Walking Blind

Author's Note: Interesting, no? Well this is just the beginning for the madness and Squall still has TONS of secrets to uncover, about himself as well as about his mysterious roommate, Oni. It's kind of slow I know, but don't worry, it will pick up soon.

Disclaimers: I don't own any of the songs or Final Fantasy 8.

Chapter 3: Crimson Past

What you see is just a shadow,

What you see here is not me.

It's just a broken picture of who I use to be.

Sometimes I can't remember,

Sometimes it isn't clear.

That what you see before you is built of all my fear.

My chance at life has pasted me,

It all went by so fast.

No one takes the time to know me and my crimson past.

~Lynxionia

Just as he was about to turn the knob to open the door to room 917, a familiar voice called out to him and he turned to see Toki running towards him. While she caught her breath, Squall stood with arms crossed over his chest losing patience.

When she finally gained her composer she spoke to him in a cheery voice. "I almost forgot to tell you. If at anytime you need to know where anything is, what your suppose to do, or maybe just talk, come ask me." She handed him a small folded piece of paper and he took it from her tiny fingers. "This is my room number. I'm on the tenth floor. Ok?" Squall simply nodded and watched as she turned around and began to head back towards the elevator. Suddenly she stopped and turned around to face him again. "Oh, and I never caught your name."

For a moment he pondered not telling her, as he didn't really like being familiar with people, but decided it wouldn't do any harm and simply replied, "Squall."

She replied with a nod and then continued her walk to the elevator. Squall turned back to the door, reached in to his pouch, and pulled out the door key. Still holding the folded piece of paper, he entered the room and shut the door behind him. He put the door key back into his pocket and unfolded the piece of paper Toki had given him. 1013 was the number scribbled onto it and Squall shoved the piece of paper into his back pocket before lifting his eyes again.

Looking over towards the kitchen he realized for the first time that Oni was silently standing next to the counter with a small book bag on her back. Her arms were crossed and she was looking at him with a completely emotionless face. Making their way out of the room once again, they headed for the elevator. Hitting the button for the sixth floor, they rode the elevator in silence and exited when the doors slid open. Oni passed a few rooms before finally opening one on the right that had a label reading, "Therapy: First Degree". It already sounded bad to Squall, but he entered anyway with Oni leading the way.

Upon entering the room, he was presented with the sight of many tables lined up in front of a chalkboard where a doctor stood patiently waiting. "Come in and have a seat. Oh, it seems that we have a new patient. Why don't you sit in the seat that's next to Oni?" The doctor pointed to the seat closes to him and Squall made his way over to it and sat down with the full intention of catching up on some missed sleep.

After the doctor took attendance, Dr. O' Reilly, started up some boring speech about self-esteem and its effects on people and Squall crossed his arms and began to let his eyes drift shut. But just as his eyes were about to close, he caught the glimpse of Oni opening her backpack and pulling out a pad of paper and pen. For a moment, he actually thought that she was listening to what the doctor was rambling about, but as he watched her carefully, he realized that she wasn't even looking at the words the doctor was writing on the board. Instead she had her pen out and was scribbling words down on her page and crossing them out here and there. He caught a few of the words here and there and realized she was writing a poem. Finding this as surprising, Squall sat back in his seat and took out the schedule that had been given to him only this morning. Oni was in all his classes and each of their classes started at eleven o'clock and ended at twelve. Their classes were only on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. That was four hours of "therapy" every week. Not that bad, but it would definitely get annoying after a while.

Squall found it quite interesting to read the poems that Oni wrote as the doctor continued to talk. After a while though, Oni stopped writing and pulled out a different notebook. Inside, Squall watched as she began to sketch pictures onto the paper. Her first drawing was of a beautiful landscape with a forest and animals here and there. Her second was of a sunset on a beach somewhere with a dove flying towards the sun. Each of these was an interesting depiction, but the most amazing were the last two that were drawn in the book. The third was a portrait of the little girl, Toki. Her face was set in a wide smile and in her tiny hands she held a small stuffed bunny. When Oni felt her work was done she looked at the picture and wrote "To: Toki, From: Oni" up in the corner. With this complete she started on her fourth and final picture. It was a flaming lion jumping out from the page with claws and fangs prepared to strike its unsuspecting prey, whoever it may be. Unconsciously, Squalls hand drifted to the necklace hanging around his neck that was shaped like a lion and bore the name Griever (author note: I think that's what the name was. If that isn't it, e-mail me).

