Sickness Inside by Himitsu_Yume

Unrestful Slumber

Kagome hauled her weary body from the mouth of the Bone Eater's well inside the modern Higurashi Shrine wellhouse.

Slinging her heavy, yellow backpack over well's lip, she trudged over to the main house where she knew her family probably sat watching tv or having dinner.

"Ah, a real dinner, a real bath and a really comfy bed, I'm so glad to be home for awhile." She sighed to herself and she stepped throught the side door.

"Mom, I'm home!" She called, announcing her presence to all who could hear.

"Kagome sweetie, how was your trip this time, did you get into any serious battles, are you sick, would you like something to eat?" Mrs. Higurashi, ever the mindful, concerned mother quizzed as her eldest plopped down at the kitchen table.

"The trip was alright, only two really major battles, not sick and yes, I'm famished!" Kagome finished all in one breath.

"Ok dear, I'll have something whipped up in just a few minutes, why don't you go have a nice hot bath."

"Sounds good to me." Kagome said as she made her way up the stairs to the inviting bathroom.

Minutes later, she was ubmerged up to her chin in hot, milky water, the oily bath beads she had placed in already working their magic on her battle weathered skin.

"Ahhhhhhh, much better. " Kagome moaned.

She soaked until her porcelain skin became wrinkly and prune like.

Downstairs her mother's sweet voice called out, letting her know a pipin g hot meal was ready for her to devour.

Kagome climbed out of the tub, wrapping a towel around her freshly washed hair, and a fluffy pink robe covering her jasmine and lotus scented body.

Kagome ate her dinner slowly, relishing every last little bite, not knowing when she would be able to have such delicious treats again once she returned to the Feudal Era and Inuyasha.

"Inuyasha........" Kagome thought as she dug into the curry rice.

He had been acting a little paranoid before she left, saying that he knew something was after him and his Tetsusaiga and it wasn't Sesshoumaru.

Nothing ever showed up so everyone just passed it off as Inuyasha have Sesshoumaru-heebie jeebies.

His paranoia and irritability increased before Kagome returned to her own time, Inuyasha had yelled at her and everyone else one night over ramen and not being able to trek fast enough for his liking.

Kagome had sat him after he made a few particularly rude comments about her not being as deft as a certain undead female when it came to sensing auras.

"You big jerk, how many times do I have to tell you that I'm not Kikyou and I will never be Kikyou no matter how much you want me to!" Kagome screamed, turning on her heel to stalk away into the blackened forest.

"Thaf's not wha I meanf.." came the muffled response as Inuyasha attempted to life his head out the body shaped crater.

"I know perfectly well what you meant Inuyasha...SIT!"

Inuasha's face was ruthlessly slammed back into the earth once more for him to have a second helping of dirt.

On the day she came home, Inuyasha had stubbornly apologized and huffed about her returning on time or he would come and retrieve her himself.

She hugged him as she swung herself over the lip of the old well, descending down through the magical time portal for the millionth time.

Now she sat contemplating his odd behavior over curry rice and soda.

She soon dismissed it as Inuyasha doing what he did best, her bed was calling her and she wasn't about to ignore it.

Slipping herself under the lavender checked print comforter, Kagome setlled in happily for the undisturbed sleep she was so looking forward to.

"No demons, no jewel shards, no Inuyasha yelling in my ear, just sleep." Kagome said as her heavy eyelids concreted themselves closed.

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*She was walking down a gey, dimly lit hallway with a man in a trench coat.

The flourecent lights flickered above her head as she followed the man, a sense of dread filling her very being.

At the sight of the heavy steel door in front of her, her stomach nealry lurched up to her throat.

"In here miss." the man said as he opened the door, motioning for her to pass through.

Inside was a morgue with stainless tables lining the expanse of the sickly blue room.

Bodies in sheets adorned the tables, three at the faar end having bright red tags attached to the feet.

The man came up behind Kagome and placed an arm around her, leading her to the three red tagged bodies.

Extreme sadness began to build up in Kagome's heart, her eyes watered slightly as she tried to compose herself.

A medical examiner came from the adjoining room and approached the tables.

"Is this young woman a relative of the victimes?" he asked in an uninterested, flat tone.

The man next to Kagome nodded in reply.

"Very well then."

The examiner took hold of the first sheet and instead of slowly peeling it back to reveal only the head, he ripped it clean from the table.

The bloody, distorted and mangled body of Souta came into Kagome's view.

"Souta!" Kagome cried, covering her mouth with her hand as her stomach threatened to blast its contents clean up her throat.

The examiner moved to the second table,repeating his previous action.

This time Grandpa was the horribly mutilated corpse staring back at Kagome, his eyes wide with fear, mouth agape in a silent, contorted scream.

There were deep gaping slices all his wrinkled old body, a mixed of green slime and blood dried to the petrified skin.

"Oh god, no......" Kagome whimpered helplessly as the tears flowed freely from her anguished eyes.

The third and final table, just as the examiner went to rip the white cloth away, the body itself say upright.

A low, disgustingly sick groan ecoed in the room as the heavy white cloth began to slide down off the body's head.

Mrs. Higurashi's eyes met Kagome's.

"Mom!!!" Kagome screamed, backing away in terror at the sight of her mother.

Lifeless black orbs stared holes into Kagome,purple tinted lips standing out against the bluish white, slash marked skin.

"Ka...go... me honey, why don't you come closer."

Her mother spoke, her voice a near gurgle.

The cloth slipped completely off away from the corpse's upper body.

Skin that had been fileted from the bone and muscle hung in strings along spindly arms, intestines from abdominal cavity slapped against what was left of a belly, green slime oozed from every single wound.

A hald demented smile crossed Mrs. Higurashi's face as she clumsily turned her tattered, decimated body to slide off the steel table.

"No, this.... isn't happening!" Kagome said as she cowered two tables away from the thing that was now slowly plodding towards her.

"But Kagome...sweetie, it is happening and its all ... your....fault." The corpse hissed as it continued to stumble forward.

"What did I do wrong?!" Kagome screamed as she backed further out of the thing's reach.

"You shouldn't have let that thing come back through with you....if you had just been a good daughter, I wouldn't be dead and neither would Grandpa and Souta." the corpse explained, the twisted smile broadening marginally.

"No, I don't... its not my fault, I didn't bring anyone back with me!"

"Oh but you did and you left him with us while you went to go play with those whores you call friends!" the thing hissed evilly, " Do you know what it was like for me to have to watch as that man ripped Granpa's insides out of him and splattered them against the outside of the wellhouse, do you have any idea how many screams I heard Souta make before that man tore out half of his neck, do you know how slowly that man tortured me before he did all this?" the thing said as it held its grotesquely slashed arms up for Kagome to see all the morbid and repulsive gashes along the thin torso.

All the way down to the torn meat of the legs, there was not a place that had not been violated or destroyed somehow.

Kagome fought with the heavy stell door against her back, trying desperately to open it and be free of her tormentor, her mother.

The corpse reached out to grasp Kagome and just as the clammy, cold fingers touched her skin, Kagome awoke, screaming to the top of her lungs.

Lights came on all over the Higurashi home, her mother was the first to reach her room.

"Kagome honey, what's wrong?" Mrs. Higurashi asked as she came to sit by her daughter's side.

Kagome took one look at her own mother and screamed harder as she launched herself into her arms.

"What the devil is going on here?" Grandpa asked as he came into the doorway.

"I don't know Grandpa." Souta replied as he stood staring at his distraught, half crazed sister, being comforted by their mother.

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More to come soon!