i wanna' be a witch.

[reaffirm]

[ two weeks after she's rescued by homura, it happens.

at first, madoka doesn't believe it — her hands blooming with contusions where the infection has already settled in, exorbitant decay ebbing from her elbows to scabbing the flesh just shy of her wrists. her mind blanks out when she attempts to recall when she must've made contact: an encounter with those that have already succumbed to the disease, a foreign animal bite, a laceration she must've never properly treated. she feigns nausea and spends hours in the washroom scrubbing cleanliness into her skin with copious amounts of disinfectant, antibacterial soap, and warm water, willing away the paranoia and the sudden, heartsick disconsolation that she'll have to leave after all. their town is already stricken two times over, fallen, a dying municipality with survivors tucked into the crawlspaces.

radio coverage abruptly stopped two days ago, television itself reduced to a discombobulated medley of outmoded safety precautions and humming static. every home with windows sealed over and doors bolted, power lines snapped to slivered threads. even if they hadn't managed to escape in time, homura prepared her residence for practically every eventuality in the wake of the initial outbreak. they hadn't been able to ascertain mami's safety, but sayaka was fine. the last they'd heard, well on her way to rendezvousing with kyouko in a military-fortified encampment.

even so, she asked homura to stay in a last-ditch effort to find her family, so madoka's the one at fault for their shared uncertainty on the matter.

escapism, maybe. that isn't even the point.

fact: it takes, approximately one month from the initial date of contamination, to die. there are outlying variables involved with the contagion, but it always, always ends the same. whatever antibiotics remain on the shelves of the local pharmacies only prolong the inevitable. it's not a question of intent; if madoka can fight the affliction just by affecting a wider smile whenever homura inquires about her insistence on pullovers and thick sweaters. the horrible, cloying discomfort whenever her best friend wheels around on impulse, arbitrarily wrapping her up in a quick embrace prior to their city-scaling search for any trace of humanity.

they're coming back on one of their excursions when fever like translucent hot glass pressed into her vertebrae shivers awake in her and she realizes the danger of remaining any longer by homura's side.

an entire day passes as she prepares, wadding her duffle bag with personal belongings, a few days' worth of food. another hour goes to waiting for an opening, which she finds by exploiting an otherwise innocuous afternoon nap. late summer languishes on the stairs as madoka carefully locks the door behind her, resolved to leave before her best friend catches on to her scheme, but —

readjusting her grip over her bag and her motley possessions, madoka turns to gaze back at the home one last time and comes face to face with the owner herself standing alight on the staircase, mouth already tightened in her own sort of answer. homura's quiet even in exasperation as she stares cooly down at her, thin fingers snap-tangled around the door's wooden casing. she doesn't say a word.

it's flustering. ]

I-I have to go. Don't try to stop me, Homura-chan.

[ with the urgency of departure, madoka straightens to her full height, eyes pervasively, tearlessly bright in the solidifying evening. ]

You have to stay safe, okay?