Lys felt a chill run down her spine. A spirit was coming, she knew. The air was getting colder as she washed her hands. Then she heard the young vampire outside cry, �Nariko! She�s not one you want!�
So the spirit�s name was Nariko. Well, she wouldn�t be the first angsty apparition Lys had met, and actually, Lys considered herself to be some kind of ghost doctor. Hopefully, Nariko would walk the path of many restless spirits before her who had met Lys.
�Someone like you, but who does not know me for what I am, a wraith, a mere echo of what I used to be.� Nariko said.
Lys was facing the door when Nariko entered, and the spirit, appearing very real and clad in a bloodied dress, was surprised to find that Lys was expecting her.
�You know what I am?� Nariko asked in her high sad voice.
�Of course. That 500-year-old baby outside may think he�s the only psychic vampire, but�he�s not.� Nariko�s gentle features lifted in a smile at Lys� wry grin. This person was someone who understood her, Nariko felt. Someone she could talk to without scaring.
�You-you�re not afraid?� Nariko's eyes widened behind her fringe.
�No. I�ve met many like you. All hurt...very badly in their lives.�
"And...what happened after you met them?�
�It�s a long sort of story, let�s make ourselves comfortable, shall we?� Lys looked around, �but it�s a bit hard in a bathroom.�
Nariko drifted into the bathtub and settled down at one end. Lys stepped into the other, for one always obliges a sad ghost.
�How did you die?� Lys asked and braced herself for an emotional eruption from Nariko. But instead, the ghost smiled again.
�No one has ever asked me that. They just take one look at me and scream. Then they run or they faint, or they collapse�like Gray.�
�Gray?�
�The...� Nariko smiled, �500-year-old baby.�
�Hm. It�s probably an alias, but never mind, please go on.�
�I was the oldest daughter of three. My parents never had a son, though they badly wanted one. My mother died giving birth to my youngest sister, Midori, and my father, who had always been�violent, sent us all away to stay our grandmother, his mother-in-law.� Nariko�s eyes misted over, but she continued.
�We stayed there for seven years, until Grandmother passed away. I was then ten, Yumiko, my second sister, was nine, Midori, eight. Father reluctantly took us back to Tokyo�and then he used us. Yumiko would fight him, but he would knock her senseless. Midori and I did not dare to fight. When I was 15, Father came home drunk and hit Midori so hard that she died.� Nariko�s thin voice shook.
�After her funeral, Yumiko left, I never saw her again. And because I was the only one left, my father�s abuse fell on me. At 16, I met Keiji Uehara, an 18-year-old senior councillor at my school, he noticed I hadn�t turned up for a long time. We got to know each other better and I fell in love with him. We used to go for ice-cream together." Nariko's delicate features became wistful as she paused to savour the memory.
"After Kei-chan graduated later that year, we left Tokyo and moved here. We got married and were to have a child. But my father came.� Nariko�s voice filled with anguish and pain.
�He came here. He killed Kei-chan. Then he took my child from me! He cut me across my belly�� Blood spread from under Nariko�s form to fill the bathtub and Lys reached out to take Nariko�s barely solid hand. She murmured, �It�s alright, it�s over, he can�t hurt you anymore.�
Nariko shook violently, but continued, �He killed me...right outside this room.�
Deathly silence within the icy room made it fell like a tomb, and if not for Gray�s breathing just outside the bathroom as an anchor to reality, Lys would have been too far drawn into Nariko�s story to help her.
She drew Nariko to her and the two, vampire and ghost, embraced.
"Do you know what lies beyond this earth, Nariko?"
"No. I am too...scared of what may happen to me if I leave. And I cannot forget what he did to me."
"Nariko, do you want to be with Keiji and your child?"
Nariko lifted herself up from Lys' arms and whispered, "Yes! But where are they? Only I remain, they are not here! Not here!"
"Shh...they do exist. But you are right, they are not here, and they cannot come to you. That is why you must go to them."
"You are sure they are where I am going if I let go?"
"All the spirits I have talked with before have told me, just as they were leaving, that you can be wherever you want to be if you let go. If you stop wanting to stay and weep for what you have lost, and instead want to find it again, you will, if you let go."
"If only to find them again, I could take a chance." Nariko's form began to fade, and just as the blood in the bathtub disappeared, Lys heard Nariko's voice echo from some far distant place, "You were right, Lys." Though Lys had never told Nariko her name.
:: dream1050 ::
Chapter 1 - Waiting
Chapter 2 - Inside
Chapter 3 - Evanescence
Chapter 4a - Visions
Chapter 5 - Awake