Kotoha, young, glassesless, no more than six, looks up as it arcs across the sky, eyes wide.
The shooting star falls, instead of continuing its flight, and it's not a shooting star at all. Kotoha doesn't know this at the time. All she knows is that she got unlucky--and that negative energy crashes into her, grants her a power she never asked for, and completely erases everything from her mind.
There are glimpses and flashes: crackles of a power she doesn't understand, the screams of the people around her, the heat of flames.
She only comes back to herself much later. She's held down by an older woman, extremely strong despite her age, as an older man slowly lowers his hand.
"It's done," he says.
Kotoha looks around, eyes wide, and finds destruction.
Her home is on fire. There are lumps and mounds around her, shadowed in the darkness, lit only by the flickering flames. It takes her some time of staring at them before it clicks. Dead bodies--the bodies of the people who had lived around her. A power line falls. The faces of those still alive around her are grim.
It all clicks for her quickly, despite her age.
She did this. She did this, because she's not human anymore--now she's a monster.
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branchandroot
the fall.
Date: 2024-07-23 02:23 pm (UTC)Kotoha, young, glassesless, no more than six, looks up as it arcs across the sky, eyes wide.
The shooting star falls, instead of continuing its flight, and it's not a shooting star at all. Kotoha doesn't know this at the time. All she knows is that she got unlucky--and that negative energy crashes into her, grants her a power she never asked for, and completely erases everything from her mind.
There are glimpses and flashes: crackles of a power she doesn't understand, the screams of the people around her, the heat of flames.
She only comes back to herself much later. She's held down by an older woman, extremely strong despite her age, as an older man slowly lowers his hand.
"It's done," he says.
Kotoha looks around, eyes wide, and finds destruction.
Her home is on fire. There are lumps and mounds around her, shadowed in the darkness, lit only by the flickering flames. It takes her some time of staring at them before it clicks. Dead bodies--the bodies of the people who had lived around her. A power line falls. The faces of those still alive around her are grim.
It all clicks for her quickly, despite her age.
She did this. She did this, because she's not human anymore--now she's a monster.