Onion. A bizarre work of mine inspired by inabakumori's Lost Umbrella.

||I saw an Onion on my counter today. And everything will be up to your interpretation... and I hope you enjoy.||

So there was this girl right? A small little girl. She had medium length brown hair. It was in a Japanese bob, of course. She had liked the style for all her life. Her name? Weirdly enough, her name was Onion. She wore a nice, comfortable light blue hoodie, along with some dark blue jeans to match her hoodie. She also had dainty little getas and a cute, pink headband. Her brown eyes and soft face had always given off the impression she was a damsel in distress. Especially with the way she typically looked at people.

Onion had just come home from school, per usual. Her apartment was incredibly small, it could hardly fit anything inside but a bed and clothing. The bathroom was tiny too, designed to make you feel uncomfortable.

It's almost like you're suffocating inside this apartment. So Onion, instead of attempting to do any of the school work she had, and instead of trying to find a job, she decided it was time to sleep, and not do anything for the rest of the day.

It didn't take long for Onion to wake up, though not in her stuffed, cramped apartment. It was instead, in the middle of an igloo. Her bed was inside an igloo. And when she looked out of the igloo? Snow for miles. Endless, endless snow. Weirdly enough, there was no sense of freezing. In fact, Onion didn't feel anything. Just her own body warmth and no feeling towards the never ending snowstorm.

Eventually she had to go somewhere right? She couldn't sit inside the igloo forever now, could she? But a sense of attachment to the igloo was strong. She didn't want to leave, she wanted to stay inside forever. And sheltered from the harsh weather. Surely there was something past this? At the very least, she could wait for the snowstorm to end, right?

But something, just… something told her that she’d already been waiting for years. She just had the feeling that even if she waited, the snowstorm would only get worse. The very least she could do was leave right? Run, run far, far away. Maybe find an exit? Or a path. But the second Onion tried to leave the igloo? She immediately felt cold. It was so frigid. And the snowstorm only got stronger and stronger the further she tried to walk. Her entire body, especially her legs, felt like glass. Sea glass. Dull, worn, and fragile. And that igloo previously? It is gone now. The last bit of warmth just… vanished.

There was quite literally nothing to do but walk forward, considering Onion was now both freezing and feeling lost. Well, she was lost. But regardless, she kept going on. And the further she went, the more fragile everything felt. No, not felt, it did become more fragile. Including herself.

God knows how long it’s been since she’s been walking. There’s no ability to tell time after all. But since everything was getting more fragile, Onion seemed to have an idea. She thought to herself “What if I was strong enough to try and break the ground? Everything is basically made of grass now right…?” So in a moment of geniusness, or foolishness, she stomped on the ground as hard as she physically could. Luckily for her, the ground did shatter. But not in the way she wanted. Because instead of only the select area she tried to break shattering, all of the area she could possibly see also shattered along with it. It didn’t help that her own leg felt like it would break at any slight pressure either.

Falling was inevitable, there was no ground to stand on after all! So free falling it was. Free falling with a bunch of glass cutting you while falling.

Just how long did Onion fall? At least for 10 minutes, or maybe it was 10 hours? But Onion had blurred everything out. And when she came back to her senses? The world around her was… even more bizarre than the previous snow world. This time… the floor was a checkered black and red pattern. With random numbers being scattered across the ground.

What was even more confusing was the fact that all around her, she could also see a large amount of… checker pieces. With legs and maybe feet? They wore boots. And had an eye in the dead center of it. Onion couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Was this even a dream anymore? Was it ever a dream?

Onion, despite all these, tried to converse with those… things with legs.

“H-Hello…? Are you.. Uh… can you speak?”

The creature does not answer. It just stares. Silently. Judging. Onion was already creeped out, but man, these things just make everything worse.

She turned around to just leave, but noticed that every single creature was staring at her too. And her legs began to feel like jelly. And how had she just noticed now that there were eyes in the sky too. Or was there? It was difficult to see… wait there was a sky this whole time? She was sure that it was simply pitch black before. Was her memory simply playing tricks?

Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how you view it, Onion had bolted out of sheer panic. To where? She doesn’t know. She ran and ran until she had crashed into a wall. Her own pathetic body felt like shattering on impact, though it didn’t. Not quite yet. Even glass has some resistance, you know.

And when she opened her eyes? It was simply a wall of just… snow. And behind her were what seemed to be thousands, if not millions of those checker pieces with legs and an eye. Just staring at her. And the only way forward was to run once again and pray that I could escape- but… what good would that do? You’ve run twice already. And look where it got you Onion.

How unfortunate for the rotting individual. She just had to slowly, one step at a time, walk through the crowd as calmly as humanly possible. If you could even call her calm. She was shaking like a leaf, barely able to stand. Her eyes were all watery, almost about to overflow. Onion would question if this is even worth it, but what felt like god knows how long, she finally, finally reached an end.

Or at least what she hoped to be an end to this hell of a place. The only plan she could even think of was simply… jumping off the edge of the board. Wait… since when was there an edge? Onion was too scared to think of anything else anyway. Every single being was staring at her, and when she did jump? No one made a sound.

Falling and falling once more.

She was lucky this time though, she immediately woke up in a cold sweat in her bed. It was already the next day at 5 am sharp.

Onion just decided to ignore the bizarre dream, instead going onto her computer, in that same cramped, tiny apartment. The same apartment she could barely afford. The same apartment that felt like it was mocking her every month she stayed.

But at the very least this time, she would try to find a job. Even if it didn’t pay too well, as long as she could sustain herself for maybe just a little longer… That would be nice.

||Written by your's truly, Shoko.||