Thursday, May 3, 2007

Tabula Rasa

Chapter 5

"Wanna play with me?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dark. Lots and lots of dark.

A little light. In the middle of the light a table. On the table is a tea set.

Around the table there are four chairs.

On one of the chairs is a little girl.

A little girl in a white dress.

With a hammer in her hand.

She picks up a cup and places it in front of her.

Hits it with the hammer.

Looks at me with a bright smile.

"Wanna play with me?"

~*~*~*~*~

"RISE AND SHINE!"

"AAH!"

I land on my floor with a loud thump.

"Mornin'!"

I look up.

"Hi Sam."

"Get up, we're gonna have a busy day! Lots of cases! Lots of paper work! Lots of-"

"Sam."

"Yeah?"

"...take a look at my clock and tell me what time it is."

She looks at my clock and freezes.

"Eh..."

"Yes, Sam. What. Time. Is. It?"

She rubs the back of her head.

"6 AM."

"And my alarm goes off at...?"

"7 AM."

I sigh.

"It's not my problem that you're so lazy. You should get up earlier."

I glare at her.

"Sam, go take a run. A LONG run."

"No. Let's have breakfast, I'm starving!"

"Eat at your own house then."

"Eh..."

"Don't tell me. Your fridge is empty?"

"...yeah."

I sigh again. Sam's a nice person but tends to forget the important things like getting food. Well I'm already up, no point in trying to get any sleep...

Sam's already bouncing towards my kitchen. How can anyone be so disgustingly cheery this early in the morning?

I enter the kitchen. Sam's already making herself a sandwich. A big one.

"Hurry up!"

"Sam, you're starting to sound just like Malice." She shuts up.

"Anyway, what are you being so hyper about?"

She beams again.

"We have a team assignment!"

I stare at her for a while.

"...what?"

"Yup, you, me and the evil woman are a team!"

"Again, what?"

She smacks her forehead.

"Oh yeah. No one's told you." I still stare at her.

"See there's been a mass suicide. A lot of lost souls are running around. The local forces have it all out of control."

"I didn't know that could happen."

She looks at me like I just said that Japan is in the middle of China.

"It can happen. Not too often, but it does happen. And since lost souls don't move in big groups they're harder to catch when there are too many of them. And sometimes they kinda...absorb each other."

"And that means...?" I grab two slices of toast and put them in the toaster.

"That, my friend, means that they get bigger, nastier and potentially more dangerous. Even when just one lost souls absorbs another one it gets nasty." She shivers. "I saw that once. Not nice."

"So why are we a team?"

"Kaoru said that of the 68 lost souls only 13 have been caught, meaning that we have 55 lost souls on the loose. So we've been put in teams to get those things caught before any worse damage can happen." She waves her hand at the look on my face. "Don't worry, we won't be the only people there, of course there are other teams as well."

I take my toast from the toaster and start putting marmalade on them.

"So what happens if we can't catch them?"

"They start taking over people and make them kill themselves and others. And that would be very bad. So we just gotta catch them before anything can happen." She bites her sandwich. I'm not that hungry anymore.

"Well eat up and we can get going."

I reluctantly take a bite of my toast.

~*~*~*~*~

Once we arrive at the Office I remember once again how big this building really is. Thankfully Sam knows the way.

Sure enough, Malice is waiting for us. She looks at her watch.

"Took you two long enough."

She's wearing black jeans that have few chains on them and a long-sleeved black blouse. I take a look at my ragged jeans and white blouse. Sam's wearing a bright red T-shirt and green slacks.

Now who doesn't fit in?

"How about worrying about our assignment instead of our clothes rookie?"

"Huh?"

"Sam, she reads minds."

"Seriously? Is that why she's so cranky all the time?" Malice looks like she's going to say something really vulgar so I change the subject.

"Yeah, so our assignment. Where is it?"

Malice glares at Sam for one last time and turns to me.

"London. And we have a change in plans."

"What is it?"

"We have another person joining us."

"Who?"

"Over here."

I look on my right and there is standing who else but Kyoto.

"Kyoto! What's up? Long time no see!" Sam's happy about this.

"Nothing out of the ordinary really." He shrugs. He's also wearing the same clothes he was wearing the last time I saw him. Plus he has glasses this time.

"Enough with the talk! We have some lost souls to catch." Ah. Back to the point. While walking to the transporting house I get curious.

"So we're heading to London? What exactly happened?"

The answer is provided by Kyoto.

"Some suicidal people gathered at the London Underground and jumped in front of an on-coming train." He gives a dark laugh. "Damn classic."

"Most of them got away and have spread near the London U. So we better hurry." Malice turns to Kyoto. "Someone's already informed the local forces of our arrival. They can't keep this under control anymore."

"It's been happening a lot lately. What the heck have they been doing if they can't even isolate the lost souls on time!"

