Chapter I: Encounter
Fire is a powerful element in the lives of all living things; especially for humans. It is an enigmatic force that is both praised and feared; debated to be either good or bad throughout the ages. In one perspective, it represents all that is heavenly; light, warmth, hope, love and courage. In another, it symbolizes all that is evil; hell, chaos, hate, destruction and wrath. But often times, fire is acknowledged to be all of those traits because that is the very same essence that flows throughout the souls of many characters. However, people fail to recognize that fire can also bring forth rebirth and even purification when all seems lost…
The sun shined brightly in the vast sea of blue; accompanied by the flocks of petit clouds. It was absolutely magnificent as the pure white puffs passed by in divine unity with the rays of the sunlight. The breeze was soft and soothing; gently brushing the fresh green leaves on the trees. Flower petals of all shapes and colors danced gracefully in the currents of the wind. Many tiny birds sang their melodic calls out to each other; searching for their mates the same time they enjoyed their life of complete freedom. Beautiful butterflies glided through the sky with their colorful wings and gathered a wonderful display most rare to human eyes. This could be called a spring waltz; an extravagant work of art only the mother of nature can compose herself. This little musical slowly came to an end as the soft giggling and laughter of young children filled the air.
At the bowels of a grade school playground; boys and girls played whatever felt most suitable to them. Whether it comes to participating in sports to chatting under the shades of the trees; anything was fine. Boys played in the fields below, competing to the top of their game while the girls sat in their little circle talking about whatever comes to mind. Unfortunately, it was not all that perfect as one child stayed inside the nurse's office. It was a little girl at the age of twelve, and she was sleeping inside a dim room, separated from the rest of the nurse's office. Her skin was as pale as a ghost; her hair was jet-black and very long. She had such a small and frail figure that it seems to be that she was just as vulnerable as a glass vase. At a point, the sound of children clamoring grew louder to some thrilling event. The young girl slowly awakened from her slumber and sat up. Hazel brown irises trailed towards the window and she eventually peered through the blinds to see what was going on.
In the dirt field below was a vast crowd of boys playing soccer; it was physical education for them. Many other children from recess gathered up by the grassy slope of the field and cheered on as excitement rose. It was an interesting match between classes; students from room 7-B and 7-E. Here, their team captains were the stars of the game as the two of them were fighting for control of the soccer-ball. With a chance of luck, the boy with the spiked black hair got it within his grasps and immediately changed its direction. Swiftly, the boy made his way to the other-side of the field with the opposing team captain at his tail. He took a dive towards the right side of the field as his enemy came in from his left. At the moment, the goalie anticipated his movements and came close to the side of the net. But the soccer prodigy abruptly halted at one spot, not too far from the net with the ball and went to the left. The kids whimsically passed the boy, following the other star player and he had a clear shot at the goal. He fiercely kicked the ball and scored it into the far top-left corner of the goalie's net.
The goalie picked up the ball and kicked it towards his teammates to try and score a point. Kids of the conflicting team promptly gathered around the area and began to pass it off their comrades. With hard effort, the defensive side of the members in class 7-B managed to block the attempted shot to their goal and have their goalie pass it to their team captain who was waiting at the center of the field. Reacting to the throw, the team captain of 7-E came to its landing destination. The boy with spiked hair soon moved slightly to his left and let the ball go in front of him so he can continue going straight through the center. He came up for a shot until the other team captain rams him into the ground with force. The fall was atrocious as his bare skin was skimmed across the rough surface of the floor. His classmates rushed up to him and tried to help him up.
The child's right shoulder was heavily damaged, bleeding, as some of the sharp pebbles were jammed into his broken skin. The boy screamed in pain as he tried to get the small stones out of his shoulder but it was no use; he needed serious help. Monitors immediately rushed off to the injured child and carry him to the nurse's office for treatment, while the gym teacher sent the other boy to the principal's office for detention.
Inside, the little girl gasped in shock to see him get such an injury and watched the monitors bring him in. The boy was seated on a stool; he was still crying in pain from the fall and he still tried to remove the stones from his shoulder. The nurse began to prepare utensils such as rubbing alcohol and other equipment to manage the bleeding bruise. The monitors had to hold him down as the young lady cleaned off the dirt that was on the skin and muscles. He was squirming and trying to wriggle out of the grasps of the people that held him down because the pain was too much for him to handle. He eventually learned to relax when they began to pull out the brown pebbles that were caught in his skin with tweezers.
The nurse calmly said. "We are almost done."
