The Broken Doll

Chapter 12

Yuma walked around the city for a while, keeping himself distracted from his task until night fell. That was when he made his way to the park and looked for Shing.

In the trees, Shing noticed Yuma walking around the park and wondered why he was there. In any case, she shied away from him. She didn't want to hurt him, even in her state. Instead, she kept luring unsuspecting victims in her domain.

Yuma heard whispering in the wind. He looked in the direction of the whisper and noticed a man walking away from who the boy presumed to be his wife into the dense trees. She's gotta be in there, then. So, he walked over to her while she was distracted and waited, watching as she took the man's hand. A whisper promptly said that he would die by midnight.

Right after, the man looked faint. He walked away from Shing back to his wife as though in a daze. Yuma checked the time on his D-gazer; it was barely nine at night. That man would have a long night of suffering if it was painful.

"Shing," Yuma called the moment he was close. 

The girl quickly turned to Yuma with a gasp. Her dead eyes showed some recognition, and along with that recognition was fear. Whether it was fear from the scare or fear of touching Yuma was unknown. Maybe it was a mix of both.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her face once again dead-looking. Her body language was more defensive than before, though. Her hands were interlocked.

"I'm here to help," Yuma replied softly. "You can't keep living like this."

"Just leave me alone. I don't want to hurt you."

Yuma just kept walking forward. The girl took steps back until her back hit a tree. She made no move to run, though. "Shing, you're my friend, and I try to do everything possible to help my friends. I didn't want it to come down to this, but...it has to. There's no other choice."

He reached out to her, but she drew her hands to her chest defensively. Yuma pulled his hand back until she relaxed. Then, he extended his hand again.

"I want to help you," he repeated. "You're my friend."

"I'm...your friend?"

"Of course! You're my friend."

Shing, distracted by this statement, didn't notice the hand on her chest until it fell away from her. The color returned to her face, and her emotions were no longer locked. She caught Yuma before he could fall, her chest welling with despair.

"Yuma!?" she called, shaking him. "Please, don't leave me!"

Yuma gasped, the pain in his chest so excruciating that he had trouble even talking. "Sh-Shing..." he breathed. "I...I want you t-to ge...get along with everyone..." He smiled weakly at her. "You...and Astral...get along...please..."

Shing could only nod. She didn't trust her voice.

"Make some friends," were his last words before the curse finally took him three hours before midnight.

Shing stared down at the boy before breaking down in tears. Throughout the whole night, she held the corpse close to her. She had no intention of letting him go.

~.The Next Morning.~

Dark went out into the city to look for Shing. He took the task upon himself because he was bored and the others were still asleep. Plus, he couldn't stand looking at the haunted look of his brother. It was best to get away for a while before they both had a breakdown. Powerful emotions usually passed between the both of them whether one had reason to feel it or not, and Dark didn't feel like crying over the boy who hurt Astral emotionally.

For half the morning, he searched the city for any sign of Shing. It was only when he entered the park Yuma and his friends frequented that he heard sounds of crying. Knowing exactly who it was, Dark just rolled his eyes and floated in that direction, taking his sweet time. Finally, though, he made it to the edge of the forest that covered one part of the park. There, he saw Shing holding the corpse of Yuma close and sobbing.

Scrunching his nose in disgust, Dark approached her and knocked on her head. "Hey, girlie," he called. "Time to go home and bury the corpse."

The girl didn't answer. She just pulled the body closer to her. Dark rolled his eyes and grabbed the body from her with force.

"We don't have time for this if we don't want this thing to rot and stink up the place." Though, looking at the body up close, it didn't look remotely rotten. In fact, if he didn't know any better, Dark would have thought Yuma was just asleep. He wasn't even stiff. Was this how the curse worked?

"Don't take him from me!!" Shing suddenly shrieked, lunging at Dark with a surprising speed. He was faster, though, and immediately dodged.

"Let's go back. There are people here to see you." Staying a good distance above her, Dark slung the body over his shoulder and made his way back home. He occasionally checked behind him to see if Shing was following, which she was. She had her head bent and her hands gripping her arms. She didn't look like she was going to hurt herself, though. She was just crying a lot.

Finally, when Dark thought he would go absolutely crazy from all her crying, they made it back to the house. The both of them took the window route so that no one knew that Yuma was dead yet. They didn't need anyone freaking out just yet.

Yuri stopped pacing when Shing entered through the window after Dark. "My queen!" he exclaimed, holding her up when she nearly fell to her knees in her despair. "Are you okay? How are you feeling? Do you feel any lasting effects from the curse?"

"Give her some space," the spellcaster Astral said, helping Yuri lower her to the ground. "She needs time to recover. Dark Mist, check her."

Dark Mist touched her forehead and sighed with relief. "She's clear. Let's go tell GG, Astral."

They opened a portal to their world and entered to return. Yuri stayed behind.

Dark would have just dropped the body if it wasn't for the risk of someone hearing, so instead, he settled for laying the body on the ground gently. Astral, who was on the ground and curled in on himself, flinched when the corpse hit the ground in front of him. "What do we do now?"

"We hold a funeral," Yuri replied.

"No!" Shing immediately exclaimed. "I can't have him taken from me forever! I don't want him to leave me!"

"Girl, you have a major obsession over a corpse," Dark pointed out in disgust.

"But he was mine!! You can't take him from me!!"

Astral spoke up from where he was on the ground. "He belonged to no one," he nearly growled. "Stop acting like he was some kind of possession, you greedy child!!"

Shing looked at Astral with a look of disbelief. "Greedy? You're calling me greedy? I never asked for anything in my life! I never asked for any of this, and you have the gall to call me greedy!?"

"Greedy may have been the wrong word. Spoiled is more like it."

"If you even cared about Yuma, then you wouldn't have allowed him to go and do that!"

Astral flinched. "If you adored him as much as you say, you wouldn't do something as inhumane as denying him a proper burial," he choked through fresh tears.

"That's enough, you two," Yuri said harshly. "You're both upset. Arguing won't help anyone."

Astral clearly had trouble keeping himself from saying anything more, but in the end, he slumped back against the wall. Shing just stormed out of the room. Yuri rubbed his temples and looked through Yuma's contacts in his D-gazer.

This was going to be a long day.