EY YO GUESS WHO FINALLY IS REWRITING THIS STORY! So excited! I'm pumped! My writing has improved a LOT since 2013 so I hope everyone enjoys this version more!

Disclaimer: While many of my own ideas and characters reside in this story, it is all originated from the wonderful and amazing Rumiko Takahashi. God bless her.

Bold signifies POV

Chapter 1: Birthday Surprises

Moriko

I really hate school. I mean, really hate it- and I know I'm not the only person who is filled with dread as soon as the bus rolls into the drop-off lane. I wait until everyone else gets off the bus to stand.

"Bye, Jeff! See you later!" I wave my hand to the bus driver. Bad choice.

My foot slips off the edge of the step and I tumble down to the concrete. I remember that on the way down I grabbed for the railing but only ended up jamming my finger. A few groups of students are laughing, some others are staring in pity. None of them go to help me up.

"Madison, Jesus! Are you okay?" Jeff goes to stand but I wave him off.

"It's cool, I've got a hard head." I grin, painfully. If only it was just my head.

I stand and brush off my clothes. A slight smear of blood on my hand catches my eye. A light scrape. No biggie. I turn and walk towards the high school entrance. I've already lost the interest of my fellow peers. Thank God.

I tend to be pessimistic about school days, but for good reason. I'm known for my bad luck. It's like I have an imp that constantly follows my shadow at every waking moment.

Ha, I'm so funny. When you make a reference to yourself, it's kinda hard to laugh when no one else is there to groan at your stupid joke. I can't wait for lunch.

The hours pass by, too slow for my taste, but they passed nonetheless. I enjoyed choir, but I'm ready for a break.

I wait in the lunch line. Burgers today.

"Fries?"

"Mashed potatoes, please."

I pay and leave to sit at our group's table. My good friend Kelsey is already there. The lucky bastard always gets to the line early.

"Is Tiauna here today?" She asks.

"Yep." I sit next to her, and just like every other day, Tiauna attempts to sneak up behind me.

"Hello, Tiauna." I mutter without turning around.

"Ugh, how do you always know?!" Tiauna pulls out a chair next to me, glaring at me incredulously.

"I'm the 'psychic' friend, remember? I know everything." I snicker.

She rolls her eyes. "God, you sound like my mother."

We all giggle to ourselves. My mood lightens.

"We had a God-awful algebra test to- ugh!" Tiauna wrinkles her nose as she opens her milk. "Spoiled again!"

I shrug. "The usual."

Kelsey douses her burger in ketchup. "What did you expect? A school that has hardly any funding isn't going to care about expiration dates. One lady told me she didn't even know they had them!"

I sigh. "Common sense is at a loss to humanity. We must adapt."

"Pfft, so dramatic!" Tiauna laughs as she tosses a fry into her mouth. "So," She swallows. "What are we gonna do for your bday? Sleepover? Party? Sleepover party?"

I smile. "Probably, in the next week or so. Mom would hate to have the house so unclean when you guys come over. We'll probably have a cleaning weekend."

Tiauna claps to herself. "Okay! Is Kelly coming over, too? I haven't seen her in a while!"

I poke her nose. "Of course, she is silly! Why wouldn't she? She's my best friend!"

She pouts. "And I'm not? You wound me…"

"Hardy har har, Ti."

The bell rings. We say our farewells and go to our separate classes. I head to English.

My English teacher never ceases to amaze me. She's quirky, full of spunk, and is genuinely interested in hearing our ideas of things! We need more teachers like that.

Zack and I talk most of the hour after we're done with our work. When we first met, we quickly became good friends. Sometimes, I wonder if I like him more than that.

We stare at the clock, counting down the seconds till the bell rings once again. Fifth hour. Algebra.

An easy, quiet hour. Lucas and I, after finishing our work, doodle random manga shit on the whiteboard. He's better than I am. I compliment his new character design. He smiles brightly. He doesn't do that often.

Coach Myers tells us to pack our bags. He has to get to the fieldhouse before sixth hour. We leave before the bell.

I wait outside of the classroom next to my algebra class. Computer education. The bell rings and students pour out. I enter and sit at my assigned seat. Eleven. I hate it. It's almost physically painful just to look at it. Sometimes people say I might have OCD, but that's serious. I can't have it. I'm not that bad. Sure, I have to do something an equal amount of times on both hands, but that's normal, right? Sure, I have to step on a crack an equal amount of times on one foot, same as the other, but other people do that, right? Sure I pick at the many bumps on my skin and have multiple intrusive thoughts a day, but that's… No, that's not normal.

