Chapter One: The silly tourist girl who couldn't read the signs… and the demon who has deep emotional issues and some misdirected rage

Evie was internally conflicted. She had spent the last three weeks vacationing in Japan from America and even though she was home sick like crazy she didn't want to leave just yet. Her time in Japan had been absolutely perfect, the weather was cooperating and the historical sites were beautiful, and now she was faced with the reality that she was headed on a plane back to the States tomorrow morning. It was gut wrenching but Evie was also very excited, hence the inner turmoil. She woke up early on a late summer day and yawned deeply while stretching on the bed of her hotel room. The sunlight had escaped through a crack in the window shades and she rubbed her eyes then opened them to greet the morning light.

Evie hopped out of bed and went straight into the bathroom to get her business done. Once she was finished she washed her hands and her face then looked in the mirror. She regarded the person staring back at her, the dark blonde curly hair, the slate blue colored almond shaped eyes, the fullness of her lips, and the pale color of her skin that was slightly sunburnt from poor habits of not wearing sunscreen regularly. She obviously stood out like a sore thumb in the crowd, even being of Swedish descent she couldn't help but to feel a very strong connection to this particular land and culture. Evie decided to take a shower and pack her bags for the impending flight home. She was going to enjoy the city one last time before heading out early the next morning and she really wanted to make the most of her last day in Japan.

She decided to wear some functionally clothing, just a tee-shirt and some shorts with tennis shoes, nothing fancy of course. Evie then gathered all the necessaries in her purse and set off to get some coffee and breakfast. Evie had preemptively booked a tour that would shuttle her and other around Tokyo to see some popular places and historical sites, including shrines, this she thought would be the easiest way to get to mostly everything before she left. The day seemed to be full of hope and adventure, the weather report said that it was supposed to be sunny all day, her first indication was the sun symbol on the television, which made Evie excited, nothing was going to get in her way. She walked over other favorite little cafe and tried to communicate with the employees. Even though she had been in Japan for about 20 days she was no better speaking and understanding than she was when she first arrived. She was never good at learning other languages so she constantly was fumbling around with her English to Japanese/Japanese to English Dictionary trying to find the right words to say.

After her breakfast she strutted along the busy streets to the location of her booked tour of the city's historical sites, it was a huge double-decker bus with bright red and yellow colored words on the side, mostly a form of 'hello' in different languages. The tour group was consisted of a variety of different types of foreigners, some from Germany, some from England, others from parts of South America, or so she suspected from what languages she heard spoken. They loaded all twenty or so passengers onto the bus and everyone was given a headset that has a prerecorded tape and a enthusiastic tour guide pointing at things outside. They were to make three stops for an hour each to view some of the historical sites, which Evie thought was a nice way for her to stretch her legs. Just after one in the afternoon the group had stopped to get a preplanned lunch before the last and final historical site, and Evie decided to take a walk around the block because their break time was pretty substantial and she enjoyed wandering off ever so slightly. She was naturally curious and couldn't stand staying in one place for too long.

Evie passed around a busy corner and from her periphery she saw a staircase leading up to an old shrine. This caught her interest almost immediately, it wasn't one that was listed in her tour group but Evie decided that she was adventurous enough to march forward and head up the steps. There was a sign on the tori gate but Evie couldn't understand what it meant, it was slightly worn from the weather so she figured that it juts meant that the shrine was open to visitors. She climbed what seemed to be like two thousand and one steps before she huffed and puffed her way to the top. She caught her breath and looked around. And honestly all the shrines looked the same to her untrained eye. She did notice that there was a giant fenced tree. Evie thought it must have been old to get to get to its current massive size, it also gave her a weird feeling, like the tree was watching her. She gazed at it for a second then scurried off in the opposite direction. There was the main shrine, beautiful in every way, but then she noticed a smaller shrine that also had a sign attached to it, maybe the same one maybe not.

