Renascence

O

Double Vision

O

Yumemi was, for lack of a better word, dismayed at this revelation.

Not only was she looking at herself as a seemingly dying body on the side of the road, but she fully comprehended the situation. She was watching herself die. Did this happen to everybody that died? Did they have to watch themselves slowly drain of life?

What happened afterwards?

Obviously no one could see her, or else they would have made a very large commotion. In whatever spiritual form or soul-like state she was in, she looked naked. To her astonishment, it seemed as if she had no defining features about herself in the essence-shape she was in. Maybe she didn't even have a face, considering the rest of her illuminating body blurred together.

"Clear!"

She wasn't even aware of people talking until that moment. EMT's were keeping her body alive, but she could see her blood running down the sidewalks and into the gutters. There were lacerations along her face and shoulders she didn't notice before, where glass shattered against the top half of her body. A shard was stuck into her side, gleaming silver and ruby in the sunlight. She was bleeding from the back of her head, where it slammed into the asphalt when she fell.

It seemed so unreal, that Yumemi idly wondered if she was dreaming. She honestly could have been.

Then she heard Ichiko call out again, her voice hoarse and heartbroken. Yumemi turned around, and her hair followed her, as if she was underwater.

"Yumemi-! Get your hands off me! Yumemi!" Ichiko had blood up to her elbows, a pool of it soaked into her skirt. Yumemi could only speculate as to how long she sat there with her body, calling for somebody to help. The brunette was currently being held back by two police officers, with whom he was fighting tooth and nail to get past.

Suzume was simply sitting on the sidewalk behind her, looking at Yumemi as the Medics strapped her to a medical flat, rolling her into the ambulance. Yumemi found that she could walk in this form, although the ground felt a little bit like stepping on cotton, and she slipped into the car with no trouble. She tried to sit, but found that everything she touched felt warm and odd, like someone had just layered everything in warm, damp tissue.

Looking at herself, bruised and bleeding, she realized something she had not thought before.

She did not want to die.

She thought about taking her own life, once or twice when the island seemed too big and the unfriendly voices were too loud, but she hadn't really realized how much she wanted to stay alive until this moment. But what could she do? The Medics were trying their unsurpassed skills against her torn body.

How ironic it is, she thought unhappily that I should see my worth after I'm dead.

But she wasn't dead, not yet at least. The monitor toned along with her faintly beating heart, and the medics were making sure it wouldn't stop. She wished she could make herself move in any way, but it seemed she was just a spirit, watching. Waiting.

The ambulance finally parked, and the medics rushed her out so fast she could scarcely keep up.

Yumemi couldn't quite grasp the concept of running while she was a ghost of her former self. It was more like an enthusiastic wobble, the sterile white chambers of the hospital a blur. They pulled her into a slate white room, where the surgeons gathered around her like a congressional meeting of doctors. She couldn't watch them operate on her; it was too sickening to see her own insides so mangled.

It was just was bad to see her family, faces strewn in horror, watching from the nearby window.

O

"Your daughter is alive. She should recover from her injuries." The doctor sounded reassuring, his voice stated these things as if they were fact.

Her mother sighted from relief, melting into her father's grasp.

"However, she got a pretty harsh blow to the head. She's in a kind of a coma at the moment. We don't know when she'll wake up." The relaxation immediately turned into tension, her mother and father glancing back and forth with gut wrenching worry in their eyes. "Consider your daughter lucky, Mr. and Mrs. Hidaka, your child could have gotten a serious spinal injury. We only had a few internal bleeding problems to deal with."

Yumemi, who was sitting beside her brother Chikara as he pretended to play on his videogame but was actually listening, shifted in her seat. Nothing moved when she sat on it, which made for an interesting experience. She sat up, stood and approached her mother.

She wanted to hold her and pat her on the shoulder, but when she reached out to stroke her fingers along the blue polyester of her mother's shirt, the world swam violently, her vision warping to a desert landscape with endless skies, the clouds scattered with flashing lights like the firing of millions of cannons.

She drew her hand back, and reality resumed.

"…so we expect her to wake up in a week or so, but we're not certain." What had she missed while she was hallucinating? "You can go see her now, if you'd like."

Her family moved as a unit toward her room, where Yumemi had previously looked at herself. She had an oxygen mask around her face, and someone had been nice enough to wash the blood from her hair, so she didn't look quiet dead. However, with her pallid skin and closed eyes, the image was enough to spook her.

She didn't want to hear her family talk to her, but she stayed anyway.

Her mother stared at her body like she was dead already, her father silent as a tomb. However, Chikara filled up the miserable silence with an innocent voice that lifted her spirits.

"Well, I think she'll be fine." He stated this with as much confidence as the Doctor they spoke to moments earlier. "After all, the doctor said she should wake up in a week or so. Say-"he turned to the Hidaka parents "-do I have to do her chores?" Yumemi knew he was putting up a chipper front for the sake of their parents – she could see his hands trembling at his sides –but it was enough to put a bitter smile back on their faces.

They eventually left, and Yumemi didn't follow them. No, she thought it better to stay with her body.

After all, she didn't want to leave it behind.

O

A woman, hair like violet silken rivers and eyes as pure and clear as amethyst turned her head, her senses tugged on the way a child would pull at her robes.

Toche, her protégé, turned to look at her. "Ryueli?" He asked, worried.

Her eyes narrowed. "I felt something, a moment ago. Like someone must have…" She turned back to the child next to her, brushing the pads of her finds along his golden bangs. "Never mind. The akuto in the air must be blurring my sight." He cocked his head, interested.

"What did you think you saw?"

