Hey all! I haven't written something for FF.N in forever! Sorry about not finishing that last one but I really lost the motivation to do it after school picked up but I'm back with a whole new story and crazy stuff is gonna be happenin'! xD There's a couple of really interesting theories I've had buzzing around my head for a bit and so this story is a conglomeration of the crazy ideas I have while I'm awake and a some from my wacko subconscious that makes my dreams. So all around fun times! Anyway, some of the characters aren't exactly like they've been portrayed by other people but that's what makes fanfiction fun. I can do things my way. ;P
Here's the boring disclaimer: I don't own any of the vocaloids but everything else is my idea! Why do we have to bother with these things? It wouldn't be in a place called if it wasn't a fan making it. I'm gonna stop before I get * Pow* ... shot… carry on… bleh… x.x
Color Archaeology
Chapter 1: "Why do you confuse me so?"
Bright. Too bright. The colors were blinding in their intensity. Surrounding me and everything else. Starting to stab into me. Invading me. Pushing me to the edge. Why? This is my body. Why can't I control myself? Have to resist. Must resist. Can't… Hard to breathe… Can't breathe... Can't… fight…
I'd awoken in a start to my dog, Ty, lying across my chest. Me suddenly jolting to consciousness, startled Ty and he ran off to the door for me to let him out. It was no wonder I couldn't breathe in that dream, with his large Great Dane sized body crushing me. Not like it really made a difference anyway. I'd been having the same dream since I was able to even recall having dreams. My therapist said it was nothing and probably a product of my own lack of control of my life and too many movies. Yeah, like that even made sense. Whatever. As I pulled back the covers, I glanced at the clock. Five thirty-six. Might as well get up now for our morning run. I changed into my running gear and sleepily meandered my way to the front door.
Ty, boundless energy bundle that he was, regardless of the time of day, repeatedly bludgeoned me with that thing he called a tail while I laced my shoes up. I hated mornings and I especially hated running so why did I bother with early morning runs? I seriously questioned myself sometimes but this was the only way I could seem to get rid of my anxiety. The medication didn't work and therapists never really did me any good. I needed to be out when no one else was and just be in nature.
I was just stretching, while Ty relieved himself, when I started to feel a bit uneasy. Casually, I glanced around to make sure no one was near me or creepily staring at me. It happens from time to time and hey it's not exactly the safest neighborhood in the suburbs either. The only people around were a person jogging around the corner and a man loading his family's luggage down the street from my small apartment building. I guessed it was probably just the tension from the dream getting to me, again. Time to start on my own version therapy, I decided, as Ty started showing his displeasure for having to wait on me. We started down our usual path to the big tree at the beginning of the park at a moderate pace, getting used to being awake and the strain being thrust unto my body.
Ty's long strides kept me going to try and get him tired since I'd be gone for a larger portion of the day than usual. It was my long day on campus and I'd only have enough time to let him out before work began tonight at the club. We were just about to pass the large tree when a blazing fire arced pain through my skull and left me no escape except to drop to my knees and grab my head to make it stop. The arrays of colors from my dream were back in full force but I wasn't dreaming. Was I? Were those roots moving closer to me? Got to get up. Got to move away from those things and the pain lacerating my brain into slivers. I struggled to get to my feet but it was a futile attempt. Just as I couldn't fight it in my own subconscious, I couldn't manage it in real life. This was it, huh? I couldn't even manage to stand? Lame. I am way cooler than that, right? While I was struggling through my pain to get up, I'd heard Ty cry out like I'd never heard him before. I looked over through my haze to see that the roots had wound around his legs and head, trying to rip him apart like some medieval torture device. Didn't we learn about that in history class? What was it called? Being drawn and quartered? What am I thinking, that's not important! This was not happening. This was not going to happen. I had to get to him. Trying to focus around my own pain, I gritted my teeth and managed to get up into a crouched position to crawl toward Ty. I barely grasped one of the longer roots with my fingers when the tree let out an ear-piercing wail. I closed my eyes to shut it out but when I reopened them everything was seemingly normal again, like nothing had ever happened. Ty was looking up at me, eyes full of innocent curiosity. "Why are we stopped and not playing?" he seemed to be saying without a scratch on him. Nothing was out of place. Was I going crazy for real? When I'd fallen, surely I must have gotten scratched up somewhere right? I looked down. I looked exactly the same as when I left my apartment but just a little more winded… what the hell? Okay, I've lost it. Today was apparently the day I was going to officially be crazy. Whatever. Good a day as any, I suppose.
