Who was that? Martin thought to himself, as he sat up in his bed. He had dreamt of a girl; she was fidgeting in a large bed, and had wavy, purple hair. The eyes that she opened were her most prominent feature though—the bright red color of them was still in his mind. Still, what puzzled Martin was how familiar the figure was to him. But there was no way he could have known her—the only girls he knew that he was close with were Renko Usami and Maribel Han. They were his closest friends—and to tell the truth, they were his only friends.

Martin turned to look at his clock and shot up, "12:43 already?" He exclaimed. "Damn it I'm going to be late!"

And in fact, when he woke, he was already 13 minutes late; late for a meeting with Renko and Maribel at the park. Martin took a quick shower and shot out of the door—his hand wildly shaking his dark blue hair around in the hopes that it would settle nicely.

"Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!" he yelled, running as fast as he could. Luckily his room was on the bottom floor of the apartments, and he waved to the elderly landlord as he zoomed by. The landlord had found Martin passed out in the park four years before. She took him in, as he had nothing—no family, memories of his past, and no possessions except the clothes he was wearing. The landlord eventually became a sort of grandmother figure to Martin, letting him stay in a room, and helping to support him financially.

He was not even halfway to the park, when he had to stop to rest. While Martin was a fast runner, his unnaturally low endurance usually rendered his speed useless. When Martin finally reached the park, he was 43 minutes late of their arranged meeting time at 12:30. He spotted Renko and Maribel sitting on a bench under a tree. It was the middle of summer and the two were out of college for their summer break.

Martin had met the two while exploring the areas around Kyoto, where they all lived. Maribel and Renko were investigating a building that was recently reported to be haunted, when Martin decided to check the same structure out.

"Hey Renko, you think that was a ghost?" Maribel asked as Martin opened a door in a room close to where they were.

Renko thought. "Hmm…Maybe it was, but then again, there are other people who probably want to investigate this area too…"

Renko and Maribel walked over to exit the room they were in, stepping on a loose floorboard along the way. The creaking sound echoed through the building, setting off Martin's fear of ghosts. He sprinted through the building, knocking things over, finally catching the attention of Renko and Maribel. The two rushed out of the room, intent on capturing the source of the noise. All they could see was a shady, figure running from them.

"We've almost got the ghost, Renko!" Maribel yelled to her best friend, as Martin began to slow down. They were on the second floor of the building, and as Martin got ready to jump the stairs, he fell down them instead, landing with a thud. The two girls took gave one last burst of speed and took a look at their prey.

"Well, this isn't a ghost…" Maribel said, disappointed.

"Yep, looks like it was just another explorer…" Renko announced, helping Martin up. "So, what's your name?"

"Martin" he answered

"So, Martin…" Renko began slowly, trying to get a hold of the character of the man in front of her. "Are you into ghosts?"

Martin's heart began to race, "G…G...Ghosts?" He stammered.
"Well that looks like a no." Maribel discerned. "But do you like supernatural or weird things? Because we're in a club for that sort of stuff…"

In the years he was in high school, Martin was labeled a weirdo, and thus never had one acquaintance, and was disliked by everyone. So when he met Maribel and Renko, the three weird people struck an odd friendship started by a reluctant "Yeah…" from Martin.

"Well it took you a while to get here." Renko said as Martin walked over. "And as usual, your hair is all messy."

He was out of breath and was sweating "Sorry, there was a bit of a holdup"

Renko raised an eyebrow "Well from the looks of it, you got tired again from running here didn't you?"

"Uh, well….Hey, was Maribel up all night?" Martin said, quickly trying to change the subject. He took a seat next to Renko, who began fanning herself.

"That wasn't the smoothest topic change, but yeah, she was trying to set up our next club trip." Renko answered, looking over at the sleeping Maribel.

"And where are we going this time?" Martin asked. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know, but was curious about it too. A slight breeze blew, throwing Maribel's blonde hair over her face.

Renko gave a sigh of relief. "Some place that reportedly has a disease floating around that causes the inhabitants to become psychotic when under stress. I think it was called Hinazara or something."

"I don't think that sounds very safe" Martin declared. He decided to let them know about the weird dream he had that morning about the girl. He had nobody else to tell, anyway. But as he opened his mouth to tell them, a gust of wind came by, sending Maribel's hair fluttering, and Renko's hat flying to follow the wind.

Martin got up. "I'll get it." He said, waving Renko off. He ran to follow the hat, which kept going as the wind kept up for an unusual amount of time. The hat settled on the branch of a tree; he stopped and rested before trying to climb the tree though—following the hat was exhausting. After multiple, unproductive tries, Martin finally got a hold of the branch and pulled himself up.

He spotted Maribel and Renko who were quite a ways off, but he had taken too long and the thin branch snapped under his weight. Martin tried to grab the hat, but snatched air instead. As he fell, he caught a glimpse of the sleeping Maribel fidgeting on the bench, and Renko slowly turning her head to see what was taking so long. He waited for his feet to touch solid ground, but the expected impact was delayed—a portal opened like a zipper to a bag below him, and Martin landed on his side to darkness.

However, it was not absolute darkness—there were thin slivers of moonlight peeking through what looked to be…A bamboo forest? Martin looked up from where he fell, and the portal was closing; the last thing he saw fromKyoto as the portal closed was a brim to a hat, and a white bow, slowly drifting down.