Disclaimer: The rights to the series Fruits Basket do not belong to me. The following is a work of fanfiction and was written for entertainment only. No profit is made from the writing or reading of this work.

The Plague Years
©2006 by Kei

Sohmas are not meant to be happy.

To be born a Sohma is to be promised a life of suffering and tragedy, either for you or for someone you love. It is a life of secrecy and deceit, both within and without the family. It is a life of lies and touchlessness and inescapability.

It is not a life.

The last name Sohma gives you tormented cousins who sometimes wear animal masks but who much more frequently wear the truly animalistic people masks to hide their realities. This surname comes with identity crises and permanent body and soul injuries and the reign of an already twisted god slowly going insane trapped in human flesh.

Sohma is abuse. It is complete denial of anything that might make you feel joy, even for a moment. It is mutilating yourself from the inside out. It is practicing the art of self-destruction step by step.

Sohma is your parents hating you, forgetting you one way or another. The last name Sohma gives you sisters and lovers who are not aware of your existence. To be born a Sohma is to live all your days out with a wounded and festering heart and psychological distortions of the worst kind.

In the night sky, white shimmers stare down with blood in their eyes, watching closely and reveling in the cruelty of the pathetic lives of humans. They conduct a mad, mad orchestra, playing out your lives on strings made of human sinew, the notes sounding out discordant and cacophonous, shrieking like nails dragged across a blackboard.

There are sick animals living inside you, Sohma, clawing to get out. They dictate your life, Sohma, and they will always come back to haunt you—

Because Sohmas are not meant to be happy.

-finis-