▬▬▬ your name, a living embarrassment

IN YOUR EARLY YEARS, there was a common phrase that your teachers taught you:

A curse could only be manifested through a mortal being—those who were capable enough—to summon a demon from the depths of hell to trade for dark power.

Ridiculous.

You scoffed as you wanted to say all the curses you could muster.

A special seat was already reserved for you in hell, but the foolishness of those blind low-lives managed to reach you still.

Now, only one realization lingered in you: you were now a curse.

It was still speculation, you had no assurance about it.

The curse spirits you knew had fiendish distinct features, deformed, inhumane, and very grotesque in all shapes and sizes.

And as for you, your form as a human remained.

This flesh you ever considered as a curse, now you looked what kind of curse you had become.

All you wanted was an escape, to be forgotten, and to never exist.

You started walking—deciding to pull your saturated sanity together—so lifelessly and aimlessly. In this world of no answer, you followed with endless questions. It felt as though you were trapped in time, all that was left was to be a disfigured mark on the sky and be a shadow of the past.

Those thoughts, your very thoughts, left astray on your mind as you walked on the long . . . very, very long, dark road. Within a few steps, you entered the tangle of the path and come to a part of a place you were never familiar with.

You were in rags, your face smeared with dirt and waste of the corpses. Gasping, you breathed in, fully catching your stench. Feeling your internal organs started to rise, you grabbed your own stomach.

You were disgusting. You were lonely, frightfully lonely. You felt like you were a wandering cursed, looking at this dark, empty world. The world was just a wind of nothingness for you. An indistinctive world.

Towards the endless path of this shadowy forest, you lost count of how many times you pronounce the word "death". You were too seemed to be weary beyond the endurance of the task of being a human being; and when you remunerated on your dread of the world and its bothersomeness, on trade, hoax beliefs, and religious studies, it seemed impossible that you could go on living. Thus you considered death easily to your escape.

And all you had was your cursed self. Your worthless self.

Did the heavens, might as well as the hell, have depicted how much a mess you became?

And walking far and far away was tiring. You couldn't feel your legs that much. You were thirsty and hungry.

Now, what a satirical display! Utterly ironic!

You were hungry. Thirsty. Tired. Filthy.

This physical struggle was something that you never experienced before. It seemed like the time was moving so slow. You felt so nauseated and weak, and your body couldn't bear the exhaustion any longer and your spirit was about to fail as well.

Each minute felt like an eternity. With your pathetic self, time remained moving so slow around you. Anger piled up in you, but all you ought to do was to endure the pain and hold back your tears.

It was the darkest time of the night, and you sighed, continuously walking. You led yourself on the road you weren't familiar with. You walked alone on the deserted path and the contorted forest was accompanying you.

After some time, in the long, winding walk, the road became quite straight but quite unkempt. You noticed a small human settlement of pitched-roof houses half falling down. It was, by what it looked like, an abandoned habitation. It stood in a composed way, had chosen solitude for itself.

So that isolated evening, aware of your desperate nature, you resolved yourself to continue further until you came to a tumbledown cottage. You stopped at a door, it crooked and cracked with age, and you entered upon it. No one was inside, no answer came. It was stagnant inside, shivering at the coldness of the wind.

Before that moment, you could never have imagined such grime, such stench, such chaos in a house. But who were you now? You were more disgusting and filthier than the gutters outside. You reeked of the deads, bloody and sullied by decaying flesh.

It took a moment for your eyes to adjust to the darkness of the small room with its low ceiling, for no candles were burning, only the low-dimmed glow of the moon stretching in from the inside. Clutching an old wooden chair next to the sole table was a case for clothes. You hoped to see any form of clothing that your current clothes were likewise covered with waste.

You weren't disappointed; you found clothes. You looked for a container to hold the garments. Then just outside of the door, there was a woven basket hanging on the eaves of the house. You grabbed it. Though splintered, it would be enough. Hurrying up, you took the essential attires that fitted you and went outside.

This was a residential area, it wouldn't be chosen of the inhabitants if it wasn't near to some kind of resources. For instance, a body of water. There should be one.

You concentrated, sharpening your senses as much as possible. You had no idea where you were, and relying on your instincts would help you get through this.

Since your sense of smell was useless now, you depended on your sight and hearing.

