Cirque de la Mort= (roughly) Circus of the Death. Not Circus of Death, but Circus of the Death.
Chapter 1- Insert Cheesy Opening
The first thing someone tends to hear is the sound of a parent's voice-or at least it's the sound the first remember hearing. Me? I remember just that - the first time, at least.
It was a fond memory, the only time I remembered my dad singing.
The opposite of those first moments are the last thing one remembers. The lucky ones that live out a full life likely see their loved ones last-even if they don't remember them. The unlucky ones remember something like the barrel of a gun, the glint of a knife, or the grill of a car right before everything disappears.
One thing I've come to know is that this end - death - is not always a finish. The suspicion started with a few anime I loved: Yu Yu Hakusho, Bleach, Angel Beats.
What really drove the theory home was when I actually died myself.
It wasn't anything realy dramatic at all. My house was a two-story place to fit all four children and parents with their parents. I was frequently berated for my speed of running through the house. Of course, nothing had happened yet except for a few bumps and scrapes from my running through the house, so I never learned my lesson.
With the direction my tale is going one would assume I slipped on some tile or fell down the stairs and ended up with a broken neck or an unfortunate too-hard bump to the head. That's not what happened. It's similar, though.
I was running with scissors - no, there was no impalation - because I was going to help my mom wrap presents for dad's birthday. She was getting arthritis in her hand and all of my other siblings were too busy playing video games or being at college.
I ended up slipping on a patch of water in the kitchen that, once again, no one had bothered to clean up because they were either too lazy or didn't make the mess.
I hit the stove arms first and bounced back, landing on my behind. Since we'd gotten the thing, all of my misadventures with clumsiness have failed in even denting the appliance. Though I now had a fresh bruise on my rear end and arms, I climbed back to my feet and began limping towards the connected office with a shout of, "I'm okay!"
By the time I reached mom, she was glaring at me and quietly making sure I wasn't bleeding anywhere.
"I'm fine, momma." I assured with a typical teenage eyeroll.
She shook her head in exasperation and took the offered scissors, beginning her work of the wrapping paper that was going around the new television remote controller (the youngest, James, had lost the other one. We would never find it again) that was in a fantastic flower print.
"Alex, can you go call my mom and ask her to grab some milk on the way back from her meeting?" Mom was speaking to my older brother.
He gave a sure and sprinted out of the office to the living room connected to the entryway.
"Ria, I'm glad you want to help me, but can you please go wake up grandpa?" I gave a disappointed look to mom, but the puppy-dog eyes failed as per usual and I followed my brother in a similar sprint.
I missed a step on the stairs, but recovered with an awkward stumble and took it at only a slightly slower pace to Papa's room.
I pushed the slightly ajar door wider to allow my form to fit through and just barely got a glimpse of the old man's head as he climbed down the fire escape ladder.
I gave a shout and followed him.
The old man was running fast.
"Papa! Momma wants you when you're done escaping me!" I called after him, not even bothering to follow him. I would only get lost - with my luck.
The next few minutes I remembered clearly. I waited a minute outside, just inhaling the smell of nature - it's great when it's not trying to explode my head - and watching the neighbor's kids.
I turned around around and started climbing the ladder, too lazy to walk around front and started back to the office. I was going at a slow pace this time, and I wouldn't think of tripping at such a slow walk.
Well, I did.
It wasn't even over anything.
I tripped on a flat surface and hit my head on the floor because my hands were in my pockets. I gave a moan and rolled over onto my back, my hand bumping into the ancient china-holding case that had a bunch of old family pictures on top. I cursed my luck at having two falls in one day just as I saw a flower vase that had been placed on top of the case recently start to shift.
It was a bit odd that I didn't even try to catch it, seeing as I had a history of volleyball, but I just watched as it fell through the air in slow motion.
Suffice to say, it hit me in the head - the heavy thing - and I didn't wake up from a concussion in a hospital, so I assumed I was dead.
So we go back to my theory, what happens when you die? There's a place afterwards?
Yes.
Where I found myself directly afterwards was what could only be described as a kinda-void. Only "kinda" because I saw a pinprick to the far front and could still register the thought that I saw one. But I couldn't move towards it, I only drifted at such a slow pace it felt like watching a countdown from-like-a hundred hours.
I could move away from it at a much faster pace if I willed it, but that only led me to get annoyed as I got further from the pinprick and had to wait all over again. Being myself, I never learn my lesson and I spent forever walking away from the pinprick at the end of my patience. Eventually I started feeling really cold and my skin was tingling.
At some point the thought registered that I could feel my body parts again, and the further I went from the light, the more I could feel and think and move.
