#catharsis?

Remembering the sensation of the knife, slowly digging and sinking into it. The skin tough, thick. Giving way like leather would. Something squishy and sticky about it,

"Are you okay?" Lassi looked up to her. He's always been smaller. He used to be much weaker, too. Little fat chick. So scared, so,

Full of organs, all fitting roomy in that thick body, now splurting out all plenty and soft. Wet. Pouring. Opening him like a sack of potatoes. Heavy, wet squelching sound as it all fell out of him, to the ground,

"Me?" Siru asked, exasperation making it's way out of her voice. Lassi seemed to stir at it (he's still careful around me).

"..." (sorry).

"C'mon let's.. Let's get you home now. It's okay.." he added awkwardly, after a pause. Before they could budge further together Siru grabbed his face (soft, tender baby face, now partly etched with more lines than years back) - "Are You okay? Lassi?" her voice holding some sense of urgency that seemed to freak him out even more. Why is this happening?

Why wasn't That Happening?

Carefully taking her hand by the wrist, glancing around nervously. "Siru, it'll be fine. I was.. Just worried. Mom said -.. Mom said you sometimes kinda go off in the night but.."

Oh, she told you that didn't she. Siru blinked. "But?"

"... Never mind." his eyes full of fear. They must be.

It must've happened. His flesh ought to remember the way it curled around the blade - his psyche being marked with the act of you trying to claw and reach for it - selfish. His organs must still be inside you, resting.

"It's how he'll come to yearn never to leave your side! It's how you'll transform your distant bond! Once sharing an umbilical cord now again flowing with the same blood together! Even better if your mother were also here-!" The voice of Pesticinger ringing in her ears - that's when Siru had interrupted it. Screamed. Please don't involve my mother in this. Please don't involve anyone. Don't let them see what I've become.

I'm losing my mind. Why can I wake up after all that like it was a dream?

Her claws digging into his shoulders, head slumping, foreheads bumping together as Siru heaved with dry sobs. Lassi, concerned, (frightened, surely) hugged her tightly hearing it. His body was hot - yours is cold. Like the corpse it's become. It's pulsing with life. Smells of sweat and the hint of that fancy chemical scent he likes to adorn himself in like a peacock. He's alive and he's here. Alive.

He's your brother. He's come home.

Hands scrounging for more of him to hold, just to hold him. You thought of him as dead for so long you thought it became real. Pesticinger could sense it. Crying tears of water from the same womb.

"I'm sorry.." gasping out hoarsely "I'm.. So sorry.. Lassi.." and he shushed her softly. Petting her raggedy hair. Discovering scratches on her back from where she'd laid in the plants. He let her cry. She hoped it was of his free will.

A damp little spot appearing on her shoulder where his face lay. Little warm tears.

They stood there like that for a while. Siru felt so many things she should say, searching for them all amidst the sea of tears. When had she cried last.