Black Butterfly {Hisoka x OC ~ Hunter x Hunter Fanfiction}

Chapter 9: The Art of Disappearing, Part One

Disclaimer: I do not own Hunter x Hunter; only my plot and my original characters belong to me.

Author's Note: Well, this is yet another chapter that is fairly short, but I figured my readers would appreciate a shorter chapter more often over a longer chapter posted only once every seven months. This is actually my second take on chapter nine. I wrote around 2000 words of a first draft, ended up not liking it at all, and so I rewrote it from scratch while watching Stranger Things. Awesome show, by the way--season two doesn't disappoint, at least not in my humble opinion. Anyway, I hope that you'll enjoy this chapter!

Chapter Nine: The Art of Disappearing, Part One

...

White walls.

White sheets.

White faces staring down at her.

The eight-year-old girl curled in the fetal position next to the bed that cradled what used to be her mother. Tears no longer fell from her eyes, sobs no longer tore her throat. Instead, her frail, tiny body trembled with the enormity of what she had just done. She didn't feel connected to the floor. She didn't feel connected to anything anymore. Her only connection to the rest of the world was gone now, and she wanted to disappear along with it.

She wanted to shrink into the wall, to disappear from the world entirely, but it was all too easy to feel their eyes on her. Their faint, shadowy voices floated down from above, incredulous and uncertain.

"...what will happen to her now?"

"...it's not for us to decide..."

"Nothing we can do..."

Of course there was nothing they could do. This situation hadn't transpired because of any action or inaction they had taken. It wasn't their fault. They were simply pulled into it after the fact, like motes of dust into a storm. No, it wasn't their fault.

It was hers.

...

Rhea woke with a start, her breath heavy and labored, her eyes wide.

She sat up quickly, her eyes darting around the room for evidence of the vision she'd just experienced in her sleep. It was always a bit disorienting, trying to place herself back into the present when the past existed so vividly in her nightmares. Gradually though, she convinced herself that she was here, in her apartment--not the hospital again. And she was now thirteen years older than the damaged eight-year-old girl who'd blamed herself for her mother's death.

The young woman swallowed hard. Her throat felt dry, and her cheeks felt tight, stained with a crisp, thin layer of salt. She'd been weeping in her sleep. Rhea glanced down towards her trembling hands. The crescent-shaped scars and half-healed scabs on her knuckles smiled back at her. She'd tried to be good lately, and alleviate her anxiety with meditation and breathing exercises--just like her mother had taught her. It had been difficult, especially with the prospect of another meeting with Hisoka growing nearer and nearer.

Rhea frowned at the thought, but ripped her eyes away from her mangled digits. She swung her legs over the side of her bed, flung off the covers, and took a few deep breaths. After a few minutes, she felt at ease enough to allow herself to slip back into her daily routine, and she reflected upon the last 48 hours with both confusion and wonder.

The afternoon she'd received the magician's mysterious text message, she had stormed out of the cafe into the hot midday sun with hardly a word to Cal Veleno. The rookie journalist felt guilty about that now, but in that moment, she had felt her anxiety grow from almost nothing to a massive bomb that felt ready to explode at any second. So she escaped, went home, and hide from the world. She hadn't left her apartment since. Even now, the only reason she was preparing to leave was because she was being forced by Hisoka to appear.