After my hallucinogenic, mental breakdown-filled morning, I managed to somehow make it back to my apartment and get ready for the chemistry class I had at eight. How I got so lucky to be put into it, I'd have no idea. I should probably stop procrastinating when it's time to register but there are clearly more important things to worry about than signing up for a class a month before I'll even know if I passed the prerequisite course. Who does stuff like that anyway? Ugh. The good news was that Rin, Len and Kaito would be in the class with me. Morning-time Rin was not going to be the most pleasant in the world though. Good thing for us Len knows how to control his sister; lots and lots of bribery.
Before heading out the door, I gave Ty a nice farewell rubdown and grabbed my helmet. I walked over to the parking garage where I parked my sexy pink and black bike. Some would say I loved this motorcycle too much but they just didn't understand. The freedom that comes with the wind whipping past you and no real barriers between you and the open road, it's exhilarating.
Zipping up my matching pink and black leather jacket and putting on my helmet, I straddled my bike and brought her to life. The gravel crunched underneath her tires as I jumped into the morning commuter traffic. It didn't normally take me long to get to campus but I drove around a little longer so I could revel in the power contained in my bike and then parked in my usual spot.
"Hey, Lu, over here!" Len called to me from the corner seat of the lab room. I could see that Rin and Kaito were already engaged in a conversation about which type of coffee drink was the best.
"Why do you still call me that?" I asked feigning annoyance. He'd called me that ever since we had that group art project and we'd all decided to do a gender bent comic of ourselves. "You know I can't call you yours cuz then Rin thinks I'm talking to her. Why didn't we just give them their own original names, right Kaiko?" I laughed drawing Kaito into our conversation.
"You don't remember? By the time we came up with the idea for the project, we only had like a week to finish it. Luka's name wasn't just Lu though. It was … Lu…Luki! Lu was what that girl said we should call her instead. " Kaito replied.
You could tell Len was trying to think back to when we were all in high school. It seemed so far away and yet not at all. A lot had happened when we were all in school together. Len and Rin had been two grades lower than Kaito and I, so we graduated before them. Rin hadn't talked to me much that last year because she was upset to see us leave. She was probably thinking that if we argued and then just slowly drifted apart, that it would hurt less but friends that had been together for as long as us, couldn't just fall apart like that. We wouldn't let that happen.
Len finally convinced her that we were all closer than what she gave us credit for. What really cemented it though was that fact that we all had applied and gotten accepted to the same university, unbeknownst to all of us except Kaito. He pulled us all back together that winter of our graduating year. Right before we left for winter break and before the twin's birthday, he surprised everyone with a slide show of everything that had happened with all of us in the 14 years we'd known each other. I wouldn't admit it to them but I really couldn't ask for better friends.
"… and then she pushed that green-haired girl into that depressing white-haired chick. You know, the who'd bring her dad's alcohol to school and… hey, Luka, you alright?" Rin asked me in the middle of her story, that I apparently had missed all of.
"Yeah. Sorry. It's too early for me. Actually, how come you're all happy this morning? Shouldn't you be the grumpy hungover one?" I teased my best friend. "Didn't you and Len go out partying all night?"
"We aren't all old like you and Kaito so we can go out and still be ready come day light hours." She smugly quipped back at me.
"Hey! We aren't old." Kaito scoffed at the blonde girl next to him. "We're mature and sophisticated."
"Pfft! Yeah right. You went to a knitting convention last year. That makes you as old as the day is long, my friend." Rin replied.
"I only went cuz the cute girl outside said she'd knit me a scarf to match my eyes." Kaito joked sporting the same the very same scarf he was mentioning. "Don't be a hater because I get more attention than you." He said while poking out his tongue in Rin's direction.
"Attention class! Today, we are going to be conducting an experiment on chemical compositions and how to calculate the percent composition of the compounds in the mixtures I'll be putting out for you." The instructor began, quickly cutting off Rin's snippy retort.
"Lucky…stupid…blue-haired idiot…" Rin mumbled to herself while Len nudged her to be quiet. He was busy taking notes on our teacher's mini lecture before we had to begin. It was a good thing Len and Kaito were taking such good notes because I couldn't find it in me to focus on the material today. What was that weirdness this morning? Insomnia could be a factor since I hardly slept more than a few hours at a time. That damn dream kept haunting me… I tried to think back on some of the details. There was something familiar about the way it made me feel… Like it'd happened before… Hmmm.
"… so you guys can go ahead and get into your groups and get started." The professor told us. Guess the lecture was over. It seemed shorter than usual or maybe I was really out of it.
