ENTWINED (One Shot)

"Kill the witch!"

"Kill her!"

"Burn her alive!"

"Hang her!"

"Behead her!"

"Save our village!"

Kira could only close her misty, hazel brown eyes and slapped her bony hands against her ears in vain attempt to muffle the angry cries of the villagers surrounding the dilapidated structure she called home, waiting for a miracle that would never come to her rescue.

"Show yourself, you filthy spawn of the devils! Face us!"

The sob she was restraining for the course of the angry mob's stay outside escaped her quivering pale lips. Frightened that they might hear, she quickly clamped both trembling, cold hands on her mouth, so tight her nails dug into her sunken cheeks.

She flinched at the persistent rapping of the door. Though she had barricaded it with the remaining furniture to keep them at bay, Kira knew it wouldn't do much in the face of the seething villagers who were out for her head. It was only a matter of time before the worst rained down on her. And as much as she wanted to defend herself from their irrational accusations which were fueled by fear and ignited by hate, she knew it would only fall in deaf ears.

She really didn't do it! She would never ever do such atrocity no matter how they claimed her to be!

Her explanation won't matter. She didn't matter. Their anger did.

Her breathing hitched, heart drumming so wild it could explode anytime inside her chest, as she backed up deeper into the farthest corner of the tight space nook beneath the creaking floorboard of her shelter.

Her mind wandered to the incident that led to her current predicament. As she did, a strangled choke fought its way out of her throat. Her chest jerked upward as she hiccupped instead. Rich tears streamed down her cheeks uncontrollably.

Vivid images of the sole person who had treated her just as a breathing, human being not some menace flooded her mind.

She tightly closed her eyes, sobbing quietly in her spot as she shook her head violently.

No. She must be dreaming.

She must be dreaming!

"Wake up, Kira."

Her eyes instantaneously fluttered at the sound of the gentle, fruity voice.

She caught her breath in her throat at the sight of a radiant woman with long, flowing blonde hair cascading in ripple of curls down her curvy hips, peering upside down at her lying figure. The woman's smile grew wider at her ashen expression as she settled down beside her. Crease of wrinkles marred her forehead as her smile disappeared, replaced by wide accusatory look gleaming in her baby blue eyes.

Kira sat up, bracing herself.

"You left me back there again, you traitor. How many times should I tell you to give me a heads up whenever you will escape here? Am I that inconsequential to you, hmm?" She hit her shoulder, but Kira remained unmoving, thoroughly fixated at the woman before her very eyes. "To think we're best of friends! How dare you!"

"Dahlia . . ." Her voice broke.

The woman's brows furrowed thoughtfully. "Did something wrong happen? Why are you going teary-eyed on me? It's disgusting. Stop it."

Bead of tears rolled down Kira's cheeks as she chuckled at the woman's comment. "That's so you."

"Uh . . . Duh? Unless there's another Dahlia stuck in this nasty village then yes, I'm her." She pored over her, squinting. "Did you have that dream again?"

Kira absentmindedly nodded.

She was really just dreaming.

Dusting off the non-existent dirt in her ankle-length pastel blue dress, Dahlia said, "That's a persistent, ridiculous dream you have there. Dream is just a dream, Kira. It's merely the reflection of one's state of mind, not likely to manifest in reality."

Kira nodded, eyes straying at the distant rolling hills covered by warm mixture of yellow, orange and red varieties of trees. The air was cool and crisp, calming the erratic beating of her chest.

"I hope so."

Indeed, it was just a dream. She wasn't confined underneath the suffocating tight nook of her home's floorboard, hiding from the villagers. There she was, cradled in their safe haven by the cliff overlooking the entire village.

"You know what," Dahlia said as she picked pebbles around her and started throwing it with all her might beyond the cliff ahead. The harsh look in her eyes seemed out of place for one who was a personification of warmth and tranquility. "We can always leave here and start anew. Maybe flee to another country—Lithuana, perhaps? Anywhere is fine, but here." Tossing the last pebble in her hand, she caught it midair and threw it with a loud grunt. "Gods, I hate this damn place!"