Then suddenly the doctor stated that the session was over and everyone could go to lunch. Oni closed the drawing book and returned it to her small book bag. Rising, she stood by the door waiting for Squall to follow, which he did and they silently made their way to the elevator and headed for the fourth floor where the cafeteria was located.

When they arrived and the elevator door slid open, they entered the cafeteria and were met with the sound of people talking and laughing with their friends while eating their lunches. As soon as Oni put one foot in the door, about four other people attached themselves to her appendages. The smaller ones grabbed onto her legs and the slightly taller grabbed her arms. Squall just stood wondering why all these people were hanging on her and talking faster than lightening. For someone who almost never spoke, she was pretty popular.

Oni silenced their pleas and begging and then spoke to them in her emotionless voice. "Today I sit with Toki."

A few children hung their heads in disappoint but Oni simply walked over to where the perky Toki sat eating her lunch. Squall followed her over to the table and stood there, assuming he wasn't welcome, as no one had even acknowledged his presence. But just as he was about to walk away, Toki spoke up.

"Hey Squall, why don't you sit with us? I'm sure Oni doesn't find if you sit next to her."

Toki looked over at Oni and then back at Squall with a wide smile. Oni slid over on the bench to make room for Squall before she rose again leaving Squall with the assumption that she was going to go get her food. Squall had no idea what he was supposed to do so he just sat there and listened to Toki talk to her friends.

Squall was really starting to get hungry and was having doubts to whether or not he was going to get any food. But just when he was about to end lunch early, Oni reappeared with two trays full of food, put one down in front of him, then sat down and began to eat bits and pieces off of her own tray. When she had picked through it enough, she threw it away and silently listened to Toki talk about various things with her friends. Squall finished his "lunch" (which consisted of beans, a slab of meat, stale corn bread, and a pill of mush that they claimed was mashed potatoes) he sat there just letting his mind drift back to Balamb where his first love had turned his world back into a dark shadow, but just as he was about to drift away completely, Oni rose from the table and made her way out of the cafeteria. Squall followed her out and took one last look back at Toki who waved at him as he exited.

The silent pair made their way back up to the ninth floor where room 917 was located and upon entering, Oni tossed her door key onto the kitchen counter and set her book bag down, but not before she pulled her sketch book out and walked over to her bed. Propping herself up against a pillow, Oni pulled up her knees and opened her sketchbook to a page then began drawing. Squall guessed that this was "free time", so he walked over to where his small suitcase lay and began to unpack his things. Through the small curtain, he could see the outline of her fingers moving over the page and her head moving this way and that do get a better view.

(She's so…detached from everyone else, but at the same time everyone seems to treat her as a …sister.) His own mind mused in the back of his head about his silent roommate. In an attempt to stop this musing, Squall let his thoughts drift to the small girl named Toki. She was such an innocent little child. He wondered what could have made someone even think of putting such an innocent little girl in a place like this. What could possibly be "wrong" with her?

Even with thoughts of Toki running through his mind he couldn't shake the image of Oni whenever he looked closed his eyes. Her crimson eyes were just so cold, but at the same time, painful. Her voice was flat and emotionless, but she spoke to Toki with such care.

As Squall thought silently to himself, he realized that Oni had never once directed any statements towards him at all. It was almost as if she was ignoring him, but then she acknowledged his presence at lunch earlier so she must not be completely ignoring him. He threw a glance back to the shadow on the other side of the thin curtain. Maybe it was known of his business to know about her, but still, she baffled him to no end.

Suddenly Squall was pulled from his train of thought when a knock sounded at the door. Oni rose from her seated position and answered the noise. When the door was pulled open, a smiling Toki appeared with a big red ball.

Toki looked up at Oni who was looking at her through her cold eyes, but Toki seemed to find no alarm in her gaze. "Hello Oni! Is Squall in here?" Oni stepped aside from the door to reveal Squall sitting on his bed with a careless expression on his face. Toki bounded over to him and plopped down next to him on the bed before speaking. "Hey Squall, why don't you and Oni come outside with me and play with all the other kids! It is free time you know." Squall just sat there not really knowing what to say, but Toki looked over at Oni and put on her best puppy-dog face. "Pleeeeeeeeease Oni!"