"…sigh…" I remarked idly as I walked over to where the lab coats and goggles were. You wanted to get there before everyone else did or we'd be stuck with the raggedy lab coats. You know the ones that wouldn't stay together without a whole lot of help from your deity of choice? I sifted through the available coats when I noticed this girl with long greenish hair… or maybe bluish… actually it looked kind of teal. I wonder if she dyed it that color. People always thought I dyed mine because of the uncommon pink I had. Genetics can be pretty cool that way. As I was contemplating the naturalness of her hair, she glanced in my direction before quickly looking away. The suddenness of having been caught staring, made me blush slightly so I quickly turned away, grabbed the stuff we needed, and got back to the safety of my group.
"What was all that about?" Kaito asked me with a weird look on his face.
"What was what about?" I replied, pretending that I hadn't just got caught staring at a girl I didn't really know.
"Why were you staring at the Hatsune girl? I know she's gorgeous and all but you didn't really need to be staring that hard." Rin laughed at me.
"I-I wasn't." I whispered harshly and tried not to glance in her direction again. She was going to think I was some weirdo. Great. Add her to the list of people who think I'm crazy which at this point probably wasn't too far off. "Sigh."
"We were just teasing you." Rin continued to laugh at my displeasure. "Seriously though, what took ya so long? Len already got our sample but we can't start yet cuz you take forever with our equipment. I wanna be outta here as quickly as possible. Need to get some sleep soon or get at least sixteen more heavily caffeinated drinks. "
"You should try sleeping. I hear it's good for aspiring college graduates but hey what do I know." Kaito replied. "In fact, you should come over to my place." He said while winking at Rin.
"Like I'd go with the school whore, to try to sleep. You try to have sex with anything that's alive." Rin said trying not to get caught up in Kaito's antics. She'd told me before that she'd had a thing for our blue-haired friend in high school but that was before he'd hit puberty. I couldn't be sure but I think she only liked the more effeminate looking guys now. "It's a good thing all the plants in the corner are fake or I'm sure we'd have to pry you away from them too." We all laughed at the truth behind her statement. Even the teacher giggled a little…and so did she. The girl I had been staring, I mean looking at, was smirking while taking notes on her sample. She looked nice like that; the protective glasses she was wearing suited her much more than the cheap goggles the rest of us were sporting.
"But where would you be without all of my fantastic escapades to guide you through your amazing college adventure?" He joked back in a mock Shakespearean attitude.
"Alright, let's get back to work." I stopped them before we got too distracted from finishing the lab. Things went by normally with the experiment. Lit some stuff on fire, laughed at Kaito's panicky face when he thought his eyebrows got torched off, and repetitive trips to the mass scale to see how much of the mixture's chemicals had been oxidized. Throughout the class though, my eyes were drawn to the teal-haired girl I hadn't much paid attention to before. Our eyes would periodically meet and neither of us would say anything but I got the impression she was trying to feel me out. It was almost as if I could feel her trying to speak to me through just her eyes… like we already knew each other. Weird. Yup, I've finally lost it. Imaginary soul searchings from girls I'd never met or spoken to before.
We wrote down all of our findings and started to pack so we could leave. I collected everyone's lab coats and goggles and was on my way over to put them away when it felt like someone was tapping me. I looked to my left expecting to see Len handing me something I'd forgotten but there was no one there. What in the world? What's wrong with me now? I looked around and everyone was pretty much gone except that girl again. She was staring right at me. Glaring, even. I didn't understand what was going on so I just kept walking to the coat rack when I felt it. Again. And again I looked around to see her glaring at me. Seriously, what was her deal? And why could I feel her looks anyway?
"C'mon Luka! I'm starving! Let's go grab some breakfast and work on these lab questions together!" Rin yelled from the open door of the lab room. When I looked back over to where the girl was, she was already gone.
I shrugged and yelled back to my friends. "Hold on! I'm coming!" I threw my backpack on, grabbed my helmet and jacket, and made my over to go with everyone downstairs to the cafeteria. "So, which ones did he say we had to do? Was it just the odd ones again?" I asked.
"All the odd ones and then do number six too. The other even ones are extra credit." Len said while looking through the available food in the line. He and Rin had a nice little pile of food being created on their tray. Kaito was already flirting with some girls at the front of the line and trying to get one of them to get him breakfast. Not that it was ever hard for him to get his way when he wanted it. I'll never understand how he went from the mild-mannered kid I knew, to the playboy he turned into as he got older. He was still mostly the same despite what he tried to get people to believe.