Your legs were trembling upon searching for flowing water. And when you heard a gentle trickle and ripple in a distance, all at once, your energy was brought back, cascading on your form.

After a little while, you reached the place and saw a forest stream. It would be a cold bath and you might not last long to cleanse yourself and the foul smell, but this much better than nothing.

You were a priestess, and you knew a lot about herbs and plants that could relieve you, thus you looked for some. Then you found linden flowers, chamomile flowers, and fennels. Once collecting them on the smooth rock surface near the stream, you picked another stone and prepared the plants by crushing and grinding them into a fine paste.

Upon finishing, you sat on the edge of the water. The moon was bright tonight, and its luminance was reflecting on the water. You saw your image on it. It was a woman, covered with rotten substance. Your hair was stringy and greasy, your face hideous and swollen-your beauty is all but gone. You looked like the ugliest hag from the old horror tales from the elders.

You stripped your clothes off, leaving yourself naked. The stream was quite deserted, surrounded by evergreens and specific plants, thus you didn't mind being bare.

You tested the temperature of the water by dipping your toes, and it was absurdly cold, making your skin rough with crisp shivers. And you didn't have the sumptuousness to make a fuss to all of this. Thus you soaked, submerging your body in the water. It would only be a matter of time when your blood would almost be frozen in your blood vessel. You worried about the low temperature that your muscles would simply give up. You scrubbed your skin with the smooth-textured stone you picked to remove any dirt possible. As well as your hair, you struggled to cleanse it. Now you wanted to cut it short.

Then you temporarily get off the water and took the mashed herbs you made. Generously scouring the mixed herbs on your skin and hair, alleviated you. The pungent scent of the corpses might not go off for the first try, but you could still take another bath for tomorrow.

Meanwhile, as you were done and clothed, you looked for a possible place to sleep and to keep you warm.

The abandoned settlements were fine, so you returned there. You would only stay for some night; you knew to yourself that you couldn't stay there for long. As you curled your body on the matted floor, you closed your eyes.

In a mere twinkling of an eye, your life had drastically changed. It wasn't the same as before, and it was an obligation for you to keep living.

It was too pitiful that you could laugh.

Was there . . . Was there someone who would pay for your labor just to keep yourself alive?

Too bothersome . . . Living.

You still had your worries clinging on your shoulders, but as for now, you decided to let tomorrow worry for itself and just sleep.

It was a dazzling sight. Those savages on the run, the silvery metal of their iron weapons glinting in the golden fiery tides. As they pushed forward, even more, so many had died. Their voices created utter cries and their tragedy raised high. It had a raw intensity to it that told of urgency, of desperate need. The dead's scream came from a place of terror, telling of a mind lost in absolute fear.

Immediately, almost instinctively, the great mass of broken souls, so many thousands, rushed like floodwaters, whooshing into the void of your mind.

Your heart was pounding like a locomotive, and though you knew that you should be carrying the deaths of your people . . .

You woke with the sound of human screams ringing in your head.

Coming back to life with blood pumping so vigorously through your body, it pained you to draw air to your lungs. You were grounded between the boundary of nightmare and reality. Dread rushed over you coldly, but it also burned your soul once being overwhelmed by the corpses buried deep in your head.

Eyes were open. You watched how the hazy light of dawn ebbed through the splintered walls made out of wood. Everything was still in monochrome. The light was about to reach the edge of the world, yet another page had flipped, giving you a new favor to find your reason for living.

You scoffed at that idea.

Before standing up, you listed the things you had to do for this day in your head.

Although your sanity was barely holding in the brink of insanity, your mind could still process schemes on how would and why have to survive.

Getting up, you stood behind the door. Slightly opening it, you checked the outside through the gap. And when everything was seemed all right, you exited.

You had to deal with your grumbling stomach first. You studied a lot about plants before, so you could distinguish between safe plants to eat and poisonous ones. This was a forest, you expected fruit-bearing trees. You also found medicinal herbs, as well as those you could use for bathing.

While picking chamomile flowers, you noticed something on the middle finger of your left hand.

It was a mark. Looking closely, it was engraved on your skin, couldn't remove by scratching.

A mark . . .

That provided the basis for your assumption.

You ignored it and carried on gathering essential food.

On this lush and green forest, you ate in silence. You found yourself among the birds as well as the fantastical butterflies of which you had neither seen nor heard. All around, gorgeous flora in bright red and yellow, and fragrant herbs and grasses.