Kira gathered her legs closed to her chest and propped her chin over the knees; one arm hugging them around while the other played the hem of her worn-out, old dress. Kira's pile of clothes was nothing compared to Dahlia's plethora of pastel blue dresses—her favorite color.

"Easier said than done."

Dahlia snapped her attention to her, eyes drilling holes the side of her head. "Then you'd rather choose to get killed by these entitled, prejudicing devils than taking the chance of freedom?"

Kira bit her bottom lip, then released it. "What if they're right? The root doctor said so, too, before she died. I'm a menace. I'm—"

Before she could even finish the sentence, Dahlia grabbed her left arm encircling her legs and pulled up her long, flaring sleeves only to reveal a cluster of new and old dark bruises underneath. Kira gasped and winced at the abrupt move, but Dahlia held her arm firmly yet gently under her grip.

"Any form of abuse is not right, so stop undermining yourself, Kira! Soon, they'll gonna kill you with all these things!" A firm resolve crossed her eyes. "Come with me. Let's escape. We can be free. We can always be free. All we have to do is choose ourselves. Everything is just a matter of choices, Kira. Almost two decades of abuse is too much. Stand up for yourself."

Kira gulped the lump in her throat and slowly removed her only friend's hand from her. Giving it a gentle squeeze, her eyes lingered on it for a while, fighting a frown. She said meekly, "We can break the shackles binding us, but as long as we're alive we can never truly be free of them, Dahlia. We'll live constantly looking out over our shoulders for them. They'll haunt our sleeping and waking hours. We can never be truly free."

Void of emotion, Kira already expected the worst when Dahlia harshly pulled her hand away from her. "At least the monsters making my life a living hell will no longer get their hands on me." She stood up and started walking back to the trail behind. "The people who're expected to shower you with love died without bringing themselves not to flinch at your mere sight, what else do you expect from the rest? You could die and the only thing they'll feel is a goddamn relief. I'm the only one who truly cares for you, Kira. So if you care for me too, you'll take my proposition into consideration. We might never be truly free from their claws, but at least we have each other. We're the only one who have each other's back," she stressed, and left with heavy feet.

Wiping her silent tears, Kira hugged her legs back again and buried her face between it and her chest. "And that's why I can't lose you, too," she murmured, closing her tired eyes.

"I will kill them! Let me go, Kira!"

Startled, Kira opened her bewildered eyes just to find herself sobbing while her arms tightly wrapped around Dahlia's retaliating figure from behind. She shuddered at the sudden shift of frigid atmosphere. Her teeth chattered not because of the freezing temperature, but because of the incident that brought upon utter disgust and helplessness in her.

"I'm fine, Dahlia! You don't . . . You don't have to do this for me! You know them! P-please!" Her arms tightened around her flailing friend. "Just . . . Just let it go."

"Let it go? My gods, they almost raped you, for goodness' sake, Kira! I can never let this go! I will kill those bastard! I will kill them! You let me go!"

"You can't confront them, Dahlia! They'll only turn our words against us! You knew more than anyone else!"

As if strength left her knees, Kira slumped to the cold floorboard of her home, and shakily embraced her battered state. Had Dahlia didn't pay her a visit that night she was sure that wasn't the only state those men would leave her. Never in her wildest dream that those leering stares they threw in her direction would eventually come to this. They were supposed to skirt away from her as everyone in their village did, but she guessed it so wrong.

"Y-you should know. No one . . . No one will ever believe us. No one."

At that, Dahlia stopped and turned around, dropping to her knees with fresh tears shimmering her eyes. With one swift move she shed her cream-colored shawl and wrapped it around Kira's almost naked body filled with fresh cuts and purple bruises. She almost couldn't attain to stare at her friend's current state. This was too much. She could no longer stomach all these atrocities their entire village subjected her into.