Again, her interest was peaked and she briskly strode over and pried the heavy door open. It was dark and kind of cold and Evie found out that it was just a giant cover for a dry well. Why would they build a shrine over a well? she thought to herself. The question rattled around in her brain as she completely but absentmindedly bypassed the rope with the third sign that she couldn't read. She went down the steps and cautiously walked up to the well and looked down. First she saw nothing but darkness, it wasn't super bright in there anyway and it gave her the creeps, more so than the tree gave her. All of a sudden she felt like she was trespassing, like she was seeing something that shouldn't be seen. But there was nothing at the bottom. Nothing at all. She let out a sign of anxiety and closed her eyes for a moment. She knew she would have to head back soon, she didn't know who much time had passed since she wandered off from the tour lunch. When she opened her eyes something bright caught her gaze, but it was at the bottom of the well. She stared at the shiny object and it was getting larger as she looked. Evie didn't know what was happening but she instinctively wanted to touch the shiny thing. She held out her hand and reached for the object, lost her balance and piloted head first into the well.

Instead of crashing to the ground Evie felt the sensation of floating. She was consumed by the blue light and she felt an immense amount of pressured being fired onto her. What the hell is going on? She looked around and a bright yellow light was shining in the distance. Evie tried to move toward it and suddenly she was lying on her back gazing at a brilliant rural starry sky. It was so beautiful, Evie had never seen the stars so pure, so magnificent, and she was almost brought to tears. She started moving her fingers and toes, then her elbows and knees; everything seemed to be working fine now. She stood up and stretched her limbs wide and deep, she squeezed her hands into a fist and noticed that something was in her right hand. She opened it and there was a beautiful pearl necklace with a blue stone pendant attached to it. Then a sudden overcoming feeling of horror swept over Evie.

She looked up around her and she was inside the well, but where was the shrine? She struggled to climbed up then sat on the edge and thought, what the hell happened? Why is there a meadow and forest here? Am I still in Japan? She had no idea why things were so bizarre. I must be knocked out somewhere dreaming this right now; there is no way that there would be a transporter in a Japanese well shrine. She thought that she had suffered a major blow to the head and she was so out of her mind, Evie thought she was hallucinating pretty hard. Evie regarded the sky and saw that there was a full moon with a slight blue tint around its edges, but it was the middle of the day when she entered the shrine. Things were more unusual than she initially thought and noticed a small shiny gray dot that was growing in size, then it suddenly produced a bright light like a star and it was glimmering. There was also a thunderous roar accompanying, it was getting closer and the sound was getting louder by the second.

Evie's instinct told her to flee into the forest for protection. She clutched the necklace and scrambled to her feet sprinted into the cover of the trees not caring if she had any of her things that she brought with her that afternoon. She was running for her life, but she didn't know what she was running from. She didn't have any proof the gray shiny dot was going to hurt her but she was on autopilot. Evie heard something move behind her and she darted to the right and toppled into a clearing. The first thing Evie noticed was the tree from earlier, but it was in this forest.

Evie thought something definitely was fishy here, what the hell was going on and what the hell was she running from? She stood up, turned around and suddenly was trapped by a large powerful hand, which was wrapped around her neck pinned against the strange tree. The attacker slammed her head on the trunk and she was having problems seeing, her eyes were heavy and her vision was blurry. The necklace feel from her hand to the ground, going unnoticed by her assailant. A man was yelling at her, she couldn't understand him but he was also tightening his grip on her neck, she couldn't breathe and she started to struggle for air. Her eyes shot open and all she saw were brilliant golden eyes staring at her with intensity, she still couldn't see very well. He began yelling at her again but she still couldn't understand him.

"I don't understand you!" Evie gasped as she put her hands in his, trying to loosen his grip. He jerked her around and held her higher and tighter still yelling furiously at her. "I don't understand anything that you're fucking saying!" Was she really going to die like this? He shook her and bashed her against the tree again.

She was losing all her will to fight for her life and she was losing a lot of blood in the process. He just kept yelling the same thing and smashing her against the tree. She glanced at him, he was tall, handsome and alien almost. He wasn't human, but he looked human. He had long silver hair, gold eyes, pointed ears, purple stripe markings on his face, a fluffy shoulder scarf-tail thing, Chinese looking armor, and two swords. One of the swords was twitching, she was captivated by it even in her moment of near death. She made to touch it with her fingers and it flew out of its sheath straight into her hand. There was a violent reaction the moment her fingertips touched the handle of the sword, bright white light engulfed the blade and then all the energy exploded from it sending a wave of thunderous wind straight into the strange man's chest and into her own.

Evie was then consumed entirely by the darkness.