บท 114: Keiko - 十一
The villagers gathered to see him off, their respect and gratitude evident in their warm farewells. I stood by the edge of the path leading out of the village, watching as Hiroshi prepared to leave.
"Keiko," he said as he approached me, his pack slung over his shoulder. "Are you sure you'll be alright here?"
A small, comfortable silence settled between us. As the afternoon sun began to lower, casting long shadows across the village, Hiroshi stood and began to gather his things.
"I wish I could stay longer," he said, "Other villages to visit. More different crops to harvest. I'll see you come next planting season if you are still around."
The pang of sadness that struck me was unexpected. Despite having just met him, Hiroshi had been the first person to offer me kindness and understanding since I woke in that field. The thought of him leaving so soon filled me with unease.
Hiroshi smiled, the kind of smile that reached his eyes, "Hopefully by then, you'll have remembered more. Take care of yourself, Keiko."
With that, he turned and walked down the path leading out of the village. I watched him go, his figure growing smaller until he disappeared into the horizon.
As the days passed after Hiroshi's departure, I tried my best to settle into the village. It was a peaceful place, with its rolling hills and serene landscapes, but there was an undercurrent of tension I couldn't quite place. The villagers, though polite enough on the surface, seemed distant, their interactions with me tinged with something that felt like suspicion or wariness.
I tried to involve myself in the daily routines of the village. Early each morning, I would rise with the sun and offer to help with whatever tasks needed doing. At first, I focused on simple chores—fetching water from the well, trying to sow the small herb garden outside Hiroshi's hut, and helping with the cleaning. But wherever I went, I felt the weight of the villagers' eyes on me, as if they were constantly watching, judging.
Whenever I approached groups of villagers, their conversations would die down, replaced by awkward silence or whispers. Even the children, who had initially seemed curious, began to avoid me. The small girl, Jiayi, who had led me to Hiroshi that first day, no longer greeted me with the same enthusiasm. Instead, she would glance at me from a distance before quickly turning away.
One day, I offered to help an older woman with her laundry. She eyed me warily before shaking her head and muttering something about needing to do it herself. Her hands trembled as she collected her things, avoiding my gaze. I backed away, feeling the sting of rejection.
Another time, I tried to join a group of villagers who were working on repairing the roof of a small hut. They politely refused my help, saying they had everything under control, but their eyes told a different story—a story of mistrust.
It became clear that I was an outsider, and despite my efforts to integrate, the villagers weren't willing to accept me. It was as if they saw something in me that I couldn't see in myself—something that made them uneasy. I began to wonder if my presence was bringing some sort of bad luck, or if there was something in my past that they somehow knew.
One particularly cold evening, I ventured out to the village square, hoping to find some comfort in the presence of others. But as I approached, the villagers who were gathered around the fire quickly dispersed, some casting me uneasy glances as they hurried away. I stood there, alone, the warmth of the fire doing little to chase away the chill that had settled in my heart.
Days turned into weeks, and the distance between me and the villagers only seemed to grow. I began to retreat into myself, spending more time alone in the hut or wandering the outskirts of the village where I wouldn't feel the eyes of others on me. I could feel the walls of isolation closing in, and the more I tried to push through them, the thicker they seemed to become.
One morning, as I sat by the edge of a small pond just beyond the village, I found myself wondering if this was how it would always be—if I would always be an outsider, drifting from place to place, never truly belonging anywhere. The thought was a heavy one, and for the first time, I felt the weight of hopelessness settle over me.
The tranquility of the pond offered little comfort. I stared at my reflection in the water, searching for something familiar, something that would explain why the villagers treated me the way they did. But the face staring back at me was that of a stranger—a girl named Keiko, with no past and no place in the world.
I took a deep breath, trying to push the dark thoughts away. The other villagers were polite enough to avoid outright scolding me, but their sideways glances and whispered conversations were enough to tell me what they thought. I was a burden, an outsider who didn't belong.
As the days went by, the situation only worsened. I would wake early, before the sun even rose, hoping to get a head start, to master farming in private before anyone could see my struggles.
