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Welcome To a Yunique Insanity
Come right in. The fun's starts when you start reading and your brain fries with the words I've brought to life.
Yuni's Home
It was dark, so incredibly dark. The shadows moved and flickered like a rebelling candle flame, dancing wickedly to their own cackling chorus. Pops, hisses and guttural growls rumbled like a campfire in the midst of a thunderstorm. There were colors in this twitching void, dark almost undistinguishable hues of violet, blue, green and red. Sheens like that of petroleum on a city pavement showed the colors that lied within the blackness. Though if one were to look too hard for too long, they would get a headache from the mesmerizing dances of the inky flames.

Yuni was used to this frightening place, these fiery betwixt and between tunnels. The flames licked at her face and arms like a longing lover, trying to coax her to stay in the void and dance with them. Sometimes, the temptation would almost capture the girl and it would be hard to blaze out of the other side. What lay on the other side of this transportation was usually something Yuni would rather skip out on, anyway, but the danger of this place would out-weigh the desire. As far as she knew, this place was only known to her and no one else. So no wonder the flames wanted company, the loneliness of this place was depressing.

That depression stuck with Yuni as she stepped out of that rift, licks of black fire stubbornly clinging to her upper arms and sides until she waved them off. It was almost like pushing off an overly affectionate puppy that just wanted a belly-rub. Somber icy blue eyes looked around to recognize the charred surroundings, the outline of a smoked Victorian styled house and the crisp remainders of what once was a flourishing garden. The Nekojin’s ears peeked out from under the ski-hat the girl wore, two bright orange tips peeking out from under a thick grey veil. The furry black tail loosened up around her waist until it freely swayed behind her, slow and steady as if keeping a tempo to an inaudible song.

The chains of her black and green Tripp pants jingled mutely, as if the dark atmosphere made them wary to sing out their metallic voices with the girl’s footsteps. A few more paces now and she would be on the blackened porch of the house, the damaged floorboards creaking even with her slight weight. All she had to do was reach out a hand and touch the once bronze doorknob for the old oak door to swing open. The hollow doorway showing the remnants of a home and family that Yuni dreamed to be a part of again. A staircase’s crumpled skeleton a little farther inside and to the left, overshadowing a passageway into what was a very open kitchen. To the right, an archway into a sitting room with empty bookcases.

And yet Yuni wouldn’t move, rooted into the spot just a few yards from the house’s entrance. Her eyes stared at the third floor windows, noticing for the hundredth time that the glass is missing and the wind was able to flow through the building freely. Her hands were shoved into her pockets, fists clenched with a jumble of emotions. She remembered the rain, the heavy thunder rolling in the skies, the yips and howls of canines. She remembered the fire, eating everything that wasn’t spellbound with protection and cradling a younger version of herself. The tortured screams of a woman rang in her ears, a flailing body set on fire falling down the steps and into the foyer. A man yelling for Yuni to get out of the house before the flames greedily ate him in the blaze.

It was a wonder the structure of the building was in tact, though Yuni recalled clearly how she fell through the second highest floor as the roof collapsed. Though that was what the spellbinding was for, to reconstruct and reassemble what could be if ever such a disaster were to happened. It was nice to see that the charm on the foundation worked, still standing somewhat strong even after all these years. The spell never covered the warm colors of the mansion’s paint, so the vision of a living home was lost in the current grayscale rainbow the wood has taken on.

Yuni sighed a deep sigh, realizing that her lungs had stopped working in her reverie. For a dangerously morbid moment the Nekojin wondered if the skeletons were still inside the rebuilt building since she couldn’t find any charred bodies that night. With all the preoccupation the years have given her, and the fears that kept her on the spot now, prevented her from ever entering her old caretaker’s home again. Her head would spin in the memory and the guilt until she finally forced herself to leave the property. Not this time though. There might not be a next time.

Filling her chest with the briny air of the cliffs nearby, Yuni pushed her cemented feet to take the necessary steps. The porch really did creak, worn nails popping a bit with the sudden applied weight of combat boots. A shaky hand reached out and touched the doorknob, giving a gentle push to nudge the aged hinges to swing. The foyer opened up to the girl with an eerie groan and a rising cloud of dust that swirled as if angry for having been so rudely awakened. Yuni paused to swallow the moist air outside before hesitantly stepping into the noticeably drier conditions inside the home. There was no noise that welcomed her; no pleasant greetings from Leila, no warm figure of Kurosu leaning against the bottom railing of the stairs. Nothing… just the groan and slight sway of the house as the wind caressed the outer wood.

Yuni’s face seemed to have taken up a permanent frown as she looked around her old home, the dull and burnt colors foreign to her in contrast to her memories. There was the tall canister that would hold the umbrellas, having been melted down half the height and looking so disfigured. The steel skeleton of an umbrella peeked out from the top, like a hand reaching up from the grave. There were a series of blackened squares on the foyer’s walls, the house’s memoirs of the many paintings Kurosu liked to collect. The grand staircase that led up to the level where the bedrooms, the study, the music room and the library was holding up as best as it could. The steps had withered to charred planks that have been eaten through by the little of the termites that managed through the protective spells. The foyer was a mess with dust and animal droppings—mostly rats, which got Yuni to yowl in disdain.

Yuni leaned to the right, trying to peek into the sitting room without moving her feet and making noise. Though that didn’t work out so well as the entire floor appeared to have screamed out in protest to the shifting of weight. The Nekojin jumped a bit, shoulders hunched tensely as she waited for the house to resettle. Taking feather-light steps, she made her way to simply stand in the archway. Morbidly curious eyes roved over the once homey space that held lush furnishings, artsy décor and a warm fireplace. The greedy fire only left the imprints of paintings on the walls, lonely squares on the floor’s wood, a gaping wound that was the hearth and empty space. The only spots that didn’t have dust were the patterns of tiny paws on the hardwood, criss-crossing and circling over themselves like lost souls.

