Tatsuhana stood there, numb. The car's tires trapped her bike to the pavement. Her bare palms pressed hard against the hot metal. She moved her body out of instinct, the body's own method of self-preservation. But all the instincts or adrenaline in the world couldn't have produced this...
She stared blankly at the car's hood now scrunched up around her hands. Deftly, she heard the crunching metal as her body collided with the vehicle. The gathering crowd around them murmured.
"Did you see that?"
"Did she just...did she just stop a speeding car with her..."
"Is she alright?"
She couldn't tear her eyes away from her hands. Twisted metal crunched under her hands like it was nothing more than a wad of paper. Slowly, Tatsuhana pulled her hands away. The metal groaned as she lifted her hands off the car. She turned them over to look at her palms. Shaking, there was nary a scratch on them. There was barely a noticeable mark on her hands. Her head spun. This should be an impossibility.
Tatsuhana raised her head up. She regretted looking up and meeting the driver's eyes. He and his female companion gawked at her. His face was ashen; he had come so close to killing someone and yet, here she stood. Tatsuhana could see the whites of his eyes staring blankly at her. By all the laws of physics, Tatsuhana should be splattered all over the pavement. She should have been the one trapped on the tires and not her poor bike. She stood in the middle of the street, breathing.
The driver began unbuckling his seat belt. Tatsuhana began walking away just as he opened his door. She ran down the opposite direction. He called after her. Even over the crowds, she could hear him. It only made her run faster. Tatsuhana didn't stop running until she slammed her apartment door closed behind her, locking herself in.
Beads of sweat ran down her face. They slid into her eyes, burning. Feeling the sting churned her stomach. If she could still feel pain, that meant she was alive. Alive and awake. She was acutely aware of just how awake she was. Pulse racing, sweating, heavy breathing. Her chest hurt from all of that running. Unbearably dry, her tongue cleft to the roof of her mouth.
On shaking legs, Tatsuhana carried herself over to the kitchen. She filled a plastic cup with tap water and drank the whole thing in one go. Some dribbled down her chin as she could care less at this point how much of a slob she looked like in her own home. After emptying her cup, she threw it in the sink to be washed later. Her eyes drifted around her kitchen. She took it all in. The small rarely used stove and well-loved microwave, the fridge which only ever kept a carton of milk, orange juice, and eggs, cheap cabinets, and the grimy kitchen sink in desperate need of a good scrubbing. There were one or two bowls in her sink as she mostly ate take-out and ramen noodles. A cup full of used utensils sat there too.
Normal. It all seemed so normal. There were walls. Solid, stark white walls. A large window that opened up to the busy city below. A television and a love seat. Books and sketch pads and pencils littered the coffee table she rescued from the roadside. Rugged wood flooring that creaked whenever she moved. Her parents' shrine. This was normal. This was what she had grown up with. Nearly every modern convenience she could afford. It was all there. Including the calendar. Tatsuhana's eyes drifted towards the calendar hanging on the wall pinned next to the door. She moved closer. With each aching step, the floorboards creaked and moaned beneath her. Her eyes darted down towards the date.
Tatsuhana always kept her calendar. Her meticulous study of dates and times rarely led her wrong. Work days were marked by little circles followed by shift times. On the day in question, today, it was miraculously blank. No circle meant she didn't work. No stars meant she didn't have class either. A giggle bubbled up in her throat. It gathered strength and erupted. Tatsuhana laughed herself silly, rolling on the floor and holding her sides as she cackled madly. Tears ran down her eyes.
All of that...for nothing.
Tatsuhana's laughter died eventually. Her body lay on the floor, sore, aching, and chilled with cold sweat. She stared at the ceiling for hours before she admitted that there was something she had to do.
In a little box in her desk drawer, she kept the only keepsake she had that supposedly belonged to her birth mother. It was the only article she was allowed to keep. When her foster-parents found her, she wore a kimono that she had long since outgrown. Tatsuhana couldn't tell them where it was made. She spent an extra hour in the steaming hot shower, though it had little to do with actual hygiene. The hot water soothed her muscles, but she spent most of her time in the bathroom thinking. Perhaps she had been thinking too hard because by the time she came out of her shower, her fingers were red prunes. After drying off and getting dressed, Tatsuhana opened the desk drawer.
