The first thing you worry about when you wake up in a place - which location is unknown – is usually the level of danger around you. Is there anyone with weapons or anything else sort of threatening in here? Is there anything nasty, which could potentially eat my face in that corner over there? Or am I completely and utterly alone?

In Haise's case the first thing he started to worry about – after all of the above observations had been made, of course – was… his voice. After a careful question – "anyone there?" – he had noticed the oddness of the sounds coming from him.

His voice had always had a sort of commanding streak, since he, of course, had to give orders to his team, and to make them listen. His voice was usually also accompanied with the deep tone, that spoke of maturity and age. Haise was used to his voice being strong and comforting – perhaps a bit joking at times as well – but never had he experienced this… he had no word for it.

Once he had overheard teenagers talk about… well that hardly seemed to matter at the time – but even though he had no interest in their words, he had taken a note of their voices. They had been young (probably 18 or 19, although he couldn't be sure). Their voices had held a certain amount of innocence, or… no, "innocence" was the wrong word, because no one was innocent at that stage in life. But lightness - the fact that their voices hardly seemed to carry any weight as they floated in the air. Unlike his.

Well, that would be what he usually would say, but… now was an entirely different matter. He had never even imagined his voice could be this light. So lacking of the weight that usually accompanied it. No, there was something, but it was less unexpressed – he couldn't quite catch it, even though he tried many times.

Eventually he gave up with a quiet sigh, and bowed his head a bit down – as if to signal defeat. But as he did this the bit of his hair in front of his face, came into sight. Haise froze and his hand – the hand that was supposed to be injured, God dammit! – slowly rose, without his consent, and gently tugged at it. Brown-black. His hair, or what he could see of it at least, had always been white. As it had been right before he went to bed. His hand was still tugging at his hair, but the gentleness had been thrown aside for disbelief, and now it seemed he was trying to pull his hair out with powerful pulls that only resulted in pain and even more confusion.

"Stop it Haise…"

"You're hurting me…"

"You're hurting yourself…"

"… STOP IT!"

With a loud roar he let go of his hair, and clumsily jumped out of the bed (who's bed was that anyway?). However it didn't exactly go as planned – when did anything go "as planned"? – and he ended up trying to balance on the edge of the bed with his feet up in the air and his head close to the floor, which, by the way, didn't look too comfortable. The results were fairly easy to guess, and as he winced and touched the sore spot on the back of his head, he wondered silently if he was having a concussion and if that was the reason for his strange dreams and confusion. But no, he even tried to pinch himself, but that only resulted in him getting an extra dose of pain and himself having what could only be described as a panic-attack when he took in his surroundings.

"This isn't my apartment…", he mumbled and felt his head spin at the strange deja-vu he felt. "I've been here before…" he realized, yet he also knew, that he – Sasaki Haise – had never actually stepped foot in this place. He slowly and unsteadily tried to stand up, and after a few attempts he finally felt his feet planted more or less solidly onto the ground.

"Gotta find a mirror…", he heard the not-really-his voice say with a twinge of desperation in it. He felt his feet move, while his eyes frantically searched for a mirror. Perhaps if he saw his reflection it would make more sense. Perhaps he would look the same as he always did while facing the reflected image of himself. "Or perhaps it would get worse…" a little voice whispered in the back of his mind. "Perhaps what you'll see will only make you doubt your sanity even more, than you already do".

"But I have to do it, none the less", he whispered around his clenched teeth. He suddenly stumbled over his feet - and almost got to know what the floor tasted like – but he managed to grab hold of… whatever was closest.

"What the…?"

His knees were shaking, despite his attempts to make them stand straight, and he couldn't seem to breathe normally either. Beside that, he suddenly also felt the nagging of fear; clawing at his heart with its sharp talons. "Why am I afraid?", he wondered silently to himself. "I've never felt fear like this before… Why now? What's the matter?"

Suddenly he felt exhausted – bone-crushing fatigue – and all he wanted to do was to go back to the bed, he escaped from, crawl under the covers and sleep for a week or so. Yeah, that would be nice… Perhaps then he would be ready for…

Ready for what?

"Ready for taking a look at myself in the mirror?! You've got to be kidding me!"

Haise gritted his teeth and with a sudden yell, forced his knees to stop shaking and his legs to cooperate with him. He started running through the open door and into the kitchen, where he tripped over his own feet – again! – and ended up on the floor.

"I don't understand this fear. I don't understand what's going on… but!"

He pushed himself of the floor, and found himself sitting with his legs neatly tucked under his shaking body – as if to stabilize the tremors that were running up and down his upper-body like crazy.

