Revenge

Chapter One: Earthling Life

Hitomi had always had a hard time paying attention. In high school, she was always distracted in classes; her mind had often wandered to track, to Amano, to crossing that eleven-second mark. In college she could never stop thinking about Gaea. She drew the faces of her friends on her notes. She always chose a seat close to the window so that she could gaze out at the sky and imagine another planet floating there: a planet that looked very much like Earth.

She had barely missed graduating with honors. Despite the state of the economy, she earned a entry-level position editing short stories and novels for a large publishing firm. She didn't like to be alone, and unlike many of her peers, chose to share an apartment with Yukari, her closest high school friend. Yukari was doing secretary work in the same city, and they decided living alone would be too sad.

Yukari was the only person whom Hitomi had told about her travels. Yukari had listened to her whole story, and sat quietly for some minutes afterwards. She said to Hitomi, "If I didn't have this nagging feeling like, 'I know that from somewhere! It sounds so familiar!' I might not believe you. But some part of me remembers you disappearing, even though we know that it didn't happen. Part of me remembers how worried I was about you, after that dragon almost killed us—and then you were went up in a bright column of light. But I know that none of it happened." It was a puzzling mystery. No one else had any memory except Hitomi; Yukari just had a faint inkling of what had occurred that night on the race track. She hadn't even bothered to tell Amano, and then he went away for the rest of high school.

Hitomi was staring at the company letterhead on her notepad when the lead editor coughed in her direction. Startled, she almost tipped her chair. He was giving her a stern look. "Kanzaki, we need you to be here with us. This is your book we're talking about. We need to get the preliminary edits to the author, so he can move forward." She missed track. She missed the days when she didn't have to worry about her performance affecting her cash flow.

"Yes, sir." She jotted something down on her notepad to look busy, but what she wrote was nothing but gibberish. "I'm sorry sir, I'll have my section finished this afternoon." Her cheeks were hot, and she wondered if anyone else in the room noticed. The other two editing assistants looked grateful that they weren't caught spacing out.

The lead editor's expression transformed into a wide, fake smile. "Great! Let's move on, then." There was a hint of threat in his voice: pay attention, or you won't be getting that promotion at the end of the year.

Hitomi thought less and less about Gaea with every month that passed. She was almost twenty-three, and Yukari had just gotten engaged. Soon, she would be moving out. Hitomi could either find a new roommate, which was unlikely in a society of people that forced themselves to live alone, or move to a new place where she could afford the rent by herself. That promotion wasn't coming soon enough, if it was coming at all.

In the evenings, Hitomi went to the obligatory after-work pow-wows at the nearby bar and restaurant. It was expensive, and she didn't even like to drink very much, but she knew she had to make a good impression on the second-in-command to move up in the world. She could only go running on the weekends now, because she rarely got home before eight or nine every night of the week. She made those days count, and occasionally snuck into the nearby middle school to practice her dash on the track.

The assistant editor, Eri, reminded Hitomi of Millerna: a hard-working woman with unrealistic ideals. She was beautiful and a little haughty, but she had a good heart. Having drinks with Eri and discussing her desire to change the world was painfully nostalgic. Hitomi often went home afterwards and spent hours gazing at the pure white feather, encased in glass, that sat on the end of her desk. She kept her tarot cards hidden away, and rarely looked at them out of fear.

On a cool evening in November, one month after a peculiar meteor storm, Hitomi and Yukari were getting ready for a miniature track reunion. A couple of students from their year had kept in touch, and the old high school had agreed to host a small party for them. It was a long way to go for the two women, so a friend offered up her couch and floor so that they wouldn't have to go home until the next day. It was a Friday, so Hitomi had happily refused to go with her coworkers to the bar.

They rented a car, packed up their old track uniforms, and went on their merry way. Hitomi and Yukari talked about everything relating to high school: how only one senior boy had heard from Amano after he left; how their coach once told Hitomi that if she could just push off the blocks rather than walking off of them, she might be a Japanese running star; how things had inexplicably changed after Hitomi came back from Gaea, even though it seemed like nothing at all unusual had happened. Yukari often had to reassure her that it hadn't been a dream, even though she had no proof to the contrary.

