The Indwelling
Rated: G
By: Kohan

Disclaimer: BSSM belongs to Naoko Takeuchi, and not I. This story does.

Summary: Something inside stirrs, and it hurts. One-shot.

A/N: For Sailormoon100's Challenge #1. A drabble, meaning 100-1000 words, so don't expect a novel. Full challenge at the end of the fic.

***

//Let me out. You are weak. Free me.//

The dreams started when she was eight. No...not dreams. Occurences. Nightmares. Soul-rippings.

They threw her internal mind into a fit of writhing pain and anguish, and try as she might, her feeble young heart could not talk her body out of the destructive pattern that it continuously inflicted upon itself night after night. The dreams came quick and sudden, and they left her breathless and hurting. No dark night was safe from her screams. No manner of open doors and hallway lights could quell her fear of the darkness and the mystery of her internal mind.

She began buying lamps with her father's money. On Sundays, when she was home from school, he would appear in his white lab coat long enough to give her money for the day, and then disappear again. He never played with her anymore. They used to take walks in the park, but those days were gone now. That man had vanished, replaced by a man with unearthly skin and a queer, painted-on smile.

//Release me. You're pitiful. Give up.//

She no longer could distinguish between night and day; not from the dreams. They washed over her in waking hours and those that were meant for sleep. She cried out from them sometimes. Help me, she'd say. Save me, my soul is breaking.

No one came.

How long can a person scream before their voice dries up and their vocal chords wither and die? How long can a person sleep before they're dead? What does death feel like? Is there pain? Is it better than this?

//I want to kill it, mutilate it. I hunger for its death...let me...//

When had her body begun to yield to the parasite inside it? She couldn't remember exactly. It had been about the time the dreams had begun, she assumed. What had life been like before that? It was hard to recall. Had there been life before that?

Slowly, she began to lose her sense of sight. Her eyes were no longer her own. Soon her voice came under the spell, under the control of the Other. Then her whole face was taken from her, and her hands, and her arms. She could no longer control her legs, her feet, her toes. They belonged to someone else now, but her mind was still her own. Some part of her was still hers.

//Yes, a little. Just a little more. Mine, all of it. All of you. Forever.//

If the darkness was evil, and the light was good, where was the light? How long does someone have to dream before they lose reality and live in a dream world? How far does the dream world go? How long after you awake do you have to wait to come back to...you?

All she could see was darkness. All she could feel was nothingness. The dreams continued constantly, no distinguishing between one dream and the next. She wondered what light looked like. She wondered how food tasted, and how it felt to have the bark of a tree scratch gently across her fingertips. She wondered...

What had she done to deserve such a punishment?

And, a final plea, deep in the recesses of her mind:

Please, let it end.

***

A/N: Word count: 546.

Full Challenge: Write something set during the First Season of the anime (roughly mangas #1-3). If your favourite character wasn't around during that time, what were they doing elsewhere?