"Mommy! Mommy! Theres a monster under my bed." A little girls voice cried out for her mothers comfort on this dark and storming night. The winds cascaded against trees outside the window, practically bending them in half. The rain hammered the sides of the house as shadows danced against the wall. It was almost day break but the sunshine would not be welcoming the happy family that it had said good night to hours before. "Mommy?" The girl cried out again, tears pouring from her eyes the way the rain poured from the sky outside. There was a crackle of lighting and the booming of thunder outside but it did not muffle the screams from inside the house.
~Ten years later~
I woke up to the sounds of my mothers screams from that night ringing in my ear. A cold sweat ran down my neck and fore head as I sat up and clutched the blankets in my fists. "Not again" I muttered to myself while taking deep calming breaths. I sighed and put my hands in my heads. I couldn't believe that it had already been ten years since I lost my mother and my sight in my right eye. In two weeks to be exact, on my sixteenth birthday, it would also be the tenth anniversary of her death.
I pulled the covers back to reveal that I had fallen asleep in my street clothes again instead of changing into my PJs. I slid one socked foot off the bed and onto the floor and then the other leaving a trail of blankets on the floor in my wake. The sound of a tea kettle boiling filled the stale air around me. I rubbed my eyes sleepily. After all these years it was still habit for me to rub both of my baby blue eyes even though it only improved my vision in the left eye.
"Good morning sleepy head." A male voice chuckled as removed the tea kettle from the stove and poured two cups. The man standing before me was one of my older brothers, Issac. Issac was two and a half years older then me; he was a few inches shy of six foot tall and stood a looming heads hight above me. We looked nothing alike and admittedly we weren't even sure which parents we shared, if any, but he was my brother none the less. He wrinkled his brow and frowned when he looked at me. "Ryoko…" He said undoubtably taking inventory of my clothes. "Plase tell me you did not sleep in your clothes again." He said offering me a cup of tea.
I stepped past him and turned my nose up to the tea and took a carton of milk from the fridge. "Okay. I didn't" I said with a smug grin as I put the carton to my lips.
"Hey!" Issac groaned and swiped the carton from my lips before I could take a drink. "Use a glass you pig!"
"Make me!" I hissed back and attempted to fight him for the carton. He pushed me aside with ease because of his muscular physique.
"Get ready for school. If you hurry you can still make your morning classes." He ordered looking at his watch. "I'm walking you there."
"What!? Why?" I said stomping towards our tiny bathroom. "I can walk myself"
"Oh can you? Because the school called again and said you haven't been there in two weeks. I assumed you were getting lost on the way" He said getting ready for his shift. Issac worked at a local supermarket as a manager. I should be a lot more grateful for everything he does for me, letting me live with him, paying for everything, and worrying about me all the time. But. I have a hard time getting a long with Issac, especially ever since our other brother Sasuke disappeared two months ago. I was lost in thought about Sasuke as I brushed my teeth and got ready for school.
I looked in the mirror at the scar across my eye and the cloudiness of my pupil. I parted my midnight black hair to the left in an attempt to cover my eye.I looked in the mirror, assessing my reflection. I could have been pretty or maybe even beautiful if it weren't for the ugly scar that never seemed to fade.
"Come on Ryoko!" Issac called from the kitchen. I left out a huff before pulling on my blue sailor school uniform. I rolled the skirt band up to make it much shorter then it was meant to be and then walked out after my brother. We left our one bedroom apartment behind as we started the day.
We walked in silence for the majority of our trip to my school. I was lost in my thoughts about Issac and Sasuke. I missed Sasuke and I knows Issac does too. Issac was always a little more serious then Sasuke but he was never this hard on me. He always hated that I would skip school but he trusted me to make the best decisions for myself. Lately though he was being much more strict with me. I wondered to myself if he was worried that I was going to disappear the way that Sasuke had. I felt a twinge of pain in my heart when I came to this realization. I looked up at Issac who was walking next to me. He had a determined look on his face and he was starring straight ahead. 'I should go easier on him..' I thought. The next thing I knew we had arrived at my school.
Issac stopped just outside the front gate. "Ryoko" He sighed. "Try to make good choices okay?"
When he said that I immediately got angry and all my previous thoughts evaporated from my mind. "Excuse me?" I hissed. I hated how he acted like he didn't understand why I skipped school; as if he wanted me to just pretend to be normal despite everything that had happened. I pushed past him and walk through the gates without another word to him.
"Young lady, I've never seen you here before. You must be new." A short and overweight man said to me with a polite smile. His hair, or what was still left of it at least, was short and light brown. I knew who he was. "Oh." He said when I looked him in the eye. "Miss Fukuda it is nice to see you joining us today." His voice changed from polite to stern in an instant. This man was our schools wonderful principle, Takenaka and he is a giant pain in my ass. "I realize that you have a lot of health issues. Your older brother informed me that is why you haven't been in school.." He said beginning on another lecture for me.
I turned my head and started to walk away, ignoring him. I didn't have time for his bull shit today and I was already in a sour mood from Issac.
