Mizuki time!
"What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?" I pace back and forth in my hotel room. He basically implied he had Mia, that sick bastard-I should be lucky he didn't kill me right there on the spot, how was I supposed to know that I was going to absorb everything from that Chaos Emerald? "Yuck, I still can't get the taste of rocks out of my mouth." I'm also lucky he didn't kidnap me either but what's he going to get out of Mia? She's like a baby compared to me and Risa, does he need her for some sick vampire ritual? If he's hurting her in any way I'll go find him and give him a beat down. Then again the last time I saw him, he was pretty pissed about me permeating the power from the Chaos Emerald, he wouldn't hold back on me- it's still a miracle he didn't kick my ass. He just left me there and I almost got caught by that dude with the shotgun. But whatever, it's over now.
"I should tell Risa about it, she'll tell me what to do. She's pretty decisive." But she might be going crazy. She said she saw something in the fire that dude in the armor created even though there was nothing there. Risa might be a little unstable now so maybe later this week I'll go find her and we'll come up with something. But for now, I should check to make sure I'm alright. I twist my arms, scrutinizing them for any weird marks and out-of-place pimples that might show that there's something wrong with me, I read that on the glorious internet. When I take my mind off the situation at hand by digging into the small refrigerator, guilt drowns my very soul. I eat like a damn pig before my period and I can't control myself around food-hmm, I've got to go grocery shopping. Mia has to wait for now, sorry.
This grocery store grosses me out for some reason, there's always something brown-stained on the floor, and the dreary playlist they play over and over sucks. "That will be $51.90," says the cashier named Tulip, a thick woman with pale frail hair on the brink of falling out and there's no amount of bleach and dye that can stop that. She frowns when I hand her a $100 bill, probably reluctant to make change, and checks to see if the bill isn't counterfeit. Sometimes it's these moments when I space out and realize how fricken' mature I am. Here I am buying my own groceries, making my money, it makes me feel like an independent woman. I'm no longer relying on my dad for financial help, makes me wonder what happened to him when Tokyo was taken. "Your change, hellooo?" says Tulip impatiently, holding the wads of twenty-dollar bills to me. I snatch them from her hand, pick up my brown bag groceries and head out the grocery store. Quickly glancing to the left and right, I cross the street and stop to look up at the setting sky. I almost never have the time to look up the sky with all the missions and running around I do.
Sometimes I feel as helpless as a newborn in this tiny world. Hey, get the pessimistic thoughts out of your head and let's fill them with happy ones, like the Oreos you're going to stuff your face with tonight and the eggs and bacon you'll have for breakfast and the pancakes you'll feast on for dinner. Hey, it doesn't matter to me, when I have pancakes they're good at any time of the day. The cold rush of air that suddenly buffets me brings me to the ground, the bags of groceries leave my hands as if someone invisible smacked them out of my hands. I wince at the eggs cracking in the bag, spilling yolk on practically everything.
"Fricken' shitface!" I curse as I crawl over to my bags. This would happen to me, I have to be so goddamn clumsy like those cute girls in the anime shows except I'm not cute. "Shit, shit, shit," I mutter as I rub my ass to appease the pain throbbing from it. How many people saw that? I glance around, relieved that nobody is on the street. Wait-why isn't anyone here? Metropolis is perpetually crowded like Tokyo, there are always people around. I catch a glimpse of something grey lying against a building that looks abandoned and broken in half. "Wooah, what happened here?" I gape at the building until I catch a glimpse of the sky-it's dark, fermented-red mixed with a deep, menacing violet hue. It's never as dark like this, what's going on? The sky was setting a second ago. Okay Miz, relax, you're overreacting, it's probably some solar system disturbance that's making the sky look darker and scarier. I should just go back to the hotel and go inside 'cause it looks too scary to keep walking around.
"Something odd is going on here," I assume to myself as I walk down the hall to my room. A lot of the doors are wide open with nobody inside and there was nobody downstairs in the lobby. "Ok what is that?" I step toward one of my neighbors' door to examine the huge scratch mark that dug into the wood of the door. That doesn't look like a normal cat scratch either, did animals escape from the zoo like in that movie that had the goofy-looking animals that landed in Africa or something? A chill runs down my spine. "Hello? Good night anyone?"
Nobody answers but when I see that my door is wide open, paranoia hits me. It has to be a burglar, one of those genius ones from the movies that must have robbed everyone in the hotel and killed them all except me-that has to be it. And maybe he had someone free a lion from the zoo to make the killings look like a furious, blood-lusting lion attacked everyone. I'll believe that, yeah, right now I would. Cautiously I step inside my room, fear racing up from my wobbly feet to my frizzy hair, which is only frizzy right now cuz I'm sweating like crazy. The first thing I notice is that bed's been flipped over, the sheets are all over the place, the TV set has been smashed, and the dresser is nowhere in sight but the broken window can give me an obvious hint. The curtains are torn asunder and when I look for the fridge, it's wide open and on the dirty, violet splotched carpet.
The lunch I had this afternoon is about to come up as I cover my mouth. A sickening feeling in my stomach makes me gag redundantly once I drop to my knees. It's as if a storm passed through here and-no, it's like a thief of the night-I don't know. Whatever happened here, I have the terrible feeling that it's going to get so much worse. Even though I'm in a state of shock and utter fear, I feel an ominous presence behind me, the way I felt when I was around Dori-it's not him but a tall, slender woman wearing cyan, celestial dress draping down to the floor. It takes a while for me to recognize her but when I do, I uncover my mouth and yell at her. "What did you do?" I demand, still struggling to keep my lunch down. If she's here, then she must have done something to mess things up for this place. Is she that evil or does she really hate me?
"This is out of my control," replies the celestial woman innocently. "That's the way time took its course. What you people do is not my concern or my jurisdiction."
"So what did you do to everyone? Why is everything like this?"
In front of her, a grayish figure leaps from the ground, its yellow eyes burning into my hazel ones and lunges for me. We lock hands, then I realize that the thing has claws and that's when I realize it's actually one tough Heartless. It even has abs of steel, putting my lost two pounds to shame. But why does it look so different from the normal ones? Pale blue saliva drips from its razor-sharp teeth and every three seconds it convulses but I'm still trapped in its claws.
"This is the future that you picked Mizuki when you chose to continue your search for your brother. Your powers have gotten stronger and have led you to use the powers bequeathed to you from your mother unintentionally You have stumbled upon a loop in time that brought you to the future. Face the consequences," scolds Time as she turns for the lock-broken door and leaves silently. Where the hell does she think she's going? Normally I would think she's full of shit but at this point, anything anyone says is credible. I turn my attention back to the six-pack Heartless pushing against me, trying to push me into the carpet. Although my arms hurt from the strain, I manage to push the Heartless off me and bring the Byakugan eyes to me.
"Hey, get back here!" I call out to the Heartless that just seeps into a black pus puddle that follows behind Time. "I'm ready for you!" Wait Miz, just remember what she said, "This is the future you picked when you chose to continue your search for your brother". So this is the future? It can't be-I shouldn't even be here, is that why I'm not here in this room? Oh, if I meet my future self, the space-time continuum will collapse or something and woah-how did I even end up here in the future? Well if I can't find me then that means I must have made it back home, finally.
J.G.P.