In a large, empty room, there stood a pedestal which was located at the room’s very center. It was lifted from the rest of the floor by a hexagonal platform of two inches high, at a radius of roughly four feet from the pedestal. At each point of the hexagon there was a crystal, each a different color: red, orange, golden yellow, green, blue, purple.

In the stone pedestal there rested a sword. Its blade was pristine, and despite being partially hidden by the stone, two feet and six inches of it rose above the pedestal.

The room’s ceiling seemed like a mirror, reflecting everything on the bottom of it, except the two doors on either side of it.

One of the doors opened and a solemn-looking boy with black hair came in. His black eyes were narrowed as he walked calmly and confidently to the hexagon and stopped before the pedestal. He closed his eyes closed as if he were in thought, and when he opened them he looked determined.

He almost seemed as if he didn’t want to do what he was going to do.

He firmly wraped his fingers around the hilt of the sword. Before he lifted it, he said something, his voice sounding firm yet pained.

"Awaken."

He lifted the sword from its resting place. The crystals of the hexagon glowed dimly for a few seconds, then faded to their original lightless state. The boy cast a look in the direction of the other door, then turned and headed to the one he had come through.

And he left, closing the door behind him, leaving the room and its mirror-like ceiling, knowing that all that had occurred on the floor had not been reflected on the roof.

Three twelve-year-old students got off the schoolbus at the corner of the street. They would have to cross at the intersection, so they waited until the lights indicated they could pass and the bus had moved away.

One car didn’t stop when the light turned red. It sped forward, the driver not being fully conscious at the moment. The three students were almost at the other side of the street, the only boy and one girl being slightly ahead of their white-haired friend. They never noticed the car. One of the cars on the other side honked their horns so the kids could run to safety, but it was too late. All three of them were knocked several feet back, hitting the road hard. They got rebounded off some other cars, and the one who sped past the stoplight collided with the side of a jeep.

The environment was tense at the emergency room. White lights everywhere, doctors and nurses rushing here and there, worried parents of the three students asking questions while others cried…

…the accident playing over and over again in the minds of those who saw it happen…

…and in the minds of the students…

…and in the mind of the girl with the white hair…

Tenkuukaikatsu Meiyuu sat up abruptly in her bed. She breathed heavily from the dream and looked around the room. It was morning. Her alarm clock went off moments later, bringing her back to reality. She managed a small smile and turned off her alarm clock.

"It was just a dream…"

Her smile faded as the scene played in her head again. Even though it was slowly slipping away from her (every time she thought about it she remembered less), and even though she didn’t really want to remember, she still tried to.

"Meiyuu! Get up or you’ll be late!" a woman’s voice called from downstairs.

Meiyuu blinked back to reality and nodded as she called back, “Coming, Mom!”

She got up, gathered her clothes, went across the hall and into the bathroom for a shower, then came back to her room. Standing in front of the mirror, she started on her hair: she tied part of it into two braided buns on top of her head (leaning more toward the back and with about four inches between them), then let the rest fall to mid-thigh. She nodded at herself and checked her uniform for anything out of place.

Meiyuu’s school uniform consisted of a dark gray skirt, a white long-sleeve polo shirt, and a dark red vest. On the vest, at the heart (and also on the shirt, in case a student wanted to take off the vest) was the school emblem: a four-leafed clover trimmed with gold and with a few small gold sparkles around it. She smiled brightly at herself and nodded again.

Something in the mirror caught her attention. There was a black bird sitting on the frame of her open window. She stared at it, and the raven stared back. She turned around to get a better look of it, but it wasn’t there. And when she looked back to the mirror, it was gone too. She frowned.

‘I wonder what that was all about…’ she thought. ‘Oh well. I guess it saw me move and flew away.’ She shrugged, grabbed her pack, then went downstairs for breakfast.

Her mother’s threat about being late was a lie. She knew full well that her daughter always woke up on time so she could walk to school with her best friends. But she always did it anyway so Meiyuu would never really be late.

Breakfast was something simple, as always, and when she was done Meiyuu kissed her mother good-bye and sat at the front steps of her house to wait.

After a few minutes she heard her friend’s familiar footsteps hitting the sidewalk as she came closer. She looked up and seconds later a twelve-year-old girl wearing an identical uniform appeared from behind (yet beside) the bushes in her next door neighbors’ front yard.

"Morning, Yumeko!"

"Hey, Meiyuu!"

