Puppet 3 - Spring Dream

Puppet Chapter Three

   At last he was sleeping deep and calm, and nobody disturbed him. He saw a long dream, dream-memory, that showed him the day of his life he was trying so hard to forget. He saw blossoming sakura tree and grey sky of misery, crossed with white strips of weeping sun. Mist was all around. He felt himself small defenceless child. In fact that day he was about twelve so there wasn’t anything too strange about that feeling, but only with one “but” – he HAD something to fear that day.
   He stepped inside the school building. Smudged figures of once so familiar people were passing him by, sometimes he could distinguish even faces of his classmates. Everyone was dressed up very official – there was some schoolfest or ceremony he couldn’t remember clearly. Only unnumbered steams of sakura… everywhere… maybe that was Sakura Spring Festival?
Someone from behind grabbed his hand.
- Matsuda, you should sing today, remember?
- Sure, Haruno-sensei... - replied he mechanically and followed her. She took him to the acting hall. It was full of pupils and their parents. But he couldn't find his own there. Maybe because he was too short to see them somewhere among them? He didn’t know, but he wanted them to see him, to be proud of him and his efforts in school and in art he was going to perform.
  Teacher took him behind the curtains for a repetition... these memories were very unclear. He could hear his own childish voice floating from nowhere into nowhere, singing some hokku about sakura, river and bridge with a beautiful angel on it. But without any memories he could clearly see that strange angel with wide tired eyes, grey, as angry sea, and deep, as a vortex. He had black hair and pale skin. And this angel was smiling, and his smile was shinning brighter then the sun...
   He opened his eyes and found himself on the stage. He heard applauses, he watched the faces of everyone in the hall, and noticed a familiar moving figure. Amazingly he found that Soichiro's face wasn't even touched with any sign of rapture or something like that. Everyone around him seemed to be some unnecessary mass when he felt that his bad feeling prevailed upon the image of little angel, who'd immediately flown away.
Then the picture of his memories moved to a car-accident. He could permanently see it, almost without changes and very clearly. Two persons with their heads shot through were lying on the backseat of the car, that was wrecked into a wall. There was no driver... he'd escaped. But he didn't care for that. He cared only for these two people with small holes in their foreheads. Watching them he felt as if his blood was turning ice and his mind seemed to loose all the thoughts that’d been there. The only thing he could feel was tight hand on his shoulder, that preholded him from any rush. But he rushed... to hold Soichiro, that was standing behind him, cause he needed to get rid of this overfilling despair anyway. Now that thing he felt in the morning was complete – there is noone around. Noone will hold and protect him, so small, so naive, so delicate. He burst in tears... Yagami's hand tenderly stroked his hair, and silence hang around his weep as iron wall.
   The next thing he could remember was the graveyard. Sakura was blossoming all around and it's falling leaves peacefully touched the gravestones. Some of them landed on his mother's face as tears for the years she could live. Skies were still. And the sound of birds' singing told him, that something was very unjust about this day. The day he decided to serve Justice and saw his angel nodding to him.

***
   He woke up. Woke up only to realize he’s trapped. Trapped inside his own body. He couldn’t move with anything. He couldn’t even breathe. But more terrible was the fact he didn’t have to. He didn’t feel any pain. He could only see he was still inside that shop.
- “So… it wasn’t a dream and I’m inside the toyshop… what had this woman done with me!? Crap! Anyone, take me out of there, I’m scared!”