Oni sighed lightly before nodding, causing Toki to jump up in excitement. Grabbing her sketchbook and pencils again, Oni prepared to leave the room once again. Squall quickly grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil before following Oni and Toki out of the room to the elevator. The button for the 1st floor was pushed and they made their way down to the main floor where the back door was to the grounds.

Out in the spacious yard, little children as well as teens and young adults ran around playing tag and varies other games, older kids lined the picnic tables playing cards and talking, and sitting at one of the picnic tables, Mollia was circled by a group of kids and her warm, elderly voice was telling fantasy stories about great adventures no doubt. When she saw Squall, she smiled like a maternal figure would and then continued her story. Toki ran off to where a group of her friends were standing and showed them her big red ball. They all yelled in happiness and began to play some sort of game together. Taking a seat under a large tree away from the majority of people were playing, Oni began to draw in her sketchbook once again. Squall, however, didn't sit next to her as he usually did; instead, he sat propped up against the building in a shadowy part of the area and pulled out his note pad and pencil. Looking around him, Squall began to write down ideas that came to his mind while looking at the people around him. In this new environment, maybe, just maybe, being here wouldn't be so bad.

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Out of the corner of her eye, Oni looked at the former Commander with slight confusion running in her mind. He wasn't like the many others who had come to stay at The Ocean's Shore. Something in the way he presented himself in a non-threatening way made him seem kind. He hadn't even spoken to her, but she could already tell that he was different somehow. There was no way that she could explain what she sensed, it was almost…she didn't know what it was really.

Sitting down under one of the age old trees that was away from everyone else, she flipped open her sketchbook and looked through the many drawings of animals, landscapes, and people that had forever been hidden from everyone's eyes. Memories as well as simple thoughts, all put on paper, never to be seen. No one ever saw her drawings and she didn't think that she would be sharing them anytime soon. Closing her eyes, she let her hand turn her ideas into subjects to draw. After she decided what she wanted to sketch, Oni began to draw under the old tree as she had done for so long for each drawing symbolized something in her life.

So many things had changed since those two years, and she can still remember the first day her life turned against her. That day, living simply became an existence, a state of being. To no point or purpose except to live on and deny that that man had control over her. To keep on going no matter what, that was her motivation for getting up in the morning, for getting through everyday without going insane. All of it was to deny him control, to give up was to give in and that was something she could never do.

Mollia sat over at the picnic table telling her stories as she always did. Mollia was the only person who really knew who she was without having to be told what happened to Oni. The elder of all of them knew her for who she really was and not just an empty shell with no emotion. Oni knew what people thought of her, they thought of her as their sister who cared for them and would always be there. But Oni felt the weight of everyday that passed by. With every moment her body grew heavier by only a fraction of a percent, but it grew heavier nonetheless. How much longer could she make it through each day and still have energy for the next? It was something that would only be answered in time, which was something she didn't have.

Sighing to herself, Oni finished her drawing, closed her sketchbook, and rose to go back inside. It was getting late and she didn't feel like sitting out with all the noise of the children ringing in her ears. Walking back to where the entrance to the building was, she watched as Squall also arose from his place against the building wall and followed her back to the room they now shared.

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Upon entering, Oni tossed her key onto the table near the door and put her sketchbook back in the bag she had been carrying earlier. He watched as she grabbed some clothes out of a dresser and laid them on the bed before walking into the small kitchen and pouring herself a glass of water.

Making his way over to the bed that was now his, he put his notepad down on the nightstand and realized that he hadn't had any dinner of any sort and was quite hungry because of the extremely small amount of food he ate at lunch. Suddenly, he heard the clatter of pots and pans from the kitchen, which jerked his train of thought away from his growling stomach to the loud noise. Pulling back the curtain between the two beds just slightly, he could see Oni bent over pulling items from the small fridge and putting them out on the counter. From the look of her actions he figured that she was going to cook herself some kind of dinner. Squall's stomached screamed at him as he realized he was probably going to have to go without dinner tonight and, if this schedule continued, he wouldn't be eating dinner for a while.

Settling against his pillow and releasing a heavy sigh, he let his mind slip away back to garden, where he had lived though all the memories he could still remember thanks to the GF's. And, as expected, his thoughts eventually drifted to her that woman who ruined every chance he would have had to live a normal life with no regrets and second-guessing. Her arrival had changed his world forever, but whether that change was good or bad could be thoroughly debated. As far as he was concerned, she had put him in a worse situation than he had been in before she came, but there was nothing he could do now. Why couldn't she have understood? Why did she have to do what she did to him after all they had shared? It was like a tornado. He had started out in the swirling winds of the storm and then he found the calm with her, but had eventually found the storm again, and the only place to go was the other side. And he wasn't really sure he wanted to find that other side, because if it was anything like the first one, then he was sure he didn't want to.

