Noel drifted in and out of sleep. Every time she would, nightmares of pain, monsters, and human remains were there to shake her back to reality. The tangle of emotions that had stormed through her eventually dissipated. But all that was left when it cleared was nothingness.

It was like the hollowness in her chest consumed her entire body and refused to let go. She felt numb. Not just in her body but everywhere else. She didn't have the energy even to want to care. So, all she did was lay under the covers as the world around her moved forward without her.

She had become the emptiness.

Noel did not keep track of time. She didn't even acknowledge whether her room was light or dark. Her only indication of time moving at all was when Aunt Jillian would come to see her.

The first time she came was to wake Noel for school. But Noel did not move. Even when Jillian shook her and ripped off her covers, she remained where she was.

"Come on, Noel. Please get up. You have to go to school." There was a quiet desperation in her voice. She sounded tired. She, too, had probably not slept. Noel knew she should care. She knew she should feel something. Nothing came to her.

"Noel, I swear to God, if you don't get up this instant! I'll—I-I'll—" There was never any anger, just a bitter attempt to hold back tears. As if from another plane of existence, Noel could hear Jillian fail. "Y-you must be feeling sick. Y-you just caught a cold from running outside without shoes. That's all. We can go to the hospital if you want. But you're okay, Noel, right? You told me you were fine! Now get up! Please!"

Still, Noel gave no response except to bring her knees closer to her chest.

Jillian pleaded quietly for a few minutes more. She shook her roughly, trying everything to get Noel to acknowledge her existence.

Noel did not respond to any of it. At some point, she gave up and placed the covers over Noel. Jillian left her head exposed. But when she returned, Noel had covered herself completely.

"Look who I brought, Noel."

There was a pitter-patter of feet and a sudden weight on Noel's side. She could barely summon the energy to grunt in pain.

"Guess what I did today, Noel?" said Danny as he lay on top of her. His idle feet pounded rhythmically into her legs. "Go on, guess!"

But just like with Aunt Jillian, Noel remained silent.

"Noel?" Danny pulled at the blanket until her head was once again exposed. She saw his smile fade out of the corner of her eye. "Are you sick or something?" He looked away from her, probably at Aunt Jillian. "Is she sick?"

"Yes, she is. A bad cold. I think she just needs some rest. Come on."

Danny gave her one last look before hopping off her and out of sight.

Noel felt Aunt Jillian lean over her and feel her forehead. Whatever she felt, she was not happy as Jillian gave a small sob before saying, "I'll bring you something to eat, okay? You need to keep your strength up. I took off work for the next few days. Don't worry, Noel; I'm going to help you get through this. You're not alone."

But Noel didn't touch the food Jillian gave her. She barely tasted it as Jillian forced her to sit up and fed her like a baby. Noel's jaws felt like they were moving automatically.

It was like this every time Jillian came to see her. More attempts at conversation, more food, more crying on Jillian's part.

"One of your friends came to see you, Noel. They miss you at school. They've been kind enough to bring you your homework. There's so much you need to catch up on."

It was all in vain, as the only time Noel ever got out of bed was to robotically go to the bathroom when Jillian made her. Otherwise, she remained in bed and under the covers.

Danny sometimes came in to talk to her or try to play, but he never stayed long. Sometimes, he, too, would leave in tears.

On the few times Jillian left her alone, Azrath would come out of wherever he was hiding and snuggle next to her head. At first, he whispered constant apologies and apologies for his apologies. But soon, he started to tell her stories of Eziron, of Urzuran, and of Emué.

Noel heard him somewhere within the emptiness, but it was not enough. Even as he told her of his own battles with fear and sadness, none of it could break through the emptiness.

After who knows how long of cycling visits between Jillian, Danny, and Azrath, of hearing Jillian's sobs coming from downstairs, Noel woke up from her latest nightmare to hear a conversation from outside her door.

"—I don't know what to do anymore, Auntie! No matter what I try, I just can't help her. I don't know what she needs. Maybe I should have just taken her to the hospital."

