Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon so please refrain from suing me for writing fan fiction. Thanks and enjoy!
Kari was not sleeping as peacefully in the Digiworld as usual. She'd grown used to sleeping on the ground instead of a bed and would usually be asleep before five minutes had passed.
But that fateful night in the Digiworld was different. It had all started with a terrible sense of foreboding deep inside her. But she kept her thoughts to herself, as everyone else was exhausted from a long day of walking and were about to drift off to sleep.
Everything seemed normal for quite some time after that, but Kari couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. She remained awake long after everyone else had gone to sleep--besides Tai, as he was taking the first watch.
The young girl sighed and rested her eyes on Gatomon. The cat-like Digimon was sleeping. She knew Gatomon would protect her with her life and she loved Gatomon with all her heart.
But then the second occurrence had come about in the blink of an eye. Gatomon was gone. One moment the Digimon had been right beside Kari and then nothing at all. It was as though the gloved cat Digimon had never been there.
And it hadn't happened with only Gatomon, as she soon found out when Tai shouted: "everybody wake up! The Digimon have disappeared!"
"What do you mean disappeared?" TK whimpered, looking around for Patamon.
"Do you see them anywhere around here?" Tai exasperatedly inquired.
Shocked silence settled around the group for a moment before Izzy was thinking aloud: "maybe it's a virus. If that's the case they could be restored." At the same time, confused chatter from the other children.
While Izzy was thinking the situation over Matt groaned and doubled over holding his side.
"What's wrong, Matt?" Mimi queried as the blonde haired boy sank to his knees.
"It's my stomach…" Matt muttered as a thin film of sweat appeared on his forehead. He retched as though about to vomit.
Everybody immediately stopped talking and worriedly watched as Matt coughed and choked. But the next instant he was perfectly fine and getting to his feet.
"OK, what's going on here?" Joe muttered.
"That's what I'd like to--" Tai suddenly stopped in the middle of his sentence.
"Tai? Are you all right?" Sora questioned as the brown-haired boy sat in silence, eyes distant.
Instead of answering Sora's question, Tai suddenly leapt from where he was standing and barreled into Sora, taking the girl by surprise and pinning her to the ground.
Sora screamed in surprise and pain as Tai began forcefully hitting her.
"Tai! What the hell are you doing?!?" Matt shouted.
"Leave her alone!" Izzy added.
Tai paused in brutalizing Sora long enough to snarl: "you're all next!"
Sora struggled to get away or cover her face--do anything to reduce her vulnerability, but Tai was stronger and had the advantage of surprise on his side.
"Lets get out of here," Joe muttered to the five others.
"But--but--he'll kill her!" Mimi desperately whispered.
"Well if we stay here we're all going to end up dead," Izzy reasoned.
"Yeah, something is wrong with Tai," Matt agreed.
"We can't just let him do it, though," TK feebly argued.
Already Sora's screams were weakening. Kari was terrified and didn't object when TK took her hand and led her away from the violent scene.
The group of six walked away and into the forest surprisingly calmly. At least, they were calm until they heard Tai crashing after them. Then it was chaos.
They were running, afraid of letting Tai catch them. Then they came to a fork in the road.
"Split up," Izzy panted. "He can't go both ways."
Matt, TK and Kari took the right path while Joe, Izzy and Mimi raced down the left path.
After five minutes that were little more than a blur to Kari they were running into a cave.
As soon as she stopped running, Kari began shaking uncontrollably. Tears were running down her cheeks that were now a pale color.
"I--I can't believe it," Kari whispered. "I j-just can't b-believe it!"
"It's all right Kari," Matt comforted. "It'll be OK."
TK nodded, wanting with all his heart to believe his brother. But he knew it wasn't OK. Sora was probably dead now and they hadn't done a thing to prevent it. And worse, it had been one of them that had killed her.
He was too terrified to speak. Fear clogged his throat and made his head spin. And something told him that Matt was hurt. And hurt badly, but he was hiding it.
"I'm going to find him," Kari murmured, walking toward the cave entrance.
"Kari, don't!" Matt ordered. "He'll kill you and then when he gets back to his normal self he'll commit suicide."
"No, he won't. He's my brother," Kari replied.
"Stay here," Matt firmly said.
Kari shook her head and backed toward the cave entrance.
Matt sighed before grabbing her and making it impossible for Kari to leave the safety of the cave.
Kari shook with silent sobs at all that had happened. But little did she know it was only the beginning…