Well, there wasn't anything he could do now, so he might as well stop dwelling on it. Letting his thought drift away from her, he suddenly caught a new image. It was his mysterious roommate and her extremely defining features. Only once had he seen eyes of crimson and a sorceress had held them. His silent roommate's hair was of a black he had never seen and her skin was a copper tone only found in the earth itself.

(She seems to be so…sad, but the children, no, everyone, acts as if she was the cheeriest person in the whole place. How can someone be so emotionless and still be loved like a sister?) He let his mind muse over this freely and somehow wondered if this was how people thought of him. (Well, you were emotionless to her and she STILL cared enough to bug the hell out of you.) At this thought, he frowned and tried to once again get his thoughts away from her. In this attempt, he started thinking about Oni again. (Some how, she reminds me so much of myself…but I don't know how. I don't even know anything about her, but I feel like I've met her…somewhere.) He once again stole a glance over at the figure on the other side of the curtain that was cooking her dinner on the small stove. The thoughts of the mysterious red-eyed girl he was sharing a room with seemed to be ever present and he decided that he would just stay quiet until she said something and, who knows, maybe he would somehow find out about her.

After he had finished his musing, he simply shut his eyes and ignored all the little voices in his head long enough to slightly drift off to sleep, but just as he was about to complete fall into yet another nightmare, the most startling and unexpected thing happened. The voice he had only heard when it was addressing others spoke to him.

"Squall."

His eyes shot open at the realization that someone was speaking to him, but he was more surprised than anything to have heard Oni speak to him for the first time. Squall blinked twice and then recovered from his shock so that he could answer her. "Yes…"

In her hands was what looked like a bowl of some liquid, but with the extremely dim lighting Squall couldn't quite see what she was holding. "You must be hungry."

Looking from the bowl to Oni and then back at the bowl again, Squall simply nodded and got up to go sit at the small table where Oni set the bowl down in front of him. She took the seat across from him and began to eat out of her own bowl. Taking small bits, Squall ate the food that Oni had made and realized that she had yet again done something for him without even asking. Silent was her every move, but the moves were there nonetheless. He had not asked for her to get him lunch, he hadn't asked for her to make him dinner. She just DID.

Continuing to eat the food, which turned out to be some sort of soup, the newest patient at The Ocean's Shore stole a glance over at the enigma called Oni to capture her facial features again. Her face was set in its usual "silent" expression with her crimson orbs not really focusing on anything in particular but still seemed to be concentrating on something. Looking a little closer, Squall could see something else in her eyes that he hadn't notice before. It was just barely there and it took a lot of studying her face to see it. An all to familiar emotion that plagued him even now; deep sadness and utter pain. Although hers was of a different sort it was still there and he suddenly felt…he didn't know what he felt really. It wasn't like sympathy or pity…no it was something else. Almost like a mutual understanding of how she felt, but that was completely stupid because he had not the slightest clue to what she had gone through.

After a few more minutes, Squall looked back down at his half eaten soup and became lost in his own thoughts again. (I wonder if she just doesn't have emotions, but then how could she treat Toki and everyone else the way she does? Maybe once she wasn't so distant, maybe somehow, somewhere inside her Oni is…)

"You were a SeeD once."

Squall was once again yanked from thinking process by the calm voice of Oni. For a second, he didn't say or do anything as he was still trying to process what she had said, but after a moment he recovered and simply nodded before looking away. "Yeah…was."

"At Balamb garden."

Squall nodded again, not really wanting to talk about it. (That place reminds me of...her.) At that thought Squall flinched slightly and turned his head further away from Oni's penetrating gaze that had shifted to look over at him.

Despite Squall obvious intention to avoid the subject, Oni did not stop her words from coming. "You are the one who led a group of people against Ultimecia and defeated her."

At the sound of the sorceress name, Squall's head turned suddenly to look at her and a pair of angry blue eyes glared at her. "So, why does it matter?" He held his annoyed expression that usually made people quickly apologize and leave him alone, but Oni just stared back at him as if he nothing had changed.