She kept the box hidden in the back, away from prying eyes. If the object had any value beyond sentimental ones, she'd rather it be safe. The box fit between her two hands. Tatsuhana filled it with cotton balls to keep it safe. An old coin was tied to two pieces of worn leather. It looked like one of those Chinese coins used in talismans. It was rough and you couldn't make out the designs on either face of it. A square-shaped hole in the middle of it allowed for leather cords to be weaved through it and the coin to be worn as a necklace. Tatsuhana had touched this relic in a long time. Despite being kept inside in a box at the back of her drawer, it felt warm to the touch. She felt a surge of lukewarm energy fill her. Somehow, she felt better, safer. Like being greeted by a long-lost friend.
There wasn't a proper clasp at the ends of the cords. Tatsuhana tied it at the back of her neck loosely so it wouldn't rub against her skin. Securing it in place, she gathered her things. Without her bike, she was forced to call a cab rather than walk the whole distance with sore muscles. Tatsuhana arrived at the Higurashi Shrine in the middle of the afternoon. Paying her driver, she quietly exited the cab and started up the steps. Performing the purifying ritual, Tatsuhana made herself comfortable on the same bench she found before. Staring long and hard at the well, she wondered what it meant for her to be so drawn here in the first place.
There were many other shrines. Some of them she visited with her foster-parents. They never took her here. This was her second visit yet something felt familiar. Tatsuhana could quite point out it, but somehow it seemed as if she had been here before. Long before she came and drew that strange picture of the well. In particular, the well had a particular pull on her. She could stare at it for hours and never know the answers, however it tugged at her. Something buried deep in her mind, perhaps in the same place where those lost memories of her former life hid, Tatsuhana felt a niggling presence calling her. A cord pulled her somewhere. Here? Who knows? No matter how hard she tried to ignore it, she couldn't control the urge to come here. After a couple of years, she caved.
But why?
Why now? Why suddenly visit? Didn't Destiny or the gods or earth-bound spirit have better things to do with their time than lead her on a wild goose chase? Sitting here all by her lonesome didn't do her to help her, but at least it silenced the murmurs in her head. Still, the nagging pull dragged her attention back to the well when she should have been looking for someone who might have more knowledge in supernatural phenomena than she. Tatsuhana wasn't a spiritual person, but that didn't mean she disbelieved everything. Besides, the overwhelming evidence of the supernatural was already piling up around her. She shouldn't be able to speak Chinese or stop a speeding car with her bare hands. Her dreams became more and more bizarre each night. Who else could help her but a priest or shaman?
"Can I help you, dear?" A familiar-sounding woman asked.
Tatsuhana snapped her head towards the woman. The shrine's caretaker must have seen the dark circles under her eyes. She approached carefully and sat next to her, asking, "Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Tatsuhana rubbed her face, burying it in her hands. A ghost? Hardly. She merely wished it was a ghost. At least a ghost could be exorcised.
"I-I've been having some very strange things happen to me lately. I don't even know where to begin. It all started last week..."
The caretaker took her by the arm and led her inside. Tatsuhana tried to excuse herself, but the woman, named Mrs. Higurashi, would hear none of them. Tatsuhana found herself seated at a cozy table overlooking the garden. The shrine housed a small family, which wasn't all that uncommon in Japan. Yet she saw so photos of the father. From what she gathered, Mrs. Higurashi lived her with her father, or possibly father-in-law, son, and daughter. Though a missing husband seemed even less suspicious than the lack of missing pictures of the daughter. Tatsuhana spotted several of them lining the walls, however a graduation photo was the last one of the eldest child. There were no other mementos of her scattered throughout the house. Perhaps she went off to college like Tatsuhana did and got a place of her own or married early? It wouldn't have been all that surprising to be honest, not at least to Tatsuhana.
Mrs. Higurashi disappeared for a while and returned with a tea tray. The curious thing about it was that she made tea for three, not two. Tatsuhana didn't have wonder for long who the third cup of tea was for. A short, wizened old man in traditional kimono and hakama entered. Mrs. Higurashi made introductions but paused when she realized she didn't even know Tatsuhana's name.