Kira deserved nothing of it all. All because of a fraud root doctor's words, her friend's entire life turned a drastic change before they even hit puberty. All because of it, the once nurturing villagers avoided and deemed her a menace to their small community. Whenever an unfortunate incident happened, the blame almost always got pinned down on her. Even her once loving parents turned their backs on her. Everyone treated Kira as a plague. And if Dahlia could only resurrect the hag back to life, she'd kill her again and again, and again, just to sate the anger and avenge the life robbed off from her childhood friend.

"Beware of this child. She'll bring this place into shambles if left loose."

Dahlia's jaw clenched at the memory of the old woman's exact words. Kira couldn't even hurt a fly. Everyone in their village knew that. And yet when the hag suddenly died in her sleep a few days later, speculating hearsay circulated and fingers pointed at her friend as its main caused.

Pathetic. Enough is enough, she thought and embraced Kira's rocking figure.

"Dahlia, stop it!"

Kira rapidly blinked her eyes. Her throat parched. Foul metallic stench permeated the atmosphere she almost gagged. And then her gaze landed on familiar faces of men the night before. The ground seemed to sway beneath her feet as she clasped a hand to her agape mouth while her mind tried to take in the undeniably gruesome scenery before her eyes.

Severed bloody parts of once was breathing human scattered across the floor of Dahlia's living room, butchered in the most barbaric sense; chopped fingers, legs, forearms and private parts swimming in a pool of its owner's blood while the ashen look in its face gawked lifelessly into her eyes, mirroring the same horror-stricken, appalling savagery that greeted her in her friend's abode. Her gaze flitted to the right and fought the bile rising in her mouth as she took a step back. Another lifeless, butt naked and equally brutalized body was perched in the once pastel cream couch now painted with the crimson red liquid gushing out of the vertical cut of the man's neck while its head awkwardly tilted to side. A small scream left her covered mouth as the man flinched and blood squirted out his neck's deep gash.

"B-bitches flock together, eh? W-we should have known."

The strangled voice stole Kira's attention towards the center of the room. There stood Dahlia's blood bathed, exquisite beauty cladded in nothing but a baby blue flimsy nightgown, straddling another familiar man's lap whose hands tied by the wrist behind his back in the chair he was tightly bounded. Compare to the other two, the man was alive—barely alive—despite all the small cuts littering his bare muscular chest, busted lips, and cheeks.

With the butchering knife Dahlia pressed against his gulping throat though, Kira wasn't sure if that would stay long with her sudden interference. Not after the freezing cold look in her friend's eyes returned at the man's snark remark.

"Yeah . . . That's why you all are here," Dahlia drawled with a crazed smile. "Dead."

The man didn't have the time to react when Dahlia briefly removed the knife off his throat, swung it in the air back down. A sickening sound of steel piercing through flesh and bones mixed with the guttural, gargling sound bounced off the walls. Blood spattered out of the man's neck onto Dahlia's front.

Kira's stomach lurched as she whirled, refusing to look at Dahlia's non-stop swinging of the knife upon the man's neck. Her gut felt like flipping inside out. No longer able to hold it down, the bile she was repressing bubbled up in full tilt out of her trembling mouth and scattered around the floor.

Everything's happening was too much for her. And yet even her mind screamed at her to flee, another part of it didn't want to leave Dahlia in such state where anyone could see her, considering her house wasn't far away from the cluster of neighborhood down the road.

Determined, Kira spun to her heels only to elicit another high-pitched squeak when something rolled down upon her feet. Her gaze fell to the floor and her breathing hitched. Her entire body froze on the spot as she connected gaze with glassy eyes of a severed head. She muffled another scream in her throat.

"Kira."

Her gaze flew to Dahlia who was then already standing upright before the headless man, thoroughly soaked and smeared by the blood of her kills from head to toe.

The blood of the men who broke into her house the other night and almost took her purity.

"Do you still remember that day when the old hag found us playing in her yard?"

Kira gulped down the lump in her throat and answered the question of her almost dazed friend, "O-of course, I remember."

"And do you remember how angry she was at us for stepping into her flowers?"

"Of course, Dahlia. I remember."

"Dahlia . . ." She cackled melodiously before scoffing. "I've always hated that name. Do they really think I'm a delicate flower? Ridiculous."

