Chapter 2

Haru breathed heavily, trying to catch up with Hiromi. "Try to slow down a little bit please." She said tiredly and almost walked into someone. "It's not my fault you have shorter legs than me." Hiromi stopped for some seconds to let Haru rest before she started to walk again. "Maybe we should have started going earlier, we are never going to get back before it gets dark." Hiromi said while grabbing Haru's arm.

Haru sighed and tried not to trip in her own feet while Hiromi dragged her with her. They stopped when they had to cross the street and the traffic light turned red. It was other people that had to cross the road too, so it was a bit crowded around them.

Haru moved her hand through her head and started to think that it was awhile since she got a haircut. Her hair had grown longer than it was several months ago her hair had been shorter when she had met her friends and the Baron. "Hiromi, do you think I should get a haircut?" Hiromi turned to her and tilted her head. "Why? I think you would look nicer if you just let it grow." Haru smiled over her answer but wasn't sure herself yet. "Maybe…." She said while thinking over it, still waiting the traffic light to turn green.

It seemed like more people was standing there and waiting to cross the street with them, and it had started to become even more crowded around them. Suddenly someone nudged into Haru so she lost her balance and tripped into someone. "I'm sorry." She tried to said, but felt someone pushing her again. "Look where you step." A stranger's voice said and Haru could feel a hand pushing her towards the road, and she felt that her feet lost contact with the ground and that she started to fall.

Haru tried to grab someone or something to make her stop falling but couldn't move at all. Everything moved so slowly it seems. Hiromi screaming her name, people looking shocked while she was falling. She moved her head and saw that a truck was moving quickly towards her, but she couldn't make any sounds with her voice. She knew the truck was going to hit her before she could do anything.

"I don't want to die now!" She screamed loudly in her head. But suddenly she didn't see any truck coming towards her or was about to hit her, but warm light surrounding her everywhere. She closed her eyes and lost consciousness before her body suddenly disappeared in front of everyone.

The truck continued to drive like nothing had happened, but nobody could understand what just happened to the girl that almost got hit by it. "HARU!" Hiromi screamed loudly and confused. Right now she had no idea where her friend was or what had happened to her.

Haru slowly opened her eyes and looked up and saw that all around her the only think she could see was nothing. Everything around her was just black, and no light at all. "Is this it feels when you're dead?" She thought to herself while floating on her back.

She tried to move but found it difficult when it was nothing to but her feet on. "And what I'm supposed to do now?" Maybe this was the second weirdest thing that had happened to her. And right now she wasn't even sure if she was dead or alive.

But suddenly her body moved so she was standing up but still floating in the middle of nowhere. A small light moved towards her. "That's weird." She whispered and tried to touch the light that was now straight before her.

The light moved quickly away before she touched it and moved fast right in front of her face. "Please…would you take the burden for me?" A soft girly voice said to her and a small mouse appeared out of the light. The mouse was small with black fur and a white dress.

"That's so weird!" Haru thought to herself, mostly shocked that the mouse was wearing clothes. She had seen cats talking but she didn't know that mice could talk to her too. "Who are you?" Said Haru with a trembling voice, wasn't sure how to react towards the mouse.

"I'm sorry, you must be very confused, but right now I don't have much time to explain." Haru could see that the mouse made a sad smile to her, but looked at her with kind eyes like she wasn't really sad about it. "You see…I died not long ago."

"I'm very sorry." Haru said and bowed her head to show how sorry she was. "I have never met a talking mouse before you see." The little mouse started to walk towards her like she was walking on something invisible, while Haru still was floating.

"Its fine, I bet you haven't talked to a ghost before, but I really need your help." The mouse didn't let Haru say something before she continued to talk. "I protected something important before I died, something that someone who wasn't supposed to have it was after, and sadly the managed to kill me while trying to steal it." The mouse stopped talking with a very serious face to see if Haru heard everything she said to her and at least understood something of it.

"When I died I needed to find someone else that could take care of it before I could rest in peace, and it chose you it seemed." The mouse stretched her hands out to Haru and something started to glow in front of her.

"What's that?" Haru asked and looked that a small golden necklace that was formed like a key and had something that seemed like a clock at the end of it. It had appeared out of nowhere in the mouse's hands, and to Haru it looked like something important, but the mouse made it pretty obviously to her too.

The necklace slowly started to move towards Haru like it was attracted to her. "It's something very important that you need to protect now, but I'm not really sure why it chose a human to protect it." The mouse had a little confused look on her face while she said that, but Haru wasn't sure what she meant and didn't get time to ask her.

"I'm sorry I can't tell you anything, but I don't have any time left, I only had time to give it to you." The mouse said and slowly started to fade away but gave Haru one last look to say goodbye. "Wait!" Haru said and tried to grab the mouse before she disappeared. "I have no idea what to do with this!" But the mouse didn't answer her question before she was gone.

And Haru was now alone in the dark with the item that the mouse girl had given to her. She looked at the small necklace that was lying in her hands.

It was actually too small for her to carry around her neck. In fact it was a necklace so small that it could only fit around a neck to a mouse. Haru moved her finger and touched the small thing in her hands.

Her fingers moved from the bottom of the necklace to the clock that was on the end of it. Never had she seen a weird necklace like that before, and never one with a clock on it, formed like a key. But she couldn't her any ticking from it, so maybe it was just for show, but it sure was beautiful to be so small.

Slowly the stone started to sparkle and Haru tried to let go of it, but it felt like it called to her and pulled her body away. "What's happening to me!?" Haru closed her eyes quickly and hold the small necklace tightly into her body, scared of what was going to happening to her.