The last pebble was removed and she began to put on an anti-bacterial gel over his skin. It was cold; he shivered a bit from it but it was all right. Soft white bandages encircled his entire shoulder and subsequently became a well malleable cushion for him.
"Feel better now?" She asked him.
With a positive nod as his answer; the young nurse smiled at him and led the child to a bed in the dim room.
She goes down to his level and says. "Don't lie down and go to sleep until I tell you to okay? Otherwise, your injury won't heal properly. But for now, why don't you just sit on the bench?"
There, she prepares a pillow and a blanket for him so he can sleep. She then goes to her desk and began to write into a school log she was assigned.
At the other side of the dull room was another bed with a girl in it. She was sitting up; looking out the window through the blinds to avoid eye contact from him. But she eventually turned around to see him watching her and blushed slightly; looking down in front of her.
"Are you all right?" she asked with a small voice. The conversation now began.
To the boy, it was soothing and very soft; almost angelic in a way. "I'm feeling better now." He answered.
"That's good." She said; the boy smiled at her.
"What is your name?" He asked.
"My name is Jun. How about you?" She returned the same question to him.
"Mine's Hatori. That's a nice name by the way." He smiled at her.
Jun thanked him, blushing a bit; a laugh was heard.
"Jun, you're blushing." He said with a smile.
"You too!" She said when she saw him blushing just as well.
The two of them enjoyed a good laugh. However that stopped when the girl became silent. Jun bent over in pain and it worried Hatori; making him stand up to go by her bed.
"Are you okay Jun?" His concern rose.
She brought her hand up to her head. "I don't feel so good."
"I'll call the nurse-" He was soon interrupted.
"No, it's okay. This is normal. All I have to do is wait for my medicine." She said assuringly.
But Hatori didn't buy it; seeing her hurt made him feel bad inside. "How long is that going to take?"
She told him that they would come in soon and soon they did. There was a knock at the door and a person walked in. It was a young woman in a white lab coat holding a black suitcase on her left hand. She wore rounded silver framed glasses, had light brown straight shoulder to mid-back length hair and a slim figure. Aside from that, the woman that just arrived looked much like a professional doctor in her forties. The woman took out a check and gave it to the nurse, causing her to begin packing up for the day. This made Hatori very curious.
"Maeda-kun. I spoke to your parents and everything will be fine. You can rest on the bed I prepared for you now." The nurse called out before closing the door behind her.
The other woman puts the black suitcase on the counter and began to put on some white gloves. She saw the boy standing by Jun's bed.
"Young boy. Do you mind?" Asked the woman that was preparing a few instruments, she was not even looking at him.
Hatori did not move from his spot for a while, but he obeyed the woman. He hesitantly walked to his bed doing so. He went into the bed and laid down, carefully avoiding his shoulder from hurting. But as cautious as he was, trying to go down still gave him a small sensation of pain though. Jun was not look well and Hatori frowned thinking how difficult it might be for her. The nurse's office door was then locked followed by the lights, which were turned on in the dim room and the lady hurriedly walked in. Clearly this woman did not want the boy to witness anything as she came in and pulled the white curtain from the ceiling over. What she did not notice was that there was small space that could reveal what she was doing. She soon brought over a table with the black suitcase and pulled out some wires connected to small detection devices; laying them off to the side. A yellow colored band was wrapped around Jun's arm, a little above the elbow and an empty injection needle was then stuck into a small bottle that contained a violet liquid.
Despite his bandaged arm, Hatori sat up and could see how badly Jun did not want this fluid injected into her body. 'Why is the liquid purple?' Thought Hatori as he leaned forward more to she what the doctor was going to do next. The woman laid the cold injection needle over her patient's skin; directly over a vein that carried red blood cells filled with carbon dioxide molecules to the upper part of the body. The girl however fidgeted under the very presence of the fluid that coincided within in freezing injection needle. Along with that was a sharp pain that rushed to her head causing the woman to miss the vein and release some of the violet liquid into a muscle, causing Jun to signal a sound of anguish.
'Shit.' She cursed inside.
Quickly, the doctor pulled out the needle and took a cotton ball, putting it over the small hole to absorb the liquid that poured out. She tried once more and was successful this time. The doctor then told Jun to lie down, placing the receivers; two were connected to Jun's chest, one on her forehead and another on her arm. Jun summarily fell asleep as the solution diffused with the blood in her veins and traveled through her beating heart when the doctor untied the band around the girl's arm. The lady then gets a small black leather covered spiral notebook to take in the results. The sounds of beeping came out of the machine that was in the suitcase and gave the results of heartbeat, respiratory maintenance and a psychological graph of the patient's brain waves. This device was certainly a work of advanced electronics and high quality performance. A few minutes passed and the woman was certainly receiving results that indicated something of great importance. With her observations all written and complete, she immediately leaves the room, pulling out a cellular phone in the process. After dialing her numbers and inputting a series of password both verbal and numerical, Hatori overheard what the woman began blurting out to the other side of the line.
