Chapter 2: Capable of Nothing

"...I'm so retarded," I say under my breath as I quickly lock the doors in the apartment. I head straight into the bathroom, closing and locking that door as well

I turn on the sink, splashing water on my face to try and cool myself down. I don't even want to look in the mirror. I know what I'm going to see, and I'd rather not see it right now. I didn't even do anything about the body either. I thought I had it under control now, but nope! All the fucking same, isn't it? God, what's wrong with me...?

I stare at the drain in the sink, a void, black hole that seems to suck me in somehow. I don't want to look up. I don't want to look at that. If I don't, then I can just pretend nothing ever happened. I let out a deep breath. Why say all that now when I already fucking did it? Slowly lifting my head up, I see it again, that disgusting look on my face.

Black veins surround my eyes like a spider's web, slowly expanding and heading down towards my cheeks. My eyes are entirely black with no pupils, and my usually pinkish lips are as white as my unnaturally pale skin. The veins start reaching down to my neck, slowly making their way throughout my entire body. I can feel it, the warmth that follows them reaching everywhere. It feels good, but I know it shouldn't. I look like a fucking monster; a hideous, disgusting monster that just saw a man kill himself a couple of moments ago. The last thing I should be feeling right now is "good."

Stumbling my way onto the couch, I lay on it with my face on the cushion motionless with way too many thoughts inside my head for me to want to do anything else. I wouldn't be stressing so much about this shit if the guy I killed wasn't a fucking Black Pawn! It just had to be one of those motherfuckers. They don't take too kindly to the missing of one of their members. I know for sure the rumors are already spreading, and when rumors about a person who's supposed to be dead reaches the people who fucking killed them, those people tend to become skeptical over whether or not you're actually dead.

They should've made sure that I was dead and put one in my dome; maybe then all of my issues would've been solved. I wouldn't have to constantly worry about jeopardizing my current stay at home lifestyle every time I step outside, and honestly, what am I even doing with my life right now? Giving some random girl I met a year ago my blood to be a neet inside her apartment? Not exactly the kind of life that was worth saving for. I can't be bothered to ask her why or how she saved my life either, her always giving me the same response. "I have been ordered to not disclose that information," or so she says. That's such a bullshit response. Might as well just say you don't want to tell me. No need to beat around the bush.

As I'm getting up to check my face in the mirror again, I can hear keys outside.

She's already here? She wastes no time, I see.

She unlocks both doors and walks inside, the same blank expression on her face. Already knowing what she's about to do, I sit up and take off my hoodie, rolling up my shirt sleeve. She walks into her room and comes back out with a med kit box and an old shirt (one of mine to be exact.) Without a word, she sits down next to me, still in her office attire, and ties the shirt tightly around my arm. She opens the med kit box and takes out a butterfly needle attached to a small plastic bottle with a tube. Opening the wrapper for an alcohol wipe, she rubs it along my upper forearm. With no hesitation when she sees the vein, she sticks the needle in slowly, and that liquid starts coming out of my arm.

It's the color of crude oil, only less thick and flowing smoothly through the tube as normal blood should. I don't know what else to call it other than blood. It's the liquid that comes out of me whenever I get a cut, the liquid that seeped out of my chest when I got shot, and the liquid that Sayuri drinks in exchange for my stay here. Because of its color, I've always knew something was off about me. That and the fact that I can make people kill themselves or whatever. Or the veins coming surrounding my eyes.

Totally not dead giveaways that I'm not normal.

"They just let you out of work whenever you like?"

She takes the needle out of my arm, holding the tube up so that the last droplets go into the bottle.

"According to one of my co-workers, it seems as though I appear 'under the weather.' I take it that she means I appear ill, correct?" She tilts her head, expecting me to answer.

Her response is monotonous and robotic. Grabbing a cotton ball and a bandage, she starts patching up the needle wound.

"Probably. Are you though?"

"I don't believe I am. I haven't sensed any abnormalities within my body today, so I should be fine..." She's about to go on but stops herself as if she's noticed something.

She looks me in the eye. She scoots closer, grabbing the back of my head with both hands and pulling it towards hers. I don't bother fighting back; if I learned well from the last time I did that, I would never dare trying to out muscle Sayuri.