"Hey! Im not done talking to you!" He said starting to follow me.
I started walking faster and due to his poor physical shape and the fact that I am in top physical form I was able to easily out run him. I made my way to my class room and sat down at a desk in the back row, closest to the window.
From the second I sat down I could feel people staring at me. I knew that it was just a matter of time before the whispers started. I hate it but I don't let them know that. Ive heard them all talk about my eye. Iv'e lived in this town all my life and everyone knows what the police say about what happened and it was all over the news when it happened. They say a man broke into our house that night to rob us and my mother foolishly got in his way. He killed my mother and I'm lucky to be alive. I know that none of that is true. My brothers weren't home that night because they were visiting their paternal grandparents. There was no burglar, no man, just a monster. A monster killed my mother and attacked me but thats not the only thing they're wrong about. I'm not lucky to be a live.
The whispers start and the next thing I know a spit ball flies across the room and barely misses my face.
"Hey stop it." A girls voice protests before I can even react to what just happened. The voice was that of Keiko Yukimura. Everyone in school knows about her because she is a straight A student with lots of friends. She is very well liked even though she's supposedly dating a thug. "Leave her alone." She said as she walked further into the room and in the direction of the guy who sent the spit ball wailing at me.
"Uh, Y-yeah. Im sorry." The kid stuttered. He was shaking out of fright but not because of Keiko. Following behind her was the one and only Yusuke Urameshi who was known school wide for skipping class and being an all around bad ass. He was giving a death glare to the guy who had upset Keiko.
The bell rang to signal that class was to begin. Keiko walked over to me and smiled. "You're Ryoko right?" She asked.
I nodded in a signal that she was correct.
"I'm Keiko. Do you mind if we sit by you?" She asked gesturing to herself and Yusuke and then to the desks in front of and next to me.
"I don't care." I said in a quiet but cold voice. I turned my attention to the window and looked outside.'being here is such a waste of my time. I could be out there searching for that monster.' I thought as the teacher began to drone on about something.
Class was, as I thought, a pointless waste of time for me. I continued to gaze out the window in search of something more interesting then the class. It wasn't that I didn't understand school or that I had a hard time learning. School has honestly always been easy for me when I applied myself. The fact that I found it so boring was part of the reason that I never went. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw a black blur pass by on the street below. It moved at such an alarming speed that I couldn't even say for sure that I had actually seen it. That was until I looked a Yusuke, who was sitting in front of me. He was staring out the window but his eyes were fixated on the same spot where the blur had been and he had a serious expression on his face.
The next thing I knew the bell signaling the end of the day had rang. Issac had forgotten that school was ending early today because of a festival in town. I smirked to myself. 'First day I come to school in weeks and its a half day' I gathered my things and stood up. As I turned to leave I saw Keiko blocking my path.
"Ryoko" She said with a smile and clasped her hands together. "Yusuke and I are going into town to meet some friends for the festival. Why don't you come with us?"
My eyes darted from Yusuke to Keiko and then back again. Something about the look she was giving me told me that she wasn't going to take no for an answer. "Well… I…" I started to say, trying to think of an excuse not to go.
"Great! lets go" Keiko said and she grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the door.
'yep, not taking no' I thought and rolled my eyes.
She released my arm from her grip and I walked willingly with them out of the school. I stopped near the entrance gates of the school. Yusuke and Keiko stopped too, surprised. They turned and looked at me.
"What's wrong?" Keiko asked.
"Why?" I said staring at my feet. "Why are you being so nice to me? Haven't you heard what people say about me?" I asked not even trying to hide the confusion in my voice. 'The only reason they could be being so nice to me is if they haven't heard… but how could they not have?' I thought to myself as there was an awkward pause.
I felt a hand grab my shoulder in a reassuring gesture and I looked up to see Yusuke looking seriously at me.
"Hey." He said sternly. "I don't put any faith in those stupid rumors. It's just pathetic people gossiping. I mean, according to the rumors about me… I fight bears for fun and command an army of thugs." Yusuke said with a grin. "Which isn't to far from the truth." He laughed and Keiko came up behind him and smacked him in the back of the head. Yusuke released his grip on me and turned to yell at her. "Hey! what was that for?!" he groaned.
Keiko ignored him. "What he's trying to say is that you need to believe in yourself and let other people get to know you. Oh, and don't believe the rumors about Yusuke.. He's harmless!" She said in such a calm and sincere voice.
I wanted to believe them and I wanted to go to that festival and pretend, for a while, that I was a normal teen age girl. But. I knew I couldn't because of my past and belief in monsters. If they ever found out it would hurt to much. I couldn't let them in.
"Thank you." I said with a bow and Keiko and Yusuke both smiled. "But I can't!" I called out before taking off running in the other direction, away from the school. "It was nice to meet you though!" I called back to them with a wave.
I could hear Yusuke laughing from behind me and saying. "What a weird girl. I kind of like her."
"Yusuke!" Keiko shouted.