Clearing her throat, Tatsuhana took it upon herself to amend the situation. "I'm Tatsuhana Hamasaki, and I'm here...well, I'm not sure why I'm here."
Mr. Higurashi furrowed his brows. "How do you not know what you're here for? Did you not come here for a reason?"
"I did...I think. Look," she sighed, exasperated, "I've had some really strange things happen to me lately and I don't have anyone else to turn to. If I could explain it with science or psychology or whatever, I wouldn't be here. No offense."
"None taken," said Mr. Higurashi. "What do you mean by strange things?"
Tatsuhana took a deep breath. There was no other way but to start from the beginning. She started with the strange dream and ran off from there. Now and then, she went on a tangent about the little things from the years past such as the drawing of the strange and beautiful man. Neither of the gentle caretakers balked at her while she described the phenomena she couldn't explain. She could speak Chinese without learning it and somehow had the strength to stop a speeding car. But when she finished, all the old spiritualist asked for was to see the coin around her neck.
Tatsuhana looked at him confused but nevertheless consented. Hesitantly, she untied the cords and handed over the coin to him. He spent several looking it over, back and front, even under a magnifying glass. Tatsuhana felt so helpless just sitting there, watching him turn the coin over in his wrinkled fingers. Watching him handle it like that made her queasy. It took every part of her being not to reach across the table and snatch it back.
"Do you know how old this coin in, Miss?" He asked.
Tatsuhana shook her head, "No. I'm afraid not. I've had it with me ever since I can remember."
The old man hummed as if in deep thought. "And do you remember where you got it?"
Again, she shook her head. The first few years of her life were still a horrible blank for her. "I don't know. All that I know is that I had this on me when my foster-parents found me. I don't know or remember anything more than that."
"When your foster-parents found you?"
"You don't know who your birth parents, do you?" Asked Mrs. Higurashi
"All I know is that I was found wandering the streets not far from here and eventually I was adopted by my foster-parents. Every time I try to remember anything before that time, I get a pounding headache." Tatsuhana stared into the bottom of her tea cup. She had revealed more to a couple of strangers than she ever did with the people who raised her. She felt entirely too exposed and vulnerable yet at the same time, it was lifting. Simply talking about her troubles seemed to ease the burden of carrying it by herself. Whatever the solution might be, at least now she had a support system to help her through it.
"I'm afraid all I can tell you, Miss, is more than just an old coin, I can assure you of that," he said with such enthusiasm Tatsuhana worried it would make him too excited and keel over from a heart attack. "Its power is hidden. Perhaps because the engravings are so worn. This will require some research." Mr. Higurashi placed the coin necklace in her palm and closed her fingers around it. "Do not lose this," he warned.
Hidden power? Uncurling her fingers, she focused on the warmth spreading in the middle of her hand. She could vaguely make out shapes facing her. The worn images looked like some kind of bird and a lizard, or more likely a dragon.
"Don't lose it." Mr. Higurashi repeated.
Out of her daze, Tatsuhana nodded. "Of course." She tried the necklace back around her neck.
The Higarashi's offered no other assistance other than stopping by again should anything weird happened to her. Tatsuhana wanted to say it might be a while, but she doubted it. She couldn't say when it would happen; she knew it wouldn't be long before she returned to the shrine.
Tatsuhana returned home, more restless than ever. She double-checked her schedule on the calendar. She worked tomorrow and the next couple of days after that. 'OFF WORK' was scribbled in bold red marker for the coming Friday. Her twenty-first birthday.
She should be happy, shouldn't she? No, the day mocked her. She didn't have relatives or many friends to celebrate it with. Her foster-parents were gone. Aside from Maiko, who else was there? Besides the fact that she didn't know what would happen before Friday. She clutched the coin around her neck. Somehow it offered a little comfort but staring at the calendar set off alarms in her head. Trepidation trickled down her system. Something was coming, and she knew not what that meant. It frightened her. She liked being prepared, but there was nothing she could do to prepare for the unknown.
Usually on her days off, Tatsuhana's evenings had her invested in mindless channel surfing. With all that was going on, she couldn't even distract herself with television. If asked, she tried. She keep herself still enough on the couch to flip through the channels. Tatsuhana never realized how much effort it actually to stay still long enough to enjoy decent entertainment until she struggled to lay on her love seat simply to veg out. After trying to relax for about an hour or two, she made her way to her parents' shrine, hoping to find some peace.