Though her bladder seemed about to explode, Kira sidestepped and took ginger advances towards her friend. She stopped a few meters away from her, one arm hugging herself. "Of course, n-not. You're strong-willed and outspoken."

"Strong," Dahlia drawled distractedly, gaze sweeping over the mangled corpses that Kira refused to look at anymore. "Yes, I am. I'm strong that's why I'm alive, and they're dead. And beautiful and smart. That's why these pigs came with me without hesitation."

Kira took a furtive step forward only to be halted by Dahlia's crazed smile at her.

"Yes, you are, Dahlia, so please put down your weapon and let's leave. D-Dahlia, no one should see y-you like this."

"Like this . . ." She looked down at herself and frowned at the sight. "That old hag . . . It wasn't really you to begin with . . . It was really me . . . They only presumed it was you . . . but it was me."

Kira shook her head ardently, knowing all too well where the talk would lead to. And she couldn't let that happen. Not now. Not ever. Not to Dahlia!

"No, Dahlia, it was me. The old woman wasn't mistaken—"

"Liar!" Her voice thundered around the house, making Kira flinched. "She was looking at me when she said those words, Kira! It was me she was talking about!"

"Dahlia. You don't know—"

Scalding glare shot through Kira's spot, shutting her up effectively.

"I know because I killed that filthy old woman, Kira! I killed that jinxing wench because she pissed me off and I didn't feel any remorse, but satisfaction at my very first kill!"

No, no, no, no, no. This couldn't be happening. Dahlia would never tread that path! Not now!

"Dahlia, what are you—"

"It was me, Kira! It was me all along! You just happened to be there! But I know it was me! I don't know how I've done it, but every time I finally came to, I always find myself bloody covered with the kills I didn't know how I commit," she confessed, wild eyes staring at her bloody hands. "Your parents . . . They were my second kill. They left me no choice. They were abusing you too much I can't take it anymore. They pulled on a good fight, but the poison was potent. I killed your parents, Kira. I murdered them. And they deserved it. They all do!"

"No. Y-you're mistaken. They fell over the cliff," Kira helplessly countered as her shoulders rocked hard while sobbing breathlessly.

A soft look crossed Dahlia's face as she looked at her ever crybaby childhood friend—the only person who mattered in her life. Her lips stretched into a small, weak smile.

She did it. She protected her friend again.

Always. For eternity.

But she saw her. And yet, she still refused to accept what her eyes told her so.

"But I am. Deep down you know it, too, right? We're not best friends for nothing."

Kira stubbornly shook her head. "No. This is a mistake. Let's get out of here before someone came. Dahlia—" Everything she wanted to say died down in her throat at the sad smile her friend's giving her. Bursting into another fit of helpless sob, strength left her knees, and she fell onto the floor. The beating organ in her chest seemed like ready to explode in any given time. She pounded her fist against it, hoping to relieve the stabbing pain reality insisted her to embrace. "Is . . . Is that why you want us to . . . to leave?"

Dahlia quickly respond, "I've always hated this place. We don't belong here, Kira."

"We don't belong anywhere, but here, Dahlia. Wherever we go, things won't change. But as long as we have each other nothing else matters."

"Is that so? That sounds . . . nice." A wave of forlorn loomed over Dahlia's face while her hand played with the bloody knife that just took three lives. And then her head snapped back to Kira. "Then if you love me as much as I love you, follow me, Kira. Follow me so neither of us will ever have to be alone."

Perplexed at what she meant at first, Kira sucked in a deep breath as Dahlia drew the weapon against her neck. Her heart racing; pulse pounding so loud in her ears. "Dahlia, no!"

Dahlia smiled melancholically, eyes tearing up. "Follow me."

"Dahlia!"

Kira jolted in her seat at the sound of her breaking door falling into her floorboard above with a loud thud. Her bewildered eyes restlessly darted around and only then realized that her mind did a brief memory lane trip. She was still in the tight space nook, hiding without much of a choice for a crime she didn't and would never commit.

"Search for the witch!"