Nine other members of the track team their junior year showed up. Their coach had retired not long after they graduated, but she came anyway. They took out the blocks and a couple of the girls had a race, which ended with everyone laughing uncontrollably at their incredible fifteen second runs. The boys went next, and were far less embarrassing, the fastest of them scoring a twelve.

"Hitomi!" one of the other girls called. "You were the best in our year, you should go next!" Everyone cracked up at the idea. Yuusuke, who had won the last race, suggested they go head-to-head and see who had kept in shape the best over the years. It was obvious that they were the only two who still exercised regularly.

"All right," she agreed. "But if I lose, which I inevitably will, none of you are allowed to make fun of me."

"Aww!" Yukari cried. "That's the best part!"

Thankfully, Hitomi's shorts still fit, because she had forgotten to bring any other workout clothes. When she was ready, her old classmates lined up the two blocks and held up their stopwatches.

She couldn't help thinking how surreal the track looked then: the same as it had always been, with big lampposts all around the edge, a wide set of bleachers, and an astro-turf field in the middle. She remembered sitting at the top of the bleachers and cheering her friends on. Of course, she remembered that night when a pillar of light dropped Van on the track in front of her and she plowed into him, beginning the adventure that changed her entire life.

Yukari was standing at the finish line, giving her the thumbs-up.

"Ready?" Hitomi nodded her head, staring intently down the track. "One, two, three, go!"

It didn't feel much different than practicing. She shot off the blocks and felt the familiar shock in her thighs. Her muscles throbbed with each long stride. She had a fleeting thought that she hadn't worn the best shoes for this kind of thing.

When she ran over the finish line, she finally realized that Yuusuke had long fallen behind. He crossed the end point after she had already bent over, her hands on her knees, inhaling deeply.

"Wow," Yukari breathed. "Barely under ten seconds." The others were whispering, amazed. Yuusuke came up beside her and patted her back, telling her, "You totally kicked my butt. I can't believe it. Amano would be so proud of you."

Hitomi laughed. Yukari joined in. Eventually, the entire group was cracking up, in disbelief that one of their number could actually run better now than she had in high school.

---

Hitomi gave Yukari the couch. "I'm going to be out for a little bit before I go to bed, and I don't want to step all over you." Her friend didn't mind getting the better spot. Yukari was already in bed, half-asleep by the time Hitomi left the house for a short walk.

Nighttime was sometimes the hardest, when she looked up at the moon and saw the faint glow of Gaea hovering behind it. She always wondered if it was just in her imagination: did I really go there? Did I meet all of those people? Did I witness one of the greatest wars in history? Did I really fall in love with Van Fanel, the king of a quiet country surrounded by dragons? It seemed like the silhouette was taunting her, not quite real, but not quite imagined—just like her journey there that had been so real, but became nothing except a long, strange dream.

Their friend lived on a quiet street not far from where Hitomi had grown up. The neighborhood was quiet; the houses were nicer than the one she had lived in throughout high school. The lampposts shed a soothing yellow light over the sidewalk. She heard a cat cry from a backyard, but she couldn't see it. They were further from the big city and the sky was clear, so the stars shone bright. One of them fell when she was looking up.

Hitomi walked until she found a park, and she sat on a bench under one of the streetlamps. It was a smallish park: there was a small grove of trees off to her right, and a pathway that crossed the grass, lined with little wood benches. It was past midnight so she didn't see a single other person, except…

She realized that somebody was coming across the street. Wondering what she would say if the person was a police officer, she quickly stood up so that she was properly lit. The person across the street immediately stopped moving.

"Um, hello?" Hitomi called, her voice cracking. There was no response, and the figure did not move. She no longer worried if it was a police officer, but a mugger, or something worse. "Hello, who's there?" She tried her best to be polite, hoping it might save her from an assault.

Finally, the shadow moved, coming over the corner and into the lamplight. He didn't look familiar at first, but Hitomi realized that he had simply cut his hair. Allen was dressed in somewhat average clothing: a button-up shirt, a brown jacket and slacks.

Her tongue stuck in her throat. Her imagination never tried to fool her, so she knew she couldn't be making him up. She closed her eyes, waited, and then opened them again; he was still there, watching her with a blank expression. "A-A-Allen," she managed.

"Hello, Hitomi," he replied.