It worked. For a while. She wandered off to bed before it became too late. Sleep didn't come easy either. She must have lain there for hours before her eyes finally drifted closed.
Pelting rain landed hard against the shore. Dark waves crashed against one another. In the far horizon, the seas gave way to storm-tossed skies. All of the heavens were swallowed up by black clouds tossing and turning. The deepest shadows swallowed up the moon and the stars leaving nothing but darkness on the earth and waters below. It was as if a darkness had come and swept all but the pale shoreline into its realm.
Rocky crags and cliffs lined the coast. Bone-white and mossy rocks split the sea just as the lightning split the sky. Blazing against the brooding, brewing storm, a flaming bird tore through the skies and over the chaotic waves, chased by a creature of steel claws, iron fangs, and dark blue scales. Tendrils followed after the serpentine creature. Lightning was its breath and thunder its roar. With wings blessed with the powers of the sun, flames erupted. Whatever they touched, turned to steam or was burned to ash. Neither the rain nor the waves could steal from the fiery winged beast.
The dragon raged. If it could not attack with nothing else, then its fangs, long as a man's arm, would suffice as weapons. The dragon swam through the skies. The fire-bird could not escape it. The dragon opened wide its jaws. Sinking its teeth into the fire-bird's side, blood sprinkled the shore. The fire-bird turned, stabbing the dragon with its beak into the dragon's side.
All turned quiet except for the seas below. The thunder and lightning ceased. The howling winds quit their moaning. Releasing each other, the two beasts alighted themselves onto the rocky crags. They stood across from each other upon the rocks while the sea crashed all around them. Their shapes changed. The fire-bird's appearance turned from a glorious bird of paradise into a woman in elaborate robes. She wore men's armor, but that did not disgrace her feminine airs and fierce beauty. She wore the colors of fire, brilliant scarlet, saffron, and golden hues that offset her stark black hair.
Opposite, the dragon changed into a man in silver and black armor plates and a dark blue kimono and hakama. An unsheathed sword rested at his hand. While his opponent wore no weapon except a long dagger at her hip, he did not move to remove the sword at his side. Dark red bled into each others clothing, wounds bleeding from the opposite sides. She on her right and he on his left.
Something greater than the storm and raging seas stood between them. It felt tangible. Palatable. Uncontrolled. It was far greater than themselves and the war between their two peoples. She had come to conquer. In the relative stillness around her, a force beat in her heart. She came to bring honor to her family rather than face marriage. She'd rather die on foreign soil than marry. With her enemy's blood on her tongue, she felt something so much more powerful than filial piety or duty to her country surge through her.
He hadn't expected the Chinese to send a woman. He licked his lips, tasting her blood. Both of their injuries were superficial. Neither would die of their wounds. The fight would continue...maybe. He watched her watching him. Her fierce jade-green eyes made only more dangerous with red ceremonial paint on those perfect lids. He wondered what had brought her to this land in the first place. She left her family behind to fight in a war to conquer more land. Did her father know? Did her brothers? He certainly couldn't picture a husband waiting at home. He couldn't see a husband at all. Such a fierce creature deserved only a man equally determined and powerful. All males must have seemed meek in her presence.
But he was not a meek male...
Tatsuhana awoke to the sound of her alarm blaring. She slept on her stomach, face first into her pillow. A puddle of drool pooled around her mouth. In disgust, she sat up and wiped her mouth. On the other side of her hand, however, cloudy graphite smeared all over her skin. She looked found graphite smudges on her fingertips too. Pencils were scattered over the blankets; a sketchbook lay discarded on the floor. Picking it up, she leafed through the pages. Somewhere in the middle of the night, she must have started drawing in a half-daze again.
Tatsuhana gasped at what her sleepy self was inclined to draw. Pictured in shades of gray was a rocky coastline in the middle of a storm. A female and male figure stood on some rocks and faced each other. A woman in Song dynasty clothing and a man in Japanese armor. A phoenix rose from the woman's body like an astral spirit while an Eastern dragon flew out of the man's. They seemed to stare at each other longingly.
