Kaede

A broken man recounts the tale of a love he once knew.

I was once sweet on a singularly striking girl named Kaede. She was like a princess in rags, with those hazel eyes and flowing black hair. It was indeed most unfortunate that her frailty had alienated her from her peers, for she spent most of her days in bed with some fever or malady that would render her bedridden.

Kaede was seen with apprehension at best and revulsion at worst due to this perceived difference between her and them. Even the caretakers grew weary of her weakness, their tongues filled with words of disgust unbefitting of their position even as she slept under their watch. Looking back, I suppose they all hated her because she was different, for people possess a fear of the unknown.

However, unlike the other kids who took every chance to call her nasty names and pilfer her meagre possessions, we spent hours engaging in idle conversation and many more reading comic books together. It was through this shared love that we forged our bond of friendship.

Sadly, while her intentions may have been pure, mine were far from innocent, having hatched big plans to make her my bride. I loved her, and I wanted to be her shield against those who would do her harm. Unfortunately, I was too weak to deter her tormentors, only being able to offer a listening ear in the face of her plight. It was through these intimate moments that I learned of her outlook on life. While she was indeed upset from their antagonism, she never truly blamed them, believing that they too were unhappy from their predicament and thus took to hating one even more wretched than they.

Ironically, her indifference to their mean words and social exclusion caused their distrust and hatred of her to fester to greater heights. If anything, they took offence at her unwillingness to play along with their sick games, for they resented how she would never fight back.

However, all these issues were but mere trivialities to me. As long as Kaede and I were together, nothing else in the world mattered in mattered. Perhaps she felt the same way too. Sadly, I will never know this.

I suppose it was my infatuation for Kaede that rendered me blind to the events unfolding around me. Looking back, perhaps I did know what was happening, but I ignored the inconvenient truth, fearful of retaliation from my peers. The hushed whispers had turned to outright scorn, and aside from the regular cast of bullies, once neutral parties had stepped in to torment her. It was not any fault of hers, for she was still the same sickly person, frail and passive like she always was. Rather, it was the work of a spurned suitor, a domineering buffoon by the name of Takashiro, who saw bullying and lying as a modus operandi to get his way. I suppose being rejected in a rather humiliating fashion by what he called a “diseased b***h” did a number on his already broken psyche, leading to the proliferation of those disgusting rumours.

Of course, she remained indifferent, even against the growing number of tormentors. However, this time, they had an ace up their sleeves. Dragging her out from her bed into the mid-afternoon sun, they forced Kaede to watch them burn her precious collection of comics to ash. Truth be told, it was the first time they ever got her to cry, seemingly a great victory for them as they cackled at her misery, their faces overcome with a twisted sense of triumph.  I was there too, watching her misery as I stood by in silence, an accomplice of this vile deed at the behest of Takashiro's fist. It was a truly painful feeling, being made to betray the one girl in the world I loved with all my heart. Yet, even through my shroud of guilt, I felt Kaede's eyes glare at me with the pure, unadulterated hatred. Even as she fell unconscious, I could feel her eyes burning me with an unblinking gaze of sorrow and anger.

The following night, I tossed and turned in my bed, my mind kept awake by constant thoughts of what had happened. However, my contemplations were broken by loud, wailing screams that echoed through the hallways of the orphanage like a banshee’s cry. Mustering the courage to investigate, my curiosity was rewarded by the sight of mangled, mutilated corpses spread about in an erratic manner. Much to my horror, the walls were caked in wet sanguine smears, as though someone had sloppily splashed red paint all over them. Worse still, the air was heavy with the scent of copper, which nauseated me to no end. It was bad enough to the point that I threw up, releasing the remains of my dinner all over the bloody corpses on the floor, creating a vile mess beyond words.

At that point, I should have turned tail rather than follow the trail of blood, knowing full well that a devil now stalked the once familiar halls of my home. However, some unknown force compelled me to press forward into the bloody mire. Perhaps it was some perverse desire to make sense of what was going on, or maybe it was concern for Kaede’s safety. Looking back, it may have very well been the voice of madness guiding my steps into oblivion with its subtle whispers.

