The day had begun like any other.
She got up, took a shower, and got dressed. She read a book while eating breakfast. She walked down to the bus stop and went to work. She performed her work without any noticeable mistakes. She continued reading on her breaks and lunch. A bit of last-minute work kept her past her usual time, causing her to miss the last bus home. The night was pleasant and the walk would only take her an hour, which she knew from all the other times she had missed the bus.
The night would end in the most unusual manner.
The streets were familiar to her, only requiring the occasional glance to ensure she didn't miss her turns or her footing. She actually liked walking home after dark, despite the worries her friends and family held for her safety. They thought she was being reckless to walk so far from the business district, through the bar and nightclub area, to reach her apartment. But there was hardly anyone else out this late and the young woman was confident in her martial arts training. The city was cool and quiet enough to think, so she let her thoughts wander as she walked.
Suddenly, she stumbled. She didn't remember there being any uneven pavement there, so she turned to look at what might have tripped her up. To her surprise, there wasn't anything unusual on the ground. Not even a stick or stone to roll underfoot. Confused, she turned and continued on her way. She stumbled again a block later, then half a block, three times in one block, then every few steps. Each time there was no explanation for it. Frustrated, she determined to watch every step she took to keep from stumbling again.
She was able to go an entire block without stumbling while watching her feet and began to relax. Maybe her ankles had just been reacting to something. She lost her balance as the ground seemed to open up before her. Startled, she took a step back and turned to go another way. The path behind her appeared to have fallen away. She could see nothing around her except the single square of concrete beneath her feet. It was crumbling at the edges, the pieces falling into the darkness.
Bloody hell?! Panic overcame her at what she was seeing, her thoughts racing. What's happening?! This can't be real! Oh no . . . I'm hallucinating! I'm losing my mind!
Every direction she turned there was nothing but darkness, no sign of the rest of the world, and her little island of concrete was shrinking rapidly. Soon she would have nothing left to stand on. Taking a deep breath to try to calm her nerves and telling herself that this couldn't be happening, she jumped in the direction the rest of the sidewalk should have been. When she fell into the darkness and saw her little piece of concrete fly past her she screamed. Louder and longer than she had ever screamed in her life, longer than she thought she could, she screamed until she knew no more.
The mushishi had finished setting up his simple camp and started cooking dinner over the fire. The meal wasn't very satisfying. He always seemed to be running out of supplies and had to conserve what little he had until he reached the next village. After cleaning up he leaned against a tree and lit one of his mushi-repelling cigarettes and closed his eyes. Then he closed the second eyelid that most humans forgot that they possessed.
The koumyoku, the river of light, the flow of life itself, stretched out behind him. Ginko was always careful to keep his back to it, unless he had a reason to look. It was beautiful but dangerous, and he had already lost one eye to mysterious circumstances. Not to mention his abnormal hair color: pure white. He could not remember what might have happened to cause his unusual appearance; he could not even remember anything before seeing the moon in the darkness sometime before he left the forest and saw the sun. He knew nothing except the name Ginko, Silver Child, which could have been a reference to how he looked.
He chuckled to himself. It wasn't often that he thought about the past, since there wasn't much to remember. Until he was old enough to go out on his own, he'd traveled with various people who always ended up passing him off to someone else. It had only really felt like his life started when he had first packed his own mushishi traveling case and set out into the world. That had only been a little over ten years ago.
His musings were interrupted when he heard a faint scream.
He turned to face the direction the sound had come from. The koumyoku was directly in front of him. The scream seemed to be coming from somewhere above it, somewhere far upstream from where he was. It sounded like a woman's voice, but it was so far away he couldn't be entirely certain. The scream lasted for what seemed like several minutes, until it just cut off. Taking a puff of his cigarette, he wondered what the scream might mean.