1 The Unforgiven ~The Fire Within

"My name is Mii. And I have a secret.

I wish I was dead."

She wrote the words down without hesitation. Yet when she tried to click "Send", her hand stopped. Her finger didn't move. Nothing happened. She stared at the words, and they reflected from her blue eyes.

"I wish I was dead…" Mii whispered while erasing the words. Sighing, she closed her eyes, and leaned back on her chair. Why was it so hard to tell the truth? Thinking of it didn't hurt; she even had a plan how to do it. But why it was so hard to admit?

Frustrated, she hissed and grabbed a smoke pack under the screen. Mii kept her smokes under the screen, behind the keyboard, because it was the only spot on her desk that wasn't covered with trash. She couldn't remember the last time she had cleaned the desk. But she didn't care, since for some weird reason, even with all the trash and junk, she always found, what she was looking for. Headset? On the left side, under the bills and other papers. Lighter? Next to the mouse, in front of the speaker, behind the vodka glass. Mii grabbed the lighter.

The room started to smell even more. Mii had been smoking inside for so long she couldn't even remember when she had started. The smell was terrible. It gave her headaches, but she didn't care. She had stopped caring long time ago. About anything.

She looked her reflection from the window on her right side. Mii had always hated her reflection. And now even more. She had transformed into a lazy, fat old hag. Round fat face with ugly witch chin, thin lips, way too small eyes, and tons of freckles. Shit tons of freckles. A textbook case of a face only a mother would love. Only thing Mii ever had loved about herself was her flaming red hair. Unfortunately, she didn't love it anymore. The flaming red hair had turned into a wild light orange bush. Even though she knew where her hairbrush was in her organized chaos, she never bothered to use it.

Mii put her smoke out on an ashtray shaped like a dragon. She liked dragons. And fantasy in general. Her chaotic messy room was filled with books, movies, comics, and most importantly, games. She loved gaming. She had never been good at it, but she still loved it. In games she could be anything she wanted. If she wanted to be a princess, or a dragon, or a farmer. Even if she wanted to be a mass murdered, she could be that in games. She could be anything. Like in the one she just started; she was beautiful, powerful, and loved. All the things she wasn't in real life. Or so she thought.

Mii closed her eyes again. Wishing she would be brave enough to put an end for all her sorrow and pain. Poor Mii couldn't even remember the last time she was happy. Nor when she had left the house last time. When was the last time she took a bath? She couldn't remember that either. Lots of things had started to vanish from her memory. What did she do yesterday? Most likely she sat on her room all day, gaming, smoking and drinking. Maybe she took couple toilet breaks. That could have been the case. That usually was how her days went. there were sometimes those days when she actually got up and left the room. And not only for toilet breaks. Today was going to be one of those days, since Mii heard a knock on her door.

"Yah?" she sighed, and the door opened. She didn't even bother to turn her head, since she knew it had to be one of her roommates. "What do you want, H?"

"As usual, a super computer, shit tons of money, and a smoking hot girlfriend with a tight ass."

Even for her own surprise, Mii had a tiny smile on her face for a split second.

"What brings you to my lair?" Mii asked while turning around to face H, who had sat on her bed. "If it's about the mess, I… I'm terribly sorry. I… I try to start cleaning it on Monday."

Mii felt ashamed. She had moved in with two great guys, and she couldn't even keep her room clean. She felt like she had failed on showing her appreciation. In all honesty she felt like she had failed in everything in her life.

"No, no, sweetheart, it's not about that." H said with empathy in his voice. He tried to look Mii in the eyes, but she had turned her head out of shame. "Yes, your room smells horrible, and it looks terrible with all your shit on the floor, but we don't care. You take your time. And if you need help, just ask. We can clean it together on the next Monday. Okay?"

Mii nodded her head twice. She knew H meant well, but his words stung like needles. She felt even more ashamed of herself. She was a failure.

Mii was biting her lip. She didn't want to cry. Not infront of H. Even if she knew, H would never judge her for that, she still felt she'd be weak if she did that.

"So yeah… What is it that brought you here?" Mii asked, still avoiding H's eyes.

"We have a new game. Local co-op. Interested?" H asked. "Fantasy rpg, we would need our healer."

Mii lifted her head. And now their eyes were locked. Why did he say it like that? And why did she was stupid enough to lift her head? The first thing she saw were H's brown puppy dog eyes. Mii hated it when H made her sound important. That always got her attention. And she hated his eyes too. She hated them because she loved them. The big brown puppy dog eyes were the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. And she couldn't say no to them.

"Sure…" Mii sighed and got up. She kicked few books out of her way and walked to the hallway H behind her. There wasn't any lights on.