Yumeko had beautiful green hair that was so dark it somtimes appeared to be black which glinted a kind of dark olive-to-emerald green in the sun; she wore it in a braid that reached a bit past her waist. She had sparkling golden-yellow eyes. She was one of Meiyuu’s best friends since childhood.

Meiyuu got up to meet Yumeko at the sidewalk and the two walked together for the next two blocks.

"I had the weirdest dream last night!" Yumeko suddenly burst out with as they turned the last corner.

"What was it about?" Meiyuu asked. ‘I had a weird dream, too.’ For a moment Meiyuu wondered if her friend had had the same dream. ‘No way, that’s impossible.’

Yumeko breathed deeply before she started. They were already at the front gates of the school.

"I dreamed that you, me, and Akari were —"

"Can’t catch me!"

A little girl with orange-brown hair ran past them, cutting Yumeko off. The two friends watched, blinking, as a boy with light brown hair went by, obviously chasing her.

"Rika, wait!!" As he passed the girls who were staring, he gave them a very quick, "Hey, guys!" He was, evidently, very focused on the chase.

The girl and boy turned the corner, and Meiyuu and Yumeko gave each other equally disbelieving looks. They were left speechless for a long time; so long, in fact, that the boy came back, walking rather slowly, and stood with them before they were able to speak again. And even then, he was the one who spoke first.

"She’s been hyper since she woke up…" he said through heavy breathing, smiling weakly. "Still, I never expected her to break into a run on our way to school."

Yumeko clapped a hand on his back, looking smug as though giving him a prize he might not entirely want to receive.

"Well, at least you’re getting a workout!" she said.

"Hey! What’s that supposed to mean!"

Meiyuu laughed. Akari was only a few months older than Yumeko and her and only a little bit taller. He had cloud-violet eyes that went well with his light brown hair. He had been the girls’ best boy friend since childhood. He never really seemed to mind being the only boy in the trio, but he often joked about it. Rika was his seven-year-old kid sister. She went to the elementary school next to their junior high.

"Hey, guys," Meiyuu said suddenly, making her friends turn to look at her. She motioned to the gates with her head. "We’d better get inside school unless we want to be late."

The three agreed to this and went past the gates, up the front steps, and inside the main building. They made their way to room of their first class, talking about random things along the way. Then Meiyuu suddenly remembered what she and Yumeko had tried to talk about earlier.

"You never told me about your dream," she said to Yumeko.

The pair of golden eyes opened wide in remembrance.

"That’s right!" she exclaimed.

"Dream?" Akari asked, curious.

"Well, it was really weird. The three of us were getting off the bus at the intersection and then, somehow, we were in an accident. I don’t remember much, but I think we were hurt really bad."

Meiyuu paled a little bit. She looked very shocked. Yumeko had dreamed the exact same thing she had! There was an awkward silence as she thought about how that could be possible.

"What?" Yumeko asked, looking at her two friends’ expressions. "What is it? Why do you look so shocked?"

"Well, y’see…" Meiyuu began, unsure of how to continue.

"I had the same dream," Akari said bluntly, looking as shocked as Meiyuu had. Now Yumeko looked startled, but Meiyuu looked almost blown away.

"M… Me too…" she said softly.

The three looked at one another in complete shock. For a while, no one said anything. Then Yumeko half-laughed, obviously trying to break the ice.

"What a coincidence," she said, not sounding the least bit convincing.

The other students in their class had already come in, since the bell would be ringing soon. The room was almost completely full, and already the conversations of others overlapped, making it feel like they were in a packed auditorium. The trio didn’t seem to take notice.

"Hey," Meiyuu started awkwardly, looking at her two friends. "Did either of you, um, by chance, happen to… to see a raven today?"

Yumeko and Akari looked at each other, then at Meiyuu, then burst into giggles.

"Great way to break the tension!" Akari laughed.

Meiyuu, blushing lightly at the thought that no, she hadn’t been kidding, laughed nervously with them.

"Yeah, that was what I wanted to do!"

In almost no time, the first period teacher came in and class began.

‘Today’s gone by so fast! I barely even noticed it.’

Meiyuu sat on the front steps of the main school building with Yumeko to her right, sorting through her backpack. They were waiting for Akari to finish getting some books out of his locker.

Something at the trees in the front lawn caught Meiyuu’s attention. Movement in the branches. It was something black.

‘Is that —’

"What took you so long!?" Yumeko demanded of Akari. Meiyuu’s attention switched suddenly to the other two.

"It’s called waiting."

"It’s called forgetfulness."

"It’s called we have to get home."