Diary of Rapture: Prologue Part 2.5

*WARNING:* This is a depressing chapter. And trust me, this is only the first of many depressing
times that will be occurring throughout the legacy.*WARNING*

Now that I've gotten that out of the way... on with the story!

***

Whenever You Need Me

I frowned in response to the stranger's inquiry. “Mom told me never to let stra –“

But then I realized I was talking to thin air. The man had already gone inside.

My anxiety meter went up a notch. I abandoned all sense and raced inside the house.

I was so wrapped up in my fears that I hardly noticed when Jeremy darted after me. “Hey! Wait up!”

As I stepped into the main room, I saw that the stranger had made himself at home in one of our cheap armchairs.

Where was my mother? Why didn’t she come and kick him out?

What was going on?

I turned to face the man. “M-mister, who are you? And what are you doing in our house?"

 

 The man sighed. He looked as if he wished he were anywhere but here. “My name is Agent Gavin, and I work with Social Services. And I’m afraid I have some… bad news.”

 
When the words Social Services and bad news struck my ears in a double blow, my fear evolved into full blown terror.

Jeremy’s eyes widened. If the Social Services were here, a very distinct possibility was that his drunken sot of a father was out of jail and wanted him back to save face.

Anger churned inside me. No matter how repentant that man might appear to Social Services, Jeremy and I both knew the truth:  it was all a façade. His father would never have any speck of kindness in his rotten core.

The fear written across Jeremy’s face finally brought me to my breaking point. I let the red hot fury boil over and escape through my mouth.

"There’s no WAY I’m going to let you take Jeremy back to that monster!” I shrieked. “Tell your friends at Social Services to LEAVE JEREMY ALONE!!!”

Agent Gavin stared at me like I’d lost my mind. And looking back, I guess I was overreacting… but at the moment, I didn’t really care. “Calm down, Miss Sora. Neither I nor anyone at Social Services would ever dream of returning Mr. Douglas to his father.”

 
"Oh, yeah?!” I yelled. “Then what’s the ‘bad news’ that you came here to give me?!”

Agent Gavin shuffled uncomfortably in the chair. “Miss Sora… it’s not Jeremy. It’s your mother.”

The rage evaporated, and I was nothing more than a scared little girl. “Wha… What about my mother?”

I noticed that Agent Gavin was looking at the walls, at the ceiling, at the fireplace… at everything but me.

Finally, he spoke the shattering words.

“She’s dead."

The second the words left his mouth, my mind was overwhelmed with a rush of denial. No, no, NO! My mother couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be! She took good care of herself and was perfectly healthy and… she wouldn’t abandon me like this! Right?!

“H…how?” I managed to breathe.

"A car crash,” Gavin answered grimly. “Her brakes gave out, and… she purposefully drove the car over the railing so no one else would be harmed.”

That was when the pain hit me. Far more crippling and real than what I’d physically felt at the festival, it took away my breath with its force. My knees buckled, and I fell to the floor, ignoring Agent Gavin and Jeremy and the roaring in my ears and the sharp thud of my knees on the carpet.

My mother was dead.

I could no longer hug her or smell her clean laundry scent or hear her stories. She would never again smile at me or help me carve a pumpkin for Spooky Day or kiss me goodnight or make me pancakes for breakfast. All that was left of her now were the memories, each one burning me as if Agent Gavin had pressed a cigarette butt to my arm instead of merely speaking the horrible, horrible words.

Vaguely, I was aware of Jeremy’s hands on mine, his voice yelling at Agent Gavin to go away and leave me alone, trying to comfort me as best he could. The small part of me that was capable of feeling anything but grief felt a rush of gratitude, but it didn’t ease the pain one bit.

I wished time would freeze here. I wished the world would end so I wouldn’t have to live without my mother there to guide me and comfort me and hug me.

 
But the world didn’t end. And so I was left sobbing and broken on the floor, a tiny piece of my heart falling off every time it beat. I could feel the daisy in my pocket, a bitter reminder that I would never give it to my mother.

***


Days went by. Summer turned to fall. The leaves changed colors, becoming orange and crimson and brown and fluttering off the trees.
 
And my mother’s empty shell was buried in the Pleasant Rest Graveyard.
 
Rain poured from the sky, drenching the earth and my horribly itchy dress, but I didn’t care. I was glad it was wet and gray land cold. If the sun was shining and the air was warm and mild, it would be another blow to my already devastated heart.

As I stood before her grave, questions raced through my head.



Why?
Why had her brakes given out? Why would the Goddess let this happen? Why had my mother been taken from me forever?

Why?

I wished desperately for just one more day with her. Once chance to tell her goodbye.
 
And I knew I would never get it. Over the course of one night, my life had shifted from sunny to black. The shadows that had once merely lurked in the corners of my world had swallowed up the light, and now all I could see was the darkness.

I felt Jeremy wordlessly rest his hands on me, doing his best to soothe me.

A tiny prick of appreciation sparked inside my heart. Jeremy knew me well. He realized I didn’t want condolences or pity. People looking at me strangely and telling me crap like “I’m sorry” or “She’s in a better place now” or all the oh-my-goodness-you-poor-girl clichés – I didn’t want any of that.

All I was looking for was a shoulder to cry on. Someone to listen while I wept and blubbered.

And Jeremy provided that.

“Let’s go home, Yumi,” he said softly.

