Chapter 1

Waking up, a young girl found herself in a completely new place. One; she couldn't for the life of her remember how she got there, nor could she remember anything else. Trying to think back she had a vague, blurry memory of red flashing lights, and somewhere in the distance she could tell there were voices, but she couldn't make out what they were saying.

The next thing she knew she was waking up in this strange place. Just then the young girl was scared out of her thoughts.

"Ano, are you alright?" asked an older lady.

After a few moments the girl decided to answer, for the old woman was starting to look a little worried.

"Yeah, I'm alright. Just confused as to where I am and why I'm here, or how I even got here," she answered.

"Ah! Well if you don't mind coming with me I can explain everything to you as best I can," replied the woman.

The girl was hesitant to go with the woman, but she looked harmless enough, so she decided to follow.

"Come along sweat heart," the woman said as she looked behind her.

As she got up to follow her the lady asked,

"By the way dear, what is your name?"

"Karin. My name is Karin, though I don't remember anything else."

"That's alright dear. No one does when they first get here."

Karin though about it for a bit before asking where 'here' was exactly.

"Here, young Karin, is Soul Society. The place where souls go when their life in the real world is over."

Karin stopped dead in her tracks (A/N no pun intended) with a look of pure disbelief.

"What?! What are you saying? That....that I'm dead?" Stuttered Karin.

The old lady stopped and looked behind her.

"Yes dear, that is exactly what I am saying, and if I might hazard a guess, I would say you can't remember anything other then your name. Am I right?"

Unable to find her voice, Karin just nodded her head.

"Don't worry about that. Everyone is the same when they first get here."

Upon hearing that a thought popped in Karin's head. Though she somewhat feared the answer, she just had to ask.

"Will I ever remember anything?" Her voice was just above a whisper.

The lady, expecting that question already had an answer ready.

"Though you can never fully remember everything, some memories will come back, yes. Though there is no rhyme or reason as to what memories do come back. Some memories can be happy or some can be sad. Most memories that do come back are very strong memories that we had in our life."

The answer was much better than Karin could have hoped for. After fearing the worst what came back ended up being great news.

"Now, my dear, would you like to come home with me? It's not much but I can provided you with a place to stay with fresh clothes if you would like?" The old lady politely asked.

"I would greatly appreciate that, thank you," replied Karin, "and I hope I don't put you out too much mam."

"Not at all dear, not at all. It's been so long since the last time I had someone around. I miss the company, and do please call me Granny."

Upon arriving at Granny's house Karin realized she was starving after all that walking!

"Granny, I hope you don't mind, but I feel like I'm going to collapse soon if I don't get something to eat soon."

At this Granny's eyebrows shot up. Shock clearly evident on in her voice as she spoke.

"Oh dear! It seems to me I'm going to have another one."

"Another one of what? What's going on?" Asked Karin somewhat nervous again.

"Here in Soul Society we actually don't need to eat food. As long as we have water we can survive; however, there are some that need to eat food. Those few individuals that need to eat are ones that have high amounts of reiatsu," Granny explained to a very confused Karin.

"And those few that do have reiatsu go to an academy to become Shinigami," Continued Granny.

At the mention of the word 'Shinigami', Karin's mind flashed an image of an orange haired boy standing next to a short girl with black hair. The image flashed so quickly though she really didn't get to see much else.

"I see," Karin said after she had time to think through everything she just heard and saw.

"If this hunger continues, I would recommend trying to get into the Shinigami Academy, but we can worry about that later. First lets get you some food."