Chapter 44 : Psychotic Inclination

Taichi

I was blind. When you open your eyes so sudden and so quickly, you don't get a chance to adjust or comprehend anything before a rush of other thoughts come to mind. I was in disoriented confusion, and it might that been that confusion that rendered me completely useless. I had heard the glass break, but I could not see. Darkness was all that greeted by eyes as they snapped open, and darkness was all I saw for way too long. Fuzzy outlines made their way to me, but my brain just refused to accept anything it was sent. My ears seemed to buzz with the blaring of the alarm, but my brain didn't want to know that someone had broken in. My eyes saw him grab Kari,...

I heard her scream; I still have no frikkin' idea what the hell I was doing while all this was happening either. I think part of my mind was already accepting that I couldn't so anything...I was petrified, horrified, stuplified, I don't know what I was, but I didn't, couldn't move! Screw the body's nerves being the fastest messengers in the world; they weren't responding! I heard her scream, did I already say that? I heard her strangled cry as it was interrupted, I heard the bubbling in her throat as...I didn't know what I was hearing at the time, it was just a bunch of unpleasant noises running together too fast for me to think. It was only later I realized what all the sounds I heard...

I saw her fall, dropped, discarded by her murderer. I saw him almost trip over something that was on the floor as he hastily jumped back out the window. I saw his blonde hair glint slightly in the moonlight. I felt an indescribable feeling swell up in my chest and throat. I bolted from my place, or tried to, my feet got tangled in the sleeping bag and I fell over several times in my desperateness to get to my sister. "Kari!" But I already knew...

The police busted in then, also looking surprised, shocked, lost and uncertain of the situation. I heard my mother scream somewhere, but it sounded faraway and distant. I don't know how and or when exactly I freed myself from the sleeping bag, but my next realized moment was at Kari's side. Her red-brown eyes were still open, still painfully blinking. She was still breathing, I think, I don't know, I wasn't sure of anything and my mind wasn't thinking rationally. There was a nasty gash at her throat and blood spilling from it and onto the bed sheets, oh my fucking god my sister is dying...words and thoughts went into my head and out again just as quickly, shoved off by newer thoughts that came in. Kari, Kari, Kari, oh bloody hell...

How could he? How the fuck could he? I was torn between letting myself become overcome with grief and just feeling fucking ...ANGRY. People scurried all around me, some looking out the window, some looking at Kari. Voices came too, quick words uttered under strangers' breaths, orders passed between police. I heard my mother scream again, she was next to me now, but the sound still seemed faraway. I don't remember my dad's reaction. I wasn't paying attention. I didn't care about them at the moment, I cared about Kari. Oh fucking god my sister is dying... I saw Kari. I saw her look up at me with sad, tearing eyes. I saw her move her lips and try to speak but there was no sound.

I saw blood seep into the cloth that was pressed to her throat, I saw her eyes roll backwards as she fell unconscious. I vaguely acknowledged that my hands were shaking. I felt myself being pushed around, guided away by various people. I felt myself being ushered away from her as more and more people came and crowded around. I never heard the ambulance's siren, though I knew it came. I didn't hear the things that my parents were saying to me through their wild sobs, I didn't hear the things the police and paramedics told me. I heard my sister's muted whisper and last words and his footsteps against the fire escape and down to the streets below.

She's going to die. And he killed her. How could he? How the bloody fucking hell could he? I didn't know enough curse words to fit my fury. He killed her, he killed her...She's not dead yet, stop thinking as if she were! She's dead! No one could survive from such a wound! She's dead! She's gone! Just like the rest of them! TK, Mimi, Joe, Sora, now Kari! They're all gone! She's dead like the rest of them! Not yet! There's still a chance! Hang on to that! What difference does it make?! He fucking busted into our apartment and pulled a knife on my sister! How the fuck could he?! Hadn't we lost enough without him helping fucking Aymichi?! Hadn't we?! Goddamn you, Matt, how could you?!

I didn't remember his expression, I didn't see his face, I don't know if I wanted to. What had he been thinking them he slit her throat? What he been thinking as he slipped back out through that window? What had he been thinking?!?! God, he killed my sister. My best friend killed my sister. I don't know how long it took for that fact to sink in. For a while there, even after I'd seen his form and his hair, I believed that it had been Aymichi. Some trick of the light, some twisted imagination of mine, I don't know. But I couldn't believe that Yama would never be driven to do such a thing. But how long could anyone deny the truth?

