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Fiction: Yellow Flowers and a Bag of Bones
Chapter seventeen: The metaphorical tunnel
My hands were shaking as I pushed away from the computer in the café, and I kept trembling as I paid what I owed and walked back outside, finding myself blinded by the sunlight. It was difficult to not let my thoughts merely go around in circles as I went back home; I needed to tidy my apartment, after all. I had left it a mess, and considering that my door had been broken off of its hinges I might risk going home to find my apartment robbed for everything that was left.
Instead, I went home and found my apartment not there anymore.
In fact, my entire building was gone; burned to the ground. Most of the inhabitants stood outside of what was left, just staring at it. I could see firemen putting out what was left of the flames, and I could see police men off to the side, interviewing some of my neighbors. I even caught a glimpse of Janson, but I couldn’t pay him all that much attention right now. I walked up to Manu and stood beside him, just staring up at the building I had grown so fond of.
“W-what the h-hell happened?” I asked at length, though there was a voice in my head telling me that really, I already knew exactly what had happened. Maria had told me that I would suffer, after all, and taking away my home, my previously safe haven, was definitely a very good method of making me suffer. Without my apartment, I had literally nowhere to go.
Manu shrugged and sighed. “Don’t know yet. Cops thinks someone set the place on fire. Of all the crappy buildings to set fire to, why this one? Sucks, man. Really sucks. All my shit’s gone.”
“Y-yeah, mine t-too. Did a-anyone get h-hurt?” I almost didn’t want to ask the questions – I wasn’t sure how I would live with it if anyone had gotten hurt because of my actions. Or rather, because I had gotten myself involved with such a psychotic woman.
Once again, Manu shrugged, and waved in the general direction of the ambulances parked a little down the street. My throat felt too dry, especially when I saw that there were people lying on the ground. “Mostly minor stuff, I think. The guys in the crack den got hurt bad though. Their shit exploded in their faces. They should’ve known better than to try to get it out.”
“F-fuck,” I muttered, standing there for a few more moments before I walked over to Janson. He seemed to notice that I was more upset over this than I really should be, and tugged me off to sit on the hood of one of the police cars, offering me some water.
“Did you have anything to do with this?” he asked quietly.
“I d-didn’t start it, b-but…” I shrugged helplessly. Of course I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed all too likely that Maria had something to do with this; that the fire had been started because of me and the things I had done. The things that I still thought of as fairly innocent, considering. If she had burned down my building for trying to take her creation away, I wouldn’t have been so shocked, but seeing as she seemingly burned it down for not paying her enough attention…
In short, I thought she was fucking crazy. And I wondered how I had failed to notice that in all the time I had known her.
Janson looked up at the remnants of the building, dark smoke still rising from the rubble. “This is all because of Tagetes, isn’t it? You shouldn’t have started messing with it, Kai. Those people shouldn’t be played with. I know that, I played with them as well and I very nearly got caught. If I had, I wouldn’t have a job now, that’s for sure.”
I turned my attention away from the building and my worries for a moment – it was a relief to focus on something that didn’t center on me. “W-what do you m-mean, you p-played with t-them?”
He smirked, looking rather proud of himself. “Of course, you don’t know. I was the green rabbit.”
“W-what?”
“Of course. How many others do you think can pop up like that and still stay hidden from The Four Sisters, huh? After I talked to you I pulled out and didn’t go back. It was getting far too dangerous for me; I had too much to lose.”
After thinking about it for a couple of moments, I decided that it wasn’t such a stretch – Janson certainly had the knowledge to remain a secret, and he was smart enough to know when to quit. Unlike me. “I’ve l-lost everything,” I said quietly. “My c-computer, my b-books, e-everything. Even my a-apartment. I d-don’t have anywhere to g-go.”
Janson gave me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, but it didn’t really feel like much of a comfort at the moment. A part of me wished I could go back, do it all over again and do it right. Or rather, not do it at all. “You’ll be fine. People like you and me; we always come down on our feet. You’re still young, you don’t have many ties.”
“I h-have enough.”
“What you need to do now is to relocate, get away from whoever it is that’s doing this to you. Lay low for a while and get back on your feet. All that cliché crap.”
