Litanya: Okay, I'm going to update again. I do not own Digimon, but I do own this plot and some characters.
An Old Box
Chapter 10
Tai slowly tipped the pile of clothes artfully onto the carpet in his room, making sure that they covered the burn mark that he had just created. It had been a week since the digidestined had last met together for their meeting and Tai was still having fire troubles. At odd and completely random moments his hand let off a ball of fire. Luckily though, it only seemed to happen when he was alone. Unfortunately that was when he was by himself in his room. To cover up the burn marks in the carpets the usually messy leader had had to mess his room up even more. Clothes now completely hid every single burn mark on the floor. The only problem with that was that there were so many marks. He estimated that if he burned another two different places, he would not be able to cover them up and make it look natural. He would have to try something else.
"Tai, can I come in?" he quickly ran to his desk and sat down, picking up a book as he did so. He now looked like he had been studying the whole time.
"Yeah, come in Kari," the door opened and the small girl slipped into the room. One of the first things she did was snort in disgust.
"Tai, I know that your exams are important, but that doesn't mean that you can mess your room up even more than usual. I'm glad we have our own rooms," he swiveled his chair around so that he was facing her and gave her his infamous 'Kamiya Grin.'
"Well, humans did evolve from the apes. I guess I'm a good example of it," Kari laughed and pushed some of his junk away with her foot. Tai felt his brain trying to find an explanation, but she didn't see any of the burn marks, for which he was thankful for.
"I agree whole-heartedly. I just came in here because I'm worried. You've never studied for this long before, even when exams have been on. Apart from school and dinner you have been locked up in your room for the past week. You have to come out sometime! Come and play a game of Monopoly with me or something," he raised his eyebrow, as if calculating what to do.
"But Kari, these are the exams that are going to change my life. I have to do well in them. That's why I'm studying," but he didn't believe a word he was saying. Kari seemed to think that what he was saying was genuine and that surprised him. Kari had been able to see through all of the lies he had ever told her before, but now she believed him. Maybe this 'collective dream' had affected him a lot more than he had known about. It had already basically ruined his life.
"Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. I'll see you later then," she left the room, allowing Tai to relax again. The 'eternal flame of pain' was still burning, but he had almost grown used to it. The things that he was most worried about were the bouts of fire that poured from his hand. They were never far from his mind and he was always wondering when they were going to come. They came at least once a day, and most times in a flurry. It was getting harder and harder for him to cover it up. He looked back down at his book and yelped quietly as he realised that it was on fire.
'Stupid dream… How can I stay around people when I could hurt them without thinking? What if I accidentally hit my sister, or my parents or my friends? I… I shouldn't be here. I don't belong anymore. This world is for humans and I am obviously not one anymore. I need to find out why this all happened, why we were chosen and what we have to do now. All I know is that I cannot live here for much longer. I am too dangerous,' he doused his book with water before shaking the ashes out of his window. The floated to the ground, separating as the wind rushed to greet them. As he watched them scatter Tai could only think of how the ashes reflected his life.
"I win again!" it was, of course, Yolie who let out this triumphant cry. She grabbed the pack and expertly split it. The card facing the top was the King of Hearts.
"Fourteen again? Why oh why did I agree to play?" Ken cried out melodramatically, bracing his hand for another attack. Yolie just smirked a little sadistically.
"Don't worry, you love this game," Yolie reassured him. She was about to gather the cards to hit him when a burst of water cascaded onto the floor from Ken's hand.
"It happens to you too?" Yolie asked, surprised that she was not alone with this strange behavior. She had had to brush all of the sand, the sand that had come out of her hand, out of her room that morning. It had been quite a pile.
"You mean you have little bursts like that?"
"Yeah, and from what I just saw, you do too," as if to illustrate her point a pile of sand came out of her hand just as another half a litre of water came from Ken's.
"I'm scared," Ken admitted, his pink eyes staring intently at his hand, as though wishing that the nightmare would stop, "This isn't normal. It hasn't happened at school yet, but what if it does?"
"I'm scared too. If people see that we can do this, they will be scared of us. They will call us freaks and they will not stop until we die. They will never believe that this wasn't our fault," tears came to the yellow eyes of the young girl as she realised that the future was not going to be pleasant.
"Hey, if this is happening to you, is it happening to the others? Imagine what Tai and Davis would be going through… Tai would be setting fire to everything, whilst Davis would be turning everything to ice. T.K's 'gift' would not be too bad as his is a healing gift. But Sora and the others would be like us. Why does everything seem to be so bad at the moment?" there was a silence after Ken had spoken. Neither of them could answer his question. In silence Yolie began dealing the cards out again, forgetting all about the 'punishment' she was supposed to give Ken for losing.