Shutting the sketchbook, she ran her hands through her hair. The dreams were becoming more strange just as she predicted. Pieces to the puzzle were scrambled in the box. How would she put them together? And if she finished, what would the puzzle look like? Tatsuhana couldn't imagine what kind of picture awaited her when the pieces came together. She only looked forward to the end. When all's revealed, she might be able to sleep in peace. No more dreams. No more discoveries of secret, forgotten talents. No more car accidents.
Still shaken, Tatsuhana took the bus, vowing to never walk or bike her way to work and school again. Fortunately, the incident seemed largely forgotten. And if she heard any murmurings about it, she ducked away and tried to draw the least amount of attention to herself. With that in mind, Tatsuhana let the next three days breeze by. Though her thoughts lingered on her dreams and the images she drew when she wasn't fully aware of what she was doing, she let work distract her. Busy nights of taking orders, carrying trays, and watching out for pervy customers took up most of her time. It provided a pleasant distraction for the life crisis threatening to corrupt her otherwise peaceful existence.
She had drinks with Maiko to look forward to. She didn't want to burden her old friend with superstitions and crazy dreams. Thursday evening arrived without further incidents barring the way. Her heels were barking by the end of her shift. Her only desire was to go home and eat the remainder of her cookie dough ice cream and use the rest of the night to work on some drawings.
She'd just finished clocking out when Mrs. Nakamura stopped her.
"Tatsuhana, I was hoping to find you! I've got a little present for you!" She ducked inside her office and returned with a small pink envelope. "An early birthday gift. Don't feel guilty either. I hand these out to everybody!"
Reassured, Tatsuhana offered gratitude and opened the envelope. It wasn't an extravagant gift but it was thoughtful. It was a gift card worth twenty-six thousand yen* to the bar down the street Maiko mentioned. Mrs. Nakamura probably overheard them talking. She thanked her manager for the gift and tucked the gift card into her bag.
When she slept that night, no dreams came to her. Tatsuhana should have woken up grateful that no bizarre dreams visited her in the night. She didn't wake up with a sketchbook full of fantastical drawings that plucked at her soul, and not in an artistic way. The kind of way that sent her spiraling towards a mental breakdown. Her fingers and hands weren't smudged with graphite this time. She awoke late in the afternoon stiffly on her back.
She slept a dreamless sleep yet she couldn't fight the fear crawling inside her, churning her stomach. It bubbled and broiled there. It was like a shadow loomed over her. Tatsuhana laid in her bed far longer than she always did. For an artist, she didn't laze around her house like one. She woke up and got busy. Never was she the kind of person who laid in bed all day, even on her days off.
Today was different. It felt different. She could feel it all the way in her bones. Deep in the marrow. It was different from all the other birthday mornings. She stayed in bed, almost unmoving, and stared at the ceiling like it was the last time she would see it. Eventually, slowly, she got out of bed. It was almost reluctantly that she did so. Her hands caressed her bed sheets for what like the first time. She let her fingertips linger on the dull pale green cotton sheets and the hand-made quilt her foster-mother took months to create. She wiggled her toes when her feet touched the shag carpets. Tatsuhana looked around her room as if for the first and last time. She took in all the sights of her own room. She felt comforted and foreign at the same time. All too often she heard friends and peers say she was born in the wrong era, that she had an old soul. Looking around her bedroom, Tatsuhana wonder if they were right. She knew the objects of her room. The well-kept desk. The bookshelf were she kept all of her favorite novels, mangas, and art and design books. The frilly lace curtains she bargained for at a flea market downtown. She knew each of these items, some of which she purchased herself with the money she worked so hard to earn. She knew her surroundings but couldn't help feeling out of place.
Such an odd sensation to wake up to. Tatsuhana wondered if this was what comatose patients felt like when they finally opened their eyes. Were the faces of their loved ones as familiar and distant to them as her bedroom felt to her? Trying not to let these thoughts scare her this early in the morning, Tatsuhana went about her daily routine. She showered, dried her hair, and dressed. Standing in the mirror, she saw something different. Like there was a new light to her, a new glow, something about her that she never noticed before. Her body hummed with this energy she never before felt. As she gazed in the mirror, she saw herself and a stranger standing in the mirror both at once. Despite being Asian, green eyes stared back at her. Inhumane jade green eyes, like those she saw in a dream once...