I smiled a little; it was difficult not to. “I w-will. Or I’ll t-try, at l-least. Her n-name is Maria, by the w-way.”
“Who?”
“The w-woman who’s been d-doing this. She w-works at the grocery s-store down the s-street. W-we’ve been dating, a-and I guess s-she’s…kind of obsessed w-with me,” I said, feeling more than a little embarrassed. It didn’t seem like my life – I was used to being the obsessive and unhealthy one, not the one someone else obsessed over. It felt strange; like a dream I should have woken from a long time ago.
Janson laughed quietly, though he stopped quickly as one of the paramedics yelled out that one man had died from the injuries. “I guess that brings a new meaning to having girl trouble. Somehow, you need to find a way to deal with it. I could talk to her and see if I could arrest her, but I have a feeling that it wouldn’t work.”
I nodded. “S-she must have c-connections, even if s-she lives here.”
“Exactly. If I try to bring her in, she’ll know who I am. It won’t be difficult for her to find out that I was the green rabbit, and she might find out that I’m NaDa as well. We can’t risk that – I’ll be a better help to you if she has no idea of who I am,” Janson said, and I had to admit that I was relieved that I had at least one person on my side.
Getting to my feet, I pulled my bag closer to me, almost hugging it protectively. It held all my belongings now, and right now I was happy that I was paranoid enough to always bring the most essential things with me. I might not have a roof over my head or books to read, but at least I had money, a spare change of clothes, all my papers, several notebooks, and a few computer items. I had enough to start up somewhere else.
“I’ll s-stay out of s-sight for a while. Go into h-hiding. But I’ll be in t-touch w-with you online, okay? I’ll use Shizuka from n-now on; I’ve h-hardly ever used t-that, so I doubt M-maria knows.”
“Sounds good.” Janson paused, laying his hand on my shoulder again. To anyone else it probably looked like he was merely comforting someone who had lost his apartment in a fire. “Take care of yourself, Kai. Be careful.”
I offered him a bleak smile, nodded, and walked away. Even if I didn’t really want to leave, I had no reason to stay anymore. In fact, staying close to where Maria was used to finding me would probably be a bad thing. I didn’t know what else she might be capable of, but I’d rather not risk being kidnapped and tortured. As much fun as if might have sounded in theory, I was pretty sure that the actual experience would be far from fun.
After that, I did everything I could do eradicate my existence. I withdrew pretty much all my money from my bank account and started paying cash for everything. I stayed at a small motel under a false name, but I opted for one not too far from where I had lived for so long – I figured that the logical thing would be to stay as far away as possible, so I went for the illogical option instead. In a way, I liked this way of living. My life had been fairly calm up to that point; calm and steady and reliable and well, kind of boring.
However, there was nothing boring about my life at the moment. It forced me out of my comfort zone, it forced me to go out and talk to people instead of hiding behind my computer screen, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I missed both Dakota and Rei sorely, I would’ve had the time of my life.
Naturally, it didn’t last long before I bought a new computer and fixed an Internet connection – I couldn’t leave things like this, after all. Maria might have shut me in a dark room with no way out, but I wouldn’t let her beat me that easily. I’d find a way out of it. Find the light, so to speak.
Finding said light proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated, though, and even Janson couldn’t help me with it. He tried as best as he could, but there was no way he could get me out of there without risking being caught. Considering that he had a wife and kids to support, I didn’t push him on it. Instead I took to taking long walks, all around the city, trying to think, trying to find the solution. Maybe these walks were risky – who knew when Maria might stumble across me – but I couldn’t stand to sit inside the small motel room all the time. It was odd; my entire life I had been more agoraphobic than anything else, but these days I found myself being almost claustrophobic instead.
It was on one of these walks that I was witness to a fight. Something which wasn’t all that uncommon, to be frank. In these parts of the city, the gangs ruled, and if you weren’t careful, they would beat you senseless just for the fun of it. Most of the time, however, the gangs clashed together, and the fights were usually fair and evenly matched; at least the ones I had seen (and stayed far, far away from).