Either way, it was this foolishness that caused me to lay eyes on that final, crowning Thing. Just the sight of it alone was so horrible that I could not bear to look at it. Yet, maddeningly mesmerising it was, such that I could not look away! I would describe it in detail if I could, but alas, I cannot, having lost consciousness soon after laying eyes upon it. Yet, even as everything turned to black, I could still hear a rapid clicking noise ring in my ears while a loathsome mass of tentacles swayed back and forth to the manic rhythm of its own sounds.

I awakened soon after in the confines of a ward for the mentally unsound, bound and delirious. Despite my physical consciousness, it was only a month later that I truly regained control of my body, for my mind was lost in a tangled skein of shattered thoughts. While outside the veil of sanity, I could feel myself saying much, but my words seemed to go unheeded like that of a madman’s gibbering. Eventually, I stopped telling people of what I had seen, having deemed it unnecessary to insist on something that they could never believe.

Truthfully, I still do not know what happened that night. I have tried to search for Kaede, as well as the fate of my former home, but to no avail. Based on the newspapers and people I’ve consulted on the incident, they are both gone, the former missing and the latter little more than ashes and rubble. None of them knew of the abomination I had seen that day, much to my frustration.

Then again, the shambling chaos I had seen might have been little more than a fear induced hallucination, brought about by my mind’s inability to stomach the violence I had come to witness unwillingly. It is a sad reassurance I try to pacify myself with when the morphine prescribed by the doctors takes effect. Sadly, the drugs are no longer effective, and I have come to fear sleep itself, for I am no longer inured to the maddening visions and sounds that stalk my dreams.

 

And now, they’ve locked me away, perhaps afraid that I speak the truth of the terrible wonders that I alone have come to behold. Yet, I know that these grills and walls can’t protect me forever. Even as I write this, I can feel my end approaching. I see a loathsome mass of tentacles and eyes emerge from the ceiling with a loud clacking noise. Each eyeballed appendage stares at me with a sorrowful gaze, as if asking me “Why?” over and over.

 

She is here, and I am afraid, like at that moment when I chose to betray her rather than fight for what I knew was right.

 

No, no! Get away from me, please! Get away…

Author's Note

Hi!

Do let me know what you think! If you've enjoyed this story, do check out my book on the Amazon Kindle Store, The Best of Aurafiex - A Short Story Collection.

Buy it now at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GX7EVLC

Have a nice day!

Reviews

[JayG]

Rather than talk about the story, I looked at the method of storytelling. Fully fifty percent of the writing I see by new writers matches this, so far as approach, which is to record the words of a verbal storyteller.
It's important to note that using first person pronouns is an authorial choice, and unrelated to viewpoint (what writers really mean when they talk about POV) There's no difference between:

I was once sweet on a singularly striking girl named Kaede.
and
She was once sweet on a singularly striking girl named Kaede.

In both cases a narrator is talking about the same person. And the narrator, not being on the scene, can only tell the story as an external observer—an inherently dispassionate approach. And sadly, that can't work—though as I said, fully half the writing I see uses that approach because it's the only one they know. But look at the things working against you:

• As you read, you hear the emotion you place in your voice. The reader gets none of it.
• You vary tone, intensity, rhythm. and more. You pause for breath at certain points as a kind of meta-punctuation. You rush on or slow down, deliberately. The reader gets none of it.
• You illustrate the story's mood with facial expression, intent looks, and more. The reader gets none of it.
• You visually punctuate with gesture as you read, just as you would were you telling the story, live. The reader gets none of that, either. Nor do they get the body language that amplifies o moderates the emotion.

So for you, it works perfectly. For the reader, they can't tell if a line like, "Sam, you truly are a b*****d" is high praise, deadly insult, or a DNA report. They could were they able to hear how the narrator reads it, or could they see the narrator's face. But...

See the problem? You're working hard on the story, and putting lots of yourself into it. That's great, because it shows you have the dedication and desire. And it's not a matter of good or bad writing. It's that in our school days they never mentioned the structure of a scene on the page, how to use tags, and even the basics of presenting viewpoint. But that's to be expected, because we're not learning the professional craft of writing fiction in school. We're being trained in the techniques our future employers will find useful. So we focus on writing reports and essays, writing designed to inform, clearly and concisely. It's fact-based and author-centric.