"I don't believe her injuries are physical, though. Time is all she needs right now, I think. Time and support. I know what the police said, but we don't know what that poor girl has gone through. Not really. All you can do is be there for her. She'll tell us when she's ready."

"You don't know that! And I've been there for her! I've done everything I can, but she still won't even look at me! I… I'm scared, Auntie. I'm not fit to be a mom."

"Yes, you are, Jillian. You've only ever done your best. And that's all that can be asked of you." A moment of silence. Then, "Alright, dear. I'll see what I can do."

There were footsteps and a creak of bedsprings as someone sat on Noel's mattress. At this point, Noel had stopped fighting whenever someone pulled the cover from her face, so her head was exposed but facing away from the person sitting next to her.

She felt a tender hand brush the hair out of Noel's eyes. Then the hand began to slowly stroke across the side of her face. The woman hummed a soft melody as she continued to stroke Noel's face and hair.

They stayed that way for a while, Noel feeling the rhythm of the comforting strokes and the woman, Mrs. Kuboue, humming the same soothing song. Noel felt her eyes growing heavy. But she fought hard to keep herself awake. She didn't want to relive that night again.

Then Mrs. Kuboue spoke, "Since I was a little girl, I've dreamed of being a mother. While all my friends talked about careers or boyfriends, I would always talk about becoming a wife. I trained all throughout school to become the best wife I could be. So, my friends weren't surprised when I married right out of high school.

"I had already found a man, you see, who also shared my dream of a family. A young businessman named Kuboue Koshi. He was a family friend who had started working at my father's realty business. We hit it off instantly, and I knew this would be the man I would marry.

"We were eager to start a family, but we waited until I graduated to get married. And so, our life together began. As the years went on, my husband grew more and more successful, rising in the ranks of my father's company until he eventually took over when my father retired. However, I remained a failure. No matter how hard we tried, I could not get pregnant.

"Koshi never blamed me. He saw it as his failure. He even offered to divorce me to find a man who could give me what I wanted. But I refused. I had chosen him. Still, I couldn't help but hope it was his fault. You may call that cruel, but I had to hold on to something. Because if it were mine… I didn't know what I'd do.

"Yet I had to know. I just couldn't stand not knowing.

"And when I found out that, yes, it was me. That I could never bear a child, my world fell apart. I was inconsolable. I thought, why had God given me this dream only to take it away? Why was fate against me? These questions haunted me for a long time. I'll admit, they still haunt me."

There was a slight sadness in her voice.

"But Koshi. Koshi was always there for me. Even when I was too ashamed to be in his presence, he never let me be alone. Because he knew what I would do if I were, I no longer saw myself as a woman, let alone a woman worthy of a man like him. He refused to let me see myself in that way.

"He would always remind me that he was the one who was unworthy of me. He admired that inner strength that kept me going, even as God ripped my dreams away from me. Koshi suggested many times that we could adopt or have a surrogate. I would not even consider it. What would be the point, I thought, of raising a child that didn't come from me? It would only be a lie. They would never be mine. Always a reminder of what I couldn't be.

"And so, time passed, and any hope I had left of becoming a mother withered away. But, even if I couldn't become a mother, I still found happiness in my work.

It was always there, though, the pain of lost dreams, of failure. Until, one day, Koshi came to me again with an offer. Not to adopt, but to become a host family for a foreign exchange student.

"It would only be temporary, he said, just for a few months. I still refused. The bitterness in my heart had not waned. Even a temporary child would be a dark reminder of what we couldn't have. Yet, as if spurred by some greater power, Koshi persisted. Daily. He had always respected my wishes. Not this time. He did not take no for an answer.

"Finally, I relented and accepted a young American college student into our home. She was small and timid, having just escaped the cruel clutches of her father.

"All her life, he had controlled every aspect of her and her sister with an iron grip. And while her younger sister had the courage to run away years before, this girl was left alone to face her father's wrath. But even he could not hold on forever. In the first act of defiance of her life, the girl had chosen to take an offer to move to another country. Where she could finally be free of him."

She paused. The sound of cars and quiet crying from outside her room was all that Noel could hear. That and the brushing of Mrs. Kuboue's fingers.