"Hello there ladies." Kaito greeted us when we had gotten our food. "And Len." He added when Len pouted about being included as a lady. "Please, please sit and enjoy the lovely view." He said while gesturing to the almost full cafeteria center.
"Oh, why, thank you for allowing us to be seated with you, sir." I replied sarcastically and pulled out a chair at the table while Rin and Len did the same. "Why am I friends with you again?"
"Because I'm so charming and good looking." Kaito said while he inspected the breakfast bagel he'd gotten before ungracefully taking a huge bite out of it.
"Oh, yeah. Definitely charming." I deadpanned and decided to start with eating my yogurt and tossing pieces of my fruit salad into it. A comfortable silence came over the table while we engorged on the much-needed sustenance. I let my mind wander to the experiment we had just done and how I could answer the questions we still had to answer. I grabbed my book bag, rifled through its' contents to find my lab manual, and flipped it open to the right page so I could skim over the questions. They didn't seem too bad compared to the last lab. We just needed to finish our calculations and repeat some of the same processes for the questions. Easy.
"The first three questions are almost exactly the same things he said in the lecture so you guys can just copy what I wrote in lab today." Len said when he noticed what I was looking at. He pulled out his notes and manual too so we could work on it together. Rin was probably just going to copy Len's like she always did right before it was due so she took her time eating. Kaito surprisingly wanted to study for his midterm exam coming up next week so he was looking over his notes instead. It was scary to think he was going to be a doctor one day.
Len and I continued to work on the lab calculations together and double-checked them between each other to make sure we had the right same answers. It was always much easier to do these when we worked together because we could split the work. We finished the majority of the lab and decided to work on the other couple of questions later because Rin and Len had class soon. That left Kaito and I to go walk around a bit, before we too had to go to class.
"How's the studying for that genetics class?" I inquired when Kaito looked like he was done with attempting to study.
"I feel alright about it now but there's so much to remember and I'm worried I'm going to just forget everything one it's time for the actual exam." He said after letting out a huge sigh. Kaito and I were in our junior year now so our classes tended to get harder the further we went on. The information from previous classes tended to pile onto each other quickly and we were expected to remember a lot. We kind of lucked out with neither of us having finished our chemistry labs and the twins managed to sneak into our class by sucking up to the guidance counselor. They could be sneaky sometimes but at least it got us to have a class together despite the differences in our majors and our years.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. The twins really have it easy being freshman and taking mostly easy classes." I replied to Kaito.
"I wouldn't say it's all easy but they have us to ask for help on the hard classes."
"That's true. I wish I had our help when we were freshman." We laughed together at remembering how overwhelmed we were our freshman year. There was so much to do and so little time to do everything; Wanting to be on our own but being scared to be on our own.
"Guess we really are old, huh?" Kaito smiled toward me. "At least compared to those two kids. Anyway, I got to head to class now. If I'm late, Professor Fujita will lock me out of the class…again." He managed to almost look ashamed before giving me a smirk and heading down the science hall. "See ya before you head to work?" He questioned.
"Yeah, I got class in a half hour so I'll meet you at the usual around… say 4:30?" I asked him as we started walking away from each other toward our respective classes.
"Sounds good. Don't die of boredom!"
"You too. You don't want to be hit with the eraser for falling asleep in class." I joked him in reference to our old English class together and walked toward the education building.
There was no need to rush so I took the long way around and enjoyed the bustle of university life. There were students milling about chatting with their friends and faculty power walking to their offices. The crisp winter air hadn't quite given way to spring yet and so it was still a bit cold out. I put on my jacket and sat under a tree while I watched the activity. Looking at the other students who had decided to partake in the relaxing atmosphere, I noticed that there was a rather large group of people sitting under the large tree across the great lawn. They didn't look to be people who would normally hang out with each other. I wondered if they were some sort of club or something. When I started trying to remember the clubs we had, one of the people from the group started angrily gesturing to the other. The angry boy actually looked kind of like Len but there was what seemed to be a bandage around his eye and his hair was a touch lighter. The red-haired girl he was apparently arguing with seemed disinterested and continued to pull cherries out from a bag and pop them into her mouth. I tried to concentrate to see if I could hear what they were saying. I thought if I focused over toward them I might better hear them but as soon as I had the thought, the boy abruptly stopped mid-sentence. Suddenly, they all looked toward me and I froze. What was that about? Why were six people all turning to look at me at the same time? Was that girl with them too? So that's where she ran off to. Not that I was wondering or anything.
