A/N: I’ve never written a songfic before, so I thought Hey! why not try it? And here I am. I know this isn’t the most masterful of pieces, but I was half asleep when I wrote it and gave it my best shot nonetheless. ;) Anything for the beloved Fatal Frame section… BTW, the song is “Missing” by Evanescence. Awesome song…Sae’s pov.

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Missing

isn’t someone missing me ?

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Please, please forgive me,
But I won't be home again.
Maybe someday you'll wake up,
And, barely conscious, you'll say to no one:
"Isn't something missing?"

“Yae… please!” Sae begged, crying into the forest, trying to drag herself and her twisted leg, though to no avail. The pain was amazing, and it was her captor; holding her fast to the wicked earth that offered no respite to silent sufferings. Oh, her heart was screaming, so badly screaming, louder than the crack of thunder on a summer night, but no one could hear her.

Lost in this dark forest, the forest that had once held so much promise – an escape, a refuge, a path to freedom. But it had caught her in its web, just like the men, just like the village, just like the Ceremony Master himself, and she wondered why – oh why? – the world seemed so determined to fight against her. All she wanted was to die, to die here, relieve herself of this pain, to lay herself to sleep… she wasn’t worth it.

And here she was with her back against an old tree, and the delicate red lips were trembling, the sad dark eyes sullen with falling tears; she was the whole of a crumpled broken leaf in autumn, fallen and broken to the ground. She was extinguished; dead, the other half of her gone, lost, and oh! how she wanted to find her, to find Yae, because she’d suffer anything, anything, just to see that beloved face, and hear that sweet sound;

“It’s your fault, Sae… it’s all your fault.”

No! It wasn’t her fault, it couldn’t be; Yae had been lying, she was kidding, she was joking. They’d been born together and so they would die together, halves of an identical heart that would only be peaceful when it was whole. She had promised Yae that they’d be together, forever, but now… Yae was gone, and Sae… abandoned.

Yae… why did you leave me? Oh, Yae – hear me! Please! I know you’ll come back for me, I know you will, because I can’t stand it here Yae, it’s so dark, just like the shadows of the dying cherry trees at night, and the river is laughing at me, and oh – please! please come back before they find me!

Don’t you miss me?

You won't cry for my absence, I know -
You forgot me long ago.
Am I that unimportant...?
Am I so insignificant...?
Isn't something missing?
Isn't someone missing me?

Something whispered wickedly in her hair, trailing through the dark matted strands and kissing the sweet chapped lips; “She doesn’t miss you. You aren’t important anymore. You’ve served your purpose.” No! Yae had promised, she’d promised, that one day they’d see the cherry blossoms together in Kyoto, and watch the sunset from the top of that far-reaching mountain, and they’d sleep in the light of an ancient dawn. They would be together forever, because Yae promised!

Oh, Yae… you promised, you promised.

What had she done to make her angry? Because they were coming now; the villagers, the men. She could hear their far-off voices, sinister, so dreadful… oh, she was dying here! If she had the strength to pull herself into the river she would, because she’d rather drown than face them again. She had spent so many years swallowing her suffering… it was time. It was time. She’d make them pay, oh, she would, because they took Yae away from her…

“Kill me…” Sae choked, rubbing her twisted leg, dying, crying, retching. Her face was pale, a snowy mask, and the stern eyebrows were diminished in her sickly face. The thin limbs, never healthy, were skeletal from the sickness of worry and stress. Her face was drawn… so drawn, a ghost in a girl’s body, a phantom… a phantom showing through…

And they came, because she knew they would, because they would never leave her be. Because they would not rest until her body lay at the bottom of that pit, that sick hole, the gaping wound in a dying earth. It bled sickness, it bled Malice, hatred, everything pungent and twisted, everything that would force a girl to kill her own sister… but she knew… she’d be whole, but Yae… oh, that chance was gone… so very gone…

They were shadows approaching her, twisted, their faces blurred like wet brushstrokes, but that was from her tears. Hatred… malice… it poured from her, from blank dark eyes and snarling lips, because she was so unimportant, so very small, an animal caged… a broken soul… a dying butterfly, fluttering on the mossy rocks, the powder scraped from its bleeding red wings…

Even though I'll be sacrificed,
You won't try for me, not now.
Though I’d die to know you love me,
I'm all alone.
Isn't someone missing me?

Why him? Why did he have to be there? The tall darkly-clad man with the terrible white cane, the beautiful white cane… oh, she’d been at the brunt of it many times, but she didn’t fear it now, because she didn’t fear anything more. Cold… empty… passionless. Oh how she loathed him… that treacherous snake whom she had once admired… but not loved… no, never loved…

“You’re one and the same, you and him…”

No, Itsuki! Why did you say that? We’re nothing alike, you know… that beautiful white cane and those strange grey eyes, that stern mask saddened before his years… why? If he knows the pain of being a Remaining, … why?... why would he make us suffer so? Oh please! Please don’t make me, Yae will come back! She’ll have to come back, because she promised… we’d be together forever, and we would be one, and I would fly… fly so faraway, because I can’t stand it here, I can’t breathe…

“Father!” Sae threw herself at his feet, crying, tugging at the hem of his kimono, delirious but strangely devoid of anything alive… just pain, just sadness, just this profound emptiness that ate at her, screaming in the silence of her heart, crazed, pleading, begging… she’d never asked for anything. And now she asked for this onething, and they wouldn’t give it to her. Please… oh please… please understand. You know, because you lost him, but I can’t lose her… I can’t…

And that cane came down again, almost striking the side of her face, but pausing, and then he let it fall to the ground. The Ceremony Master reached out and touched her hair, briefly, and her eyes flooded with tears.

“Take her.”

And that was all; he left his cane there one the ground, and turned, and walked smoothly away with the hem of his black kimono rippling in the breeze. “As for Yae… do the Ritual without her.”

Please, please forgive me,
But I won't be home again.
I know what you do to yourself,
Shudder deep and cry out:
"Isn't something missing?
Isn't someone missing me?"

And if I bleed, I'll bleed,
Knowing you don't care.
And if I sleep just to dream of you
And wake without you there,
Isn't something missing?
Isn't something...

you left me…

left me here all alone with the darkness of my angry heart…

so broken i remain

i will make them pay

oh, they will pay

when my darkness reaches up to swallow them, they will understand

they will understand how it feels to be alone