This house wouldn’t be our home much longer. The Social Services were sending both Jeremy and I to the same social worker, knowing that I couldn’t stand being apart from him now. In a way, I was glad. It didn’t feel like home without her here. Her warmth had long since vanished from this place, and now these walls were cold and unforgiving and held too many painful memories for me.
 
Just then, I spotted something colorful out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see what it was…                                         

And I gasped.

Jeremy noticed immediately. “Holy shizzle...” he breathed as he walked in.

The floor of the living room was covered with presents.

I tentatively went over to examine them, wondering if they would evaporate, and plucked a note from the nearest object.

They were all from my classmates – my acquaintances at school. They had given me sympathy presents - a rainbow lamp, a fancy festival egg, two music boxes, a camera... all sorts of random items.
 

But I noticed one gift in particular. It was the only one that was wrapped, and it was rectangular shaped.
 



Wondering what in the world it could be, I moved it onto the wicker carpet, taking the card from it. I took a deep breath, and began to read the fancy, curly script.

Yumi,

I heard what happened to your mother, and I know you could definitely use more happiness in your life.
So I’m giving this to you. Everyone in my family has already used it, and I don’t know if I’ll ever have any children to pass it on to.

You only get one use out of it, though. So use it wisely.

Deepest regrets,

Mortimer Goth

Mortimer Goth? He was the heir to the Diary of Rapture, if my mom’s story was true.
 
Was it…? Could it really be…?

My fingers trembled as I unwrapped the paper. There, smack dab in the middle of the package….
 
…was a notebook.

I got to my feet, heading for the kitchen.

Jeremy’s voice stopped me in my tracks. “Where are you going?
 
“I- I need a moment to myself.”
 
Jeremy smiled sadly. “Take as much time as you need.”
 

I plopped the notebook on the table, doubts swirling around in my head. If this was the legendary Diary of Rapture (and that was a pretty big if), why would Mortimer give it to me? He had tons of friends. Why hadn’t he given it to, say, Bella Bachelor instead?

Then it hit me. Mortimer didn't know what had happened to Jeremy. And none of his other friends had lost anyone close to them.
 
Only me.

I took a deep breath, and read the first note.

The elegant script belonged to Roderick Goth. A sorcerer who had existed hundreds of years before Sunset Valley was even formed, his entry merely existed to test the notebook.

As I flipped through the pages, the deepest fears of each generation of the Goth family pulled at my mind. These people had had their greatest dilemmas cured because of the very notebook that lay open in front of me.

But when I flipped past Mortimer’s entry, the pages were blank.

This must be where I was supposed to make my entry.

I’d already read the instructions on the first page. The diary could not resurrect a dead person, but it could grant pretty much any other wish.
 

And of course, the only wish I had was the restricted one.

So I decided to save my entry until I encountered a devastating problem later in life.

I headed back into the main corridor, and froze when I heard Jeremy ask, “Not that it’s any of my business to ask, but… what took you so long?”
 
I opened my mouth to tell Jeremy about the diary –

Suddenly, the strangest pain washed over me. It was as if a boxer had punched me in the gut without gloves on.

As I clutched my stomach, gasping, Jeremy misinterpreted my reaction. He didn’t know I was reacting to physical discomfort– the feeling in my gut that was clearly telling me to keep the diary’s existence a secret.

And then, taking me completely by surprise…


…he closed the distance between us and rested his hand on my cheek.

“Yumi,” he said gently, oblivious to my shock. “I know you miss your mom, and if there was any way I could bring her back for you, I’d take it. But I can promise you this…"

"Whenever you need me...”

 

“I’ll be here. No matter what it takes, no matter what I have to sacrifice… I’ll come.”

I forgot all about the diary as a wave of affection washed over me. Jeremy was the most wonderful friend in the history of Sunset Valley.

I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve him… but I was sure glad I’d done it.

***

And he was true to his word. Whenever I’d wake up from a dream that she was alive, only to find out it wasn’t true, he was there. Whenever I wept, he was there.
Whenever I needed him, he was there.




But there would always come a time when I needed to be alone. To just think about what was going on in my life. So I’d ride my bike up the shady, winding road to the cemetery…




… and sit by Mom’s grave.

Sometimes I would talk to her. And other times, I merely rested there in quiet contemplation.

But every time, I missed her…

 

…even as years lessened the pain, putting more distance between the current moment and her death.

 


“Yumi, you’re buried up to your waist in snow. You’re going to catch your death this way.”

I stood up, my tears still wet and warm. “Jeremy…”

When he saw the look on my face, he knew that now was not the time to ask questions.

Instead, he just said, “Here, I’ll drive home.”

And every night, when he brought me back from the graveyard…

 …he would always hold my hand.

  I think Blogger.com hates me. It forced me to delete a screenshot, put it back in, and then resize it AGAIN using HTML code. DX

The Yumi and Jeremy you see at the end are teenagers, not adults. It'll probably be quite a while before the next chapter's out, as I need to grow them up and then take screenshots.

Like I said before, there are going to be many more depressing moments in the legacy. I already have rolled for all 10 generations, and have already planned out their stories. So... sorry if I made anyone sad. :(

And with regard to the mini-pics.... sorry about them. Blogger.com just wouldn't let me get rid of them, so I had to leave them in.

Best regards,

-Kamatsuya