"What's the time?" Mii asked looking at the front door on their right. She couldn't see any light behind the windows.

"Let's see…" H mumbled as they entered the living room. Mii sat on the couch, in the middle. That was her spot. The controllers were ready and waiting on the edge of the couch. The game was on. The title screen had a beautiful landscape and a medieval town, with a huge white castle on the backround. At first look it really didn't look anything that guys would like. The whole scenario was in some way too pure and calm. And guys liked more grimm looking games. But then again, Mii could be wrong. She had the bad habit on judging books by their covers.

"Dimanda…?" Mii muttered while staring at the beautiful castle. "That's a weird name…" She grabbed her controller and looked at H. H had gone to the kitchen to get some snacks and drinks. There was an open bag of lollipops on the kitchen table.

"Could you bring me one of those?" Mii asked pointing the lollipop bag.

"That was the plan!" H said energetically carrying a tea cup on his hands. "Your tea ma'am."

"I didn't order any tea." Mii said. But she still turned around on the couch and grabbed her huge grey tea cup. "Is it strong?"

"Nah, there wasn't any booze left." H said. He went back to the kitchen to get his tea and the lollipops.

H sat on Mii's left side. He took a sip from his tea, and looked over Mii's head to the hallway. Shrugging his shoulders, he put his tea cup down on the end table that stood on the couch's left side. He was still holding the lollipops.

He looked at Mii who was blowing her tea gently. H smiled and waited until Mii had taken a sip from her tea.

"Cherry for the lady." he said handing the red lollipop to Mii while grabbing Mii's tea cup with his other hand. "I'll take this to the table."

"Oh, you remembered..." Mii said as she started to open the wrappers of the lollipop.

"Easy to remember since you always take a cherry one, and then start crying like a bitch, when there's none left." said an amused voice on Mii's right side.

"Hey Sweet." Mii said without even turning her head. She stuck the lollipop in her mouth, and the wrappers between her breasts. "Sorry about the room. I'll start cleaning on Monday."

Sweet sat down on Mii's right side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He looked at Mii, but didn't say a word. He pulled her closer and gave her a kiss on her forehead.

"I don't care anymore. If you want to live in shit, you live in shit. But stop smoking without the window open."

"Okay..." Mii said. She was really embarrassed. She felt like crying again. These men were the most kind and caring she had ever met, and this was her way to thank them for all the help they had given her during their years together. Being lazy, messy, dirty... A burden. That she was. A burden. That's why she had the plan, in order to get rid of the burden.

Sweet had gotten up to get himself a lollipop too. H told him not to open the one he had taken from the bag, since H had also brought him one. Sweet left the half-opened lollipop back in the bag and sat next to Mii again.

"Game time?" he asked grabbing the controller. Mii and H nodded. Sweet pressed a button on his controller.

The beautiful scene, the town and the castle faded to black. After that three boxes appeared for each one to create their character.

"Great, we'll be stuck here for hours." H said checking out the possibilities in character creation. There were way too many options.

Mii moved slowly through each option. She wanted to make her character as beautiful as possible. Flaming red hair, blue eyes. Fair skin, beautiful body. She was already being jealous to her character. Mii sighed and continued the character creation. There was only one option for a healer class. Mage with a staff as a weapon. That was a bit disappointing, but Mii's class was always a healer, and she loved playing a healer, she picked the mage.

Once Mii had finished creating her character, she set her controller aside, and got up. Boys were still checking the lasts stats of their characters. Knowing the two, it would take at least 15 minutes for them to get all the stats to their right places.

But once she got up, she stopped and froze. She stared to the kitchen eyes wide open. Her hand started to shake when she slowly lifted it up. She pointed towards the kitchen.

"Gu-guys...?" Mii whispered carefully. "There's a huge ass wasp stealing our lollipops."

"The what now?!" Sweet laughed and turned his head. He froze too. "What the fuck...?" he whispered.

"What's wrong?" H asked and looked the two who looked like they'd turned into salt statues. He looked to the kitchen as well, and what he saw made him froze too.

All three of them saw huge insect wings poking out from the lollipop bag. The whole bag was moving as the creature inside tried to open the wrappers of the lollipops.

Sweet got up silently, and Mii was backing up towards the TV. H carefully put his controller on the floor and got up from the couch too. He took side steps towards Sweet. Mii took a quick glance at him. He whispered something to Sweet, but Mii couldn't hear. She was terrified. She didn't like insects. Especially big ones. And this insect had to be at least as big as her hand.