Her fire pools looked at him with a completely impassive expression and just as the ocean met the flame Squall's expression soften ever so slightly and Oni answered his angry question with one of her own. "Do you miss being there?"

Surprise whipped through his eyes at her question and its forwardness. Did he miss being Commander of the Balamb SeeDs? The answer came to him before he even finished processing the question. A single word left his mouth as he continued to look at her. "No."

"Why?"

That question. The one question that plagued him since the beginning. The one question he couldn't answer no matter how hard he tried. He had thought and thought and still hadn't been able to come up with an answer, but as he looked into the eyes of this strange woman he found an answer to that question. "Because…she is there." The words escaped his mouth before he realized he had said them and when he realized he had, Squall shuddered at the thought of her.

He half expected Oni to ask yet another question in which he would have to endure more painful memories, but what he expected didn't come. Yet, what she did say was quite unexpected. "Sorry. Those memories bother you." With this simple apology, Oni lift her bowl and rose from the table.

Suddenly, Squall rose from the table as well and carried his bowl into the kitchen where Oni was washing out her own. Waiting for her to finish he felt like he needed to say something and after a few moments of silence he spoke again. "Don't be sorry. You didn't do anything."

At his sudden words Oni stopped drying her bowl out and turned around to look at him and Squall saw the tiny hint of surprise past through her features before she nodded and turned back around. Both of them finished clean out their bowls and put them back in the small cabinet. A silence fell over them again and Squall got the feeling that he wanted to say something but didn't know whether or not she would answer.

After a few minutes he decided to go ahead and chance it. "What about you? What did you do before coming here?"

An extremely heavy silence fell over the two new roommates for a very long time and as the moments stretched on, Squall believed she wasn't going to answer. Her back was turned to him and she just stood there as if someone had pressed the pause button on some unseen device.

Squall stood only a few feet away from her and simply stood waiting for her answer trying to non-verbally tell her he was waiting by not moving or saying anything.

"I don't remember." Oni quickly picked the clothes that had been lying on the end of her bed and disappeared behind the door to the bathroom.

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In the isolated space of the bathroom, she stood looking in the mirror at her reflection. When did she become just a shell? Just a broken person with only one reason for living? Is that...who she is now?

Oni bowed her head away from the mirror and closed her crimson eyes. Two years had pasted but she still wasn't able to get away from the nightmares that plagued her. But in those two years she had never once taken the time to think about her past. There was a time when she questioned her past, but ever since the "incident" she had stopped caring all together. Yet, today for the first time in those two years she had really thought about it. When Squall had asked her where she had come from and what she had done, Oni had honestly tried to answer him, but had found that she didn't have an answer.

Sighing to herself, Oni changed into her sleeping attire, which consisted of a pair of pajama pants and a tang top. Her long silk like hair was pulled up into a high ponytail and a white silk robe finished the look. Oni then took off all of her jewelry including her watch and stepped out of the bathroom.

Upon exiting, Oni was presented with the sight of her new roommate discarding his black leather jacket and then doing the same with his white T-shirt. He took a heavy sigh and stretched his arms out trying to relieve some of the stress in the muscles that were probably almost always tight.

Even though Oni was not one to go around eyeing guys, she still took time to appreciate his physical attraction. He had perfectly even shoulder blades and every muscle from his biceps to his abs was a work of art. There was no denying that he was attractive and Oni was not about to try. Yet despite this attractiveness, Oni was not about to forget her past mistakes so easily and Squall was no exception. He didn't affect her in a physical way and she planned to keep it that way.

Walking over to her bed, Oni checked the clock on the nightstand and decided that it was time for another attempt at sleeping. Oni pulled back the covers to her queen sized bed and pulled off her silk robe before laying it on the end of her bed. The heat from the summer day had warmed up the room considerably. This she could tell from the way that Squall was lightly fanning himself on the other side of the curtain and Oni decided to sleep without her pajama pants.

Without any hesitation, Oni pulled off her pants completely exposing her white panties for all to see, but she could have cared less. She had never cared about what people thought of her and she wasn't about to start now.

Wearing only her tang top and underwear, Oni climbed into her queen-sized bed and then flicked off the small light before letting her eyes drift shut.

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"I don't remember." At those words Squall had truly thought she was just playing with him, but as her face turned ever so slightly, he saw the blank look in her eyes and realized that she was dead serious. She really couldn't remember. He didn't even have to question any further than that. He could just tell that she didn't remember anything. But...nothing? Not any parents or past life?