"Not saw," she corrected. "I felt it this time. The world seemed to fluxgate, mildly, the same way a puddle might when a pebble is dropped in. But it felt like two puddles on top of one another moving, and the stone was wedged betwixt them." He nodded. "But there is only one being who can travel between worlds, and if he felt that…"

A man, tan with coarse russet hair and the markings of time and space crawling across his skin, turned to look to his side. Something had caught his attention.

"…Then perhaps it is one after all."

O

Yumemi had no idea what to do while the hours went by. She couldn't sleep, only watch her body and wait to see if she woke up.

Most of the time she would watch herself breathe. It made her feel reassured the same way listening to the heart monitor constantly did.

Yumemi noticed she couldn't smell anything, at least not the right things.

Late at night, while the janitor was washing the hall by her room, she could not smell the sharp scent of the cleaner, only mineral and dust. That was odd, considering she was nowhere near a desert. Even when the janitor spilled the cleaner across the floor in a lurid yellow she could only smell desert and sand, hot on her skin.

She watched nurses check her vitals and pass by her room. One came in with a wash cloth and water, cleaning off the dried blood across her face. That was nice of her, she noticed. Yumemi read her name tag, and she hoped she would wake up to thank the nurse named Susan.

Later that day, Ichiko dropped by to visit.

Her eyes were puffy, and her cheeks were drawn in when she stepped into the room. The brunette hesitated before sitting down, as though she didn't want to intrude on Yumemi's coma.

"Hey…" She spoke aloud, the words morose and somber. "I'm sorry I didn't visit yesterday."

Yumemi would have said aloud that it was fine, but she knew her dear friend couldn't see nor hear her.

"I was… busy, I guess. I don't know. I didn't want to come and see you like this." Her eyes stared to moisten, and she rubbed them angrily. "I hate crying," she shuddered "because it makes me remember when you always carried around that umbrella, it was because of me, because I cried." Yumemi wanted desperately to tell her it wasn't, but no one could hear her talking.

No one.

"And now you're hurt because of me, because of the fact that I didn't make you go ahead, or wait a moment after that last earthquake, damn it." She leaned over, more suppressed tears dripping down her face. "I just want you to stop hurting," Ichiko whispered, and she buried her hands in her face while a nurse walked in to console her.

Yumemi reached a hand out to try and touch Ichiko in any way, even if it only felt like the brush of a leaf or the sound of wind, anything to get her to stop crying, and the moment she made contact with her, Yumemi's world exploded into light.

O

Toche sat beside the Akuto guardian, waiting for Ryueli to get out of her meeting with Munto. Sometimes, every once in a while, she didn't want him hearing certain things. Although it might have irritated him sometimes, it certainly didn't now, not with all the wars going on.

The Akuto giant beside him shifted, as though looking at something in the distance. "Hey, what is it?" The being made an odd deep noise in reply, something Toche couldn't understand like the rest of the people, before it sat up. A massive hand descended downward, patting the boy on the head, before white wings emerged from its back like budding roses.

It leapt off the edge of the island and soared downward, which Toche thought was strange, but the doors behind him creaked from old age as his Prophetess stepped out. There were bigger things to worry about.

O

Yumemi felt like she was between two ocean waves, crashing her in both directions. Her body was pulling back and forth; her mind felt like it was compressing and stretching at the same time.

The world around her was flashing white lights, the colors of the sunset piercing her vision, and the blurry image of Ichiko sitting next to someone smashing into each other, like a morbid ballet of ripping photos created by light and roaring sound.

She tried to pull away, but everything was dragging her forward, pulling her into something, and she didn't want to know what.

Light flashed again, but when she closed her eyes they flashed behind her eyelids, fiery and dark as a midnight forest fire. She could have sworn she saw a man with long blonde hair whip around to look at her, eyes oddly clear and understanding in the void of chaos.

Then, silver and vivid, a hand larger than her whole body wrapped around her midsection, pulling her from the lights and the crashing waves, and into the sunset.

And Yumemi was staring at the desert, rock and parched land drenched in the honey colors of the fading sun. She sat up, and felt the dust under her fingers, and smelled the dust, and heard the wind howl across the landscape.

Turning, she saw a creature of gleaming silvers and wings with leathery white feathers. It startled her, and she pulled back at first. It cocked its head at her, its face crafted from sapphire, reflecting the image of her surprised face. At least her face wasn't blurred along with the rest of her body. It made a noise then, like the groan of bending metal, but she heard a whisper underneath it as well.

"I – what?"

She didn't think this form had a heart, nor a heartbeat, but she heard it roar in her ears as she strained to listen.

"I asked if you were alright, lady." The creature said aloud. She swallowed, pulling her bright, almost white, hair back from her face.

"I think I am now, yes." She nodded as she spoke, looking around.

The voice was distinctly male, and he nodded in response, as though pleased. "My name is Dulahan, the last of the Akuto guardians. You are Princess Yumemi, the girl of destiny, and a spirit walker as well."

"I'm – How do you know my name? What's a spirit walker?" Suddenly, Dulahan was no longer a creature, but a very well informed friend. "Where am I?"

"To answer the last question first," he replied in a docile voice "we are in the Heavens."

Yumemi froze. It took her more than a moment to look up, her eyes edging to the sky.

There was the island.

But it was not alone.

Many other islands, small, large, long, fat, were alongside it, shadowing the sky with dark outlines.

"I'm in Heaven? I'm where… Munto is?" She asked aloud, but her voice sounded so far away. Everything seemed so far away, at this point.

On the island, Munto turned around. Rui was the first to notice once more. "Sir?" He asked, his tone low so the other officers would not hear it.

"I thought someone just called my name just now…" he murmured.