Sweet and H took quiet steps towards the kitchen table, but then the bag started to shake more. The same second the bag started to shake, both men jumped back on the couch and stared table behind the back of the couch. Mii was still standing frozen solid in front of the TV. Her eyes were locked on the shaking bag, and the giant wings popping out from it. But she saw the owner of the wings, she couldn't believe her eyes.

"No fucking way..." H whispered.

The bag stopped shaking, and the culprit crawled out from the bag. It was tiny human looking creature with dragonfly like wings on its back. It had long curly golden-brown hair, emerald green eyes and pointy ears. Its skin was really pale, almost white. It had a dress like clothing, which seemed to be made out of pink and purple petals. The creature sat on the table holding green lollipop, which looked way too big compared to creatures' size.

"Dude, that's a fairy...!" Sweet whispered to H.

Mii had joined the boys on the couch, and as them, she stared at the creature mouth open, eyes wide.

"Fairies aren't real..." Mii whispered. "You spiked our tea, didn't you?!" she hissed at H.

"No, I didn't! Besides, there's nothing in this house that would cause hallucinations!" H whispered back.

"Shut your mouths, you two! There's a fucking fairy on our kitchen!" Sweet whispered as quiet as he could. But, it wasn't quiet enough. The fairy stopped licking its huge lollipop and lifted its head. One would thought that the fairy would have gotten scared of the three, but it got up, and started to stare at them mouth open, as they stared at it. Both rooms fell silent.

Mii's heart was pounding. She couldn't believe her eyes. She had read too many stories with fairies, seen too many movies and series with fairies, and played too many games with fairies in them. And now there was one in front of her eyes. It couldn't be true. It had to be a dream. Fairies were fiction.

From out of nowhere the fairy started to smile. And talk. Then they realized that the fairy was a female. Its voice was really pretty, high pitched but soft. Like a bell. Unfortunately, they couldn't understand what she was saying to them. She seemed really excited and kept talking and talking. After a while the smile on her face started to face as did her talking. She looked at each of them alternately until she fell quiet.

"I think she realized we can't understand her." H said and turned to Mii and Sweet. "So, um... What should we do?"

"'What should we do?'!" Sweet imitated H sarcastically. "Are you hearing yourself?! There is a motherfucking fairy in our kitchen table, and THAT's your reaction?! I'm losing my shit over here!"

Mii stared them both in turns eyes wide open. Then she stopped at H and said:

"You know, I'm with him on this one. This can't be real. Fairies aren't real. We're somehow tripping our balls here H."

"Have you guys taken something? Because I haven't. And I see that shit too. The happy girls in tampon commercials might be fictional, but that there is real." H said and pointed the fairy. The fairy jumped and started to flap its wings. She flew towards H, and then landed on his pointing hand. H turned to look at the fairy, who was smiling again. This time she looked like she was about to cry.

"This feels weird..." H whispered when the fairy took a couple of steps on his hand.

Sweet was holding and shaking his head. Mii leaned closer. The fairy started to talk again while smiling. Mii heard it repeat one word over and over again.

"Vess...?" Mii whispered.

The fairy stopped talking and then turned around towards Mii. The fairy looked really excited. She smiled mouth open and pointed at H.

"Vess!" fairy shouted and laughed. She kept repeating the word, still pointing at H.

"She thinks that's my name?" H said. He looked at Sweet who still looked dubious. Sweet had moved closer, so it seemed that he was curious. Mii was still in denial. This was some sort of fever dream. Or she was on drugs. Or then she had finally got rid of the burden and this was the last hallucination. Mii bit her lip and turned around. She started to walk towards her room. She heard H's and Sweet's voice calling her, but she didn't care. She wanted to go away. For good. She couldn't take it anymore. He heart was pounding, hands started to sweat, and she had trouble breathing normally. She walked through the hallway, past front door. The door was open.

"Who opened the door?" Mii asked with a loud voice, but then she didn't hear any answer since she noticed something odd. There wasn't any light outside. Behind the door was just pitch-black darkness.

Mii shook her head. Her head had started to hurt. Heart pound had turned to chest pain. She started to lose it. She needed to get away from all the weird stuff that was happening. Mii felt a hand grabbing her arm.

"Let go of me..." she whispered, trying to get back into her room. Her breathing had gotten faster again. Her fingers were twitching. "I want to go to sleep so that I can wake up."

She heard H talking. She heard Sweet talking. But she couldn't hear the words. Everything started to turn into a white noise. Her hands were twitching now. Breathing started to hurt. Chest pain started to be unbearable. Her body was giving up to the stress, but for some reason she heard the fairy's voice loud and clear. It was repeating three words she couldn't understand; Vess, Iima, Mae.

