"Help! Help!" Kuro screamed as loudly as she could, running away from the voice that was eating everything in its path. "PLEASE!"

Everything was dark, not even the moon was shining in her favour as she bolted under a random hiding place, hearing the voice getting louder followed by the creaky metal noises from a steam machine. 

She felt her skin started to sting, realising it was melting away like ice.  It was burning and it was getting closer and closer to her bones.  Her eyes wide open as she watched, trying to wipe the tears away but that only made it worst.  The pain was getting worst.  Long, dark slender hand peeked around the corner and snatched her by the waist, wrapping around her body like tight ropes suffocating her.  She was whimpering, trying to get out the thing's grip.  Nothing.  The grip started to tighten and tighten until-

Covered in sweat and tears, Jade finally managed to wake them up from their nightmare, trying to calm the young teen down with any technique she could think of.  "Hey hey... it was just a nightmare," she whispered to them, pressing her forehead against their's whilst holding onto their face gently.  "It's not real..."

"I..." Kuro whimpered, trying to gather their thoughts together whilst focusing on their breathing.  in... 5...4...3...2... out...5...4...3...2... In- "I..."

"It was just a nightmare," Jade repeated, a bit more sternly this time but still gentle. She looked at the clock to check the time - 04:34 - and sighed at how early this was.  "Do you want something to drink, midget?"

"Nnggghh i'm not a midget," they pouted but nodded to answer her question.

"That's what a midget would say, hold on." Jade chuckled, getting up from the bed they were sharing and walked to the kitchen.

Kuro took a deep breath, dropping their entire body on top of the soft mattress, their arm over their eyes; they felt ill, sweaty, just pain all over and they didn't know why.  Hugging the pillow tightly, trying their best to hold in their whimpering and crying until Jade came back with two hot mugs of hot chocolate.

"Hey, you're not lactose are you?" the young girl asked, balancing over to her nightstand to put the mugs down, not noticing how badly her friend was in pain.   "Kuro?"

"Hmm?" they groaned, their noises muffled by the pillow they were hugging. 

"Are you okay?" she asked whilst climbing back onto the bed, wrapping her arms around them bringing them close to her chest.

The young teen didn't say anything as they just snuggled closer to her, begging for the pain to stop.  It felt like their insides were burning up but they still kept their mouth shut about it, clinging onto her like their life was on the line.

"What was it?"

"Huh?" Kuro looked at her, confused to what the question was about.

"Your nightmare."

"..." they didn't say anything - more like they couldn't say anything - as their arms wrapped tighter around her waist, just thinking about how their imagination had ability to come up with such..., the bloody pictures of their skin melting just by the touch of their own tears, each layer just slowly dissolving with the burning sensation of lava on their skin. Even now, Kuro could feel it, but why?

Not knowing what to say or do, Jade started to gently caress their cheek then moved onto their back, hoping that would do some sort of comfort. She could hear quiet purring and assumed it was one of her cats in the room but realised they were too far and the purring was pretty loud and clear for her. She looked down. "You're purring?"

"N-no-" Kuro stopped, their cheeks burning up in embarrassment. "I di-didn't purr. What the fuck? i'm not a cat."

"Uh huh," she slowly nodded, pretending to believe them.

"Must be your cats."

"Mhmm sure."

"Yep..."

"So no kisses then?" Jade asked with a cheeky grin, watching their partner's face fall and practically begging for that to not be the case. "Soo... then truth."

"Hmmm... You pay a hard price," Kuro pouted, nodding in agreement that they did, in fact, purr. It was an odd moment, no idea why it was important but it was amusing to Jade for sure to find out about one of Kuro's many weird aspects.

She opened her arms after retying her dirty blonde hair into a low ponytail, allowing Kuro to cuddle up and feel comfortable. Eventually, the young teen finally managed to sleep in the comfort of her arms. Jade smiled a little at their cute, sleeping face planting a kiss on their forehead and just enjoyed her hot chocolate the rest of the hours.

The week went on pretty normally, just a few ups and downs here and there but other than that, it was normal. School was normal. Friends were all happy and dandy, sort of. Everything was okay with a few occasional complaints about teachers and homework overload.

Until they got home.

