My Normal Life Now Has A Wake-Up Montage

The sticky feeling of something wrong clung to Tama from the start—a hint of bleariness stained her world, as everything snapped to focus, the feeling morphed into something indistinct, an odd tint of deja vu in an otherwise perfect world.

She thought she might’ve just repressed getting home again due to near-death trauma after their fight with—with someone. Something. We…yeah, together, something happened.

Something.

Something so important, the names slipped away like sand through her fingers.

She woke up in her bed (on time for once), ran to the kitchen, retrieved her usual boiled egg and even had time to hop on the couch and watch some morning talk shows before she had to run to school.

But the shows spouted nonsense, and when she tried to check for a message from—

Chiho—

Her head hurt.

When she waited for a little annoyed voice to tell her to get out the door now unless she wanted to be late and expelled from school or whatever, no one reminded her.

The din of the TV scraped her brain, the plain taste of egg stuck between her teeth to her tongue and ugh, you know what, Tama hates eggs, she’s always hated them and she’ll never eat one ever again. She threw herself off the couch, but something tugged her back to it. The panic weighing on her brain, the increasing annoyance smashed under a warm, comforting blanket of ignorance.

What are you doing? There’s nowhere else to go. Just watch TV and get ready for school.

…It would be nice.

It would be normal.

Tama sighed, and bereft of any other option, she grabbed her bag and ran out the door. She couldn’t muster much else, wherever this was, so she’d just have to go along with her routine for now, clinging to the fragments of her incredibly foggy memories. Sarine, magic, Chiho, dead—Pleasa.

Pleasa, and…

There was someone else, too.

Maybe it didn’t matter that much. If she could forget about it, then maybe—Tama bit down on her hand.

“No,” she said, “I can’t forget. I can’t forget them…you can’t make me.”

She tossed her bag over the fence on the way to school, taking a turn off the path and towards the train station.

The trains arrived off-schedule. Each one rolled in and planted a pervasive sense of unease in Tama. They contained blurry faces she’d never recognize before they took off, replaced by other trains seconds after.

Tama waited. The right one would come when it had to.

In a sea of wrongness, one train lingered; the timing matched with the one Tama was all too familiar with after being dragged onto it so many times before. She boarded the two hour train out to the Ohzora residence, fighting off the drowsiness which gripped her as she sat down before she forced herself to stand, tracing Sarine’s name in her arm with her a finger and, as—that girl’s name faded, with a fingernail and blood.

The thicket of trees loomed in the distance. Tama ran into them, let them swallow her, knowing they wanted to lead her to their nexus. Though she had little faith in this illusion, she knew the forest would never betray her, not in any shape or form. Unidentifiable paths offered flashes of familiar landmarks.

A line of Torii gates marked the path forward. Tama made it to a shrine, and clasped her hand together. Decrepit, held together by generations of love and repair work. The Ohzora men maintained the shrine and the women cultivated its power, wielded it to protect what mattered.

To make a connection with the Powers of Prime, one needed to pray. Tama knew her wishes wouldn’t reach the Gods from here. But if faith could unravel this world and let her rescue Sarine, then—

“Don’t.”

A tiny hand landed on Tama’s shoulder. She kept her hands clasped.

“Please, don’t.”

“…Why not?” She wasn’t real, but Tama asked anyways. She wanted to know. She needed to—she already knew.

“I’m trying to fix you. I’ve hurt you so much—I’ll undo the pain. The memories. All of it. You can be the normal girl you wanted to be from the start.”

“I don’t want that. You know I don’t want that.”

“But I’ve done nothing but hurt you! I almost killed you, why’re you trying to save me so badly!?”

“Because—we still have to avenge Chiho!”

“And isn’t that selfish!? I have to be the one to kill you, so you can pay back a dead girl and I can live with the guilt!?”

“You don’t have to live with anything, asshole! Just move on! You never liked me much anyways!”

“You’re so selfish! I hate you!”

“Fine! If it makes me easier to use, then tell yourself that! I don’t care—we just have to kill Pleasa!” Tama squeezed her eyes shut and prayed, and hoped, and wished, and died, and rotted, and—and—

Sarine appeared in front of Tama. “Even now, it’s about you. You get the death you want, and I’m left to pick up the pieces.”

“Do you think she wanted you to die? Do you really think…I’d ever let you die?”

Tama screamed and swatted Sarine. She thumped against the ground, motionless. A doll without purpose.

A blinding, bright flash engulfed Tama. Her hand burned, pain searing her flesh. She cried as her sword blinked back into existence and tore the world apart with a beam of light.

A forest ripped apart for a dark metal chamber—the beam pulsed, Tama’s head hurt, but she screamed and let the magic blow the hinges off of the device encasing her; she flopped onto the ground, in so much agony she couldn’t move, but the beam continued to grow…

Piercing something high, high above. Two metal plates clattered to the ground, alongside a smattering of crystals. Sarine plummeted from above.

It took the last of Tama’s strength to lunge and catch the little faerie, while Pleasa floated down,

down,

down.

Landing right before Tama.

Before, the girl couldn’t quite put a finger on Pleasa’s demeanor. She always seemed pleasant, though obviously masking her darker intentions. Even then she never let the mask slip. When she threw out threats she did so with a smile, or at least a placid neutrality.

Now, the moon’s light cast a shadow over her face, obscured her murderous gaze in darkness as she loomed over Tama, hand over the girl’s head. She dug her fingers into Tama’s scalp and yanked her to her feet. “…You know what? I can wait for another one. A Special Soul with more sense might just be around the corner. If you both want to die, forgotten, alone, then I’ll be more than happy to grant your wishes.”

“Do you hear me!? You stupid, useless—!”