Flower Garnish Part 2

A hot plate of fresh gyoza was placed in front of Yuzuki. Knowing her tastes, her father poured soy sauce directly onto them without a word. Akahito Fujikawa always knew exactly how his daughter liked her food. The savory scent had her mouth watering the moment the soy sauce hit the fried dumplings.

The older man chuckled at her eagerness to eat, before setting down garnishes next to the gyoza. They were carefully arranged pickled carrot slices to form flowers. The carrots were still delightfully crunchy in their own way and the way they resembled small orange roses tickled her imagination. Her father was quite skilled, having inherited a talent for the kitchen from his own father and having honed his abilities over the years.

Her little hands reached out to grab the vegetable flower first, turning it around and marvelling at it. “Papa, why do you make the carrots look like flowers?”

There was a bit of surprise on her father’s face, but it slowly turned into a smile as his large hand caressed her hair affectionately.

“Well, sweetheart, sometimes it’s just nice to have food look pretty, too. Before you eat with your mouth, you eat with your eyes. When food looks nice, you want to eat it more, right?” His words were gentle as he explained, mirth in his voice as young Yuzuki tried to understand the somewhat complicated explanation. He suddenly grabbed his daughter and gave her cheek a little raspberry, blowing away her confusion and making her squeal with laughter, playfully begging him to stop.

“Papa! Come on!”

“Hahahaha.”

“Hey, you two. Quit playing around or the food will get cold.” That was her mother’s voice; gentle, but firm. Aoi Fujikawa had to always be the voice of reason between herself and her whimsical husband. She was bringing out a second dish to enjoy beside their gyoza. A simple miso soup whose warmth not only filled her mouth, but her whole body. It felt like she was sipping a hug every time her mother served it. There was always such a gentle flavour to her mother’s soups.

“Mama, why do you make such yummy food for me?” Yuzuki asked, her curious questions now turned towards her mother.

“Well, that’s easy. It’s because I love you and I want you to be filled with all of my love. So much that you won’t ever forget how much I love you,” her mother answered. Though she wore a smile, something felt off to Yuzuki. Why was there such a sad tinge to how she said that? The older woman reached out, almost hesitantly, to touch her cheek, stroking it quietly.

“Mama?” Yuzuki asked, worry welling up in her. Something was wrong. Something very, very wrong.

Her mother’s hand was so cold, the look in her eyes unlike anything Yuzuki had ever seen before. It was this train of thought that slowly broke the illusion before her – the dream. Things shifted and before she could grasp her mother’s hands in return, suddenly everything was a wreck. A street with people screaming, smoke rising up and two bodies in front of her.

Yuzuki screamed. A wail of her adult self in grief, seeing this gruesome scene before her –

Yuzuki jolted upwards, knocking her head against a root growing above her makeshift bed. A soft curse let loose as she was rudely awakened because of the pain on her forehead coupled with the nightmarish turn her dreams had taken. Blinking the spots away, Yuzuki realized how dark it still was within the forest. Barely any time had passed since she fell asleep. That dream felt like it had been much longer.

Some spots still remained within her vision, though, a pair of bright orbs that had her worried she might have taken some brain damage.

Coloured blue and red, they swam in the air above her head. For a bit, Yuzuki simply watched them, waiting for when her sight would return to normal. However, a cold sweat began to roll down her head as she realized they were glowing and not at all disappearing. A scream of fright lodged itself into her throat as she stared up at this inexplicable phenomena. In her fatigue scrambled brain, she recalled the name of the forest she was in.

The Forest of Spirits. Spirits were souls. Souls were ghosts.

So, the logical train of thought she had was that the Forest of Spirits was haunted.

Better late than never to come to such a conclusion.

Yuzuki, freaked out by this revelation, let loose a blood curdling scream as she grabbed her dagger and bag-pillow and booked it out of there as fast as her legs could take her, blindly running away from the blue and red ghosts.

Perhaps it was her scream that had done it, or maybe her panicked fleeing causing it, but compared to when she first arrived at the Forest of Spirits the whole place seemed more alive. Or, more aptly, severely haunted.

As Yuzuki fled, she came across more orbs and oddness that spooked her, causing her to veer in another direction or turning herself around without thought. Her ears were beginning to be filled with ghoulish voices, calling for the end and it caused a huge chill to go down her spine.

“Why me?!” she screamed into the air, close to crying.

First being yelled at by her boss, being dragged into another world, exiled and now this. Could she not have some kind of peace?! The injustices against her just kept piling up.

More faces popped up around trees, from the branches above. Glowing eyes and shiny teeth that looked ready to rip apart flesh. All seen in her haste for safety. But she couldn’t keep running forever. The most exercise she did was her marathon of work, so Yuzuki began feeling stitches in her side, her breath coming in shorter. Yet still, she had to survive. Scared and frustrated, she had to keep her mind on that.

The scene of her parents feeding her flashed through her mind for a second and she began to sniffle. Why then? She hardly thought of her parents for so many years! Wouldn’t it make more sense for her to think of her grandfather?

And yet, she couldn’t help it. As she ran through the forest, she let out one more cry,

“Mama, papa, help me!”

At this time, blind in the dark with only monsters and ghosts for company, Yuzuki fell.

She misstepped, having run herself near the edge of the ground. Slipping down, she took a tumble downward, only managing to force herself into a roll to mitigate most of the possible harm to herself. She felt many rocks and plants on the way down and she landed on her back with a painful thud, knocking the wind out of her momentarily. Her bag and dagger fell next to her, the weapon giving a dull sort of clatter.

The adrenaline that had been coursing through her began to ebb as she laid there, reeling from pain and trying to catch her breath. The sky above her was finally visible, a break in the trees opening up to allow her to see the myriad of moving stars. No, wait. It took her an extra moment to comprehend what she was seeing, but stars did not move.

High above her head, moving like a river stream, were those orbs she saw. A huge amount of them. At first, seeing so many made her heart stop and she held her breath uselessly for a moment, not wishing to be noticed. But as moments passed, they simply gathered from the surrounding forest and moved along together, heading somewhere. They were so far away, they appeared almost as pinpricks against the backdrop of the sky above, mixing with the true stars that littered the night.

If I weren’t fighting for my life, I might think it was pretty, Yuzuki thought to herself.

Yuzuki tried to get up, but found her body feeling incredibly heavy and too painful to move. God, did she break something important? Was this it? Was she going to be stuck like this, in some foreign place, all alone?

She felt so stupid for it, but the first bit of tears began to roll down her cheeks as she stared at the stream of orbs, the anguish of everything just erupting from within her.

“God, why am I so useless like this?” She couldn’t do anything right that day. It was just one thing after another.

The woman could feel exhaustion take over again. There was still danger afoot, but there was no fighting it.

I’m tired…

Maybe everything was useless. Her fight to keep the restaurant her grandfather had worked in. Her trying to live on when no one would be waiting for her at home. All the loss. All the verbal and physical abuse she received daily from a thankless job. She was even discarded so easily after being summoned to become a ‘hero’.

Mama…papa…grandpa…would it be okay, if I joined you…?

A part of Yuzuki still wanted to survive though. Within her, it clawed against her body wishing for more rest, to shut down and let the world go black, but it was losing.

Her vision blurring, she felt something crawling onto her. Ah, the creatures of this forest? They were small, but many. In her failing vision, they looked like formless little blobs. Vaguely, her mind remembered things like slimes from anime and videogames. Maybe she was going to be eaten alive by slimes? They felt strangely warm though. Comforting…

Well, if she had to die, it wasn’t the worst way to go.

The world was awash in lights of red and blue before it became completely black once more.