But fiction is designed to entertain. The reader expects you to give them an emotional, not an informational experience. And to do that takes a very different approach, one emotion based and character centric.

Your reader is no more interested in reading a history of a fictional character than they are a any history book. They want you to get them cheering for the protagonist, and shouting advice, the way you shouted at the TV when you were young (or now when you think no one is listening ;) They want to feel what the protagonist does, and worry about them. And isn't that what you hope for when you read?

If the story is horror, readers don't want to know the protagonist is frightened. They want you to terrorize THEM.

So in the end, what I'm saying is that you're telling when you should be showing—informing when you should be entertaining.

And that's fixable. With an understanding of the structure and necessities of a scene, and a grounding in the nuance of a strong viewpoint, who knows where you'll fly to.

So the solution is simple: add to your writing toolkit. It's not easy, though. It took you twelve years of schooling to make your current writing skills so automatic they feel intuitive. Those reflexes are going to howl in outrage and try to snatch the controls from you to make the writing "proper." So it's more than simply knowing. It's going to take study, practice, and time. But that's true of any profession.

So, what do you do? Try this article, for one of the most powerful ways of placing the reader into the scene in real-time. http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/scene.php

This one on the structure of a scene might help. http://www.be-a-better-writer.com/scenes-and-sequels.html

And you might want to poke around in the writing section of my blog, for a kind of writing lite—an overview of the issues. The link is at the bottom, here.

All of this is kind of like trying to take a drink from a fire hose, especially, when you were hoping for a bit of help with missed commas and such, but an overall, "But it sounds like a good story."

I wish there was a more gentle way of breaking the news, but I've never found one. Sorry.

But here's the thing. If you truly were meant to be writer the learning will be like going backstage at the theater.

So whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[Aurafiex]

Thanks for the links and feedback!

Regarding your comment on approach of narrations of both this and The Apothecary's Daughter, I suppose the detachment is due to the story being told on a third person basis, like the lore in a roleplauing video game. Kaede on the other hand... well, I tried to narrate in a first person POV, but it is more of the author narrating past events that occured to him rather than stuff happening to him right now (at least until the last bit).

I suppose one thing to say is that my stories are mostly third person narrations. Personally, I've been trying a little of each.

That said, I do greatly appreciate your feedback. I will check out the links.

[JayG]

Third person has nothing to do with it. It's that you're explaining the story in a voice that the reader cannot see. Using first person changes NOTHING.

In this, you are telling everything, from start to finish as an overview—a synopsis, so the reader gets a series of facts ABOUT the events. But there's no emotional content. There is not a word of dialog. No one stops to think, no one plans, or reacts. There is no one on stage but the narrator—you, pretending to be the unnamed protagonist at some time after the events, talking about what once happened. That's HISTORY, not story.

An example:

In my WIP, Zack,is an old man, Ada, a woman he found dehydrated by the side of the road and brought home to recover. I could have used the verbal storyteller approach and said...
- - - - -
When Ada woke in the morning she came into the kitchen, where Zack was. When she noticed the heart pump on his shoulder she was amazed.
- - - - - -
That's a synopsis. But when told from Zack's viewpoint, in real-time, it's:
- - - - - - - - -
Zack was reaching for a frying pan when the springs on the old bed shrieked a good-morning.

He turned to find her in the kitchen doorway, looking alert but puzzled. “What is that thing?” she asked, pointing to the heart box harnessed to his left shoulder.

He shot a quick glance at the box, then shrugged. “I had a bad heart, so they replaced it with this.”

“They…took out your heart?” Her tone said she had difficulty believing such a thing possible. After a moment, she asked, “Completely?” She frowned and waved an arm to indicate the box. “But…what if it breaks?”

He shrugged again. “They claim the pump can handle multiple failures,” he said, holding both hands up in a “who knows” gesture, adding, “But if it breaks, it breaks.” He forced a smile. “I’m in the hands of modern science.”
- - - - - - -
Changing that to first person, or even second, would change nothing. What matters is that we're in real-time, learning of the events—and how the characters view them through what matters to the characters in the moment they call, "now." And because we do, their future is uncertain.