Heavy footsteps thundered above followed by series of twisted cheers from furious villagers. Clutters of frantic rummages echoed from above. The good old floorboards squeaked under their weights and Kira could do nothing but held her heavy breathing, and prayed they'll eventually pass by without noticing the odd crack over the floor where a slim ray of light shone through, directly to her shivering figure.

"She's not here!"

"She must have escape already."

The people above cursed as they begrudgingly pooled out of the house one by one. One particular villager barked out orders of searching the perimeters, hoping she didn't get away that fast.

Kira only allowed herself to breathe freely when the last of them finally slicked out. An audible, shaky sigh escaped her lips followed by a series hiccup.

The next moments blurred by as harsh pair of arms hauled her out of her hiding spot by the hair. She screamed and thrashed out from her assailant's hold but it was futile.

"I found here!" the man hollered, dragging her out of her house. "Over here!"

"No, no, no! You're making a mistake! I didn't do it! I swear! I did nothing wrong! I'm innocent! P-please believe me, I beg you!"

Her broken pleas were only answered by a rough tugging of her dark hair.

"Shut up! No one else has any motive to kill those men but you, you witch!"

The image of the three male corpses in Dahlia's house grazed her mind. "I-it wasn't m-me, I swear. You are all making a mistake!" she helplessly pleaded, hands clawing the man's arm for freedom.

"Is that why someone saw you earlier in woods? You're covered with bloody evidences yet you still deny it—hypocrite!"

They will never listen to me, Dahlia. I can't do this anymore. Help me!

Except that Dahlia's would never come to her rescue anymore.

Kira sobbed out her pain and frustration at the last memory of her friend she buried deep in the woods by the cliff—their safe haven. At least one of them was finally in a better place now. It was the only consolation she held on in that situation.

As the man continued dragging her out of the house and called out for the others, Kira gingerly released of her hold unto his arm and silently wept. There was no used in fighting the inevitable. Guilty or not of the crime, she had already seen this one coming. The villagers were all waiting for this kind of opportunity to happen---the last straw that would ultimately condemn her. They would never let this one slide. She was done. So done.

"Kira . . ."

It must have been her imagination, but she was certain the breeze carried Dahlia's fruity voice out of nowhere. The stabbing pain in her chest came back. If this was her friend's way of asking her to surrender, then so be it. She was so tired of this all anyway.

"Let me."

The wind caressed her puffy cheeks. She closed her eyes, relenting to her fate.

Too tired of it all, Kira didn't question the foreign, chilling sensation that seemed to take over her suddenly convulsing body. The man dropped her to the ground while still flailing animatedly as distant voices drew closer. And yet among all those voices, only one stood out the most—Dahlia's.

"Sleep for me, Kira."

And Kira did so without hesitation, oblivious of the screams for mercy that only shrugged off by the wicked laughter, all mixed up in a twisted harmonious melody at the dead of the night, proudly orchestrated by a pair of crazed, baby blue eyes performing the waltz of demise.

The next moment Kira came to, first light of dawn had already peeked through the horizon, slowly basking the land with all its glory. And oddly, she was staring at the familiar scenery of distant rolling hills covered by warm mixture of yellow, orange and red varieties of trees. The panorama tugged a nostalgia deep in her chest, uncertain of the reason why. One thing that truly perplexed her though was the fact that she hiked into the mountains without recollection of how and when.

Her brows furrowed at the rising column of smokes in the air from the overlooking plains below the cliff. Standing up, she dusted off her immaculate pastel blue dress, briefly pausing at the sight of small cuts and bruises in her tan forearm. How did she get those? She didn't have an inkling. No wonder her whole body sort of sore and tired. And then her gaze fell over the odd gray spot of the plains below.

She tilted her head, uneven eyes—left side, hazel brown and right side, baby blue—squinting thoughtfully, wondering what could possibly happen down there.

Wildfire, perhaps?

Without giving much of a thought at it, she grabbed her bag, spun to her heels, and disappeared down the trail.

Time to move on her way.

_END_

Find more about Kira in Waltz of Fate. Thank you! - MORRI (つ≧▽≦)つ