I turned around to look for the pinprick, but could only see it if I wasn't looking at it directly- somewhat like when I used to stare at the light around the doorframe in the middle of the night.
So I shrugged it off and continued my path away, curiosity and dislike of waiting drawing me to the even darker darkness than the dark I saw in the first kinda-void.
It was an immeasurable amount of time before something changed, before I felt something other than myself. It could be a feeling akin to forever, but it wan't forever because forever is the entire length of time that never ends until reality ceases to exist. Infinity.
When I did feel that foreign experience, I felt some form of panic. I tried to move my arms, but they were secured, I tried to shift my legs to be more comfortable, but they, too, were immovable due to outside force.
My back was cold and I felt a breeze in places I usually have clothes. It didn't take long before I got uncomfortable. I began flexing my hands and jaw, the only thing I could really move.
Then I remembered I could see. I didn't like the view.
Above me was a steel ceiling, unnatural lights, a bit of a green glow and a familiar-but-not face that had a scientifically-curious expression that I didn't like. Notatall.
Then my instincts returned at a felt a healthy dose of fear and confusion rising with the tears.
A whimper escaped my throat and I saw surprise flit over the man's expression.
He shouted something over his shoulder and then left my field of vision. I turned my head and what I saw resembled a lab.
A question popped up among the fear.
Is it labra-tory or la-bora-tory? Second? It was spelled that way in Portal.
Then another.
Where's momma? I want momma.
And another.
I want cheetos. Can I have some cheetos?
They followed a strand of emotions, moving in a cycle: curious, childish, normal, sad. Each time it passed, the emotions got more and more intense, and I started feeling pained.
My head was hurting. If I could move my hands, I would be clutching my cranium as if the world was going to end, and I was the cause of it.
All at once, the mounting tension of my screams, the frantic beeping and shouts of the laboratory around me and the pain gathering in my skull all stopped in a blur of colors and light.
I opened my eyes to see trees surrounding me, and exhaustion drove my to go back to sleep without another thought.
-(O.O)-
When I woke up, I still felt drowsy and my entire body ached, not just like "I worked out last week and it still hurts," but "I walked seventy miles uphill yesterday carrying a boulder."
I used a tree to carry myself back to my feet and held the heel of my free palm to push into my eye as ice picks attacked. A hiss escaped my teeth and I stared down at my feet to stop the sudden vertigo.
As the wave of blech faded away, I wiggled my toes and almost blanched at the fact they were a lot smaller than I remembered. I stretched an arm out in front of myself and glared accusingly at the smallnesss of it.
"Why am I a flippin' baby?!" My voice was a lot higher and a heck of a lot squeakier.
"Whyyyyyyyy?" This was me after I tried and failed to somehow teleport myself back to my home.
At this point, I almost rather wake up in a hospital bed, fresh out of a ten-year coma. Now, though, I was a chibi. A skinny, unhealthy chibi who just looked at her reflection a few moments ago.
My eyes were freakishly disproportionate to my face to start with, not even cute at their hugeness. To continue, they were flippin' red to match my now purple hair. My long, previously brown purple hair. I was freaked out by all of this, but the most disappointing thing was definitely the fact I was now, like, five. Not mentally, I was still my smart (not) fifteen year-old self on the inside.
I wasn't really five, that's just an exaggeration driven by my freaked out mind. I was about nine or ten... physically.
After I had calmed down, I sat down by the puddle I'd been using and planted my elbows on my raised knees and my chin in my hands.
This sucks. How am I gonna get home to mom and dad and Chris and Alex and James and...
Stop! I slapped myself across the face and shook myself, driving the thoughts of home from my mind.
At my once again frustrated silence, I heard something. The noise registered as familiar, but I couldn't identify it. I shoved out of a bush that rimmed the edge of the forest (How come I didn't see that earlier?) and landed on the twilight road feet first (ow).
I followed the sound as if in a daze, the fact I had found civilization not registering as significant. The aching in my body was fading a bit as I frantically looked for the sound of the noise that echoed in my head.
I stumbled a bit as I stepped over a slope at a run and spotted a head of unique hair.
Who is he?
The person-it was a child. The sound I'd been hearing was coming through my ears instead of mind this time, the boy was crying.
I slowed to a wobbly walk (ow, ow, ow) and crouched next to him eventually.
"Why are you crying?" I asked him, rubbing his back and looking at the water a few feet away, as if it would answer me.
He sniffled and turned his face to look at me, brown eyes filled with tears and nose running with snot, "Who are you? Are you real?"
I blinked, "If I weren't, I wouldn't be touching you. My name is R-" I paused, my face screwing up as I wondered why my name wouldn't go past my lips, "My name is Neah."
