And So the Ripples Fade

Dry winds brushed through dead grasses, the occasional brown, crackling leaf swept up in it's hold. Dead trees stood silent sentinel, the wind whistling through skeletal branches. Amidst tombstones it swirled, through the footsteps of the walking dead. Not even such unlife was here anymore, everything seemed to have fled.

The wind, a breeze without moisture, blew into the building, the rotting walls deflecting it, and it went on it's way. Vacating, leaving sullen dead air to hang there. It was summer, but it seemed like winter without snow here. Nothing would grow again, it seemed.

The figure in the black coat pushed the front door inward, an involuntary groaning creek issuing from the hinges before it snapped half-off. The figure in the black coat walked inside, letting the awry door swing shut with a similar groan behind, and continued on into the building.

The dust hung thick, in the air, on the walls, coating every inch of the place. The thin beam of the flashlight bobbed hear and there, sending the shadows skittering off like living things. In the distance, down one of the halls, a guitar string was plucked. The figure told herself that it was just the creaking of the house, but that one haunting tone stayed in her mind.

She followed the paths through the building with something like instinct, passing by dusty rooms. In this one, a blue-haired ghost sat on his bed, gazing at the roof until he faded into nothingness. In that room, the shadows seemed to coalesce into a form for a moment, a dark-haired figure. Almost real, an inverted cross glinted on a chain about his neck, then he too faded from sight.

Vivid in the next room, two of these memories, two of these ghosts. A large, black man stood, talking with a smaller, blue-skinned ghost avidly. No connection between the two, but in a moment they faded. All of them seemed there for a moment, teasing her with their existence before vanishing. She did not know if they were real.

A final room, which she opened the door to slightly. It was barren, coated in dust, and seemingly oblivious to this was a young Japanese girl, no older than fourteen, with long purple hair reaching to her shoulders. She looked over at the newcomer, smiled, and then faded from sight like all the others.

In the distance, that guitar strummed again.

She wandered back to the entrance, leaning against the hollowed out husk that had once been the front desk. She could hear it clearly now, the guitar, and the sounds summoned an old children's song from the depths of her mind. Not knowing where it had come from or why, she couldn't help but sing. The sound was sweet and sad at the same time, and nostalgic in the whole, but it was still beautiful.

Sakura, sakura

Yayoi no soraha

Miwatasu kagiri,

She sank to a seated position, leaning against the desk and smiling to herself, still singing.

Kasumika kumoka,

Nioizo izuru,

Izaya, izaya,

…Miniyukan…

The song tapered off, and her eyelids felt heavy, leaden. She pulled down the hood of the black coat, ignoring the dust that immediately settled on her shoulder length purple hair (now shot through with white), and rested her head against the desk, her eyes closing. The wan light of the flashlight, though not aimed at her, still managed to exaggerate the first few wrinkles on her face.

She went to sleep, and three old faces appeared in her dreams, waving. Them, young as they were then, and she young as well.

A few moments later, she stopped breathing. She was nearly sixty-five, and only now beginning to fully show the signs of aging. For the last two years of her life, she'd been fighting a brain tumor.

For those last few moments, there was no pain. In such a place as this, there could be no pain.

The young girl named Noodle rejoined her family, and outside the decrepit building, a single, living green leaf sprung from it's bud on one of the skeletal trees.