I turn to Sam and whisper "Isolate?"

"Yeah, it means that they form a power field around the area and don't let the lost souls get away. They also put all the humans to sleep and wake them up after the souls are taken care of. Humans won't remember anything about it and can go all hysteric again" she whispers back. We've arrived at the transporting house.

~*~*~*~*~

Once we arrive in the London U I can see lost souls almost everywhere. Kyoto looks around.

"It's worse than we were told! Where're the local forces?!"

"No time for that, we have to get a move on. Girls, you go there and release the sleep spirit. Me and Kyoto will make a field around the souls." Sam is once again dragging me off. We walk a little while and then stop.

"So what do we do?"

Sam takes a small glass jar out of her bag. Inside is a little blue butterfly. It's glowing.

"This is what we do." She opens the jar after aiming it towards the closest person in sight. The butterfly goes right through the man and goes on from another person to the next. After a while all the humans are asleep. Sam whistles and the butterfly comes back. Sam catches it and puts it back in the jar.

"What about the people coming in here?"

"Another team is playing police officers and keeping humans out of the way."

"Oh. So what do we do next?"

Before Sam gets to answer a purple wall begins to move around the place. The lost souls seem to understand what's going on and start moving. The purple wall begins to lock the souls in.

"We have to get out now!" Sam grabs my arm and we start running out of the place.

Unfortunately some souls decide to follow us.

We get out before the wall closes. But so do the 2 souls. We turn around and stare at them. They've stopped in their tracks for some reason.

"What the-" Sam goes pale. "Enma!"

One of the souls turns to the other one. It starts glowing a bright yellow. The other souls starts to glow too. They go closer to each other and…turn into a ball. The ball starts to glow a bright orange. Sam starts acting.

She takes out a ribbon and puts her hands in front of her. The ribbon starts to glow.

"Hurryhurryhurry..."

The ribbon starts to change its form. It becomes a bow. Sam takes the bow in her hands and pulls her hand through the space where an arrow should be. From between her fingers comes a golden line that shapes into an arrow. She aims at the glowing ball and fires.

The arrow hits its target. The ball splits into two lost souls. They start glowing again. Sam aims again.

"Oh no you little devils not this time!"

Sam fires another arrow and it hits the other soul. Quickly she charges another arrow and shoots the other one. This one dodges and speeds off. Sam starts running after it.

"Anya, take a jar from my bag and take care of that other one!"

I start to dig through her bag. I find the jar and look up. There's a dragonfly flying around.

Not knowing what to do, I just go with my instinct and try to catch the bug in the jar.

The bug is quick though. It starts flying around me.

I've never liked bugs. Especially the big flying ones.

The dragonfly suddenly aims for my face. I squeeze my eyes shut and clap my hand together: the jar in the other one and the lid of the jar in the other.

The bug gets caught inside the jar.

"OI!"

I open my eyes and see Malice running towards me. She sees the jar with the dragonfly.

"Good job, now where's Samantha?"

"She ran after the other soul that got out..."

Malice curses. Then she looks over her shoulder.

"Kyoto should be here any minute." She looks at me. "You stay right here. Don't let that thing out OK?"

I can't do anything else but nod.

"Right. Now where did she go?"

I nod at the direction Sam ran off to.

"Great." With that Malice starts running.

After a while Kyoto shows up.

"If that jar is closed you can give it to me now." I shakily hand over the jar.

"Alright. So where're Malice and Sam?"

"Sam went after a soul that ran off and Malice went after her."

Kyoto sighs.

"Doesn't sound like Malice told you anything. OK, so here's the deal: we got the souls. They're being sent upstairs right now. Minus the two that got away of course. The local force showed up and told us they were on an assignment at the other end of the country. They said that when they got there they were told that nothing was wrong: no lost souls, demons, nothing! So they head back and heard about the little chaos no one was taking care of."

He looks away and sighs. "Either we have a communication problem or someone's messing with the system." He spits on the ground. "And I highly doubt the first option."

I don't know what to say.

Thankfully that's when Sam and Malice arrive.

"So did you get it?"

"Yeah. A fast little devil, but I got it." Sam grins.

"Don't let it go to your head. I did most of the catching anyway."

"But I shot it!"

"And I caught it. End of story."

Sam pouts. Kyoto turns to Malice.

"Maybe we should head back. We've done what we could."

Malice nods. "Alright, let's go."

~*~*~*~*~

After sinking the bugs to the pool we got to go home. I'm laying on my bed while Sam does some yoga moves on the floor.

"Sam. What was that bow you used at London?"

"Oh that! It's my weapon. Surely you have your own, don't you?"

"..."

She takes her legs from behind her head.

"You don't have a weapon?!"

"No, I don't."

"Then what the hell has Malice being teaching you?"

"Pretty much theory."

"No weapon?"

"No."

"No any kind of training?!"

