Chris stared at her reflection in the mirror. "Maybe I shouldn't go out today…" It was Saturday, and she didn't feel like staying at home, but the dreams of last night had left her with an uneasy feeling. She stuck out her tongue at herself. "It was just a dream. Just like any other dream with pink bunnies and dancing paintings and--" She stopped, staring at the pamphlet that had just been pushed under her door. She couldn't read the writing, but it had pictures of roller coasters and a haunted house, and seemed to be a brochure for an amusement park. That's it, Christina, she told herself sternly as she dressed. You're going to this park, and you're going to have fun!

To her surprise, Chris was having fun. After the initial mishaps getting herself here, she had found that she really didn't have to talk to anyone, and stopped worrying about the language barrier. She squealed on the roller coasters, ate cotton candy, and screamed in all the right places at the haunted house. She even won a stuffed frog at the park's Karaoke stand. She thought about this as she accepted a balloon from a clown with a shy "Domo." Could she transcend the language barrier, and speak the language of smiles that she had heard about? It would take a miracle, but in the lazy afternoon heat the park suddenly seemed just the place for miracles.

Suddenly, she whirled around, facing the amphitheatre she had just left. The sound of crying reached her, and she saw the people in the theatre either collapsed on the ground or running away from…Chris's eyes widened. It was a boy with hiccups! And a backpack! Okay, not so scary…. She wondered why people were running from him, then got a rapid education when he touched a boy. The boy groaned and sank to the ground. Is he dead? Chris wondered. She was trying to decide whether to run when the backpack boy looked right at her.

Yeah, time to go. Chris was trying to get her traitorous legs to move when the boy fell to the ground. Standing in his place was a faceless thing that looked like a bunch of straw tied together, or an old-fashioned corn-baby. Chris's famous vocal chords stopped working, too, but the thing ran right past her. She sighed in relief, then was almost knocked over as a girl in a green uniform flew through the air, cutting off the corn-baby. To the other side, a girl with a pink and blue uniform was yelling something at the corn-baby. Chris thought they were crazy, not letting the thing go away, but they seemed to know what they were doing. Chris just backed up, not wanting to cut off another route should the corn-baby still want to escape.

The corn-baby attacked, making Chris cringe, but Green and Pink dodged it in a series of amazing acrobatics. Chris was fascinated, but the best was yet to come. Green reached an arm to the ground and a leg to the sky, forming an almost vertical line as she yelled something. Lightning erupted from a clear sky, hitting the corn-baby which miniaturized itself and fell to the ground. Pink yelled something at another corn-baby Chris had not seem behind her, and it erupted in a shower of sparks. Green and Pink said something to each other, then reached for hiccup-boy's backpack, which Chris had not noticed the corn-baby was carrying.

Chris cringed again as a male voice rang out. The girls froze, and a boy walked from behind a pillar. He was blonde and blue-eyed, but his face was Japanese, a strange yet striking combination. Chris experienced a sense of déjà vu strong enough to make her dizzy. She sat, staring at the boy as he grabbed the backpack. She stifled a yelp when light shot from him straight at the girls, but a man with a cape ran in front of them just in time. He held out his hands, blocking the light. Chris sighed with relief--just as he fell over, clutching a bloody wound in his hand. Pink ran to him, and he yelled something at her. I have got to learn Japanese, Chris thought, watching the girl take off her headpiece and throw it at the boy. Oddly, she found herself hoping it wouldn't hurt him. She was relieved when the piece simply sliced open the backpack. The boy didn't seem relieved, he seemed angry. He threw the backpack at the girls and turned to run, spitting out a phrase that contained one word Chris recognized: senshi.

Senshi…they're soldiers? She wondered. Wait a minute…was that tree beside me before? To her horror, she realized that she was running, running after the boy who had shot light at the girl. She wanted to stop, but something in her wanted more than anything to see the boy's face and to find out where she knew him from. She felt as if he held all the answers in the universe. Out of breath, she finally stopped, looking back to the park. A figure was on top of the park wall, silhouetted against the sky. Chris felt a pull towards it, and an uneasy feeling of impending disaster. She began to run towards the park, but by the time she got there the figure was gone.

-CHAPTER THREE PREVIEW-

Wow…I knew Minako was popular, but… Chris tapped a fingernail on the album casing, deep in thought. Does this mean we're rivals?

Chris glanced up and stifled a scream. A thing almost twice her height stood before her, its stonelike arms reaching for her...

Feeling at hard grip on her ankle, she shrieked. She kicked at the stone creature, trying to free her ankle, but it began to drag her back up the stairs. She yelled, and everything went white.

Later Chris would wonder what she had been thinking, for she felt that she had fully expected the hand gestures to somehow repel the creature…

The room seemed to blur before her eyes, and Chris was asleep even before she collapsed on the couch.

Chris grabbed her bag and music player, running out the door. Behind her, she heard one sentence, although later she could not have told how she understood it:

"How did she find the hidden room?"