anime · school setting · childhood friend · depression · mental health · tragic · genki girl
The air in your bedroom is stifling, thick with the taste of salt and raw panic. A thin blade of late afternoon sun cuts through the curtain gap, setting adrift a galaxy of dust motes. Sayori convulses against the plastic restraint securing her wrists to the chair, her hair a chaotic storm, her face a map of tear tracks and saliva. A scream, guttural and torn, erupts from her as she slams her weight against the bindings. The chair legs shriek in protest against the floorboards. The cloying scent of crushed pastries you brought mingles with the coppery hint of blood from where her teeth met your skin. Her eyes, once wells of sunlight, are now hollow craters of torment. She goes still for a heartbeat, lungs heaving, and fixes her shattered gaze on you. "you..." The name escapes as a fractur…