My lucky number is twelve. I don't like eleven. A girl named Jessica sits next to me at twelve. I'm jealous. Jacob sits on my left at ten. I'm still jealous. Eleven isn't a nice number. The only thing nice about it is when it's combined with an even number. 22, 44, 66, 88. Nice numbers. But combine it with itself? 121. Not nice.

I screw around on Paint the whole hour. The bell rings. I walk across the school to the buses. I sit in the front, right behind Jeff. I'm slightly annoyed. They changed buses today. It's no longer four.

It's eleven.

I wave bye to Jeff, not turning around this time, as I step onto the grass. The bus literally picks us up and drops us off directly across the street from my house. Lucky me. I sigh at my own sarcasm. You know, you could just stop being so pessimistic if you put your mind to it.

Yeah, but I'd rather not. It's the easiest way to deal with disappointment.

Touché.

I run across the street and start to feel a little better about getting home. It'll be short lived once my family is all here, but while my mom is running errands, I can rest easy. With nothing but our pets to keep me company, I'm happiest. Mom says I'm a recluse. I don't think so. It's just hard for me to like people, and understandably so.

Growing up was rough. I was a punching bag for everyone, even the people I called "friends". They all treated me the same, though. I was always so angry, even at such a young age. Kelly, God bless her, was my first ever friend that I immediately latched onto — and she did the same to me. We had so much in common, so many similar hobbies, skills, and personalities… And pasts. She didn't have it any easier than I did. We both suffered abuse. Hers was mainly emotional, while mine was mainly physical, but we experienced both either way. From family and from our fellow peers.

Even our fights are short lived. I've never had such harmless fights over stupid things, honestly, but I've never been so readily forgiving or forgiven. We both have tempers, and while mine is, at this point, nearly non-existent when it comes to my friends, we know how to talk to each other at this point. Communication can be… Difficult. For anyone.

Our similarities know no boundaries. Hell, we both even suffer chronic pain and are a doctor's worst nightmare!

I smile as I open the front door, greeted by my two small dogs and my kitten, who practically acts like a dog. I give them all some love, talking in my high-pitched baby voice. Surprisingly, for one with as low a voice as I, I can alter my pitch extremely well. Choir has its good points, I suppose.

I stand, walking through the living room to go to Yuki's, my other fairly young cat, favorite hiding spot in the kitchen. Instantly at the sound of my voice, she runs to me, mewing. Despite her weight, she can run pretty damn fast. And yet she gets stuck under my parent's bed all the time. I chuckle to myself as I rub her face. I walk back to the living room and run up the stairs to my room. It took a hefty amount of convincing to make my parents let me have this room instead of my two much, much younger sisters. Hell, it comes with its own bathroom and a stand in shower — what five or three year-old is gonna use that?

I close the door behind me after Dexter, my kitten, runs in. If I left him out there, he'd be screaming at my door. I don't want to bring on another migraine, so I relent. I throw my backpack in the corner of my large room. It was made to be more of a game room, so it's larger than the master's, not that I mind. I flop onto my bed and close my tired eyes. Maybe I'll nap.

Despite my fifteenth birthday being tomorrow, Dad is out of town on a work trip and won't be back until the weekend. A few more days, and then my family will have our annual birthday outing for me, and then I'll have a party with just my friends. My mind drifts on plans for the weekend and I smile. A few more weeks until Spring break, since this is the last week of February. I could use the rest, truly.

With that thought in mind, I drift into a light slumber as always. I'm pretty sure I've only ever entered REM sleep maybe ten times in my life. I'm such a light sleeper that even a slight noise or squeak of the fan could instantly have me jolting awake from my nightly nightmares. I don't have good dreams. Never. I lucid dream, but I can't control them. I can only be aware that I'm asleep, but the hyper-realism still gets to me often. I can feel the pain, and sometimes, I can even remember if I've had the dream before. My dreams always end with me dead, though. Even if they aren't actually me, it's always in first person, and I, whoever I may be, will always end up dead in some way or another.

Hopefully, my luck will give me a dreamless nap.

It didn't.

I wake up with a start, perspiration gathering on my neck and forehead. I look down to see Dexter batting at my feet with his claws. Sadly, I had already reached death in the dream, but the end of it was left lingering at the sight of my failure. I sigh at the memory of the dream. I was in a war. I think I was an American soldier, a man, in an Arabic war, yet for some reason, as I was trying to protect many families, grenades launching at our near-to-collapse 'safe' haven, my own comrades were determined to kill them. And at the sight of my protection, I became one of the enemies. The building collapsed on us. I was able to get out with a small girl. The rest were crushed. I ran with her in my arms, to get her to safety. And I failed. I failed her. I was shot in the head and I fell with her still in my arms. For some reason, we landed in a small water encasement. She drowned in my arms.

