A/N: Sorry about how long it has been. Real life jumped in and it wasn't very fun. Anyway, we are back on track now.
4. The Sense I Lack
She awoke in the sky. Below her was fog and above her was the sun. She hovered, looking at each building. She giggled. The people looked like ants.
Why was she up here?
Who was she?
For a moment, these questions were quite important. Then, they were forgotten as a cloud passed overhead, replaced with an eager attempt to fly.
What felt like hours, but was only moments after, the girl touched down on the top of an apartment building, breathless with laughter. Flying. It was incredible, important, amazing.
It should also have been impossible.
With the thought of that word came another: why am I here?
Then she realized she had no idea where 'here' was.
With no other ideas, the girl jumped from the building.
An ordinary human would have panicked at the drop, perhaps would not have jumped at all. But the girl was not ordinary. To be honest, she didn't even recall that she was human. The girl reached the street and walked across, the streetlight going completely ignored.
There was somewhere she needed to be, something she should see. So, in her hurry, she flew again, seeking, seeking.
For some reason, the world was growing dark. It wasn't the dark of the setting sun but a color that set a chill down her spine.
Her feet touched down once more and she rubbed her eyes. Apartments, all stacked like a multi-layered sandwich on top of each other. Noise, a wailing sound. A siren. No, a scream. Someone was screaming. Someone was crying.
"Ma'am, you must calm down-"
"Where are you taking her? That is my daughter, what are you doing with her?"
The screaming, the woman screaming, she knew this woman. Her neck felt sticky and wet all of a sudden.
"Mom...?" Hikari whispered, touching her fingers to the back of her neck.
A man was carrying a bundle away into a truck. A bundle about her size.
Her fingers traced painlessly further down and she looked around.
There was something else, someone else.
Hikari couldn't remember. When her hand came away red, she wasn't sure she wanted to.
Someone was crying again.
From where she sat in the cornerof the apartment, Hikari heard them. They were so far away, further away than her own bloodstains in the now-empty apartment. Before men and women had trampled through, putting tape up and taking pictures of her blood. They hadn't seen her once. One had walked through her foot.
What had happened to her? Did she want to know?
She did want to know who was crying. And looking was better than sitting here.
So she flew away without looking back.
Hikari did not like the sky, all grey and black and heavy. It smelled, it smelled so bad, but like the crying, was distant. Like a lesson more than a real thing.
She reached a roof and walked through the door. There was no disorienting feeling even now.
"Who's there?" she called. "Who are you?"
She didn't know if anybody would answer, but she called again anyway.