There were moments when I would catch sight of the other villagers, their fields neat and orderly, their crops already sprouting. They worked together, helping one another when needed, sharing advice and labor in a way that was utterly foreign to me. When I tried to approach them, to ask for guidance, they would nod politely, perhaps offer a vague word or two, but nothing more.
One afternoon, after yet another fruitless attempt, I sat down in the dirt, utterly defeated. My hands were raw, my back ached, and my spirit was nearly broken. I stared at the patch of earth before me, wondering why something that seemed so simple for others was so impossible for me.
In the silence of the fields, with only the sound of the wind rustling through the crops and the distant chatter of villagers who belonged, the urge to give up, to leave the village and find somewhere else to start anew, gnawed at me constantly, but I also knew that walking away would mean abandoning the small progress I had made.
One afternoon, the frustration that had been simmering beneath the surface finally boiled over. I stood in the middle of the small patch of earth I had managed to plant, staring at the stunted, uneven rows of crops that barely clung to life. The sun beat down on me, but I felt only the cold grip of failure tightening around my heart.
The crops were pitiful—a few weak, yellowing sprouts poking out of the dry, cracked soil. No matter how hard I tried, they refused to grow, a stark reminder of my inadequacy. My hands trembled with a mix of anger and despair as I looked at them, willing them to thrive, to prove that I wasn't as useless as I felt.
But nothing happened. The plants remained as they were, struggling to survive, just like me.
The frustration bubbled up, hot and uncontrollable. "Why won't you grow?" I hissed through clenched teeth, my voice trembling with the intensity of my emotions. "Why can't I do this? Why am I so worthless?"
My hands clenched into fists, nails digging into my palms. I could feel something dark and powerful stirring within me, a force that had been lying dormant, now awakened by my anger and despair. It was a strange sensation, like a surge of energy that I had no control over, something primal and consuming.
Without thinking, I let that energy loose. It flowed through me like a river of darkness, seeking an outlet, and I felt it latch onto the weak, struggling life around me. The energy surged out of me, not in a wave of destruction, but in a slow, insidious pull.
I gasped as I realized what was happening—what I was doing. The crops before me, already fragile, began to wither and darken, their life force draining away, absorbed into the strange, twisted power I had unleashed. The small green sprouts shriveled, turning brown and brittle, their vitality seeping into me like a poisoned well.
I tried to stop it, to rein the energy back in, but I couldn't. It was as if I had opened a floodgate, and now I was helpless to stop the flow. The sensation of absorbing the life from the crops was horrifyingly intoxicating—both repulsive and invigorating at the same time. The more life I drained, the stronger I felt, but the more hollow and empty the world around me became.
"Stop... please, stop..." I whispered, but the energy only continued to pull, feeding on the faint sparks of life in the soil, in the roots, in the leaves that were now crumbling to dust. The air around me grew thick and heavy, the oppressive weight of death settling over the once-living plants.
In a matter of moments, the small patch of crops that I had worked so hard to nurture was gone—reduced to nothing but dry, lifeless husks. The ground beneath me felt barren, as if all hope of growth had been drained away, leaving only a desolate void.
I fell to my knees, gasping for breath as the last of the energy dissipated, leaving me cold and empty. The realization of what I had done hit me like a physical blow, and tears welled up in my eyes. I had destroyed the very thing I had been trying to create—sapped the life from the crops that I had so desperately wanted to grow.
"What... what have I done?" I whispered, my voice trembling with horror. My hands, still glowing faintly with the residual energy, felt alien to me. They had taken life, stolen it, twisted it into something dark and unnatural.
The field was silent now, the once-promising sprouts nothing more than dust in the wind. The villagers had already distrusted me—how could they not, after seeing this? Even if they hadn't witnessed it, I knew. I knew that this place, this life, was no longer mine to claim.
I had wanted so badly to belong, to prove that I could be useful, that I could grow and nurture like the others. But now I saw the truth: I was different, and not in a way that could be accepted. I was a destroyer, a thief of life, and the power within me was something dark and terrifying.
Tears blurred my vision as I knelt in the barren field, the emptiness inside me now mirrored by the emptiness around me. There was no going back, no undoing what I had done.
I realized that I could no longer stay in this village. The hope I had once felt was gone, consumed by the darkness within me. It was time to leave, to walk away from this place before I could do any more harm.
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