This time there were six or seven guys and girls hitting and kicking what looked like a defenseless boy; one that didn’t even try to fight back. He merely whimpered, trying to shield himself from the blows. It was too dark for me to see much, but I could tell that the kid wasn’t all that old, and that he probably should have been in bed by now instead of wandering along these streets.
I could also tell that this wasn’t going to go well for him, and even though the last thing I wanted to do was to get involved with any of the gangs around here, I couldn’t possibly just stand by and watch a boy get beaten up. With my heart pounding in my chest I stepped forwards into the light, telling the mob to stop. As several of them turned their heads towards me, I could see that they were all just teenagers. It certainly made me feel old.
Though feeling old didn’t make me feel any tougher. I knew that in a fight, I’d be utterly useless. I’d probably be just as defenseless as the kid, if not even more. And when the group advanced on me instead, I very nearly bolted out of there. It was only the thought of the kid that made me stand my ground, so I looked at him as a way to get some courage – and very nearly choked.
“R-rei!”
The boy lifted his head, holding his hand to his bruised cheek, and his eyes widened as he clearly recognized me. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I was about to be used as a punching bag, my mind would have reeled over the fact that he looked exactly like he did in Tagetes, down to the oversized white top and the black boots.
I closed my eyes and shrank back almost involuntarily when a fist came at me, only opening them again when said fist didn’t connect with my face like it should have.
“I’d back away from him, if I were you,” Dakota said calmly from beside me, her fingers closed around the guy’s wrist, holding his fist back. I grinned at her in a way that was supposed to say ‘I’m so glad to see you, I’ve missed you and please don’t let them beat me up’ without a single word. From the way she glanced at me and smiled, I was pretty sure she got what I meant.
The guys in the gang looked ready for a fight, but the girls cast almost worried glances at Dakota and then whispered to the boys, tugging them away impatiently. I thought I could detect a hint of fear in their voices, something which seemed strange to me – Dakota might have looked intimidating, but from what I knew of her, she was one of the kindest persons in this city. “Dakota,” I said, and smiled, and kissed her. It seemed like the thing to do.
She laughed against my lips and gave me a hug afterwards, not letting go of me completely even after she pulled away enough to look at me. “I lost you; your building burned down, do you know that?”
I nodded, and was about to reply when there was a tug on my coat. Rei had walked over to the two of us and looked up at us with wide eyes. He looked both scared and happy, and like he didn’t quite know just what he was supposed to be doing with himself. “Kai, is it really you?” he asked, his voice trembling.
And even if I thought that maybe I should be wary, that maybe I should question him and be cautious and not believe in everything at face value, I kneeled down and hugged him. Carefully. Rei winced quietly – apparently the gang had done more than enough damage before I showed up – but he still hugged me back. “I’ve m-missed you,” I whispered against his hair, and smiled over how he hugged me tighter at that.
I decided to not think too much about how Rei could possibly be the same person here as he was in Tagetes – if I stopped to think it over, I might freak out too much to take him with me, and if it one thing I was certain of, it was the fact that I needed to take him with me. Dakota smiled to Rei and introduced herself, and he smiled shyly back at her before taking my hand. It was strange, but I felt like things were finally starting to straighten themselves out again. Odd how I had grown accustomed to having people I cared about around me constantly.
“I n-need your h-help,” I said as I started walking the two of them back to my motel. It would be crowded, considering how small the room was, but neither of them had anywhere else to go, and I refused to let them out of my sight again. Especially Dakota. I had lost her so many times already since we first met, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to risk losing her again.
It seemed like she felt the exact same way about me, because she wound her arm around my waist and walked so close to me that I almost stumbled over my own feet. “I think I need your help too. Maybe all three of us need each other’s help.”
Rei looked like he was going to protest, and I knew how he felt. Despite being a kid wandering the street on his own at night, he was probably the one of us that was best off. Unlike me or Dakota, Rei didn’t have anyone who wanted to hurt him. What he did have, however, was a small bag, one that I hadn’t noticed up until now because of everything else that had been happening. I hadn’t had the time to focus on the smaller things.
“W-what’s in the b-bag, Rei?” I asked, unsure of just why it seemed so important.