The girls' intense stare brought me out of my thoughts. Again, I had the distinct feeling she was trying to tell me something. I could almost hear her trying to tell me to go to class. What? Leave and go to class. Class? Why should I go to class? I still had…no time! Looking at my watch, I realized I had about five minutes before class started. I hurriedly gathered all my stuff and made a mad dash to the education building. If I was quick, and I was, I could make it. Before running off, I sent a thankful look toward the girl who gave me a slight smile before turning away to talk to the red-haired girl.
I made it to the doorway just as the teacher was about to shut the door and I silently thanked the girl for telling me I had to go. Wait. She didn't actually say anything and even she did there was no way I could hear her when I couldn't even hear the bandaged guy yelling across the lawn. So… what had I heard then? Was this another product of my insomnia? What was with me today? Maybe I should make another appointment with my therapist. But when would I have the time between work and school? Or the money for that matter. I pondered over the events that had happened with the mysterious teal-haired girl since this morning. I'd never really noticed her before but now that I thought about it, I'm pretty sure I'd seen her around. She was such an attractive girl; who wouldn't have noticed her?
I pulled out my phone and looked through my photo album since this was an easy elective class and didn't require my full attention. Flipping through all the hundreds of photos, I found the ones from Kaito's birthday party. That'd been a really fun night at the club. Luckily for the twins, the boss knew us and snuck them in so we could decorate and spoil our friend properly. We gave him so many drinks he really didn't remember most of the night but that's what you wanted for a twenty-first birthday, right? The two blonde-headed teens kept stealing the camera so there was a lot of evidence of the chaos we caused. There was one particularly great photo of Kaito being dared to make out with a chair. I'm pretty sure that he took it way too seriously but he did manage to make a few people jealous of a chair that night.
While I was busy trying to maintain my apathetic look so as not to draw attention to the fact that I was completely not paying attention to the lecture, I noticed a familiar color of hair in the corner of the photo. I zoomed in and sure enough, there was that girl again. Actually, now that I looked at it, there was the red-haired girl too. She was actually a pretty good dancer from what I could tell from a still photo. I went back to the beginning of the party to see if she had been there the whole night too. Every picture we had from that night had the two of them in it and even some of the other people in that group I saw earlier would appear now and then. That's not weird at all. My anxiety was starting to go into over-drive now. I tried to calm myself over the oddly time events. It was a party. Of course there would be a bunch of people I didn't know or remember even being there. It was at a public club. Keyword being public. I calmed myself before I had another mental breakdown. There was still this weird feeling that maybe those people had been talking about me earlier. How conceited was I to think that they were following me or something? There was no reason to even check any of my other pictures because the idea was just ludicrous… right?
I desperately tried to focus on the lecture so I could ignore my irrational feelings but I kept glancing down to my phone. Its' urgency for me to 'just make sure' was beckoning me. Like a lost sailor following the seductive call of a siren, I gave in to a foolish decision that I hoped would just prove how silly I was being. I scrolled back to the photos of when I'd first gotten my phone back in freshman year. The very first photo was of Kaito and I standing in front of a giant statue of an Octopus, the school mascot, and there on the steps leading to the cafeteria was the very same group of people scattered around. My heart, jack-hammering its' way through my ribcage, was threatening to kill me. This was not happening. I'd been stalked for three years without my knowledge. Was I about to be a victim of some occult murder? How had I only just now realized they were even there? Was I really that oblivious? But if they were trying to kill me, how come they were taking so long and why did that girl seem to be trying to tell me something all day? Maybe things weren't what they seemed to be; they very seldom ever are.
So, here we are at the end of the first chapter. What'd ya think? Questions, comments or concerns? Feedback is definitely welcome. :) I'm not sure what other characters I want to add in yet or exactly what role they could have. I only have the main plot points and a few twists and turns to surprise you guys with so any suggestions you have I might be open to if they don't interfere with what I already have planned. Also, I'm not sure how the formatting looks to you guys because I've had issues with it before so let me know if stuff is spaced apart all wonky.
I was going to try to put up a new chapter every week so you should expect a new chapter probably around the weekend sometime unless I get too excited and post early or lazy and don't get to it. Haha. I need reminders sometimes or I feel like no one really wants me to update. Does that make me a review whore? Hope not… Oh well! :D
I've got my first game tonight and it's a double header! Time to get wasted and play kickball for my bday! xD See you all next week and hope to hear from ya! Laterz!
~~Rai ;P
