Chapter 1 – The beginning

Chapter's music – Help, I'm alive by Metric


The woman was walking, shoeless and alone, through the shadows. She could feel the wetness under her fingers and the cold temperature was rising the fine hairs in her arms. Nonetheless, she couldn't use friction to warm herself, fearing to lose the contact with the wall in that world of abyss, because, right beside her, the passage ended in an abrupt cliff, surrounded by shadows, with a fatal fall as the only ending.

Her heart was hammering in her chest, her hands were cold and wet, her burrows furrowed in concentration, while her eyes tried to discern anything in front of her: any ray of hope or light that would help her saving herself from this dooming set. And then, she felt it, the missing rock under her foot, the emptiness of air under her searching toes, the slip of water… And she felt her foot lose the track she was walking over, sliding through the passageway, gravity winning over her body, making her fall into the darkness. She didn't scream; she was too shocked for that and when reality caught up with her, she felt her eyes opening and a grinning face with spiked hair, smiling down at her from a higher position.

The sunlight was almost blinding after the dark and oppressive atmosphere and she felt her eyes water quickly at the sudden changing.

"Hi mommy!" the boy said, seeing the woman with her eyes open. The woman suppressed a sigh of relief and felt her breathing calm down at the sight of her child.

"Katsuo!" she exclaimed, returning the smile with quivering lips. The dream felt so real that she was still scared of that fall. "What are you doing here?"

The boy jumped from her eyesight and the woman realized she was laying in her bed. Sitting up, she pulled the covers away and looked around. Everything was at its rightful place, but she couldn't stop herself from feeling something was not totally right, like something was amiss. Shaking her head to get rid of those thoughts, she got up and grabbing her son under his armpits, brought him against her chest.

"Where is daddy?" the woman asked, while the boy played with a lock of her hair.

"Downstairs, using his computer as a pillow…" Katsuo giggled when his mother sighed.

And, when they finished their descending, they really found a man asleep over his laptop. He was surrounded by piles of archives in peril stability, while his soft snores filled the, otherwise, silent living room. The window's curtains were open, illuminating the disarray of the place and the man's shocking hair color.

The woman sighed again and with a small smile tugging at her lips, she winked at her son and pointed to the sleeping man. The boy grinned and slowly grabbed a handful of his father's orange hair and pulled softly. The man grumbled and with a wondering hand tried to push the distraction away. Mother and son giggled softly and the boy kept pushing harder and harder until the man jumped to his feet, looking around with murderous intent.

"Hi baby!" the woman said, with a not so innocent smile.

"Hi daddy! Did you sleep well?" the boy asked, while his mother let go of him. The boy steadied himself right beside his mother's leg and waited for his father to regain his senses.

The glare on the man's face disappeared instantly when he found those two grinning faces and looking around, to the mess over the table, he blushed. He scratched the back of his head, trying to hide with the end of his foot a huge pile of files, under the dining table.

"I already told you not to overdo yourself! Do you want me to make you a curfew like Katsuo's?" the woman asked, with her hands in her hips. Katsuo giggled, imagining his daddy being commanded to go to bed, like he was. The older man frowned at his son, while the boy's smile grew wider.

"You're spending too much time with grandpa…" the man sighed, while closing the distance between him and the rest of his family.

"I'm sorry… but this case is taking more than I thought it would…" he said, while pressing his forehead against his wife's. The woman grabbed his hand and squeezed it. He felt her warm breathe against his lips and had to control himself before he grabbed her and made a run for their bedroom. The child between them wouldn't find that really funny…

"Ichigo…" the woman whispered. "Please, stop being Chief Kurosaki during this weekend…" and she didn't have to say any more for his face change to a guilty expression. He knew what she was thinking, and that was part of the reason he always emerged himself in work during this time of the year. He knew it wasn't fair for his son, but, in the end, he could always swallow that lump of pain, smile like a proud father and play with his son like there was no tomorrow.

"I promise, Orihime… This was the last minute during the weekend that I thought about work! Tomorrow will be perfect!" Ichigo replied, watching through the corner of his eye the observant expression of their son. The boy was following their conversation, trying to pick up what would be his surprise this year. When no one talked about it, the boy pouted, crossed his arms and huffed an annoyed sigh. Orihime locked her eyes with Ichigo's and they smiled inwardly.

June 17th would always be a challenging day for the Kurosaki family. It was their saddest and happiest day, when Masaki left, when Katsuo came. But thanks to that small ball of energy, the wounds that that day brought were starting to heal, slowly, but steadily.

However, when Orihime, after her son's birthday party, snuggled under the covers on her bed, laying her head over Ichigo's muscular chest, her tired mind made the woman return to that dark place once again. And even knowing that it was a dream, in the back of her mind, her clouded thoughts couldn't let go of that feeling of desperation.

Worse, she knew it wasn't the first time she dreamt of that. The dream had a sense of déja-vu, like she had walked through that path countless times, fell countless times and died countless times… Decided to understand that dream, she started writing in a journal whenever she had those nightly visions, describing them until exhaustion.

The dream evolved during the subsequent years, first she could only feel her own presence, then a man joined her, with his hand intertwined with hers, standing between the abyss and herself, then a child made his appearance, yelling at distance and for last a baby, wailing beside the wall of shadows… However, it looked like her mind was trying to suppress those visions, because, if it wasn't for her words in that journal, she wouldn't be able of remembering the scenes mere days after them… And after three years of reading her written passages, her mind came to a conclusion: June 16th, June 17th, June 18th… Those were the days when she would dream that strangely real nightmare and that deduction brought her a sense of foreshadowing, like she could feel that ball of energy starting to slip through her fingers, disappearing in a cloud of smoke and fog… behind those overpowering shadows…


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