Year of the Boar, Tenth Month. Day 9.

I woke from some sort of stupor late this morning, not in my bed but in the middle of the floor surrounded by things littered around me. Patches of my tatami mats scratched and dug up, ripped pieces of fabric, one of my wall hangings torn and on the floor, fragments of scroll scattered all around my chamber and ink smeared into the tatami and the paper screens. My body aches almost intolerably and when I woke, my face was swollen and my eyes tender so that I can only imagine I must have been crying; I feel weak, my head is heavy and I cannot think properly.
It is light; the sun high so it must be the hour of the snake at least and yet no one has been in to wake me. I do not understand how my chamber came to be in this state. I am too afraid to consider the possibilties... Has Shigeru somehow been in my House without anyone realising it? Is that why I hurt so badly...? I feel bruised but I cannot bring myself to examine my body... Has my House been taken? Is that why no one has come to me?
Have Izumi and Atsuko been in league with him all this time? Did they allow this? I cannot believe that Atsuko would put me in danger; not after the confidences I have shared with her but perhaps... perhaps she has been lying to me since the beginning.Perhaps she simply lulled me into a false sense of security so she would been in a position to allow him to enter Dying Crane... And what of Seira? Where is she? Surely she could not have been in league with him as well. I cannot ... I will not believe that... at least... I do not want to... I had dared to believe that I could rely on her... Why did Broken Rampart have to leave...? I felt vaguely calm, at least, when he was here. He would never have allowed those closest to me to betray me, I know he wouldn't. I write that he wouldn't but he has not written to me since he left or sent a message; if he cared about me as he said he did, would he not have sent some word by now...?
As I write these things, I feel the pressure building in my chest and the urge to scream rising from my belly; I cannot breathe properly... I need a pipe, I so desperately need to still the bubbling torment that will not cease. My cheeks are wet again and I am so afraid, so very, very afraid of what I might find if I dare to open the door to my ante-chamber...