Our foreheads are pressed together, her hazel eyes glaring deep into mine. They're a pretty color, but lifeless is the only way that I can describe them. I can see a reflection of my eyes within hers, but that's not the only thing that I could see. Within them, the events that happened before I came her replayed in exact detail, every scene that I saw with my eyes appearing vividly. I was going to tell her anyways because with how perceptive she is, she would have found out eventually, but of course, she beat me to the punch.

She pulls her head back.

"I wasn't expecting you to encounter one this soon."

"A Black Pawn?"

"No, it's something else." She stands up, heading towards her room but stopping right at the entrance of the hallway, turning around to face me. "Starting from today, you are not allowed to leave the premises for any reason whatsoever. Is that understood?"

The words come out of her mouth toneless, yet for some reason, I feel a menacing undertone within them.

"Yes ma'am," I reply mockingly, giving her a salute. With that, she goes into her room.

Now, to deal with the alleyway situation.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to do. Chances are, the body's been found already and they're aware that a pale boy with a hoodie was somehow involved. It doesn't take much to make the connection to Bleached Death from there. And if by some miracle, the police do get involved, that only further confirms any lingering suspicions about me. Other than using my barefoot to lift the back of his shirt, there shouldn't be any incriminating evidence left there unless a strand of my hair or something fell by accident. They'll try and find fingerprints on the "murder weapon", only to find that nobody else's fingerprints but his are there, and that's when they'll get lazy and just say it was a suicide. By that point, I'll be completely and thoroughly fucked.

I can't call anybody for help. Pook would be my go-to right now, but without a burner, that'd be the same as calling for him by smoke signals. My location would be revealed, and then the past year I spent hiding would've been for nothing. All I can do is wait and pray for some miracle to occur.

The rest of the day passes by like every other day, dull and empty. Even with Sayuri inside the apartment, it still feels as if I'm by myself. She hasn't left her room since she entered. What she's doing in there, I'm not sure and I don't care to find out. While realistically I have no privacy here, if I did have any, I wouldn't want to have it breached by some nosy fuck, even less if they were somebody like me, so I'll proudly say that it's none of my business and show common decency. She came out her room later, only to cook food for me. and then went back inside to do whatever she's doing.

By nighttime, I took a shower, brushed my teeth, and was already laying on the sofa ready to go to sleep. I'm facing towards the sofa, my eyes wide open the entire time. I stay awake for a while, just staring at the couch cushion, my mind empty. Time passes, I'm sure of it, but I can't tell how long it has been. It might have been a couple of minutes or perhaps a couple hours even, but I'm wide awake through it all.

There's an eerie creaking noises that I can hear behind me, followed by the sound of something dripping. That's not what's scaring me right now, however. I don't believe in ghost or shit like that, so a couple of noises aren't going to make me shit myself at night. No, it's the smell that's flooding my nose that concerns me at the moment. It's rotten, absolutely horrid, and the worst of all, familiar. It smells of him. That shouldn't be possible. Once somebody's dead, their smell goes along with them. For somebody's rotten smell to be familiar would mean...

Nope, fuck that shit. I'm not about to turn around to see if there's a dead man inside the apartment. I'll just sleep it off. It'll go away in the morni-

...Huh? I can't close my eyes. Actually, I can't move my body either now that I'm realizing it. Another dream? That puts my worries to rest. And here I was worrying that some man was inside the apartment! Geez... I should know better than to let my twisted imagination let loose. Though, I never had a dream set in my own life before, so that's weird. Why now of all times, y'know?

The noise of the wood tiles creaking becomes slightly louder, the same with the dripping noise that follows it, until gradually, it becomes too loud to bare. There's a faint, rhythmic pounding noise in the background that sounds like somebody hitting the wall. I try to move my limbs, but only my fingers and toes move in response. The pounding's rhythm starts going faster, the pattern slowly becoming erratic until there is no pattern anymore. Wood starts cracking, and the crashing of the walls booms in my ears. My eyes close by themselves, and everything around me becomes cold and frigid to the touch. I'm floating in darkness, my world crashing around me. And then...

It all stops.

"Oh my! You're not what I expected."