Note the sequence. Zack hears the bed, and turns, to find her. She sees him and is moved to ask about the box on his shoulder. That causes him to glance at the box, and the sight of it shapes his response, which triggers her reaction, which causes him ... In other words, life, not explanation from a third party.

And here's the bottom line: publishers might say yes to a story presented in a real-time approach. They will reject a "told" story before the end of page one.

Try an experiment. Have a friend, one with no acting talent, read the first page of your story to you. Tell them nothing about the story. Don't even tell them you wrote it. Just tell them it's fiction and ask them to read it aloud. When you read it you add the emotion to it as you read, something the reader can't do. So what you will hear is what a reader does. Fair warning, though, it's a really humbling experience.

[Tsubaki Kuro]

I can see how this is similar to Elfen Lied. You have two themes from it, the violence and psychological problems. The tentacles can be seen as the vectors, which in my opinion I like the tentacles better than hands.

You naturally get a 100/100 by just saying it is based on Elfen Lied. I am a huge fan of Elfen Lied. I am actually writing a Elfen Lied piece.

This was a great piece. Great job Aurafiex. Keep up the great work.

[Aurafiex]

Thanks. I try to shy away from fanfiction since its thats for fanfiction.net, but that would be cool.

Although do note that all the Dicolonius are dead lorewise due to the WHO birth ban and vaccine along with all the anti vector weapons. So if you want to do a fanfic it'll have to be during or before the events of Elfen Lied assuming you are going after lore integrity.

[Tsubaki Kuro]

Yes, I know. I am going for lore integrity.

[TheMalady]

What a waking nightmare to have witnessed such an act. You've done well, writing the story while exploring the world of bullying in its miserable form. There are a lot of questions crowding in my mind right now however, I might have guessed of how Kaede was able to turn into a whatever you call that Thing.

Also, regarding this line. Shouldn't this be:

I loved her, and I wanted to be her shield against those who would DO her harm.

You know what makes this story interesting? It's because you've written it from a first POV and had eventually left out some mysteries which left us readers of what exactly happened.

Overall, this one is very exciting. :)

[Aurafiex]

Thanks for pointing out the typo!

[Redwarrior123]

I would like to know where the tentacles came from. Is it Kaede? If it is then why didn't she use them to save her beloved comics? Why wait to avenge herself when she could have stopped it from happening? Other than that it was a great story. I really enjoyed it a lot.

[Aurafiex]

Well, I'd leave the story itself to be up to the reader's interpretation, but to answer your question, it was because she was still human at that time.

[Redwarrior123]

Oh okay. Thanks for clarifying that for me.

[SnowyGales]

Hi! I have no clue what Elfen lied is, or about the background of the story, so I'll just review it on a plot/writing standpoint. I think the plot is really good in the first half, but I think the second half threw me off a lot. It didn't feel right to me that she would be literally transformed into a demon, but maybe that's just a part of the actual story you based it off of.
The writing is really really good at times, like your first sentence + some lines near the end, as well as various other gems that caught my eye, but sometimes the writing sounds really cheesey/forced. Like "Alas, I was sadly too weak to deter her tormentors" sounded really off, when something like "However, I couldn't protect her" would sound a lot clearer.

[Aurafiex]

Hi! I'm sorry that you had to read the previous version, since it had some formatting issues as well as a lot of clunky sentences and stuff.

That said, I've edited and cleaned up the story, so do take a second look at it when you can and tell me what you think!

[SnowyGales]

It sounds a lot more natural now. I think the first time, you were basically using exclusively active verbs, which made it sound really mechanical.

[richieb]

Well written story. I was thrown off at first by the bloody corpses at first but the hallucination effect of not standing up to the bullies made sense. The story had a nice pace but seemed rushed to end.We lose track of Kaede after the comic burning scene. I think you could add to the story without losing its punch.
Richie B.

[hcarson]

i'm not familiar with elfen lier so i can only judge by your own actul story which i thought has great potential, i think i would have liked there to be more torment to the bullies..maybe picked off one by one but that is because i hate bullies and would have enjoyed them waiting for it to be their turn and the fear that would instil ;) over alll a good story, well done :)

[Autonomous]

I read through it and it is very good but I haven't seen elfen lied so I can't compare quality. Also, I am not so good on finding or correcting grammar so if there is any then you can't count on me to find it. Good work!