Even his friends...no, not friends, "previous acquaintances" had not truly known who their parents were, but they did know about their lives before becoming SeeDs. How could someone not know who he or she once was?

(Under certain circumstances anyone can make themselves forget things. Maybe she made herself forget her past.) His mind started to try and explain the possibilities to him as it always did. Yet what could have happened to someone to make him or her completely forget how he or she once was? It had to be something extremely painful if that's the measure she was willing to take. But if he had the ability to forget about her, he would, but Squall knew that he could never truly forget her.

Squall decided that he had done enough thinking for one day and he walked over to the queen-sized bed that had been dubbed his. Sitting down on the end of it, he let out a sigh knowing that it would be just another nightmare filled night with the ever-present voice along with them. But nonetheless, Squall stood from his bed and pulled off his black leatherjacket along with his white T-shirt, which left him standing in only his black pants, black socks, black boots, and boxers. His always-tight muscles were beginning to really ach and he pointlessly tried to stretch them to relieve them of some stress, but to no avail.

Has he finished his "stretch", Squall heard the sound of extremely light footfalls coming towards his general area and he looked over to see Oni wearing her sleeping attire and slightly off white robe. Her long ebony hair was pulled up into a tight high ponytail while the dim light reflected off of her almond skin.

The humidity was heating up the room rather badly and Squall began to fan himself with his hand to rid his skin of some of the sweat now forming. It was going to be a really hard time getting to sleep in this kind of atmosphere. From his side of the curtain, Squall could see Oni standing near her bed simply looking at it as if it were an object she didn't wish to touch. Then slowly, her head rose and she pulled the covers back to her queen-sized bed. Her next action made Squall take a double take, just to make sure it really happened. Oni began to pull off the seemingly see though robe and lay it on the end of the bed, which was completely expected. But right after that she seemed to look out the window before pulling off her pajama pants and laying them next to her robe. Squall blinked a few times but kept his cold, silent expression on his face. Her white bikini style underwear was exposed for the entire world to see.

She could have cared less whether he was just glancing or out right staring. She wasn't one to really care about other's personal opinions and if Squall had a problem with her, it was pretty clear that he had better take it up with someone who cared. With her pants now M.I.A. Oni climbed into bed and pulled all the covers on top of her despite the extreme heat.

Squall also discarded his pants, socks, and boots, but did so after she had turned her back to him. When he was clad in only his boxers, he climbed into his bed, but pushed all the covers including the sheets to the end. It was way to hot to be sleeping with that many covers and he was beginning to wonder whether or not Oni was going to be alive in the morning because he was pretty convinced that she would die of a heat stroke.

After about a half an hour of trying to fall asleep, Squall realized that it was just too humid for him to fall asleep. It felt like he was being baked alive in a pizza oven while his silent roommate slept as if it was in the middle of winter. Tossing and turning, Squall just couldn't seem to find a comfortable position without burning up. Was it always this humid at night in this place during summer?

Yet, just as Squall was about to take a walk outside, he heard the ruffling of sheets from the other side of the curtains and the sound of light footfalls moving about the room. He sat up and looked over to see Oni open the window at the back of the room. The moonlight that was spilling through the window cast highlights on her body. Squall simply sat and watched her movement across the carpet until she climbed back into her bed, pulled the covers over her, and went back to sleep.

Squall just sat there with his infamous scowl on his face trying to understand why she had done that. Not wanting to think much more about it, he lay down still with out covers and shut his eyes, hoping that he would be relieved of the dreams that plagued him.

Unknown to him, a pair of fire eyes watched him from the other side of the curtain. Her gaze was emotionless as ever, but something deep with her soul, buried beneath years of endless suffering, began to stir. As a fire spark has the chance to be the start of a forest inferno, so the stir in Oni's soul may be the beginning of something much greater.

After more time had pasted, Oni began to let sleep take her to that place where the only comfort was the sound of her own voice crying to the darkness for release. In this place where the pain was felt and the screaming from her past became real. The emotion, the touches, and the harsh breathing surged around her and refused to let go. This was her battle, this was her struggle, but this was her motive to live. To deny that the beast that created these evil realities would never be able to completely take her, this was why she lived. In this place that she may never be saved from, her crimson past.

"Help me..."