The boy didn’t reply until we had reached the motel and he and Dakota were sitting side by side on my narrow bed, while I grabbed the one chair in the room. We definitely needed somewhere else to stay if we were going to stick together, but for now it would have to do. “It’s… I’ll just show you instead of telling you,” Rei said quietly and handed me the bag, which was black like most of Rei’s belongings seemed to be.
I was slightly hesitant to know what was in the bag, and I hesitated slightly as I glanced at Rei, who sat with his head bent and his hands folded in his lap. After a couple of moment I opened the drawstring bag and seeing as it was so dark inside the room, I reached down inside, almost freezing up over what I felt. It didn’t become much better when I gripped the object and pulled it out, into the modest light.
It was a skull, grey with age and with three black lines under the left eye.
Dakota gasped and moved slightly away from Rei, looking vaguely shocked even though she recovered soon afterwards. It struck me that she had probably seen a lot of things in her life. My hand shook, but I still managed to hold the skull up, looking at it carefully. Granted, I didn’t know much about skeletons, I couldn’t say anything about it, but I could still easily guess just who this skull belonged to.
“W-why do you h-have this?”
Rei shrugged and glanced up at me, almost fearfully. “I don’t know, Kai. I really don’t. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember, it’s always been with me. I don’t know why, I don’t even know who it is.”
I nibbled on my lower lip, hesitating. But quite frankly, Rei deserved to know. “I t-think… I t-think this is y-your father,” I said quietly, watching Rei’s eyes widen. “T-the rest of his s-skeleton is d-down at the police s-station. W-we’ll go down t-there in a few d-days and talk to s-someone I know, o-okay?”
For a little while Rei was silent, though I could see him trembling from across the room, but finally he nodded. I had no idea what was going on inside his head, but he offered me a smile seconds later, which made me feel confident that everything would sort itself out. I didn’t know how, or when (hell, Rei was more of a mystery to me now than he ever was), but I had time to wait it out.
“O-okay. T-there something I n-need to do,” I said, and turned around to face the computer. With Dakota and Rei there with me – they pulled the light bed closer to the desk so they could see what I was doing – I finally felt like I was strong enough to take up this fight for real.
No matter the outcome.
~tbc~
My hands were shaking as I pushed away from the computer in the café, and I kept trembling as I paid what I owed and walked back outside, finding myself blinded by the sunlight. It was difficult to not let my thoughts merely go around in circles as I went back home; I needed to tidy my apartment, after all. I had left it a mess, and considering that my door had been broken off of its hinges I might risk going home to find my apartment robbed for everything that was left.
Instead, I went home and found my apartment not there anymore.
In fact, my entire building was gone; burned to the ground. Most of the inhabitants stood outside of what was left, just staring at it. I could see firemen putting out what was left of the flames, and I could see police men off to the side, interviewing some of my neighbors. I even caught a glimpse of Janson, but I couldn’t pay him all that much attention right now. I walked up to Manu and stood beside him, just staring up at the building I had grown so fond of.
“W-what the h-hell happened?” I asked at length, though there was a voice in my head telling me that really, I already knew exactly what had happened. Maria had told me that I would suffer, after all, and taking away my home, my previously safe haven, was definitely a very good method of making me suffer. Without my apartment, I had literally nowhere to go.
Manu shrugged and sighed. “Don’t know yet. Cops thinks someone set the place on fire. Of all the crappy buildings to set fire to, why this one? Sucks, man. Really sucks. All my shit’s gone.”
“Y-yeah, mine t-too. Did a-anyone get h-hurt?” I almost didn’t want to ask the questions – I wasn’t sure how I would live with it if anyone had gotten hurt because of my actions. Or rather, because I had gotten myself involved with such a psychotic woman.
Once again, Manu shrugged, and waved in the general direction of the ambulances parked a little down the street. My throat felt too dry, especially when I saw that there were people lying on the ground. “Mostly minor stuff, I think. The guys in the crack den got hurt bad though. Their shit exploded in their faces. They should’ve known better than to try to get it out.”
“F-fuck,” I muttered, standing there for a few more moments before I walked over to Janson. He seemed to notice that I was more upset over this than I really should be, and tugged me off to sit on the hood of one of the police cars, offering me some water.