It was an out-of-body experience. Only not. I just didn't recall anything that happened at all. I was completely occupied with my thoughts and ramblings and aimless attempts to try find some reason in everything that had just happened. Maybe it had been Aymichi, maybe it was some morbid game he wa playing to trick me into thinking Matt had done it. (I knew it wasn't.) Maybe I had merely been hallucinating as well, like Kari had been, seeing things that weren't really there. (I knew I wasn't.) Something! Anything! Anything was better than the truth; maybe aliens had come and taken on the shape of my friend, I don't know! Goddamnit,...Matt...

Our meeting that afternoon came back to me, I remembered his words, his threat, his face. //I'll make you understand.// No, you're not making me understand! I didn't fucking kill Takeru,...I didn't sneak into his house in the dead of knife and pull a knife on him. You fucking killed my sister... I felt a hand on my shoulder as I was led to a car, whose car, I don't know. Maybe it was my car, my parents' car, a police's car, I don't remember. Did it really matter? I knew where I was going,...to the hospital, to have them tell me that Kari was dead. They would tell me that she had died from that cut in her throat, then the police would come and ask me what happened. They would ask who broke in and who he killed her. They would interrogate me as if it would actually help their investigation...

For all their effort and guards, they had failed to save her...their precautions had been nothing. Their defenses had been useless. Everything they'd done, they'd tried, it could not stop a fucking pair of fucking teenagers from committing mass murder to my friends...Fuck, I just called Yamato a murderer...but that's what he was now, wasn't it? A murderer...he killed my sister...Kari's going to die because of Matt...the words echoed over and over deep into my skull, sinking into each and every crack of my brain. Was I really that insensitive, Matt!? Did I really act as if I didn't understand your pain? Did you really think I couldn't imagine what it would be like to loose Kari?! Did you really think I didn't have nightmares about that!? Why did you have to make it real?!

Just because you're fucking suffering you have to drag others down too? Are you that selfish? I never thought you were...but then, you had TK to care for, so you never seemed selfish...Did his loss change you? (He killed Kari...) You're the same as Aymichi now..."Tai, Tai...it'll be alright...she'll live...she has to live..." I realized my mother was sitting beside me, sobbing into a small handkerchief. She reached over and dabbed the cloth on my face, and for the first time I realized I'd been crying for a long time. My face was completely streaked with tears and they were dripping down my cheeks and chin, splashing down into my lap. I just didn't notice at all... "It'll be alright, Tai...Kari will live..." she kept telling me, but didn't look as if she believed it either. Kari was going to die...

And Yama killed her. There were really only two of us left, huh...? Izzy and me. But maybe Izzy was dead already too,...maybe Aymichi planned this whole thing with Matt...maybe the Keeper of Knowledge had been slaughtered while Kari was...maybe I was the only one left...one of eight. I felt cold.

Matt would never join forces with Aymichi,...he more than anyone else was his target...But what the fuck did I know? Matt was insane. I couldn't say he wasn't anymore...I couldn't say he would get better, I couldn't say that he would one day return to who he was....not after this...not after he...So maybe he had joined Aymichi. Maybe he didn't recognize him anymore and thought he was someone else. Or maybe I'm just making up excuses for him,...still not wanting to believe he had done what he did on purpose, while in his normal mind, while thinking rationally...didn't want to believe that he had carried out his threat like he said he would...

We arrived at the hospital. The white of the building was stark against the pitch night. I was again ushered about by my parents, various police, and nurses. And our news was already waiting for us. A sleepy-looking doctor was waiting for us at the door of the room we were led to. His face was wrinkled yet taunt, holding a grim expression that spoke more clearly then his words could. I was slowly coming back into the real world, the lights and people came back into my field of vision, the volume knob was turned back up and their voices became clear. And so I heard him say; "There was nothing we could do. She was gone before she got here." And so I could heard mother scream again, shrieking hysterically before being reduced to a mess of sobs, crying into my father's chest.