After eating, you went back to the forest stream to wash your soiled clothes from last night. You fastened them with old woven threads you found, then let them drowned in the waters. You prepared the herbs needed to remove the dirt and could imbue it with a pleasing smell and ground them finely. You also took a blunt knife from the worn-out house. While your clothes remained soaked, you sharpened the knife with a smooth stone available in the surroundings.

You wanted to cut your hair to lessen your burden with the lingering detestable scent.

And after a while, you stayed there, in that place radiating peacefulness. For minutes, hours . . . You lost count. In the blissful, idyllic cycle on this remote land, you saw how your life moved along the greats and smalls forward.

You stretched out your hand on the endless clear water, and traced circles as your mind followed each ripple.

Just like this stream, it moved forward.

For everything moves forward.

How long it had been?

A daybreak came after a long, long night. A nightfall came after a long, long day. Laying there, waiting for you. The bright sun that shone on this forest, the singing birds, the dancing butterflies, the colors of flowers, the fragrance of the grass, the stream, clouds, wind . . .

How long you had been here?

That must have been the punishment for having your people be returned to dust.

Everything moved forward.

And you hadn't taken a single step.

Sitting there among the swirling fireflies, paralyzed and sleepless with fear, you felt as though time did stop to peer into your heart writhing in the agony of isolation.

No . . . No.

Time did not stop.

The only one who stopped was you.

At night, the light of the stars, the sound of the waves, the humming of insects, the fireflies, the moths, the rustling of leaves, each and everything whispered to you.

You were too afraid to clearly see that your life was becoming stagnant while pursuing your round of existence from day to day.

You knew . . . You always knew.

A human life was very fleeting and only behaved like the way they would feel, so perceptible. And there was one life you failed to apprehend. It was your life. You never understood your life. There wasn't anything wonderful about you, not even merciful. You weren't blessed with talents. Living all the way to this point wasn't even a talent. It was a curse.

You were even responsible for the demise of your nation, the murder of your mother.

You were a living embarrassment.

You should die. Your life had no worth. Making yourself alive was a huge shame for everyone, a curse for you. You were a disgrace just because of living. You had to die. That was the most honorable thing to do.

It was a sad thing that you were lying on this ground, realizing how lost you were, and these voices of the ghosts were here again.

You were so restless. Nothing went right. Everything was drifting away. Moving. Forwarding. Yet one thing remained. A single thought. A single desire inside of you.

Death.

"Quiet, be quiet . . ."

You covered your ears with your hands. It plagued you over and over again. You wanted to get rid of those voices. You couldn't hold them for much longer . . . They were becoming louder and louder and louder. Louder! They wouldn't shut up . . . They wouldn't disappear!

It might be an act of desperation, thus you started rummaging the inside of your tattered clothes, looking for something that could help you end everything.

Then, at last, you took out your knife.

Your head continued accelerating as your breaths ragged. You went down on your knees, holding the knife firmly.

Thou killed someone . . .

Now, die! Die! Now, now, now, now! Do it! Now!

You screamed deliriously. You then shuddered, rocking yourself back and forth, and just screamed! You screamed again when you realized that these voices wouldn't go away. Those voices could cut deeper than any blades. The air was so thick—thick in your lungs, thick in your throat. The fear inside your brain was overwhelming, allowing your demons to grow sharper and longer fangs.

The knife . . . You held the knife tight. You just needed silence. You wanted silence.

A little cut would do. Just a little cut or two. It would hurt a lot, but everything would be fine. This knife could help you escape. Just a little push in the ear, everything would end . . .

You will end.

With trembling hands, your pointed the tip of the knife on your ear.

Death would be welcoming, it would even catch you with its arms.

"I shan't do that if were thee."

You startled upon hearing a voice nearby. You turned around still in a sitting position. There was a presence you never noticed before. The unknown person went out of the dark and showed himself.

He was wearing a cloak with a hood to his head. He paced, but before reaching you, you felt as though the world in your eyes spun faster and becoming more distorted.

And the last thing you saw was black.

Yet your eyes were once again open, and the first thing you also was black.

The night was rendered in charcoal with a few inkling specks flickered.

You smelt something burning and heard the cackles of the embers.

As you moved your gaze sideways, a human figure greeted you.

