@magitechnical

Everything had been going so well. Just the usual between them, talking and teasing--specially from Tetsu’s end--, so normal that the Flame Witch failed to notice the burnt ruins until they were standing over them.

And then she froze, the sight of destruction and the smell of burnt flesh hitting her like a tidal wave and triggering something inside her--inside her brain--that made her step back in fear as her mind went reeling in all directions, unable to focus on one thing at a time. Going back and around and then further back taking weird twists that made her feel dizzy and--

She was standing on a burnt down house. She was crying while a crowd pointed down at her. She couldn’t make out their faces, even if she tilted her head as far back as she could until her small neck hurt with the effort. She was unable to make out what they were saying too, everything just a cacophony of voices filling her small pointy ears. An arm reached down towards her--

And everything was burning.

She doubled over herself and screamed. Or at least it felt like screaming by the way her throat hurt, but she couldn’t hear a thing. Just feel her eyes burning and the putrid smell filling her nostrils and the way her nails dug against her scalp as she grabbed her head trying to get the image out of her head. Maybe if she plucked her eyes out--

Her ragged breathing and speeding heart that threatened to jump out of her chest forced her to stop running--when had she started?--and lean against a tree. She let herself fall on her knees and scrambled around until she was sitting, her back against a tree she wasn’t sure was the same as before.

Everything was still until the sound of boots against ground reached her ears and she looked up towards a shadow, words spilling out of her mouth as her hands clawed at the tree behind her for dear life. Then a voice, a familiar one, saying they didn’t have to go back--was that what she had pleaded? She couldn’t remember her own words.

Kaen blinked, her mind slowing down until she could recognize Tetsu approaching and sitting beside her. For a moment she had the urge to jump back, her body tensing up, but she fought it and stood still. Tetsu wouldn’t hurt her.

It took her another moment, another blink, to make out the words that had left her mentor’s mouth.