhiana-fayette- Red Garden
Title: Former Midnight
Fandom: Red Garden
Prompt: #92- Center
Warnings: Implied yuri, kind of angsty and dark
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 515
Summary: Kate Ashley makes it through another night without being called on to fight, and finally admits to herself her true emotions toward her dead best friend Lisa. Occurs only about 2 episodes into the anime.
Nights became agonizing, the world holding its breath until the clocks sighed midnight-- but the most agonizing thing about it was that it wasn't the entire world holding its breath. It was just a handful of girls, in particular four, praying and cussing and fervently pacing and wishing with all of their reanimated souls that tonight, just for tonight, they could collapse in their bed at midnight and cry themselves to sleep.
Lately she can't even clutch at sleep's coattails, awake in all of its tormenting glory until she falls unconscious, slumbering fitfully and engulfed in horrible nightmares. She was the closest with Lisa, the very best friend she could be, and her absence has killed her soul even if she lives on in this borrowed, nearly unwanted body. She was kind and respectful, she was a superb student with an impeccable attendance record, she is a member of Grace but if this keeps up she won't be all that for very long. Kate Ashley has recently morphed into someone else, a foreign persona inhabiting her life and her body, shaky and unstable and fallible. Kate Ashley is deteriorating.
Curling up into a ball on her side she clutches at her pillow, tear glands straining and aching from overuse and exhaustion. Tonight the clock reads 12:03 and she is still safe and alone in her bed. No phone calls. No "kill, or be killed," tonight. No anything. Just herself. And it is a miracle that even now she has not lost the will to fight. She contemplates her best friend, the one she can no longer hug, the one she can no longer exchange diaries with, laugh with, smile at, talk to.
It is an emotion she has chained to her heart, one she is unwilling to admit even now. But Kate Ashley has no choice but to speak to herself, in the dark and isolation, or risk insanity- or perhaps that is risking a painful period of sanity. Either way, she stuffs her face into the pillow, muffling her sobs.
Kate had loved Lisa with every ounce of her being.
Her life used to revolve around the other girl-- everything, everything done in the sake of Lisa. The good grades, composure, she was herself because of Lisa. Without her she was a moving mass of uncertainty and abandonment, a useless human glob of unwanted goo.
Now, the world centered around midnight. Her life was midnight, that flooding feeling of simultaneous relief and dread. Her life was no longer Lisa. It was midnight. Survive until midnight. Hold your breath until midnight. You are safe after midnight. And perhaps that sense of sadness, that thing she refused to recognize, was disappointment. Because perhaps part of the young high schooler wanted to die. But not this night, this night when she fell into a light and tortured sleep for two hours before school. She survived this night.
To kill, or be killed.
Fandom: Red Garden
Prompt: #92- Center
Warnings: Implied yuri, kind of angsty and dark
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 515
Summary: Kate Ashley makes it through another night without being called on to fight, and finally admits to herself her true emotions toward her dead best friend Lisa. Occurs only about 2 episodes into the anime.
Nights became agonizing, the world holding its breath until the clocks sighed midnight-- but the most agonizing thing about it was that it wasn't the entire world holding its breath. It was just a handful of girls, in particular four, praying and cussing and fervently pacing and wishing with all of their reanimated souls that tonight, just for tonight, they could collapse in their bed at midnight and cry themselves to sleep.
Lately she can't even clutch at sleep's coattails, awake in all of its tormenting glory until she falls unconscious, slumbering fitfully and engulfed in horrible nightmares. She was the closest with Lisa, the very best friend she could be, and her absence has killed her soul even if she lives on in this borrowed, nearly unwanted body. She was kind and respectful, she was a superb student with an impeccable attendance record, she is a member of Grace but if this keeps up she won't be all that for very long. Kate Ashley has recently morphed into someone else, a foreign persona inhabiting her life and her body, shaky and unstable and fallible. Kate Ashley is deteriorating.
Curling up into a ball on her side she clutches at her pillow, tear glands straining and aching from overuse and exhaustion. Tonight the clock reads 12:03 and she is still safe and alone in her bed. No phone calls. No "kill, or be killed," tonight. No anything. Just herself. And it is a miracle that even now she has not lost the will to fight. She contemplates her best friend, the one she can no longer hug, the one she can no longer exchange diaries with, laugh with, smile at, talk to.
It is an emotion she has chained to her heart, one she is unwilling to admit even now. But Kate Ashley has no choice but to speak to herself, in the dark and isolation, or risk insanity- or perhaps that is risking a painful period of sanity. Either way, she stuffs her face into the pillow, muffling her sobs.
Kate had loved Lisa with every ounce of her being.
Her life used to revolve around the other girl-- everything, everything done in the sake of Lisa. The good grades, composure, she was herself because of Lisa. Without her she was a moving mass of uncertainty and abandonment, a useless human glob of unwanted goo.
Now, the world centered around midnight. Her life was midnight, that flooding feeling of simultaneous relief and dread. Her life was no longer Lisa. It was midnight. Survive until midnight. Hold your breath until midnight. You are safe after midnight. And perhaps that sense of sadness, that thing she refused to recognize, was disappointment. Because perhaps part of the young high schooler wanted to die. But not this night, this night when she fell into a light and tortured sleep for two hours before school. She survived this night.
To kill, or be killed.
no subject
Nights became agonizing, the world holding its breath until the clocks sighed midnight to the repetition of 'midnight' in the last paragraph.
I particularly loved - Lately she can't even clutch at sleep's coattails and It is an emotion she has chained to her heart. Such poetic invocations of emotion.
Thank you for sharing.
no subject
Thank you very much for the feedback and praise! ♥