To Drown
Ayaka was four when she actually drowned for the first time. Not the water in lung, wet to the bone drowned, no.
It’s the first time she has a bath, it being such a privilege in the orphanage. They had to do so much chores for it, but so worth it.
The shower always makes her a bit giddy, as the water runs down her back and dampens her hair. It’s a shrill type of energy rush, energizing her. She almost feels like drifting afterward.
Showering is like a small sugar high, letting her quieten down her surroundings and fall into the other that runs underneath.
Bathing? Bathing feels like drowning.
It’s amazing.
Ayaka drowns and welcomes it. Rushing water passing through her ears, air stops being relevant, the world blurs and everything stops.
Everything glows. There’s a flow through every inch of every single thing, animate or not. Golden lines of life or used-to-be, silver crisscrossing like the softest strings hanging over the air. Blue tints and pink blush and green lighting and red glow-
Her eyes sting and her lungs burn, but it doesn’t matter-
Waves crash onto the shore-
The shrill cry of birds-
Slow humming of whales-
Jellyfishes floating about-
Bubbles of gold and silver and bronze-
The world is at her hand, and if she just twists it this way for just a little bit-
“-Ayaka!”
And the world comes into clarity again.
No more flashing lights, no more glimpses of paradise.
No more cacophony of sounds and whispers and songs.
Ayaka is almost disappointed.
Her senses dull and it feels like her vision went gray.
But then red drips into her sight and her blue meets green.
And the world explodes back into motion.
Ayaka doesn’t want to see that sight ever again. There’s blood dripping down Ann’s hand, scarlet red running down her forearm. It moves and flows and-
“Ayaka.”
Ayaka snaps to attention, looking into green green eyes. It’s calming. Ann is calm. Ann isn’t raging or hating, she’s calm. And that got Ayaka’s heart back down.
“Ann?” what happened? How did it happen? Why are you bleeding? Tell me tell me tellmetellmetellme-
“You drowned.”
Again. The same sentence, spoken once before and repeated. No. “Drowned” instead of “drowning”. The two words implied different things.
“I drowned. In what?”
Ayaka asks, curiosity burning and needing to know. Need to be sure she could prevent it.
And her twin looks her in the eyes, calm and quiet and soft spoken words and gentleness, and utters.
“The world.”
Ayaka lay dazed in her bed that night.
Ann has cleaned her wound up, a barely skin deep thing that bled worse than it was. Ayaka doesn’t remember what happened, or how the cut came to be, but she knows she caused it. How? She doesn’t know, and that’s a problem.
But her twin’s gaze never wavered, never fled from her own, and Ayaka recognized the honesty in those eyes. Ann told the truth, and only the truth when she said ‘the world’. When she implied the world is something to drown in, when she insinuated that Ayaka can drown in something as corporal and abstract as the world. But Ann hadn’t lied, then. They had looked each other in the eyes, stared into one another’s soul, and their words spoken were as true as can be.
So, Ayaka drowned in the world. An absurd notion, really. But is it?
Because this world has chakra. At every nook and corner, filled in every leaf and tree and life form and inanimate. It runs under skins and veins, ingrained into every piece of this world.
So Ayaka drowned. But perhaps it’s not exactly the world she drowned in, but the world’s chakra.
And it makes sense, because Ayaka knows her twin’s chakra, the dark green calmness and its misty feeling. She remembered the kids sleeping nearby, their own little sparks barely there, brushing against her own when she let it spread. She felt them vividly when she ‘drowned’. Most of all, she remembered the single minded focus she fell into when she was drowning once upon a time.
It’s the same type of thing she did before, when Ayaka was Clara and not Ayaka. A focus so intense nothing and everything is taken into account. Clara succeeded with it, and so Ayaka will, too.
The thought is exciting, for Ayaka. It felt amazing, like she can do anything. But it also harmed her twin, even if she would never want to do that. It was lacking, at the very least. It needs finesse, something she doesn’t have right now.
Ayaka is lacking, and she can recognize that.
But when she turns her head slightly, twisting to look at her twin, Ayaka doesn’t regret drowning. Doesn’t quite manage to make herself regret it. Because in that one moment, Ayaka knows. She has the power, the ability, the single mindedness to change the world in her hand. She has the power to protect her twin, her Ann, from just about anything, at the price of her sanity.
And isn’t it so scary that Ayaka doesn’t even feel a hint of apprehension at the prospect? At the chance that everything she had ever fought for, had dug her nails in and clawed her way up to will be lost in a single moment?
Loyalty is hard to come by, as Clara. Clara was a mess disguised as a comprehensive puzzle of many layers. She cared for, and claimed, her family. She lost them. Her loyalty was never returned in truth.
But Ann and Ayaka? Their loyalty isn’t one sided. They are mutual, one in two, two sides of a coin, mystery in tandem. Ayaka doesn’t fear betrayal with Ann. And similarly, Ann doesn’t have to fear Ayaka.
Ayaka looked at her twin, committing the peaceful image into her mind. The moon shines with ease, and it casts light upon Ann. Black hair, with the slight curls and bouncy twirls, glows and shimmers underneath it. Long eyelashes are slightly curved, hiding a brilliant green that Ayaka can never quite forget. It’s peaceful, quiet and oh so innocent, the look on Ann’s face. Naive looking, like a real child. Ayaka wonders if she looks the same.
In the cacophony of sounds that reverberates in the summer, the flickering lights outside the orphanage, the running current of ley lines and chakra, Ayaka falls asleep.