I wanted to kill Matt. I really did. I wanted to rip him limb from limb and leave him bleeding on the pavement for the crows to pick apart. I wanted to break his pretty face in and smear it all over the alley wall where he had held Mimi; I wanted to draw knives across his skin and carve messages of pain and suffrage in the pale flesh. Was it futile to wish more pain upon him when I knew somewhere that he had already suffered? But had he? Did he mourn for each and every one of our fallen friends? Or was he too caught up with himself to bother with the rest of us? Did he care that he killed Kari so as long as he got revenge upon Aymichi? Did he care?

I don't know which stung more. The fact that my sister was gone,...or the fact that it had been Matt who had killed her. It had been Matt who killed her...my...One of the police came up to me, looking like he'd rather not be doing this, like he'd rather be at home, safe in bed, and away from the distress of my broken family. Who wouldn't be? "Eh, kid. Mind if we ask you something? I know this is a stressful time fo---"

"It was Aymichi, who do you even need to ask?! It's the same damn person that killed the rest of them, and you're all too incompetent to fucking find him! He's killed five people now! What have you done?! What have you accomplished?! You have no idea where he is! You can't find him! And we fucking pay taxes to pay for pathetic salary!?" I spat at the man and stalked away from the group, bristling. One of them followed me, but said nothing. Probably my bodyguard. As if it would do any good if Aymichi or Matt decided to get me then. Neither of them care if they die,...and I was the only one left wasn't I? I was still expecting someone to tell me that Izzy was dead any moment now...

This is how it would end...The Digidestined, who saved this forsaken world from being conquered by monsters from another world, defeated by some psychotic freak and betrayed by a psychotic friend. Torn apart like sheep, helpless to do anything but cry at their losses and huddle together as one after another is picked off. I may as well die now, what did it matter? All the rest of them were dead in one sense or another, so what did it matter if I went as well?

I stood outside of the hospital, the bitter winds of winter nipping at my face. The drying tears on my felt freezing. I expected Aymichi to poke his ugly head out of somewhere and shoot me like he had Sora, but nothing happened. I didn't know why I didn't tell them it had been Matt that killed my sister. I don't know if I was still trying to protect him or not, if I was still believing in his ability to heal. I should have turned him in long ago,...I could have told someone he had been at the graveyard, I should have called someone when he showed up at school. ... I could have saved Hikari...Had to simply faced the truth earlier...I could have saved my sister...

I should have known better...I should have just fucking turned him in...Why didn't I? Because I believed that he would really find and kill Aymichi? How many times had I already mused over his slim chances? Because he was my friend? Did my friends try to kill my other friends...? Matt was lost to me the moment he attacked his psychiatrist,...not probably before that. From the moment he fled the funeral. He'd been gone since the day Takeru died. They both died that day. He wasn't who he had been; he was a revenge-wrecked, psychotic, homicidal maniac. And he killed my sister.

And I wanted to kill him. Maybe this was what he felt. I don't know. Maybe this is what he wanted to show me. Maybe he had achieved his goal after all...but what was it worth to him? Now I would never hear Kari smile, or laugh, or do whatever it is that she does. Was my hatred towards him what he wanted to gain? Was this...incredible want and need for his blood what he wanted me to feel? Was this wretched pain what he wished upon me? Fucking bastard...I'd kill him...but would I? Was I going to turn into him? Was I going to turn into a murderer as well? The third transformed by this chain of slaughtering? Aymichi killed Yama's brother,...look at him now. Yama killed my sister,...what will become of me? Will I turn into the lot of them? Hell-bent on revenge and nothing else...?

If I could think this rationally, if I could think about my potential sanity, was I insane? Could Matt still think like this? Did he? Where was he now? What was he thinking? Did he regret it? Was he proud of himself? Why did I care...? I was pacing in front of the hospital, I hadn't even realized it, I was slipping in and out of the real world again. My hands were burrowed deep in my pockets and my teeth were chattering quietly; the officer was watching me still. "Why are you watching me, eh?! It isn't like you would fucking do anything if Aymichi came up right now and fucking shot me." I snarled at him. He looked rather annoyed and sleepy, "Listen, kid, I---" "Shut the fuck up, that was a rhetorical question." I snapped, kicking at a mailbox that was on the side of the sidewalk. The metal box rang out loudly, the sound deafening at what, four in the morning? "So come and get me eh?! You fucking got everyone else or drove them insane! Isn't it my turn yet?!" I screamed at the blackness, then kicked the mailbox again.

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© Kiriska