...tick...tock...tick...tock...
I watch the antique clock on my bedroom wall slowly tick to 2 a.m. on the dot.
My name is Rin Kagamine, and it's on night like these where sleep doesn't exist.
My brother Len is sleeping soundly next to me, his body as still as a log. Straightening my nightgown, I sit up and slowly set my feet onto the carpeted floor below. Len shifts and grasps into the empty air before settling on his side. I tip-toe to the window on the far side of our bedroom, and easing it open, I poke my head outside. From our bedroom window, I can see almost the entire sleeping city below me.
Right in the center, as clear as Tokyo Tower on a clear day, sits the nuclear power plant, lighting up the entire city with a brilliant blue glow.
As a gentle breeze makes my hair dance on end, I can't help but be entranced by the bright blue light. Behind me, I can hear Len stirring. He grunts and takes a long, deep yawn.
"R...Rin?" He says drowsily. I hear the sheets crumpling and his muddied footsteps on the floor while my focus is still on the power plant. Len yawns again.
"What're you doing up? It's 2 in the morning, Rin, " he says, placing a hand on my shoulder. His hands are warm and soft; I can feel the heat beating off of him in waves.
"Wouldn't it be cool?" I say, shuddering at the emptiness of my own voice. Len huffs in confusion.
"Huh? What would be cool?" I slip my head back through the window and into the room, and I met with a blast of warm air. I point to the nuclear power plant, mashing my finger against the window.
"To just jump in there, into the nuclear reactor. Being surrounded by that bright blue light...just letting go..." My voice fades off and I look at Len, his face plastered with concern. He shakes his head and blows a stray blonde hair out of his eyes impatiently.
"Why would you want to do that? Wouldn't you die?" he says, shifting his weight nervously. I shrug.
"Maybe." Len's eyes soften and his grips my shoulders and squeezes.
"Please don't talk like that, Rin," he says softly. He pulls me into a tight embrace, my body flush against his bare chest.
"You know I hate it when you talk like that." I pull away from him and flash him a small smile. I know it's fake, but I'm hoping he doesn't realize it.
"I'm sorry." I say half-heartedly. Len looks me in the eyes for a quick second before striding over the bed and leaping on it. I follow him robotically, slipping under the yellow covers and facing him.
He's facing me, his ocean blue eyes already glazing over with sleep.
"'Night, Rin..." he says, his eyelids first drooping heavily, then finally closing.
I glance at the clock; 2:07 a.m.
I close my eyes and nestle closer to Len; maybe his heat can keep the shocking chills away.
I squeeze and squeeze with all my might, but nothing happens. Light bleeds into the room, igniting the girl's short blonde hair below me into an electric yellow. I sob, and more tears spring to my eyes, making my vision blurry and warped. The girl under me has her eyes wide open, but nothing else happens. Her white sundress flutters as I tighten my gloved hands around her neck even further. She doesn't gasp, she doesn't sputter, she doesn't beg me to stop; she just looks up at me with the saddened, watery ocean blue eyes of hers.
It makes me sick.
"You need to stop this, Rin," she says, her wise words sounding awkward in her high-pitched, small voice.
I say nothing, letting my tears spill over as the sobs rack through my body.
"Why can't you let go?" she says, sounding on the verge of tears.
"The past can not be changed; so why do you hold on?"
I wake up with a sharp gasp; screaming into the morning like a banshee was something I never did. I run a hand through my sweat soaked hair and glance to the clock. 8:02 it reads. Glancing to my side, I surprised to seen nothing but a note and a depression where a body would've fit in. Grabbing the wrinkled paper, it reads,
Dear Rin,
went to go buy groceries. Will be back in 20.
Len
I sigh and throw the note to the floor, running my hand through my hair again.
Suddenly I freeze, and my heart starts pounding. I leap off my bed and run to the door. Flinging it open, I step into the hall and stand as still as cat waiting for its prey.
Very quickly, I hear the sound again; someone's climbing up the stairs.
Adrenaline pumping, I run down the hall and stop in front of the stairway.
There's no one there.
I hear the footsteps again, fainter this time. I turn and run down to the other end of the hallway, going for the second staircase. This time when I stop, my heart stops along with me.
The little girl is there, her eyes as wide as ever.
The world screeches to a halt, and my blood rushes to my ears. The girl takes on step forward; I take a step back. She takes two steps forward; I take two steps back. The adrenaline has long been replaced with utter and absolute terror. She keeps walking forward with her sad wide eyes and I keep stepping backwards. When my back hits a wall, my heart skips a beat as my hands grope for an opening.
With my breaths coming in shorter and far apart, she reaches forward and grasps the front of my nightgown and pulls with a force stronger than her body could've mustered. My face millimeters away from hers, she breaths one single word:
"Stop."
The world swirls and swirls, faster and faster until my head is burning and it collapses into darkness.
I'm squeezing again, harder and harder. She doesn't move, and she doesn't sputter. I can see her skin suffering and bruising under my grip, but she doesn't flinch.
"You can not change the past," she says again, her voice soft and caring. Between cracked lips, her words take the form of bubbles as they slip out.