Someone turned Mii around. Mii's head was spinning. She wasn't sure where she was. Or with whom. Someone hugged her. She could feel the body heat through a thin fabric. Mii pressed her cheek against the fabric and closed her eyes. T-shirt. It smelled like men's deodorant, cat, tea, and sugar. Mii slid her arms around Sweet and opened her eyes. She saw H standing next to the open door and staring to the darkness. The fairy was hovering next to his head still talking.

The fairy looked back at Mii and Sweet, and then flew to the darkness. Mii sighed and closed her eyes for a second. She would wake up soon, and everything would be normal. She would sit between the boys and they would play new games together. Mii took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

H took a step. And another. He walked towards the darkness. Mii's head rose. She heard Sweet yelling to H, and H yelling him back, but again, she didn't hear the words. Everything happened so fast, but it felt like a slowed down scene in a movie. H disappearing into the darkness, Mii wrenching herself from Sweet's arms, and Sweet yelling after H and trying to hold Mii tighter.

"Don't!" Mii yelled as she ran after H to the darkness. "Don't go! Don't leave me! Please!" Then she fell.

She was falling. She felt a cold wind on her face. Her eyes were closed but she could tell it wasn't dark anymore. There was light all around her. Tears had started to run from her eyes as she lost the track of time. She wasn't sure was she sad or happy. She had finally died. She didn't know how she had died, but it had finally happened. The burden was gone. Mii smiled and took a deep breath. She felt her body falling through the air. It felt wonderful. She was free. She wasn't in pain anymore. She could finally be in peace.

But then her speed started to decrease. Quite fast to be exact. She could feel it. The wind wasn't that strong anymore. Mii opened her eyes and saw the ground coming nearer. It felt like her heart would have jumped out from her mouth. She closed her eyes again and started to scream. But the more she screamed, the more her speed decreased. She screamed and cried. She didn't know how long she had been falling. Or how high she was when she started to fall. It had started to feel like hours. And then she stopped.

It didn't hurt. Not that much at least. Mii felt the ground under her. Something was stinging all over her body. She opened her eyes. She was laying on the ground face down. There were tiny pebbles, sticks and conifer needles all over. And ants.

Mii got up quickly. She noticed that she was naked. Her breathing got faster again. Hands started to shake. She stared at her hands. All her rings and bracelets were gone. All her clothes were gone. She touched her ears. Her earrings were gone too.

"What is going on...?" she whispered to herself while trying to cover her naked breasts with her arms. It started to get cold, since the wind had started to blow.

Ants have started to crawl on her feet. She started sobbing trying to shake them off. Mii looked around. She was standing on a hilltop. There were conifers and small birch trees everywhere. She was standing on a pathway through a forest. Behind her the pathway continued through the conifers. In front of her the pathway continued down the hill through more trees. She looked past the trees; there was smoke. It looked like it came from a chimney. Someone lived in the forest.

Mii started to walk down the hill. Whatever was going on, she knew she'd need help. She was sobbing, trying to cover her nakedness from the wind. Her feet started to hurt. The rough path didn't feel good under naked feet. Light started to dim. The more she descended, the more there were trees. After a couple of minutes, she couldn't see the sun at all. Pathway had started to change. The rough ground felt softer and wet. Walking was hard. Her feet started to slip. Mii lost her balance and fell again.

Mii rolled down the hill and landed on mud. She started to cry as she got up from the mud. Her hair, face and body were covered in mud. She tried to wipe her face, but it made even more mess. Tears kept flowing. She wanted to give up, but Mii knew that she needed to keep going. She bit her lip and started walking again.

It was dark. Walking was hard. The soft mud tried to suck her feet with every step. Minutes passed and she started to see some light again. She was at the forests edge. She saw long grass. The pathway continued through the long grass. Sun shone on her skin as she walked from the woods. At the end of the pathway was a yard, and a red house. She had been right. The smoke came from the house's chimney. Mii continued walking. She was shaking all over. She was breathing heavily. Tears were still flowing.

Mii got to the yard. The house looked old. Like something from a couple of centuries back.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" Mii shouted. She couldn't hear anything. "Hello? Please, I need help!"

The door opened. A woman was standing at the doorway. She had long black hair tied on a bun on top of her head. Her eyes were blue, and they looked at Mii closely. She had a boring greyish cotton dress and white apron. Like the house, she looked like she'd belong to the past. Her face was strict, but as soon as she saw Mii sobbing, she started to talk with a coarse but caring voice:

"What happened to you, my dear?" She grabbed Mii's arms and looked at her. "Who are you? And how did you get here?"

Mii was shaking.

"M-my name is Mii. And... I have no idea."