I shake my head.

Sam puffs.

"Should've known. Well Malice will probably taking it all out on ya soon."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll find out."

She gets up from the floor.

"Well I better get going already."

"Bye."

"Bye. See ya tomorrow!"

I hear the door close. I roll on my stomach.

Malice should've given me a weapon already, why hasn't she said anything?

I sigh.

Guess it can't be helped though. When she decides something there's no changing her mind.

I close my eyes and feel sleep getting closer and closer...

~*~*~*~*~

A hammer breaks another cup.

"Wanna play with me?"

"What are you doing?"

"Playin'. Wanna join me?"

"No. That's not playing."

The girl pouts.

"You don't like my game."

"What game?"

"The same game people play everyday."

"No they don't!"

"Yes they do."

The girl stands up from her chair.

"They break pretty souls all the time. They enjoy it."

She waves at the tea set with her hammer.

"Pretty souls. Like those pretty tea cups over there. All crashed and shattered."

She turns towards the table.

"All shattered."

She raises her hammer and smashes another cup into pieces.

"Why are you doing that?!"

She looks at me with empty eyes.

"Don't play all innocent, you've done it too."

"Done what?!"

"Broken people, smashed them into pieces."

She drops the hammer to the ground.

"And on top of it all you even pretended that you helped them. You didn't help them. Not even a bit!"

She kicks one of the chairs.

"You may think that a sorry will make everything better, but guess what, IT WON'T!!!"

A chair falls down.

"YOU NEVER HELPED US! YOU WEREN'T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED YOU TO BE! YOU RAN! YOU NEVER CAME BACK TO US!"

She picks up the hammer and starts smashing the chair.

"HOW DO YOU THINK IT MADE US FEEL?! TO KNOW THAT THE ONE PERSON WE THOUGHT CARED ABOUT US RAN AWAY AND NEVER CAME BACK!!! IT FUCKING HURT!!!"

She throws the hammer away. Then she turns around, walks up to me and looks at me with tears in her eyes.

"We really thought that you liked us...that you wanted to be with us..." She sniffs.

"...that you loved us..."

"What are you talking about?"

She looks at her feet.

"So you forgot huh...forgot about us..."

Another sniff.

"But it's okay...you'll remember us soon...we'll make sure you'll remember..."

She smiles wickedly.

"And then there'll be only us...no one else...just us...and we'll be happy together...oh we will..."

The girl raises her head and looks at me. The wicked smile hasn't disappeared from the pretty face.

"Won't we, Anya?"

"How do you know my name?!"

The smile grows wider.

"I've known you for years, Anya. You were there for years."

She lets out a small laugh.

"Years of Heaven after that Hell...that's what it was."

"Look, I don't know what you're talking about, I don't even know you-"

She waves a finger at me.

"I know you don't remember us now, but no need to be so rude!"

The smile disappears.

"But don’t you remember anything? Even the tea set? The swings in the schoolyard?"

I shake my head.

"...I see."

She walks back to the table.

"We can wait. We've been waiting for years, we can wait a little longer."

She takes a cup and a tea pot and pours some tea into the cup.

"Want some? This is your favorite, you told me so."

"No thanks."

She shrugs.

"It's not poisoned or anything, I'd never do that to you."

"And why should I believe you?"

Hurt crosses her face.

"You didn't mean that...you said that you trust me..."

"And when did that happen?"

She takes a sip from the cup.

"Answer me."

She's staring at the table.

"...you didn't say please."

"What!?"

She looks at me.

"You always said...that you have to say please...otherwise you won't get what you want."

"Alright. Answer me, PLEASE."

She smiles.

"That's better!"

She gets up from her chair.

"When did I know you?"

She sticks out her tongue.

"Promise me you'll play with me next time and I'll tell you!"

"OK, I promise I'll play with you next time."

"Say it so I can hear you!"

"I PROMISE I WILL PLAY WITH YOU NEXT TIME!"

"Anything I want?"

"ANYTHING!"

"So it's a deal!"

A big smile comes to her face.

"Oh you're waking up soon...don't worry, we'll come to you next time...and remember, you said you'd play anything with me..."

She giggles.

That's the last thing I hear before everything goes black...

--------------------------------------------------

A/N: Hey, another new character! WOOT! lol Alright, the author has two tests tomorrow but had an inspiration and wrote another chapter. Now the author's back is being a pain and she needs to go study.

Simpleplanluver: Lesbians? Well I've thought about it...but I won't promise any lesbian-hotness yet.

Malice: She'll be banned if she writes anything X-rated.
Kaoru: But X-rated wouldn't be that bad, would it?
Sam: *grabs Kaoru* So off to womanhunting we go! ^^
Kaoru: -.-' Someone please get her off me.


And also thanks to mizuki-13 and Zim236 for commenting. Comments always make me wanna write more! ^^


Comments (3)