"Leave the past where it belongs; behind you, Rin." More and more bubbles slip out, her hair and clothes dancing with the wind.
"Why would you hold on to it? It's hurting you. It's hurting Len to see it hurting you. Your parents died long ago; the accident wasn't your fault, and it hurts them to see you beating yourself up for something that was out of your control." My hands tighten at her words and tears come back again, my vision blurring until everything is the equivalent of a drunken rainbow.
The bubbles brush up against my skin, finding their way into my hair and filling the room until they echo out a single phrase that leaves me buzzing.
"Let it go." _
When I wake up, I'm back in my bed, wrapped in the yellow sheets like a mummy. I steal a weary glance at the clock: 8:03 it seems to scream at me. My face is stiff from dried tears, and new ones threaten to fall.
It was a long time ago, but the memory is still as fresh as if it happened yesterday.
It started as a family road trip around Japan. It was just a way to get away from the house, and a way to "enrich our lives with culture" as my dad had said that day. We had all piled into the cool minivan with a change of clothes and our swimsuits. My mom had let her dirty blonde hair down for a change. It was then that I should've known something would go wrong.
In the middle of the road trip, it had started to rain. It didn't start off serious, but soon it started pouring.
"It's a summer shower!" my dad had exclaimed. "Don't worry; it'll pass as soon as it came."
It didn't seem like that would be the case, because half an hour later it was still pouring down hard.
It was a big intersection, the rain was blinding and my mom didn't see the truck barreling down towards her.
She didn't even have the time to scream; the truck plowed into the side of the car and sent us rolling down the road like a tossed die.
My ears were filling with screams and yells as the car kept flipping. It seemed like forever and a day had passed when the car had finally stopped moving.
It was all the haze; me getting pulled from the wreck, the stay at the hospital, the time curled up at home next to Len.
It wasn't until two days later that when I was told my parents had died, that I had died inside as well.
That was four years ago; I'm fourteen now, and I have died twenty times over.
Len came home long ago. He came inside, saw me staring out the window, and went to go put away the food. I want to jump into that reactor; with all of my heart, I really want to jump inside. One would think; surrounded by that blue light, everything would fade away and sleep would come like it used to.
"Yes, Takashi, today there was a robbery in eastern Kyoto…" I hear the newsman say. I glance up at the clock; the second hand still ticks furiously.
Someone giggles in my ear, and I whirl around. It's silent, dead silent in my room. I glance at the clock and the T.V., as if expecting them to disappear. My heart pounds again as I hear the laughter again; it echoes in my ears bounces around in my head, making my ears ring.
Let it go, Rin. I hear, and it's clearly heard above the ringing, above the loud, head numbing ringing.
Let it go. My ears ring and ring and ring, and my head buzzes.
Why won't my ears stop ringing?
Rin! Please! Save us! I hear. I leap off the bed and run toward the open window. Sticking my head out, I see a massive amount of people below my window. They're all shouting, waving at me in terror. "Rin!" they scream. But I'm stuck; my hands refuse to release their death grip on the window pane, my jellied legs refuse to move.
Right in front of my eyes, they start disappearing.
It's not even one by one; all my friends, all my distant family members, people I don't even know start to vanish into thin air.
The tears come immediately; I want to move, I want to try and help, but I'm stuck.
"Rin!" Len bursts into my room, and all I can do is turn and watch as he starts to disappear into dust. I open my mouth to scream, to tell God to stop playing this cruel joke on me, but nothing comes out.
Len is unfazed as, molecule by molecule, his body starting fading. My tears are rolling down my face in rivers now, as I try desperately to scream. He looks at me, his blue eyes watery.
"You have to let it go, Rin" he says as the last of him fades away. I'm thrown to the floor as an unseen weight presses down on my chest, stealing my breath.
I sputter and thrash around, but it's relentless, pressing down until I can no longer even gasp for a single breath.
The girl is above me, and realization hits me hard. I am her. She is me. Life can be better than this.
Taking in a long deep breath, I scream through all the tears; I scream through the all the pain that burdened me through the years; I scream through the pitiful looks and gifts.
I scream and scream until I know that I, Rin Kagamine, can live again. _
"Hey, Len?" I say, standing in front of the kitchen doorway. Len spins around and looks at me, and he looks at me hard.
"I don't wanna hear reactor stuff," he says stiffly. I shake my head furiously.
"No, no! I…can we take a walk in the park? Like, right now?" Len's eyes balloon to saucers, and he nearly drops the carton of eggs in his hands.
"You…you wanna go outside?" he says incredulously. He gestures wildly to the door. "Outside…with people and animals and everything else? You wanna go to the park?" I nod, gripping the material of my shorts tightly.
I don't know why, but my tears start rolling down my cheeks. Len sets the eggs on the counter before running up to me and gripping me in a bear hug. He pulls back, his cheeks wet and his face flushed.
"Can we move on?" he whispers. I nod, wiping the tears from my eyes and patting the back of the little girl in the white sundress at my side.
"We can move on."