"Thou young lady seemed fine."

His accent was unknown to you. He must be from another country.

You sat down silently, the blanket you had fallen on your lap.

"Thou could use the blanket to keep thee warm," said the man again. Even his facial features were not the likes of your kind. His left hand held a bread, whilst his left one had a cutting knife. "Thy country is a dangerous one for a sole young lady like you. Thou must be lucky this time." Then he cut a piece from the bread. "Here, you must be hungry–" he held the food towards you– "it wasn't much, though it would suffice."

You meekly took the bread and ate near the fire.

"So," the man prompted, "thou has a name, lass?"

You were silent the whole time and had the expression as if the world was on your shoulders. Thus he hoped to converse with you to distract you from your thoughts.

"Thy name . . ." you inhaled and uttered out your name.

He nodded in response. He also heard the grit on your voice, depicting the parch on your throat. He handed you next to his drinking vessel, which you gladly took.

"Thou young lady is a long way from home, isn't she?"

You bowed your head in shame as he discerned your current status. "How thine traveler knoweth?"

"Many wars had broken these days," he simply answered, though it explained everything. "Thou must be blessed to live this far."

You scornfully laughed. "Thine young lady not; it was thy curse."

"Curse?" he repeated.

Unconsciously, you showed him your hand-the one with a curse mark. "Thine young lady is cursed, albeit I still hath no idea what kind of destruction thou mayest bring."

The existence of the curses was considered a norm, be it with strangers or travelers such as he.

"That was why thou lass tried to kill thyself?"

You supported his speculation. All of those curses and the ones who were cursed were deserving of death.

"Not all curses are cursed," so he said, "one must know how to use it."

Your eyes narrowed in confusion. You wanted to retaliate his supposition, but he was quick to explain than you.

"In thine country," he began, "we forged a way to exorcise curses while empowering the armed forces."

"By the useth of curse?" You sounded so skeptical.

"Yes, young lady." He assured. "If it engages you, I could teach thee how to control your curses."

You shook your head as you wrapped the blanket tightly in you. "Thine young lady hast no interest in such."

Then you angled your head to the sky, which was getting lighter every minute. It was your clan's fault why you had this curse, therefore you didn't want it. You discarded your clan the same as you wanted to discard your life now. Sinners as you and your clan ought to disappear. It wasn't for atonement. You, a mere mortal being, must lead a world undefiled by the blood of your clan. So, hopefully, in the upcoming generations, the descendants of this earth might look back with gratitude, for the wonderful world they were able to inhabit.

"I understand," he smiled thinly.

The traveler respected your decision, didn't insist on the topic further.

You only watched the dying flames of the fire. A new morning had arrived once again. Your face was blank, there wasn't much to see in you.

Then the traveler comprehended that you would die in this wilderness if you stayed here. Although it was obvious that you had no will to live, he still hoped that your perception would change. He also believed that you were not an ordinary person. You spoke with authority and articulateness, someone from a well-known clan.

"I am a religious missionary, young lady," he introduced. "If thou have nowhere to go, thou welcomed to tag along with me."

"Why?" you asked.

He slightly shrugged. "I doubt that our meeting here was just an accident." Then he stood up and picked up his staff. "And I do welcome a companion on the road."

You were contemplating. Last night, you were about to kill yourself, and now . . ?

You didn't know.

You were indecisive. Something to be expected in you after living in solitariness.

He was a lone missionary. For what? What kind of lessons did he preach?

"Thine young lady doeth not know thou name . . ." you muttered.

"Thy name is Tengen–" there was a small trickle of mirth that curved on his mouth– "came from the country of Nihon, which means 'The Sunrise Land'."

[ gasping ]

[ panting ]

ch-chapter . . .

[ le gaspuee again ]

chapter six . . . IS DONE !!!!

[ almost fainting ]

[ nahimatay ] //lmao tl: fainted

wait- there's still a chapter seven to write !!!!!

tell me why do i have to write a chapter seven . . .

[ namatay ]

[ d3d ]

yeah. aren't y'all mad with me for the ugly characterizations i gave you? haha me is la ✨ pathetique ✨

And about the hand....

this lol. it was just a 45-minute (at least) sketch XDDDD and im too lazy to finish and detal it. and y'all get the idea, ight?

🕯️ handtheirend 🕯️