“Did you have anything to do with this?” he asked quietly.
“I d-didn’t start it, b-but…” I shrugged helplessly. Of course I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed all too likely that Maria had something to do with this; that the fire had been started because of me and the things I had done. The things that I still thought of as fairly innocent, considering. If she had burned down my building for trying to take her creation away, I wouldn’t have been so shocked, but seeing as she seemingly burned it down for not paying her enough attention…
In short, I thought she was fucking crazy. And I wondered how I had failed to notice that in all the time I had known her.
Janson looked up at the remnants of the building, dark smoke still rising from the rubble. “This is all because of Tagetes, isn’t it? You shouldn’t have started messing with it, Kai. Those people shouldn’t be played with. I know that, I played with them as well and I very nearly got caught. If I had, I wouldn’t have a job now, that’s for sure.”
I turned my attention away from the building and my worries for a moment – it was a relief to focus on something that didn’t center on me. “W-what do you m-mean, you p-played with t-them?”
He smirked, looking rather proud of himself. “Of course, you don’t know. I was the green rabbit.”
“W-what?”
“Of course. How many others do you think can pop up like that and still stay hidden from The Four Sisters, huh? After I talked to you I pulled out and didn’t go back. It was getting far too dangerous for me; I had too much to lose.”
After thinking about it for a couple of moments, I decided that it wasn’t such a stretch – Janson certainly had the knowledge to remain a secret, and he was smart enough to know when to quit. Unlike me. “I’ve l-lost everything,” I said quietly. “My c-computer, my b-books, e-everything. Even my a-apartment. I d-don’t have anywhere to g-go.”
Janson gave me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, but it didn’t really feel like much of a comfort at the moment. A part of me wished I could go back, do it all over again and do it right. Or rather, not do it at all. “You’ll be fine. People like you and me; we always come down on our feet. You’re still young, you don’t have many ties.”
“I h-have enough.”
“What you need to do now is to relocate, get away from whoever it is that’s doing this to you. Lay low for a while and get back on your feet. All that cliché crap.”
I smiled a little; it was difficult not to. “I w-will. Or I’ll t-try, at l-least. Her n-name is Maria, by the w-way.”
“Who?”
“The w-woman who’s been d-doing this. She w-works at the grocery s-store down the s-street. W-we’ve been dating, a-and I guess s-she’s…kind of obsessed w-with me,” I said, feeling more than a little embarrassed. It didn’t seem like my life – I was used to being the obsessive and unhealthy one, not the one someone else obsessed over. It felt strange; like a dream I should have woken from a long time ago.
Janson laughed quietly, though he stopped quickly as one of the paramedics yelled out that one man had died from the injuries. “I guess that brings a new meaning to having girl trouble. Somehow, you need to find a way to deal with it. I could talk to her and see if I could arrest her, but I have a feeling that it wouldn’t work.”
I nodded. “S-she must have c-connections, even if s-she lives here.”
“Exactly. If I try to bring her in, she’ll know who I am. It won’t be difficult for her to find out that I was the green rabbit, and she might find out that I’m NaDa as well. We can’t risk that – I’ll be a better help to you if she has no idea of who I am,” Janson said, and I had to admit that I was relieved that I had at least one person on my side.
Getting to my feet, I pulled my bag closer to me, almost hugging it protectively. It held all my belongings now, and right now I was happy that I was paranoid enough to always bring the most essential things with me. I might not have a roof over my head or books to read, but at least I had money, a spare change of clothes, all my papers, several notebooks, and a few computer items. I had enough to start up somewhere else.
“I’ll s-stay out of s-sight for a while. Go into h-hiding. But I’ll be in t-touch w-with you online, okay? I’ll use Shizuka from n-now on; I’ve h-hardly ever used t-that, so I doubt M-maria knows.”
“Sounds good.” Janson paused, laying his hand on my shoulder again. To anyone else it probably looked like he was merely comforting someone who had lost his apartment in a fire. “Take care of yourself, Kai. Be careful.”
