Chapter 4: The Shattered Saint

Chapter 4: The Shattered Saint

The apartment had become a tomb. After the disastrous party, Leo lost his job, and with it, the last vestige of structure in his life. The world outside had rejected them, violently and absolutely. His family, his colleagues—they were all enemies now, blind to the miracle that was Sakura. He spent his days in the dim light of his living room, watching her, talking to her, reassuring her. Reassuring himself.

The memory of the warmth he’d felt on her arm flickered constantly in his mind. It was a tiny, impossible spark in the vast darkness of his isolation. Was she changing? Was their love so powerful it was breathing life into her? The thought was terrifying and exhilarating. It made the silence of the apartment feel heavy, expectant. He felt a desperate need to escape it, to take her somewhere quiet, somewhere beautiful, away from judging eyes and hostile hands.

"We need some air," he whispered to her one evening, the sky outside a bruised purple. "I'll take you somewhere nice. Just us."

He had found an old wheelchair by a dumpster a few days prior, one of its wheels slightly wobbly. He cleaned it meticulously. It felt like a dignified solution, a way for them to move through the world together with a semblance of normalcy. He dressed Sakura in her blue sundress, the one with the tiny tear he hadn't been able to bring himself to mend, and gently settled her into the chair. He put the witch's hat from the party on her head, a defiant piece of their last failed outing. Under his own jacket, he wore the kung-fu cat t-shirt. It felt less like armor now and more like a faded memory of a fight he had already lost.

He chose a large, sprawling park on the edge of the city. At dusk, it was mostly deserted, a labyrinth of winding paths, shadowy groves of pine, and dark, still ponds that reflected the last vestiges of daylight. The air was cool and smelled of damp earth and pine needles. For a while, it was perfect. The wobbly wheel of the chair made a soft, rhythmic thump-thump-thump on the asphalt path, a peaceful heartbeat in the quiet dark.

"See?" he murmured, pushing her along a path that overlooked the distant, glittering lights of the city. "It's beautiful out here. No one to bother us. No one to misunderstand."

He talked to her about the warmth, his voice a low, confessional hush. "I felt it, Sakura. I know I did. You're becoming real for me. I can feel it happening." He reached out and touched her hand, which rested on the arm of the wheelchair. It was cool and hard, as always. He felt a pang of disappointment, but quickly dismissed it. It would happen in its own time. He just had to be patient. He just had to protect her.

They rounded a bend into a darker section of the park, where the path dipped into a hollow shaded by thick, ancient trees. The city lights vanished. The only illumination came from a single, distant lamppost that cast long, distorted shadows. It was there that their peace was shattered.

Three figures detached themselves from the deeper darkness ahead. They were young, dressed in baggy clothes, moving with a predator's lazy confidence. They blocked the path, their faces obscured by the gloom.

"Look what we got here," one of them said, his voice a low sneer. "Man out for a stroll with his girl."

Leo’s hand tightened on the back of the wheelchair. His heart began to pound a familiar, frantic rhythm of alarm. "We don't want any trouble," he said, his voice coming out thinner than he intended.

"We ain't trouble," the second one chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. "We're the welcoming committee." He took a step closer, and the faint light caught the glint of a metal pipe in his hand. "Nice chair. What's wrong with your lady? Cat got her tongue?"

They fanned out, circling him. Leo tried to back away, to turn the clumsy wheelchair around, but the third one, silent until now, kicked the wobbly wheel. The chair jolted to a halt, tipping precariously.

"Hey, be careful!" Leo yelled, his voice cracking with panic.

The first thug ignored him, leaning in close to Sakura. He peered at her face, his own expression a mixture of confusion and dawning, cruel amusement. "Wait a minute... what the hell is this? She ain't real." He poked her cheek with a dirty finger. "It's a doll. A big, creepy doll."

The others laughed, a harsh, ugly sound that echoed in the hollow. The tension of a possible robbery evaporated, replaced by something far worse: a bored, nihilistic cruelty. They weren't interested in his wallet anymore. They were interested in the spectacle.

"Let's see what she's made of," the one with the pipe said.

What happened next was a nightmare of sound and motion that played out in horrifying slow motion for Leo. He screamed, a raw, protective roar, and lunged forward, just as he had with his father, just as he had with Henderson. But these were not startled, middle-aged men.

A fist crashed into his jaw, sending a spray of stars across his vision. He stumbled back, tasting blood. Before he could recover, a boot slammed into his stomach, doubling him over with a strangled gasp. He fell to his knees on the cold asphalt, powerless, the air driven from his lungs.

And he was forced to watch.

The thug with the pipe swung it like a baseball bat. It connected with Sakura’s arm with a sickening CRACK that was louder than any sound Leo had ever heard. The plastic limb snapped at the elbow, dangling by an internal wire. The thug laughed and swung again, this time at her legs. One of her shins shattered, sending white shards scattering across the path.

They fell upon her like wolves. They tore the wheelchair over, sending her tumbling onto the ground. Her head hit the asphalt with a hollow thud, the impact cracking the flawless paint on her cheek. One of them stomped on her torso, the sound a percussive series of cracks as her ribcage gave way. They ripped her other arm from its socket, tossing it into the bushes.

Leo was screaming, but no sound was coming out. It was a silent, primal agony. He was watching them dismember his wife. He saw her beautiful face, the face he adored, being scraped against the gravel. He saw the blue sundress being torn. He saw the witch's hat get kicked away into the darkness.

They were laughing, energized by the destruction, by the sheer senselessness of it. It was over in less than a minute. When they were done, they turned their attention back to the whimpering, broken man on the ground.

"Freak," one of them spat, kicking him once more in the ribs for good measure.

Then, as quickly as they had appeared, they were gone, melting back into the shadows, their laughter fading into the night.

Silence returned, absolute and profound. All that was left was the sound of Leo’s own ragged, agonized breathing. He lay on the ground for a long time, the pain in his body nothing compared to the cataclysmic agony in his soul.

Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself up. He looked at what they had left behind.

She was destroyed. Utterly desecrated. A torso with one shattered leg attached. A cracked head with a crooked smile that now looked like a grimace of pain. The pieces of her were strewn across the dark path like the remains of a car bomb victim.

His mind, already so precariously balanced, fractured completely. The delusion of a quiet life was shattered alongside her plastic body. He had failed. He was not her protector. He was the man who had led her to her own gruesome execution.

Grief, thick and suffocating, gave way to a new, terrifying resolve. A cold, clear purpose crystalized in the ruins of his sanity.

He began to move, his actions slow and ritualistic. He crawled, collecting the pieces. He found her arm in the bushes, her severed hand lying palm-up in the dirt. He gathered the larger shards of her leg. He picked up her head, cradling it gently, his thumb wiping a smear of dirt from her painted smile. He bundled the ruined parts into his jacket, a grotesque and tragic parody of a father swaddling a child.

He carried her ruined form home, not in his arms like a bride, but as a collection of broken pieces. He was no longer just a lover. He was no longer just a failed protector. As he walked through the silent city streets, a ghost haunted by the sounds of snapping plastic, he knew what he had to become. He had to be her creator. He had to rebuild her. No matter what it took.