Fanfiction: Non Compos Mentis

I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell…
- Matchbox Twenty, Unwell

You’re hearing voices, you’re seeing things. Sometimes, you swear you could see someone there, standing right behind you, watching you, protecting. Sometimes, you can feel the gaze of this mysterious angel and a warm blush would spread over your pale cheeks. It’s weird. You’re the tomboy of the town, second strongest woman in Japan. You don’t blush; you don’t feel weak in the knees. So why is it that you just feel so girlish at inopportune times, even though there wasn’t anyone around you?

Take for example, the time when you went to school, and an epiphany suddenly struck you. Was the desk at that corner always empty? Somehow, you don’t think so. But you just can’t place it in your mind, exactly who and how was the person sitting there like. But you have these vague images of a scowling face and lurid bright orange hair, but you dismiss them, for you know no one has orange hair. Then, the back of your neck prickles, and you feel as though someone was looking you up. And you blush.

You shrugged off that experience, thinking you just had a bad day. You’ve been yelled not once, not twice, but thrice from the same teacher for not completing your take home assignment (you swore you forgot all about it – then again, you’ve been forgetting many things; it’s worrying, you’re wondering whether you’re suffering from any amnesia-like diseases). So you have to serve detention (and possibly missing your favorite karate lessons as well). When you reach the detention room, you realize you’re alone with the teacher, and suddenly you get the sense that someone is staring at you again. You whipped around the classroom, and this time you got lucky and manage to get a glimpse of black robes before whatever it was disappeared.

You’re freaking out. You’ve never been one for the occult, and now it seems that you’re able to detect the supernatural. You know you should get help from the proper people (i.e. mediums and all the other paraphernalia of paranormal enthusiasts) but you think that this thing may not mean you harm (you’re actually feeling protected by this unknown being). So you continue on anyways, going home (you missed your karate lessons and the instructor was not happy). All along the way, you could still feel the mysterious presence behind you, and the warm feeling within you builds up.

Then, there was the time when you were just lying on the bed, writing in your journal. You feel like you’re forgetting something, but you just can’t remember. And then you suddenly feel something warm caressing your face. Lightly grazing your sunken cheeks. Leaving butterfly kisses along your neck. And you suddenly remembered. And recalled his name.

“Ichigo…,” you moaned.

And when ‘Ichigo’ presses his soft, soft lips (at least, that’s what you think it is) on yours and you melted into this invisible embrace, you feel as though you were made for this. The two of you fall onto the bed, and you watched in amazement as his body suddenly shimmered into view.

The orange-haired little boy who cried for his mummy, whom you grew up with, who you grew to love was watching you with a burning glaze in his amber eyes. You reach for him, your hands grasping for proof of his existence…

And you know he still watches you, even now, from the outside of the white sterile room, watching how the nurse tightened the leather straps that tied you up. Even now, as she’s injecting into your bloodstream some kind of drugs that simply made the world grew hazy…and hazier…And right before you slip back into your world of dreams, you called out to him again…

“Ichigo…”

The soft loamy earth was the only signs of the newly dug grave. You trace the intricate carving on the tombstone and then, the tears you kept inside for so long began to spill out. “Ichigo…”

NON COMPOS MENTIS noun:
insane