"I will survive! Whatever happened to me… whatever happens to me, I will survive this! So why not stop acting like a baby already, and get your ass moving!"

That last part didn't really sound like himself, but it encouraged him nonetheless. He stood up, hands still touching the floor – as if telling him to not fall over again. Haise took a deep breath and pushed himself of the floor one more time. He stood up spreading his arms to the sides – like a bird right before it takes of.

"Let's do this…!"

xxx

How he found his way to the bathroom with his knees shaking violently underneath him, Haise would never know. All he would know was the life altering moment he saw his own reflection in the mirror. "Wha- wha- what is this?", he managed to splutter out.

His hand shakily came to rest on top of his head, where the black-brown strands sprouted from, and let it slide down, carefully, until it rested on the tufts on his forehead. This part – this part, right here! – was supposed to be white. These last few centimetres had been white as snow last time he checked his reflection – which wasn't even four hours ago! – yet now… Now they were black (or you could say they were brown, as well – depending on the lights). The more he saw into the mirror – the more he saw a stranger stare back at him.

His face – his eyes – his body… everything about this picture was wrong! And it also wasn't Haise. This wasn't his young face – not completely free of the worry wrinkles, but Haise didn't know why, nor could he concentrate enough to care at the moment – filled with a weird form of innocence. These weren't his eyes – though similar in colour – shinning with a special kind of fragile, yet though, light. And this body…

This body wasn't very strong - or at least not as strong as Haise's – he could tell that with just one look.

This was a kid.

A kid's body – a kid's eyes – and the face of a child, who had experienced way to much… yet, not as much as Haise had. 'Traumatized', was the word that came to mind, and still it didn't cover everything – not quite.

"No, no, no, no, no, no…", Haise thought sliding down to his knees again, and leaving the awful, frightening sight in front of him. "This can't be happening… It must be a dream! Please, God, let it be an awful nightmare that I'll wake up from soon! ", yet he knew – he knew! – that this wasn't a dream he would wake up from anytime soon. "What'll I do?" he thought drawing his hand in front of his face and sighing deeply. "The others are bound to find out that I'm gone at one point, and then…" he drew back a sharp breath and let the hand fall down by his side once again. "The others!", he looked around – as if in bewilderment. "The CCG. I'm sure… I'm sure they will come look for me… but then again, I have no idea where I am, or who is responsible for this…". Looking around him again he started thinking. "If there is no one here, it should be easy to escape… but, will they even recognise me?"

He stood up shakily and looked into the mirror while drawing invisible lines over his – the face! Dammit! It wasn't his! – face with his – not his, dammit! – eyes. "Sure it would be hard to recognise me, but I'll have something they can't deny…", he suddenly smiled fondly at the mirror, and the child's face smiled back with equal strength. "I have my memories. I have evidence… so, no matter how I look, I'm sure, I could make them hesitate for just a few moments, and 'a few moments' are all I need to make them see, that it's me!". He watched the child's face become hardened with determination and said – this time out-loud - "all right then! Let's do this!"

He turned away from the mirror, and stumbled over the doorframe. "Not again…!" He landed on the floor with a thud and groaned to himself. "Itai…!"(1) he muttered, pained, under his breath. He sat up and reached for the bump he could feel on the back of his head - … honestly, two injuries on the same day, at the same spot? How unlucky could he possibly be? – right when the front door creaked open. Haise swirled around, startled. The person he saw was achingly familiar… like someone he might have passed on the street before – yet the sadness and guilt he felt by the sight of this familiar face was unexplainable to him.

But who is he?! And what's he doing here?

"Yo, Kaneki!"

XXX

(1) "Itai…!": the Japanese way of saying : "OUCH!"

So, hey! How-do-you-do?!

I decided to update a wee-bit sooner than I originally would have, but that's life for ya!

Thank you so much for the reviews and follows/favorites, you guys made my day(s)! :) I do hope this chapter answers some of the questions you might have had (like the question about why Haise didn't just go on a suicide mission to CCG) … of course the next chapter is going to reveal even more!

Unfortunately, I've just started school, again, and my parents want me to be really focused on my education and whatnot, so the next chapter will be a wee-bit later than this one. (Of course that doesn't really say much… now does it?)

I hope you'll hang in there anyways, and I hope you enjoy the story… I have absolutely NO idea where I'm going with this… :) eh, it'll be fine!

(By the way, there is going to be some Japanese in this story, but I don't know if you already know the translations or if I should write them down for you… So if you could tell me, if you want translations (and we're talking like a word or so of Japanese here) that'd be great!)

Until next time! Jaa-nee!

- Angel