It was a Friday and their best friend had asked to hang out that day after rehearsals if allowed and maybe stay for the weekend if, again, allowed; Kuro agreed, probably not one of their best choices in life but who cares? Definitely not her or her mum.

Getting nearer to the entrance of her house, Dani suddenly stopped on his tracks. He was staring at this one black car whom looked really familiar to him, especially the number plates on the car. It seemed to be a recently polished Maserati car, parked in front of the shop Kuro would have worked in. He's here!?

"Dani?" Kuro was confused, trying to get her friend back into his senses but it doesn't seem to work.

It wasn't until the door opened and a tall broad man walked out of the door. At first glance, it wasn't cleared how he looked but looking more closely, the man seemed to have freakishly paled skin, his black hair was neatly combed back though with a few strands sticking out and he seemed happy but really impatient. He looked at the two teenager and had that look of irritation on both of them. Kuro didn't recognise him, and neither did she know if she should've or not but either way this man was on her mum's property.

"Hello, sir?"

"Sir?" the man reacted to that quite poorly, frowning from being addressed as sir by the young teen.

"Uhmm ma'am?"

"Do i look like a woman!?"

"I don't know-" she shrugged. "You could identify as a potato for all I know."

"Is that how you see me, you emo pan potato?" the man pouted, seeing how Kuro didn't recognise him at all.

"Dad?" She stared at this man who seemed to be in their late twenties, not believing even one bit that he was her dad.  "I thought you're chubby."

"You what?" He blinked multiple times in one second, not believing that his daughter remembered when he was fat but doesn't remember literally anything  else about him. 

"N-nothing... Uhmm what you doing here?" she asked, watching her dad walk towards the teenagers which she noticed made Dani flinch.

"To visit you!" he proudly exclaimed, ushering the teenagers inside.  "I'm never more glad to see Dani with you.  You two friends?"

Neither of them answered to him as Kuro found this extremely suspicious that her dad would suddenly appear out of nowhere after 8 years or so after the recent incident with one of his ex members.  Not sure if this was another trick but gathering the fact her mum was in the house chilling out with vodka on the table and nothing was trashed on the floor, the young teen didn't say much but didn't relax either and kept her guard up. 

"Where's my brother?" Kuro asked, not hearing her brother's screaming and laughing around or him in sight at all.  She glared at her own mum who was just wasted on the table, mumbling weird things under her breath. The teen sighed.

She looked at her so-called father who looked like he was about to say something or pull a rabbit out of a hat, still not sure if he was what he said he was.  "Soo... Dad, do you remember anything from when i was young?"

"Well... I remember you and your cousin would occasionally steal my gun from my drawer and shoot at random stuff outside," he started, chuckling.  "Oh... that was also the same day you walked onto glass and we had to send you to the hospital."

.... The scar on her feet was the glass incident.   No mum could have said anything in her drunken state! "Right..."

"I know what you're doing," he told her, giving her a hard look.  "If you don't believe me, we can do a DNA test."

"Yeah right and risk you getting caught by the police, godfather?"

"Oh we don't need to worry about that," he smirked which sent shivers down Kuro's spine, scared of what he meant by that.   "Look, when it's finally proven that i'm your dad, you can come live with me again!"

"Again?"

"Yeah!  You and Dani seemed to get along as well," he was perky, and saying things like it was a plan.

"Dani-" she turned to her best friend, questioning.  "What- You have something to do with this!?"

"Yes and no....?"

"....Explain." She glared at him, feeling like her only best friend betrayed him.

"I didn't know you were the boss's daughter- Well child! I swear!" Dani exclaimed, trying to prove his innocence.  "I swear on my hermit boys' lives!  i didn't know! I know your dad but-"

"Okay- fine.  We're doing a DNA test," she huffed, almost too certain this was all a scam and would probably end up being rigged.  She watched as the man's face lit up in joy, hearing his daughter agree to the test and... triedd... to hug her.  "Don't touch me."

"Right right, understandable," he chuckled, "teenagers."

So they took the test....

The result didn't come back till around 2 months later, whilst both the teens were in school.  During this moment before her phone buzzed, Kuro was hanging out with Jade and Cassie (Dani being in the bathroom after a bad meal), talking about the upcoming school musical of Aladdin!

"I might quit," Jade sighed, munching on her sandwich with quite an annoyed look.