I offered him a bleak smile, nodded, and walked away. Even if I didn’t really want to leave, I had no reason to stay anymore. In fact, staying close to where Maria was used to finding me would probably be a bad thing. I didn’t know what else she might be capable of, but I’d rather not risk being kidnapped and tortured. As much fun as if might have sounded in theory, I was pretty sure that the actual experience would be far from fun.
After that, I did everything I could do eradicate my existence. I withdrew pretty much all my money from my bank account and started paying cash for everything. I stayed at a small motel under a false name, but I opted for one not too far from where I had lived for so long – I figured that the logical thing would be to stay as far away as possible, so I went for the illogical option instead. In a way, I liked this way of living. My life had been fairly calm up to that point; calm and steady and reliable and well, kind of boring.
However, there was nothing boring about my life at the moment. It forced me out of my comfort zone, it forced me to go out and talk to people instead of hiding behind my computer screen, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I missed both Dakota and Rei sorely, I would’ve had the time of my life.
Naturally, it didn’t last long before I bought a new computer and fixed an Internet connection – I couldn’t leave things like this, after all. Maria might have shut me in a dark room with no way out, but I wouldn’t let her beat me that easily. I’d find a way out of it. Find the light, so to speak.
Finding said light proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated, though, and even Janson couldn’t help me with it. He tried as best as he could, but there was no way he could get me out of there without risking being caught. Considering that he had a wife and kids to support, I didn’t push him on it. Instead I took to taking long walks, all around the city, trying to think, trying to find the solution. Maybe these walks were risky – who knew when Maria might stumble across me – but I couldn’t stand to sit inside the small motel room all the time. It was odd; my entire life I had been more agoraphobic than anything else, but these days I found myself being almost claustrophobic instead.
It was on one of these walks that I was witness to a fight. Something which wasn’t all that uncommon, to be frank. In these parts of the city, the gangs ruled, and if you weren’t careful, they would beat you senseless just for the fun of it. Most of the time, however, the gangs clashed together, and the fights were usually fair and evenly matched; at least the ones I had seen (and stayed far, far away from).
This time there were six or seven guys and girls hitting and kicking what looked like a defenseless boy; one that didn’t even try to fight back. He merely whimpered, trying to shield himself from the blows. It was too dark for me to see much, but I could tell that the kid wasn’t all that old, and that he probably should have been in bed by now instead of wandering along these streets.
I could also tell that this wasn’t going to go well for him, and even though the last thing I wanted to do was to get involved with any of the gangs around here, I couldn’t possibly just stand by and watch a boy get beaten up. With my heart pounding in my chest I stepped forwards into the light, telling the mob to stop. As several of them turned their heads towards me, I could see that they were all just teenagers. It certainly made me feel old.
Though feeling old didn’t make me feel any tougher. I knew that in a fight, I’d be utterly useless. I’d probably be just as defenseless as the kid, if not even more. And when the group advanced on me instead, I very nearly bolted out of there. It was only the thought of the kid that made me stand my ground, so I looked at him as a way to get some courage – and very nearly choked.
“R-rei!”
The boy lifted his head, holding his hand to his bruised cheek, and his eyes widened as he clearly recognized me. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I was about to be used as a punching bag, my mind would have reeled over the fact that he looked exactly like he did in Tagetes, down to the oversized white top and the black boots.
I closed my eyes and shrank back almost involuntarily when a fist came at me, only opening them again when said fist didn’t connect with my face like it should have.
“I’d back away from him, if I were you,” Dakota said calmly from beside me, her fingers closed around the guy’s wrist, holding his fist back. I grinned at her in a way that was supposed to say ‘I’m so glad to see you, I’ve missed you and please don’t let them beat me up’ without a single word. From the way she glanced at me and smiled, I was pretty sure she got what I meant.
The guys in the gang looked ready for a fight, but the girls cast almost worried glances at Dakota and then whispered to the boys, tugging them away impatiently. I thought I could detect a hint of fear in their voices, something which seemed strange to me – Dakota might have looked intimidating, but from what I knew of her, she was one of the kindest persons in this city. “Dakota,” I said, and smiled, and kissed her. It seemed like the thing to do.
She laughed against my lips and gave me a hug afterwards, not letting go of me completely even after she pulled away enough to look at me. “I lost you; your building burned down, do you know that?”