Shaking her head, Tatsuhana vowed never to think about her dreams again. Today wasn't going to be a day about strange dreams. It was about her. It was her birthday and she was going to celebrate it how she wanted. She would grab lunch, do some sketches in the park, and meet Maiko at the bar for drinks and dinner. She'd come home, hopefully tipsy because that was the only way to prove you had a good time, and crawl into bed, praying for an easy passage with the morning hangover the next day. Once more, she tied the old coin around her neck. She had no idea what it meant to have it, but she felt safer with it. The old man at the shrine did tell her not to lose it. This way, she could keep an eye on it.
Tatsuhana went to the bike rack outside her building out of habit. She'd been doing that over the last couple of days before she remembered that he bike had been sadly crushed beneath the tires of a baby-blue Mustang. She walked to the bus stop and waited for what felt like a century for it to arrive. Paying her fare, she sat at the back, clutching her shoulder bag in her lap. Out the window, Tatsuhana watched the world fly by before her eyes. Cars, people, buildings. She began to notice little things she hadn't before. Like how the flower shop's window had a light green tint or how a certain bike rack had been painted blue instead of a pedestrian black or how a letter in a neon sign hanging above a dive bar flickered more than the others. Without thinking, she tugged on the pulley long before she intended to. The route wasn't near the park, but Tatsuhana stopped off here anyway.
When the bus pulled away, Tatsuhana gasped. She stopped in front of the Higurashi shrine without even thinking about it. Beforehand, she didn't put much faith in signs. With all that had been going on in the past week, Tatsuhana started to question that previously held notion. Without a second thought, she walked across the street.
She performed the purification ritual and offered her prayers to the gods and to the spirits of her foster-parents. She listed all the things she was grateful for and how miraculous it was that she made it to twenty-one. Tatsuhana suddenly felt at peace. She could breathe. The shadows were gone.
Making her way towards the well, the coin about her neck started to radiate that familiar warmth. It grew in power the closer she got to the well. It didn't burn though it started to become quite the concern. Coins weren't supposed to spontaneously grow warm. In spite of it, Tatsuhana drew near the well. Her fingers curled around the necklace. Heat spread throughout her body without making her sweat. It was gentle heat much like a mother's embrace wrapping around her.
Tatsuhana entered the well's shrine. She hadn't ventured this close before; she had no reason to. But today...that hidden cord that stretched out from the far reaches deep within her mind pulled her here. She stood beside it with her hands braced against its edge. Its stone mouth cool to the touch. The well wasn't so much a well but a pit. No water swam at its depths, but she supposed at some point it had once delivered life-giving waters to a village long-forgotten. She heard Mrs. Higurashi calling for her, no doubt seeing her pass through the shrine's courtyard and wanted to say hello. Tatsuhana turned to greet Mrs. Higurashi but as she did, a bright light started humming at the bottom of the well.
It started as a small spark, an ember trying to fight against too many shadows. It quickly grew. Gold and red hues burst out, throwing rays of brilliant light in every direction. Tatsuhana shielded her eyes. She yelped when she felt something grab unto her arms, lift her off her feet, and drag her into the well. She barely heard Mrs. Higurashi yelling and calling after her. Tatsuhana could barely make out her form standing over the lip of the well silhouetted by the sunset-colored light swirling around her.
Down. Down. Down, down, down Tatsuhana sank. Reds, golds, and oranges gave way to deep purple swirling with dazzling lights. Her stomach churned; its contents tossed and turned. Bile rose in her throat and filled her mouth with a sour aftertaste. The tunnel of purple and blue lights flickered as she was yanked by an invisible force quickly down. She was no scientist, but if she kept falling, eventually she would have to meet cold, hard ground. A landing like that held no promises of comfort, just a quick death.
But the tunnel seemed endless. A bottomless tunnel. She would just keep falling and falling like Alice in Wonderland, only she would never wake up. Tatsuhana fell down a rabbit hole with no escape. Hopeless, helpless, Tatsuhana lost all the strength to fight back the force dragging her down. Her voice was too hoarse to scream when a black pit opened up several feet below her. Her body careened towards that great, big empty dark pit. All she could think about was how she would miss her date with Maiko.