"WHat!? Why!?" her best friend exclaimed, shocked and unhappy with that sudden idea.  "We're so closed to performance day, whyyyy?"

"Because it isn't fun."

"Kuro, help me out here-" 

Kuro looked at Cassie and said, "With what?  It's her choice, love."

"Yeah but-"

"Anyways, I'll still be there to see you guys perform!  It's not like I won't be there to support my two best friends," she smiled, wrapping her arms around Kuro, hiding a little smirk.  "So what's been in your mind lately?  You seem to be thinking a lot."

"I have?" they lift their head up to meet her gaze and looked at her other friend who nodded in agreement.  "Uhh... Nothing important I guess..." They clutched onto their jumper sleeve, biting their bottom lip.  

"You guess?" 

"You know you can tell us anything," Cassie told them with a soft smile, placing a hand on their shoulder.  "We won't judge."

"....." Kuro didn't know what to say.  This was the first time the young teen felt guilty for refusing to say anything to other people and keeping stuff from Jade.  

"Just tell us whenever you think you're ready then," their friends told them and gave them a short hug.

The bell rung.

After school was done, Dani was waiting for Kuro at the school gates to walk them home, knowing full well his boss was going to be there.  The walk was an awkward silence and he could tell that Kuro was rethinking about being friends with him.  Normally that doesn't bother him at all but... attachments happened, he guessed.

"Hey if you're his child after all, we can be roommates!" Dani exclaimed, happily.  "And we would live in the same building together, eat the same food!  We could hangout almost ever day-"

"And if not?" Kuro looked at him, their eyes stern serious.

Dani didn't hesitate to respond, "Nothing.  We're still gonna be friends... aren't we?"

"Yes but... how safe do you think this would be?"

"What?" he was confused what his friend meant by that, looking at them for more clarification, "What do you mean?"

Kuro sighed, not feeling like talking about it in the open, as they approached their home - time to know the results.

With every step she took, it felt like a loud thud, getting louder and louder as she walked towards the door.  The ringing in her ear really didn't help with her situation.  The door slowly opened, her vision started to blur around her surroundings except for the centre, her focus on that envelope her dad was holding.  

1

2

3

4

They opened the envelope.

5

6

7

8

He read it out.

1

2

3

-

CRASH!

"You are NOT to leave this house, you hear me!?" Medusa exclaimed, throwing an empty vodka bottle at a wall, missing Kuro's face by just 10cm. "You take even a step outside of this house, I'll-."

"What? What are you gonna do?" Kuro stared at her mother, preparing for the next bottle to be crashed. "You gonna beat me up? Throw more vodka bottles at me?" Her hands weren't even up in defence, walking towards her slowly with every step making cracking sound of shattered glass, her eyes fixated at her mum's.

"You are not to leave this house." Medusa repeated. "You will regret this."

"Really? You think i'm gonna crawl back crying, begging for my dearest mummy to forgive me?" the young child asked, ignoring the pain her feet were in, not breaking eye contact with her mum. "You think I'm going to even come back?"

"You will miss your brother. You will regret this."

"My brother is coming with me, since you're incapable of looking after an autistic toddler," she snapped at her mother. "If that is all, I'll be packing!" The young teen exclaimed, walking up the stairs to her room with her open suitcase laying on the bed, taking deep breathes.

Hours had past, days has past, and soon it was Friday once again. Kuro had finished packing up everything they owned or were given by other people, double checking and rechecking if they got everything they needed.

Finally satisfied with their results, Kuro finally allowed their dad's men to carry her stuff downstairs as they followed down to the cars. Dani, in the car waiting earphones in his ears, was staring outside the car window probably daydreaming about a fantasy world he would love to be part in. Entering the car was one of the easiest things to do for any living creature but for Kuro? They could feel the heavy stoned bricks on their shoulder, the thought that this might have been a bad idea, a choice she- No.. they would one day regret. Was this a choice that would bring them happiness and relief? Or would this be a choice ruining their life? No. Nothing would have been as worst as what they had went through for the past 16 years of their lives. Nothing could be as worst as what they endured with their birth-giver. Nothing will ever be as bad as what they have just left behind. Nothing.

The driver started the engine and drove off, away from the house, from their past. There's nowhere else to face but forward.

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Right?