I nodded, and was about to reply when there was a tug on my coat. Rei had walked over to the two of us and looked up at us with wide eyes. He looked both scared and happy, and like he didn’t quite know just what he was supposed to be doing with himself. “Kai, is it really you?” he asked, his voice trembling.
And even if I thought that maybe I should be wary, that maybe I should question him and be cautious and not believe in everything at face value, I kneeled down and hugged him. Carefully. Rei winced quietly – apparently the gang had done more than enough damage before I showed up – but he still hugged me back. “I’ve m-missed you,” I whispered against his hair, and smiled over how he hugged me tighter at that.
I decided to not think too much about how Rei could possibly be the same person here as he was in Tagetes – if I stopped to think it over, I might freak out too much to take him with me, and if it one thing I was certain of, it was the fact that I needed to take him with me. Dakota smiled to Rei and introduced herself, and he smiled shyly back at her before taking my hand. It was strange, but I felt like things were finally starting to straighten themselves out again. Odd how I had grown accustomed to having people I cared about around me constantly.
“I n-need your h-help,” I said as I started walking the two of them back to my motel. It would be crowded, considering how small the room was, but neither of them had anywhere else to go, and I refused to let them out of my sight again. Especially Dakota. I had lost her so many times already since we first met, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to risk losing her again.
It seemed like she felt the exact same way about me, because she wound her arm around my waist and walked so close to me that I almost stumbled over my own feet. “I think I need your help too. Maybe all three of us need each other’s help.”
Rei looked like he was going to protest, and I knew how he felt. Despite being a kid wandering the street on his own at night, he was probably the one of us that was best off. Unlike me or Dakota, Rei didn’t have anyone who wanted to hurt him. What he did have, however, was a small bag, one that I hadn’t noticed up until now because of everything else that had been happening. I hadn’t had the time to focus on the smaller things.
“W-what’s in the b-bag, Rei?” I asked, unsure of just why it seemed so important.
The boy didn’t reply until we had reached the motel and he and Dakota were sitting side by side on my narrow bed, while I grabbed the one chair in the room. We definitely needed somewhere else to stay if we were going to stick together, but for now it would have to do. “It’s… I’ll just show you instead of telling you,” Rei said quietly and handed me the bag, which was black like most of Rei’s belongings seemed to be.
I was slightly hesitant to know what was in the bag, and I hesitated slightly as I glanced at Rei, who sat with his head bent and his hands folded in his lap. After a couple of moment I opened the drawstring bag and seeing as it was so dark inside the room, I reached down inside, almost freezing up over what I felt. It didn’t become much better when I gripped the object and pulled it out, into the modest light.
It was a skull, grey with age and with three black lines under the left eye.
Dakota gasped and moved slightly away from Rei, looking vaguely shocked even though she recovered soon afterwards. It struck me that she had probably seen a lot of things in her life. My hand shook, but I still managed to hold the skull up, looking at it carefully. Granted, I didn’t know much about skeletons, I couldn’t say anything about it, but I could still easily guess just who this skull belonged to.
“W-why do you h-have this?”
Rei shrugged and glanced up at me, almost fearfully. “I don’t know, Kai. I really don’t. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember, it’s always been with me. I don’t know why, I don’t even know who it is.”
I nibbled on my lower lip, hesitating. But quite frankly, Rei deserved to know. “I t-think… I t-think this is y-your father,” I said quietly, watching Rei’s eyes widen. “T-the rest of his s-skeleton is d-down at the police s-station. W-we’ll go down t-there in a few d-days and talk to s-someone I know, o-okay?”
For a little while Rei was silent, though I could see him trembling from across the room, but finally he nodded. I had no idea what was going on inside his head, but he offered me a smile seconds later, which made me feel confident that everything would sort itself out. I didn’t know how, or when (hell, Rei was more of a mystery to me now than he ever was), but I had time to wait it out.
“O-okay. T-there something I n-need to do,” I said, and turned around to face the computer. With Dakota and Rei there with me – they pulled the light bed closer to the desk so they could see what I was doing – I finally felt like I was strong enough to take up this fight for real.
No matter the outcome.
~tbc~
Friday, September 26, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
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