The smile on my face froze.
What the fff-udge, Ria?! Why are you stealing anime names again?!
"Oh, I'm Ichigo." I smiled at him again, torn from my inner issues.
He was still looking a bit sad and confused when I spoke again, "Do you want to tell me what's wrong, Ichigo?"
His face scrunched up and a few more tears started building up again, "My kaachan."
The way he was looking at the river, I understood, "What about your tousan?" I asked, not questioning the fact I was speaking in Japanese rather than English.
"He's at home with my sisters."
I smiled at him and rubbed his back some more, "Do you want to go home?"
His eyes snapped up to mine, pleading me to let him stay.
I nodded and crouched next to him, hugging my knees. I stared at the water with him, occasionally glancing at his face to wonder why he looked so darn familiar.
He eventually fell asleep next to the water and I left, watching him closely from behind a trashcan up by the road. His father came to get him eventually, carrying him home as I watched and wondered why they looked so much like people I knew.
-(O.O)-
I had met the boy, Ichigo, a grand total of two weeks ago. In that time, I had watched him search for me at the riverside everyday. Why didn't I go see him?
Well, to start with, I hadn't acquired any clothes. I then found clothes (ahhh, my morals are shot for stealing) and began begging for food from different places, or I just went hungry when someone would ignore me or refuse and suggest they call my parents.
Still, though, I couldn't face him. The reason he had looked so familiar came up in my dreams. I had decided tentatively that I was in Karakura Town, the very same one that's within the series of Bleach.
I had dreamed about an older Ichigo fighting hollows, people, and otherwise kicking serious butt. Of course, I did some sneaking around and started looking for clues that this was true. It was, oh it was.
Truly, however, I held an irrational fear of changing something merely by interacting with the small child that is currently swinging his head back and forth, looking for me.
I tried to tell myself that I wouldn't hurt anything by merely interacting with him, but the fear was there and it didn't seem like it would be going away anytime soon. I even contemplated the fact that it wouldn't matter if I did change something, and if I was strong enough, than I could tale those changes head-on and not have to worry about the death of a character.
But how do I get strong enough to be on par with the main character of a mainstream anime? What if I can't even see ghosts? What if someone dies anyway even if I do get strong? What if I steal away someones role? What if...?
So I didn't go down and talk to him. I didn't go comfort him and become a new friend. I didn't care enough about someone else to push past my fear.
Until. I.
Did.
A whole two months after I began this new, monotonous lifestyle of watching a boy with orange hair come down to the river (only after he was done with school the last week or two) and search along its length for the young girl his age that comforted him one night not-so-long ago as he was grieving. A whole two months.
It took me that long of long days to work through my thoughts and worries before I decdied I had enough time to learn how to fight, I had enough time to prepare myself before everything really starts. I stepped out of my niche between two buildings and stepped down the slope. I planted my butt right there, waiting for him to show up.
I guess he went to school today. I could've sworn it was a weekend.
As the thought crossed my mind, I heard a shout from my back left. I turned just in time to see orange hair before I was knocked onto my back by a very impressive glomp.
I sat up with a giggle and patted his back awkwardly, before noticing he wasn't the only one that showed up this time. I saw two young girls, one with black hair and the other with orange, and a tall man with black hair and a stubble.
"Ah, hello, Ichigo, sorry I couldn't see you this past while." I gave an uncomfortable cough and felt my face heat up as I tried to wiggle out of his death grip.
"Neah!" I shot to attention, listening raptly as he pulled away with a small smile and pointed at the people behind him, "I want you to meet my family!"
Omake: Stealing Names
Ria was somewhat awkward when it came to social interactions with people she didn't know, so she tended to mess up little things - like her name.
She had just received a new doctor when the question came, "It's very nice to meet you, what's your name?"
Being herself, she twitched and replied, "Jennifer."
Suffice to say, the doctor and her father were rather confused.
The check up wasn't the only time this had happened.
She had been at summer camp and the group was playing ice-breakers to get to know each others names for the week-long duration of their stay. The game was to say something you like that starts with the first letter of your name and then say your name.
It got to her and she couldn't just say it like a normal person, but yelled, "I like Allen and my name is rain!"
The game halted for a moment for everyon to look at her and she played it off as a joke, everyone calling her Rain after that.
-(O.O)-
There concludes the beginning of my rewritten story previously titled "Pandora's Dream". The story is nothing alike, so if you didn't get to read the first version, I wouldn't be too disappointed. There are similar themes I wanted to implement and the plotline will have a few similar scenes, but they will be much better written than before.
Send me a review? This prologue took effort, first impressions are important.
Stay happy and stay awesome!