one-shots

windless touch - mha

i have really bad writer's block. watch me struggle through it :)

TW: child abuse

Eri had never been outside before. It was a cold, hard fact. She didn't know how tall trees scaled, or how blades of grass feel on bare feet, or the warmth of the sun on one's skin. At five years old, Eri didn't know a lot of things, but she did know one thing for certain: she liked the wind.

Sometimes, if she was extra good that day, Kai would let her sit in a room with a window. A window! She was able to see the outside world, just from a distance. It was moments like those where she tried to capture every single area her eyes allowed her to view. She would stand on her tippy-toes with her hands grasped onto the windowsill.

She didn't get to see much, given that a brick wall stood tall and looming right outside the window. Eri learned that it was another part of the building they lived in. Sometimes, when looking out that window, Kai would stare right back from the window across from her. She would quickly look away.

But when he wasn't there, she would beg and beg for the guard to open the window. Just a crack! That was all she wanted. She even pinky swore she wouldn't do anything risky. She just wanted to know what the outside world felt like. Just once.

The guard reluctantly agreed after several days of her crying. That was the very first time Eri felt the wind. It wasn't immediate, as she has learned that wind comes and goes as it pleases(she wished she could too). But after a minute, a light coolness brushed against her skin. It tickled her arms and she gasped. She watched with wide, unbelieving eyes and parted lips as goosebumps arose.

Another breeze rolled on in, and it caressed her gently. She never wanted it to let go. She wanted to feel the welcoming, feather-like touch forever and ever. It was then she noticed the smell. The unfamiliar scent inflitrated her nose but it wasn't unwanted. She breathed in deeply, trying to memorize it— to engrain it into her brain and never forget it. It was... strong, and tickled the inside of her nose. She couldn't hold back the sneeze that escaped her.

Eri rubbed at her nose, unused to the odd watering of her eyes. Someone sneezed behind her as well. She turned her head to see the guard flaring his nostrils. "Damn allergies. Pollen is crazy this spring."

Eri didn't know what allergies or pollen were, but she did know that spring was the season where flowers unfurled beautiful petals in full bloom. What she was smelling must have been flowers! How absolutely beautiful.

Another breeze swept in through the crack and Eri relished in it. She basked in the alluring freshness, wanting moremoremore. She knew not to be greedy, she knew, but she couldn't help it. She wanted to feel the sun, to feel more of the wind's gentle call.

Without even thinking, she stuck her arm through the little crack. Sunlight poured onto her palm and a strange warmth settled within her. She closed her eyes at the odd sensation on her skin; it felt tender, like a hand clasped within hers. The breeze softly squeezed her hand, acting as the sun's fingers. She flexed her own digits, trying to return the gesture.

She waited for the wind's airy touch in a serene silence. Instead, pain shot from her wrist, all the way up her arm. Eri screamed, high-pitched and piercing, and she couldn't focus on anything other than the white hot, flashing ache in her wrist. Her eyes flew open, and she wished she never opened them.

The window was slammed shut and blood splattered all over it. The crimson liquid pooled on the windowsill, dripping down the cream walls and staining the wooden floor. She stumbled back and fell right onto polished, black shoes. The throbbing in her arm matched the pace of her racing heart as she looked up and met Kai's furious, yellow eyes.

"Look at this mess! How filthy, how absolutely filthy! If only you had been a good girl and didn't make me have to reach such extents. You know there are consequences to your actions, Eri," He spoke irritably, his nasally voice muffled by his mask.

It was only then Eri caught the sight behind him. The guard who was supposed to be watching her laid on the ground, the entire upper-half of his body was completely gone. All that was left behind was large pile of blood and his legs. Eri felt bile rise in her throat, but before she even had the chance to react, pain erupted in her arm again.

Kai grabbed her roughly, and she cried out in agony. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she repeated over and over again. It was aimed towards the guard who had died all because she broke the rules, because she had been selfish and greedy, like every other filthy human on this earth. But at some point, it became more of a plea, anything to get Kai to stop.

He didn't listen.

Eri could only sit back in her brain, mindlessly watching him reconstruct her arm back to normal(her hand was attached once more), and then deconstruct it once again. And once he was done with her arm, he reverted to the rest of her body. Usually he would take and take and take her blood, her skin, and her cells for his experiment. But this time, he didn't take.

He put his palm on her forehead, and she felt it before seeing it. The way her body molded, folding in on itself, shaping into a new figure. She lost count of the amount of times he dissembled and reassembled her.

At some point, she tuned out his angry rant about how reckless she had been and about how filthy she was. She tried to remember the smell of flowers, of the tickling in her nose(metal, it smelled like metal). She tried to recall the warm grasp of the sun, and the delicate lips of the wind that kissed her palm(agonizing pain, rooted in her wrist and growing all throughout her body).

She knew it was the nature of wind to come and go, but she couldn't help but plead for it to just stay. Or rather, she wished she could be the wind, that she could be light and airy, but most of all: she could be free.

"Filthy," Kai spat as he threw her back into her room in the dark, cold basement cell.

Oh, yes, how Eri wished to be the wind.