Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Mystery of the Snow ❯ Chapter One: The Escape ( Chapter 1 )

Mystery of the Snow

Chapter One

Author's Note: A story I really have no idea about and am somewhat making it up as I go. Enjoy ^_^.

 

 

The hospital lay quiet during the night, the occasional moans echoing in the silent room, accompanied by the rustle of sheets or cry of pain. The walls of the room were plastered white, as were the floors, sheets, even the window curtains. The only colors were the people that lay in the hosptial cots, variety of peach, brown and yellow. Only one figure still stirred in the late hours of the night. Her legs were drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. The sheets upon the bed she sat on remained untouched, only disturbed by her small weight.

In the girl's hand she clutched a small knife, words embedded into the silver blade. The moonlight glinted off of the sharpened edge, and she smiled warmly. She slowly dropped the knife, playing the butted end against the pale white of her wrist. Did she dare? The metal felt so cool, and so…so good, against her skin.

A gasp came from her pink swollen lips. She looked around the room, her brown eyes wide with fear. There it was, that voice! The hushed whisper came into her mind again. She bit her lip to keep from shouting out.

 

Hello again, Runa…

 

What do you want?!

 

You'd love to leave this place, wouldn't you? They've caged you in, like a wild animal.But that's all you are, right? A wild animal. You bitch…why don't you escape? They already think you're crazy…If you stay here-

 

If I stay here, I'll die alone…

 

Find the ones that love you. They put you away here..but find them. They will protect you.

 

“But how!”Her shriek echoed from the walls. She cringed as her own voice finished reverberating off of the walls. She eyed the window eagerly, but shook her head. “No…” Her eyes wandered about the room. None of the other inhabitants had awoken at her sudden outburt. Of course. These lunatics were just like her. Awake every other waking hour, paranoid and calling to lost daughters, but when it came to sleep, they heard nothing except their own hellish nightmares. Nightmares that Runa wished she had at night.

She slid from the bed, shivering at the touch of the cold linolium on the heels of her feet. Slowly she shuffled across the room, gazing into the mirror. Her own reflection glared back at her. She scowled at it, shaking her head. Her dark, blue black hair freed itself from the ponytail the hospital had it up in. She ran her fingers through it longingly, twirling the very ends. It'd grown so much longer since she was admitted two years ago. Now it reached her lower back.

“Runa? Dear why're you out of bed?”She jumped and spun around. A nurse, a kindly plump lady, stood looking concerned. She took Runa's arm gentley, leading her back to her bed. But she knew the act. Runa stared out, glazing her eyes over intentionally.

“I…I saw Papa,” she murmured, sliding back into the bed. The nurse sighed.
“Yes..of course you did dear…but Papa is dead.” Suddenly, Runa's pink lips curved into a smile.
“That, right there, is where you're wrong, you stupid cunt.”

 

The hospital was in a frenzy. Reports were flying back and forth. What? And escaped patient? A nurse dead? Blood everywhere? A broken window, blood in the glass? How could this happen? The main doctor ran into the room, stumbling upon the site. Moaning and screaming patients, one mangled cut up corpse on the ground in a pool of blood, and glass scattered across the floor, one by one being picked up and placed into bags by the Tokyo Police.

“Sir…what patient escaped?”one officer asked, holding a notepad and a pencil poised. The fretted doctor gazed around the room, murmuring to himself.

“Kana…Kasaki, Motoko, Aisha,…Oh no…” The doctor pressed a hand to his forehead, a sweat breaking on his brow. “It's…it's Runa.”

“Who sir?”
The doctor cleared his throat, enabling himself to speak without the fear in his voice, “The only patient that shares the same name as me…Runa Sohma.” He felt his knees grow weak at the mere mention of the name. Runa, gone, loose in the city of Tokyo. Or even worse, in her own hometown.

The doctor groaned, turning on his heel, ignoring the startled cries from the police, calling for him to return and come back. He closed the door behind him, scurrying down the hallway. No…not this…she can't be loose.

“Hello…Akito?” He held the trembling reciever in his hand, the other pressed against the window as the rain poured down the glass. “Yes…it's Hatori…the girl, she's gone. She broke out. We couldn't keep her locked up for five years, I don't know what you were thinking-,”

“Hatori…hush,” a voice cooed from the other end. The flustered doctor nodded, as if this `Akito' could see him. He slid into an armchair, sighing.

“Don't worry, Hatori, I'll know what to do whenever she arrives at my door…I'll be ready.”

 

The streets and cars screamed at Runa. She let out a shriek, diving from the lights and slamming onto the sidewalk pavement. A needle of pain shot through her arm, and she winced. It took her a moment to realize the blood running down her arm and staining her hospital gown was her own. She quickly stumbled to her feet, her eyes blurred with the rain and tears.
She was out. The hospital was just a thing of the past now, a figment of her memory. But now where would she go to? The Main House would reject her, toss her out like before, a rag into the streets. Shigure's…no, she couldn't bother that old man. He was the last one she wanted to see anyway.
Pushing through crowds of confused and disgusted business people, eager to take the subway train home, Runa made her way to a bench. She slid into it, not minding that her gown rode up a bit and probably gave some perverted old men quite a view. She let her head fall back against the back of the bench, the rain splattering onto her bloodstained face, washing the streaks away.

The busy crowd soon dwindled down to a few people rushing to snatch the last available tickets. Runa's eyes were closed, lost in her own torrents of nightmares. The same old man, a hobo, that had watched her since she fell to the bench, slid from his home in the shadows. He stood before the sleeping girl, examining her up and down. He smiled slyly, exposing a small set of golden teeth.

“Little girls shouldn't sleep on the benches at night in Tokyo…” Adirty hand rested on her revealed thigh. He massaged it lightly, testing his ability. No movement or reaction from the girl. He grinned again, his hand sliding up, beneath the shield of the gown.
There was a flash of silver, and the man howled in pain, falling back, clutching the stump that once was his hand, blood spraying from it like a hose. In seconds the girl was on top of him, straddling his chest. She held her knife close to his neck, pressing against his thick, wrinkled neck. The blood continued to shower the pavement, decorating the girl in it's dark red paint.

“Who do you think you are?” she asked the man, prodding the knife deeper. He gasped and choked for air, squirming beneath her as his life slipped away, “Do you think you're some sort of pimp? Some sort of legal pedaphile?” The man gurgled something in response. Runa only furrowed her brow, pressing the knife deeper. Blood started to appear on the edge.

“Do you know who I am? DO YOU!?”She screamed at him. Tears started to fall down the man's cheeks. She sighed, removing the pressure of the knife a tad bit so the man could properly breathe. She leaned down and pressed her lips against his ear, “I'll let you live…as long as you remember the name `Runa Sohma.'”

With that, giving the shaking man a final kick, Runa got up, turning on her heel and started a very long walk. A smile played on her lips as she strode along the pavement. Her steps weren't sluggish or slow, fast-paced, like a healthy human being, splashing in the small puddles that had formed from the rain. The moans of the man behind her were music to her ears.
“Mm..look out, Main House, your favourite cousin is coming back.”