Sora shivered and drew the heater nearer, wishing that the room wasn't so cold. In truth the room was warm, but a cold wind was blowing in the room. Sora wasn't sure if the wind around her was from an open window somewhere or if it was coming from herself. Wherever it was coming from, it was making her cold and it hurt her. Even as she drew the heater closer, the wind just stopped suddenly. What had been an almost freezing breeze before had become the warm air coming from the heater, and she was hit with a wave of air that was so hot it was almost burning.
'Why does that always happen?' she pushed the heater back to its original position and switched it off. The room was warm enough now.
"Sora honey, are you home?" the girl heard her mother put her keys down on the bench before she answered.
"Yeah, I'm in my room."
"I thought that you would be at the park on a beautiful day like this. You haven't been going out enough these days. Go on; go to the park now, just for a walk. It won't hurt you," Mrs. Takenouchi appeared at the doorway to Sora's room and the red-haired girl sighed quietly to herself.
"Alright, I suppose that you are right. I'll be back in about an hour or so," she grabbed a light jacket from out of her cupboard and rushed past her mother before she could say anything else. For some reason she just wanted to be alone.
She wandered alone through the park, seeing the people and the flowers, but not really taking them in. Children wove around her in their games, but she took no notice of them and as a result, she almost crashed into many of them without stopping her pace. The people that saw her just took her for another stressed student about to take her exams, but exams were the last thing on her mind. She was worried about them, but she was more worried about the chill of the wind that always seemed to follow her around.
"Sora!" she looked around to see who it was that had called to her, only realising then that she had been gone for longer than an hour.
"Oh, hi T.K. What brings you here?" the younger boy lived in an apartment further out from the city and to see him in the park was a rare occasion.
"Oh, I'm just here to meet Kari," his cheeks turned pink. He was obviously embarrassed to admit that he was meeting the girl, even though everyone knew that they would soon begin dating. Sora could not remember if they had begun to date, or if they were still just friends.
"Ah, okay. Does Tai know that you're going to meet her?" it was a joke between the digidestined that Tai would hunt down anyone who tried to get close to his little sister. Tai had actually chased T.K the whole way around the park once, just to scare him into thinking twice about trying to date Kari. They had no idea why Tai was so overprotective. But Sora surmised that Tai was only trying to make sure that T.K was willing to do anything for Kari, and the boy had proved that many times before.
"Yeah, that's the strange thing. Tai hasn't been threatening me lately. Every time that I have been there he has just been in his room 'studying'. He doesn't even come to check on us every so often like he used to. It's kind of… worrying if you know what I mean," T.K pushed his white hat back so that it wasn't covering his eyes anymore. Sora hadn't even noticed it drop.
"Hmm… I know what you mean. I'll have to go talk to him. I have only seen him at school and even then I've been busy with tennis and extra classes and he's been at soccer or different classes. Do you mind if I accompany you to their place?"
"No of course I don't mind Sora. It will be an opportunity to catch up. I feel as though I haven't seen you for ages. What have you been up to? Studying a lot I presume?"
"No, not really… I've been going to extra classes, but other than that I haven't really done anything else. My mind has been elsewhere," they were sauntering along towards the Kamiya's apartment, enjoying catching up, "What about you T.K? Have you been seeing Kari a lot lately?" T.K blushed again at Sora's teasing comment.
"Yeah, I have. Davis seems to have finally backed off her and Tai isn't being his usual overprotective self. I've been taking advantage of it whilst I can," they had arrived at the Kamiya's apartment. It wasn't all that far from the park. As they stood outside the door they heard a noise that scared them. It was the fire alarm. A moment later Kari and their mother burst out of the front door, crashing into Sora and T.K.
"Kari, what's happening?"
"There-there's a fire. It's coming from Tai's room, and he hasn't come out of there. We knocked on his door, but we couldn't hear anything. Tai's going to die!" she sobbed hysterically. Without a second thought Sora rushed through the open doorway and into the burning apartment…
To be continued…
End of Chapter 10
Litanya: Sorry this chapter took so long… I've had writer's block, as you can probably tell by this second-rate chapter. Sorry I took so long to update Steph . Oh well, now I have. Please feel free to review, not review or do what you like really. I'll see you all next chapter I hope .