"Professor[Report. I think we have found our final solution. [The new drug is completely functional then? Yes. [Good, then I would like you to go there and continue giving her the emulsion for another two weeks. We will see what we need to do by then. Affirmative; two more weeks then. [Tell me some of the results right now. There was an elevation in heart rate, increase in metabolism, nerve response and conceptualization. [Splendid; I want you to bring me your report regarding all of the changes. Got it, I'll bring the rest of the results over immediately. [Good work. Now finish up. All right. Good day sir."
The doctor hung the phone up and came in the room smiling happily. 'Final solution? What are they doing to her?' He thought.
She took off the rest of the receivers and put them into the suitcase. Returning everything back to their original place and encasing the injection in a small box with the bottle with the violet liquid inside it; she began to leave turning off the lights as she did. Hatori jumps off his bed as soon as the mysterious woman left. Pushing the curtains away and coming to Jun's side, he put his warm free hand over hers. But she was not looking any better from before. Instead there was a certain piece of anxiety rising within the corners of his mind as she was mumbling words of fear and having a drastic drop in body temperature.
"Jun!" He called out in order to somehow get her to snap out of her trembling state.
She however did not respond to him as beads of cold sweat appeared around her face as well as her scared mumbling something that dealt with darkness.
The girl's soul was hurled into a world of darkness. She was inside a swirling vortex of red and black, violet lighting flashing all around and roaring. Everything was so chaotic and frightening that she screamed as she fell down to an empty plateau surrounded by the presence of evil. Meters before the girl hit the floor, a crimson light wrapped around her body and slows down the girl's fall. As her feet touched the red soil of the plateau, a howl of anger ran through the land; pebbles shook and dust was lifted into the air. She crouched down to the ground, putting her hands over her ears. Her body was curled up into a ball and she put her hands over her head, eye's closed shut.
Thunder and lightning ripped the sky. A massive beast came into sight; it had blood red skin, two curled horns that stuck out of its forehead, black angel wings folded into its back and a humanoid body. Its eyes were glowing red, emitting the terrifying presence of evil. Violet lightning struck the boulder and it was turned into a pile of dust. Her eyes opened wide and she backed away; body trembling.
Something warm fell on the girl's face. Drops of liquid crimson started to fall out of the strangely shaped clouds in the sky, they looked like ancient symbols. The land was soon drenched in blood as the dark clouds were shifting eerily over head.
The great beast stopped and brought forward its left arm; a fireball materialized. It was projected towards the child. The crimson light that laid the girl down grew and transformed into a devil-like creature in front of the child. It protected the girl by splitting the fireball in half with a slice of power from its right arm. It howled at the giant beast, telling it to leave.
The huge shadowed figure cased over her. Vast wings sprouted from its back and covered the girl to stop the blood from raining down on her. Afraid as she was, the traumatized child did not dare look up, instead she turned away from the creature and kept her eyes shut.
"So small… So weak…" The creature began. "But no matter… That will all change soon."
The ground began to crumble and have flowing lava seep out; burning with much intensity that it began to spout towers of fire. Suddenly a mountain of rotting corpses filled with both beasts and demons alike rose towards the dark sky.
The devil-like creature behind the girl swept her off her feet and went air-borne. The girl screamed in terror as she opened her eyes to see such a gruesome sight beneath her. Black clouds formed a vortex, circling faster and faster with every passing moment. At the other side of the raging helot was bright light shining. The girl looked at her carrier to see an angry but serious face with golden pupils and red markings underneath its eyes.
The figure spoke to her in a deep, monstrous voice. "Do not be afraid of the darkness. Until the time comes you will have to become it."
Jun wakes up from that nightmare and saw Hatori holding her hand. She took in deep breaths and faced him, crying out tears as she moved closer to him. Slowly, she puts her cheeks on his hand and speaks out his name.
"Are you alright?" He said to her with much concern his face slightly blushing due to how close she is to him.
She nodded her head no as her reply when she buried her face deeper into her hand and his.
"Can you make a promise?" She asked him weakly.
"Anything." He nodded.
"Can you always be there for me?" She whispered pleadingly.