“I thought I saw a light through the darkness… I must be going crazy,” Sashia spoke quietly.
(TN: Awe, don’t worry, you ain’t going crazy yet).
In front of me there were two marble like balls of light. In time, I came to realize that it was a human, and I thought that my dear friends had come back to get me. Yet both of my thoughts were wrong.
“I do not remember well from here… but I could remember a pair of bloodshot eyes that were glittering and shining,” I responded back, fear in my voice as I spoke.
Whether they were an adult or a child, their sex, face or even eye color, were all things that I could not recall. But those two spheres of light emitting from the darkness were not things to be forgotten.
“After everything that’s happened, I was told that there had been fugitives who escaped into the forest, so whatever I saw must also have had to been like what they said…” Sashia spoke back with fear in his voice, approaching the subject of the “beasts” that we had seen earlier.
I could only hope that after the the two of us had left for the challenge, Sashia’s group of friends would start to worry and set off in search for us, and once the adults noticed we were gone, they would set off as well. If they come even a little bit later, we just might get our eyes gouged out.
I could see it now — the face of someone from my family looking worried and crying. Following that, I would be surrounded by my sobbing friends who were apologizing while crying next to a scolding voice.
The sudden fear that had followed me was intense, but still I couldn’t think about anything about Sashia’s group. But it didn’t matter since my friends who were crying in front of me with fear and repentance are much more important to me than some memories of some cowards that Sashia called friends.
I could only hope that everything would turn out ok, and that we could all laugh after this. And after all of this, maybe my father would talk to the palace guards and they would let me go home instead of this school. And just like that, my body would be much more tired than I had perceived it to be and I would be tucked into my warm bed at home, fast asleep instead of here.
I thought I would be fine — I thought that the people surrounding me were real, but it was just my own optimistic thinking. Suddenly, as if it were resurrected from the dead, the horrifying memory struck my mind and sent me spiraling into fear, labouring me as I tried to calm down. Forget it, damn it! If only if I had never remembered in the first place, maybe it wouldn’t have been as big of a deal… Naturally this playthrough of the game was definitely going to be much more different than I had once thought; it was abnormal, it was strange.
“I can’t sleep with the lights turned off,” Sashia admitted to me.
“At first, this change was uncomfortable. I couldn’t sleep in a pitch black room, and if I did my heart raced fast as if it were excited and my eyes were clear but burdened — tired and restless. Not only was this room dark, but the corridors were pitch black as well, which gave me anxiety — enough to make me want to cry. And I only grew more anxious as the sky outside gradually began to fade into the vacuum of space called the midnight sky”
“Thrashing in my bed, I would be gasping for air, my heart thumping for oxygen to enter my lungs. I wished I never remembered this fear,” he spoke solemnly.
“The truth is, I’m afraid of the dark…” Sashia said softly.
“If I didn’t notice I was in pain, then I wouldn’t suffer from my wounds… that was the mindset for it, right? To play ignorance, because if I did notice, then I would be in pain? Thus, the form that my fear takes, my trauma, cannot be ignored?” he continued.
“These eyes of mine were wandering somewhere weren’t they? For this darkness, this gloomy room, this dark night, were all truly terrifying.”
As if he was being attacked by his fear among other things, Sashia’s eyes looked hollowed as a shiver tingled down his spine.
His eyes were bloodshot from crying in his madness, but they still shined
The look in his eyes was much hotter than his father’s anger, but much cooler than his mother’s serenity. Like boiling water to a frazon glacier. It was similar to the way a light took place in someone’s life, but just like the light, there was darkness in his eyes, one that was just as important, but could not be escaped from. Just like running away from death, and like how the sun will always set, the sky will turn into night for a period of time. I was nauseated by imagining what it would be like to have Nyctophobia (the fear of the night and darkness), just thinking about it made me stressed as the fear would come time and time again as it happened every day to night.
Having no choice but to endure the darkness for hours until the light showed itself was just too much. Even the darkness from closing your eyes would make you uneasy, and if it were me, I would watch the sun’s light until I lost consciousness. However, I would eventually get used to it, even if the my fears were so dreadful. But with Sashia, if he kept his room lit all day and night, then he would be able to sleep without his fears approaching him every time.
“But Maria-san, you were the first to notice,” Sashia whispered.
Yet, for every day that we went home, for every night that we slipped out every year to participate in this test of courage, no one noticed: I did not notice.
“Did your friends notice…?” I asked.
“I desperately hid it from them, the time to apologize never came up either… so I just never told them…I’m such a coward” Sashia explained.
Damn it! Sashias’s friends did this! Just because they were jealous of him and confused why he wouldn’t tell them about this? And he probably wouldn’t care, he would just apologize to them because he felt guilty.
Besides this nonsense, Sashia’s heart was truly too kind.
“Besides… the grandson of a flame wizard afraid of the dark? What a joke…”
(Tn: SASHIA I WANNA HUG YOU)
A man who starts a fire to push away the darkness can not run away from the darkness, I thought. Everyone thinks that Sashia will come forth from greatness, that their expectations will all hold true as he is his grandfather’s grandson, not shivering away from the darkness. Anyone would crack under that pressure, his heart would expose its weaknesses.
“Even though I hope to live up to their expectations, I can’t say that I can, even if I want to do it to support you,” he continued.
The look on Sashia’s face was full of bitterness, as if he were being condemned for having fear. It made me feel the amount of tenderness that came from Sashia’s heart; which was amazing, but also pitiful and made me feel sorry for him. The expectations put on him by society because of his lineage would expect him to follow his grandfather’s path. And actually, Sashia too was a fire attribute. And even if Sashia didn’t come from our school, you could still see the expectations put upon Sashia because of his grandfather.
“To not notice, even from the very beginning…” I started.
Even when I had heard about the test of courage, I had the courage to hide. I hid my fear of the map being wrong, and even of the beasts that I thought we had seen until then.
“Sorry for ruining your expectations like this…” Sashia spoke quietly.
This desperate concealed secret of Sashia’s…
The expectations upon him to become a genius would not stop until he himself fell from the very top to the ground. And once he hit the ground, society would smile and point at him while laughing at his muddy appearance, as if everything before it were all a lie. Just like in the past, when Maria Bell fell in love with him and became disappointed by his fears.
But of course, only a few of those people exist. Rather, barely any exist at all, and even if there were true prodigies in existence, they would just get back up and keep going — nothing would stop them, even society. Because the noble will never be damaged no matter how hard they hit the ground.
However, Sashia’s case is different: with the environment we grew up in, society pushed him to become a genius and he could not fail them now.
Then, I spoke.
“It’s absolutely stupid isn’t it?”
Started, Sashia looked up at me.
I had spoken words that he never could have imagined hearing before, ones that he wished to hear the most. The scars in my heart are definitely not healed yet, but if I didn’t say something now, what difference would I make as the new Maria Bell from the old one before?
Still, I thought.
“If that’s the case, then it sounds like you believe in those expectations too, Sashia.”