Tears burn at the edge of my eyes. I could still feel her terror. I furiously rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. It was only a nightmare! Get ahold of yourself! Breathe!

I sit up quickly, startling the animal at my feet. I stand at the foot of my short bed. No bed frame to hold it up. Just some springs and a simple mattress. A very decent size, though, I must say. I look at my phone to see how long my nap was. Two hours, nearing 5:30. Nearly dinner time, and everyone, excluding my father, is home.

I pick up Dexter and hold him close to my chest to calm myself. I head downstairs, waiting for the girls to come running.

"Maddy! Maddy! Maddy!" Kylie yells and runs to hug my legs as I near the bottom of the steps. She only just turned five. Lucille stays in the kitchen with mom, watching her cook.

Sometimes I forget they're my sisters. Well, half-sisters, considering my mom and dad married just seven years ago. He's not actually my step-dad, though. I'm a bastard child and mom raised me herself as a teenager. Michael was nice enough to adopt me as his own when they married. I can say that I'm grateful, but I could've done without the emotional abuse from either of them. It still irks me, especially considering it continues.

"Oh, you're awake! Can you come set the table, please? I just made some grilled chicken." My mom doesn't turn to look as she finishes cooking our meal.

"Sure, Mom." I set Dexter on the ground as he darts away, likely to go find Yuki and play fight. I open the cupboard and grab some plates and set them at the table. I pour drinks for all of us and go to sit, and I wait.

Part of me just wants to go hide in my room. I'm not hungry. The girl's frantic eyes still haunt me.

Just one piece. I need to eat.

My stomach disagrees, nonetheless. Damn it.

Sleep was uneventful, as it often is. Sometimes dreamless, sometimes nightmares. I only get a few hours of sleep a night. How do I survive? I'll never know.

I get up and get dressed for school. Backpack? Check. Hair brushed? Check. Purse? Check! I grab my bag and purse and slowly make my way downstairs. I stroll into the large, tiled kitchen, set my bags on the table, and open the backdoor. "Daisy! Buddy! Come out!" I whisper towards my parents' room, in the hall next to the kitchen, my sisters' room down a bit further. The two dogs in question come scampering out and bolt for the door to relieve themselves. As the two leave the door, another small animal darts between my feet before I close the door. SHIT!

"Dexter! No! Come back here, cat!" I run out to chase the bastard, slamming the door behind me. I catch up quickly as he rounds the corner to the side of the house. I follow, and I freeze. He stopped at a strange anomaly, one that should not have been there, and never was there.

Where the fuck did a well come from?!

I continue forward and quickly grab the kitten and dart towards the backdoor. I toss him inside and go back out to investigate.

As I near the aged, wooden well, I feel… Something. An odd pull. I inch closer to it, only a few feet away. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I chuckle. It… Looks like the Bone-Eater's Well from InuYasha.

Though, obviously, there's no possible way for it to be that. But despite my doubt, an uneasiness settles in my bones.I suddenly get the inclination to turn around, and a small gasp escapes my lips.

Dad cut down all the trees in our backyard for firewood. We had no trees. Yet, I stare at the giant tree, towering above the houses in my suburban neighborhood. A scar remains at its front.

It looks like Goshinboku?! What the Hell is happening?! I'm dreaming. I've gotta be, but damn, this is the calmest dream I've ever fucking had.

That single thought is wiped from my mind as I feel a searing pain in my side. I feel myself lifted and soon a starry blue void surrounds me. Hands on my face turn, and my blood runs cold.

Her fangs, her Cheshire-like grin, and her near empty eyes are facing me.

A choked gasp leaves my throat as the centipede demon shrieks in Japanese. "The jewel! Give me the jewel, damned mortal!"

WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I-

Panic envelops me and I start to hyperventilate as her face gets closer to mine, my red blood dripping from her mouth. My voice comes back with a force as I scream and slam my hand into her face out of sheer fight response.

I watch as her face is burned, a strange light emanating from the palm of my hand. She screams in agony and is thrown farther away from me into the blue void. I slowly find myself lowered onto a dirt covered ground, and the blue fades.

And then I do what any rational person would do at this moment in time.

I fainted.

A/N: I hope all of my previous story followers enjoy this! Hell, maybe even new ones, too!

I, most likely, will try to update every week.

Hopefully.
Maybe.