With a shiver of desolation, the petite girl turned and looked around the foyer once more before proceeding into the kitchen. With sturdy wood replaced by stone, her boots made hollow echoes in the open room. The tall windows yawned endlessly with the breeze, though the billowing curtains Yuni remembered were missing to add the elegance. A hulking, disfigured mass of metal stood in the corner where the counters ended. Yuni only knew that it was the old fashioned stove because of her childhood pyromania. Hollowed out head cabinets waved with opened doors, scavenging pests having pushed them open in their quest for food that wasn’t there. After a sharp, almost musical, crunch at her boot, Yuni looked down to the stone under her to find the glittering remnants of the complex chandelier that had hung in the center of the concave ceiling. If the shining fragments didn’t bring such a pang of sorrow, Yuni might have been awed by the refracted light show.

The door that led into the garden had been eased open by a breeze that came into the large glassless windows, sending an eerie shiver down Yuni’s spine. She ignored the request to venture outside and turned back in to the foyer, facing the stairs with an analytical gaze. Her weight should be light enough, so the withered planks should hold. With that prediction made and then proven soon after, the Nekojin looked around the hallway that wrapped around the area of the foyer and to the five doors that led into the bedrooms, library and study. The dust had coated thickly on the carved mahogany railing, the girl’s fingers leaving ghostly trails on the worn wood. Pale floorboards creaked and popped in time with Yuni’s footfalls as if declaring her presence and welcoming her home. They never made any noise… not before the fire.

Coming to the first door, icy blue eyes looked over the scarred face of the willow wood door. The carved image of fire elves dancing around a fountain was barely recognizable from the ravages of time, but Yuni could still tell that this was Leila’s and Kurosu’s master bedroom. A feeling of trespassing almost made entering impossible, but the need to explore this familiar yet alien place prevailed. Quietly, remorsefully, Yuni stepped inside her caretakers’ room and took in the restored room’s appearance and compared it to her memory. The grand mattress of the king sized bed was moth eaten; the thick comforter blanket riddled with rips and holes. The stone and wooden frame was holding up, though the twisting bronze vines had turned to a jade green from the moisture from the cliffs. There were squares similar to those in the living room downstairs where the large dresser and beauty desk once were, the dust having not settled as thickly there as the rest of the floor. The room that had held so much love and light at one point in time seemed so cold and bleak, lacking the life of those that slept here.

With a slight sniffle and a heavy heart, Yuni turned out of the bedroom and closed the light wood door with a muttered word for respecting the dead. Then she made her way to the next room. Her bedroom, to be exact. She was trembling at this point and she jumped slightly from the sharp creak the hinges gave upon opening, feline ears twitching under her ski hat. This bedroom was smaller than Leila and Kurosu’s room, as to accommodate a younger version of Yuni that was half her current size. This was saying something, since the girl was short with her petite figure. The floor was partly bare where the creamy carpet couldn’t repair itself after the fire, or where gnawing pests couldn’t resist a nibble. Peels of old wallpaper fluttered whenever a slight breeze came in to chill the air, revealing moldy walls underneath. This room was devoid of furnishing spaces save for a small square in a corner since Yuni had never slept in a bed. Her memory of her room was filled with the stuffed animals, bean bag chairs, dangling rope toys and other such fun things. Now the bedroom was nothing more than an empty shell that creaked and groaned like an elderly human; just like the rest of this house.

There was still the library and the Kurosu’s study, but the girl found that she was trembling too much to make it to them. The Nekojin had her shoulders hunched in an attempt to force the shaking to cease, the rest of her body shivering as if Kai froze her with Death’s chill. Her icy eyes burned while the sight of her dusty boots blurred and swam. Yuni had made it this far without shedding a tear and without bursting with the tension, staying sturdy in resolve out of respect for her late caretakers. Now it seemed like it was time to leave, however, since the house held nothing more than hollow memoirs and creaky welcoming.

Half-blindly, Yuni turned out of her old room and somehow managed to make it back to the weak stairs without stumbling over the halls’ railing. It felt like there was a mourner’s procession trailing behind the Nekojin, making her look back up the stairs to see that she only imagined the extra footfalls and creaks. Swirls of dust were kicked up by her failing composition, looking like ghostly faces rising up from the floor to gape at the Queen of Remorse with pity.

The front door was harder to open this time around; either because Yuni had difficulty finding the knob or that the house didn’t want her to leave quite yet. A sighing groan vibrated through the manor as a harsher wind caressed it, the entrance clicking shut after a rough pull. Bleary icy blue eyes looked out over the scarred lawn and found a curious thing standing there, looking back at the unsteady girl with doll like irises of deep sapphire. With a sniffle and a straightening of the back, Yuni proceeded down the porch steps towards the gun-slinger.

Kai said nothing as she watched her Charge trudge past her with Tripp pants a-jingle and pockets full of fists. Tinted crystal feathers tinkled as the wings unfurled, shining slightly in the late evening sun. The Angel of Deconstruction could see the storm of emotions brewing in Yuni’s head, the weight of her fate bearing down on her small shoulders. Kai understood the odious look Yuni had given her and tipped her hat down in a respectful bow to the house before following after the smaller girl.

It was so easy to tell that Yuni was haunted by the past.

As well as the future.





 
 
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