Silence...
Michiru stood rooted to the ground. The world was a stark contrast of black and red...nothing other than black and red.
Silence is coming...
"What does that mean?" Michiru cried out. There was no answer. Michiru saw everyone she ever cared about in front of her. Her parents, Elsa, the girls from the art club, her manager...frozen like statues all of them had marble faces stuck in a look of terror. A wave grew from the horizon, big enough to swallow the city. Michiru couldn't run. She couldn't do a thing. The statues of her friends shattered as the wave grew closer. It closed in on Michiru...
She bolted upright out of sleep. She was safe. She was in her apartment. Her silk bed sheets were covered in sweat. It hadn't been the first time she had that dream, but every time it recurred it became clearer and clearer. This was the first time she had seen the faces of the statues. She couldn't banish the looks of terror from her head.
Calm down. She told herself. Nightmares are for children. You're not a child. Still she felt cold. She wished her parents were there. She checked the time on her alarm clock. 2:39 am. It would be afternoon in New York. She went into the living room and dialed the number of her parents' New York home. It range a few times before someone finally picked up.
"Hello?"
"Mom?"
"Michala! I'm sorry, darling, I didn't think our phone date was until tomorrow! I was just heading out the door!"
"No, it is...I just couldn't sleep and wanted to hear your voice."
"Is everything alright?"
"Yeah, just a bad dream."
She heard her mom's bell-like laugh, "Just like when you were little. I'm sorry to do this to you, love, but I really need to go..."
"It's fine. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Okay, sweetheart, I love you. Have better dreams."
"Love you, too, Mom."
The line went dead. Michiru didn't feel any better. She should have expected as much. They had specific times put aside for phone calls for a reason, her parents almost never had time to just chat.
She walked over to her easel and stared at her recently finished painting. The moonlight hit the drying paint and made Neptune glow in the dark room. For some reason she felt a pang of homesickness. Maybe it was from hearing her mom on the phone. Carefully she took the painting off the easel and set it in the corner to finish drying. She put a fresh canvas in it's place and started to paint once more.
Author's Note: Michala is the Bohemian form of Michiru. (Technically they're both forms of the name Michelle) It's not a typo. My head canon, and the canon that I'm using for this story is that Michiru is bi-racial, half Japanese, half Bohemian. Michiru's mom who isn't Japanese, would speak primarily in Czech and use the Czech form of her name. I'll get more into her later. She's a fun character who will pop in in later chapters.