"That was your Aunt Jillian. The single bravest person I have ever known.

"When Koshi brought her home, and I saw that girl for the first time, my bitterness melted away. The moment my eyes laid upon her, I knew she was my child. I can't explain it even now, but somehow, I knew.

"She had only chosen Japan on a whim, yet there she stood, with her hair hiding her eyes, unable to look at us or talk. She did not speak a word of Japanese, but with time, she opened up to us and learned our language. And she's been with us ever since. When her time came to leave, she asked if she could live here in Japan with us. And we happily agreed. We were truly a family then. While she was too old to adopt, she was a Kuboue in spirit. It's been an honor to watch her grow into the strong woman she is today.

"I shudder to think what would have happened to Jillian had I not listened to my husband or he had stopped asking. Would she have returned to her father? I used to think that my dream was unobtainable. I was wrong.

"Now, my only regret is that I didn't fight for my dream sooner. I can picture all the children we could have raised together had I not been so stubborn. It haunts my dreams the way my infertility used to. But there's no use in regretting the past, only cherishing the present.

"Jillian understands this well. She chose to take you in of her own volition. Did you know your grandfather wanted to take you in as well? The instant Jillian heard, she worked to put a stop to that, despite her fears of being responsible for two children. She would not let history repeat itself.

"I don't know what you are going through right now, Noel, but I recognize the pain you're feeling. The loss. I know you've suffered much. Just know you have people who love you. Your aunt loves you. And when I saw you and your brother for the first time, I felt the same love for both of you that I have for Jillian. 

"You are my grandchildren. And I don't care how much you try to fight against it. I will always think that. And I know you share Jillian's blood. You possess the same courage that she does. And I hope, one day, that I will be able to witness more of that strength."

Mrs. Kuboue's fingers brushed against Noel's tears. When they started to flow, Noel had no idea. But now, they fell silently from her eyes as she listened to Mrs. Kuboue's story. For the first time in a while, Noel felt something penetrate the emptiness. It was like a blockage had been shifted just a little, allowing the tears and something else that Noel could not name to be free.

Whatever was trickling out of her caused her to stir. And as Mrs. Kuboue stood up, Noel reached out her hand to take the old woman's.

Mrs. Kuboue turned to look down at Noel in surprise, which changed into a soft smile. "I'm glad to see that you're awake."

"Yeah." Noel's voice was hoarse from lack of use. "Thanks… Granny." She smiled back and let her hand fall back into bed.

Granny left the room. Noel heard Jillian's sobs of gratitude and Granny's quiet, comforting words.

"No need to thank me, Jillian. I don't think it was my story that woke her."

While the emptiness still held her, Noel felt like something had returned. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, looking around her room. It was evening. How long had it been since she had first gone to bed? She had no idea, but she was sick of being in it.

She shifted herself so her feet touched the floor. She looked down at them, still filthy from walking the street barefoot. Noel hesitated as fear's grip kept her frozen. The images from her nightmares flashed in her mind. If I stand up, I'm choosing to face Darris at some point. There was no avoiding it. She did not doubt that Darris would come to greet her when she stepped outside. He would consider that as her being ready. But Noel found that she was willing.

Terrified out of her mind but willing to face the monster that stood in her path, just like Granny and Jillian. While Darris dwarfed the other monsters in size and threat, it would take just as much strength to endure. She didn't know how she would, but right now, taking that first step was enough.

With that thought, Noel got to her feet and crossed her room. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of Azrath looking at her from under her desk. He flashed her a proud smile. She entered the hallway where her aunt and grandma stood to greet her, both with bright smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes.

"C'mon, Noel," said her aunt, wrapping an arm around Noel's shoulders, "you must be starving. How about I order dinner? And I promise, no squid."

"I think a home-cooked meal would be better," said Granny, "Let me see what I can come up with."

Noel smiled. Food sounded really good right about now. She nodded and followed her family downstairs. She hoped that Danny was downstairs too so that Noel could tell him she was sorry that she had been such a bad big sister.