Chapter 38 Modern Life
Kagome's life was nearly perfect in the weeks that followed the well depositing her in her own time. Although she missed her friends in the Feudal era, she felt that she was performing her duty to her family by excelling in school. Her mother had stressed the need for a good education since she was old enough to read. In this way, she felt she was repaying her mother for her support during her travels to the past.
Kagome's friends didn't miss a beat in their antics and no one mentioned her mystery illnesses. Life went on as it should have before the well interrupted. Even Hojo's persistence followed the expected pattern. Not that she was truly interested, but it was nice to have a male interested in her, just for her. Boys of this era just seemed so boring, and two-dimensional. Seriously, who could take a male seriously who worried about skin-care and fashion?
The only fly in the ointment was the persistent nightmares. Her sleep was plagued with hordes of swirling, gnashing demons; every night! There was no end to the torturous nightly visits. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn that they were real. But, in the morning, she woke in the same room, in the same condition, with no physical indication of anything out of the ordinary. All that was left was a lingering sense of exhaustion and the feeling of being hunted.
She tried not to read too much into the nightmares. She told herself that there were no demons in her era. But, she remembered the Noh mask. It nagged at her during her normal school day.
Days stretched into weeks which stretched into months. She attended school, posted good grades, tended the shrine and hung with her childhood friends. The monotony comforted her with its boredom. It had been so long since she could actually complain about being bored. So, she was relatively happy. The only way she could be happier was if there were some way to have her modern family and her Feudal family both. Once a week she attempted to pass through the well only to hit the dry dirt at the bottom.
Loneliness occasionally distracted her from doing her best as a student, daughter and friend. Even when she was in the middle of her friends and class, she got the strange sensation that all those people weren't really there. She found the feeling occurring in other settings as well. When she was on the train, surrounded by people pushing in on all sides, she felt more alone than when she was alone. It was a terrible, yawning emptiness deep inside her.
A new development frightened her more than the other sensations. She was at the county fair, surrounded by hundreds of people, when at the periphery of her vision; she swore she saw the swooping demons from her nightmares. But when she turned her head in fright, there was nothing there but flashing lights and milling people. This made her question her sanity. She had spent the rest of the night practically glued to her brother's side.
Unfortunately, this wasn't an isolated incident. She once walked past a store front, window shopping, when she thought she saw a reflection of a horde of hungry demons looming behind her. When she spun to look behind her, there was nothing there but other shoppers. The feeling left her unsettled and upset as she quickly made her way home to hide in her room.
Once she was lazily flipping around on the T.V. and a horrible, red-eyed demon appeared in the fraction of a second between one channel and the next. She tried to ignore the startling vision, but couldn't remain sitting in front of the set. She turned it off and rose to join her Mom in the kitchen. Just as she left the room, she swore she heard a sinister growl come from the set. She jumped and dropped all pretense of remaining cool and sprinted to the kitchen.
As the weeks progressed through her second year in high school, the demon glimpses increased. Finally, she just couldn't handle the fear on her own and confided in her Mom. As expected, her Mom listened and empathized, then down-played the seriousness of the incidents. It was probably just post-traumatic stress and her imagination. As long as no one was being harmed, it didn't seem to be too big of a crisis. When her grandfather learned of the sightings, he made sure to stuff her pockets with ineffectual sutras.
A month after confiding in her Mom, at the beginning of her last year in high school, Kagome experienced her first physical effect of the sightings. She was in the crowded hallway at school, when she felt a demonic aura seconds before something sharp ripped across her forearm. With a gasp, she spun and scanned the teaming students. Her friend asked in shock, "Kagome, what happened to your arm? You're bleeding!" Sure enough, blood was seeping into the long white sleeve of her uniform. Her hands trembled as she unbuttoned the cuff and slid the fabric up to her elbow. Four angry slashes scored the skin on her forearm. She was so in shock at the sight, that she didn't even know when her friends had led her to the nurse.
That night, she revealed the incident to her mother. The look of concern on her Mom's face twisted Kagome's gut with guilt for making the loving woman worry. "Oh, my, Kagome. What do you think is happening? I thought you said there were no demons in this era? Maybe we should seek the advice of someone more equipped to handle these types of situations. Grandpa has a friend at one of the larger shrines who routinely performs exorcisms and blessings. Maybe he can help us."
Kagome shivered at the thought of telling someone else. "But Mom, how can I tell him about what's happening without telling him everything about the Feudal era and the Shikon jewel?"
Her mother chewed on her thumbnail, "Well, I guess you'll just have to interview the Priest and do what you think is best based on what your instincts tell you."
Two days later, she sat in the waiting room for the Priest. It was a nice enough waiting room, but something felt off; just a bit. It felt as if she looked too closely at her surroundings, the venire of normalcy would fall and reveal the evil lurking underneath.
A kind, motherly looking woman opened the door and said, "You may enter Ms. Higarashi." With butterflies the size of ravens, Kagome took a deep breath and entered the office of the man she prayed could help her. The woman gestured to a vinyl covered chair before a desk. Behind the desk, a high-back office chair obscured the priest who was clicking away at an older model computer keyboard.
A sense of ominous foreboding gripped her as she heard the hinges on the chair squeak as the priest swiveled about to greet her. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked at the familiar handsome face surrounded by inky, wavy hair. As her vision faded into a sea of whiteness, the only thing she could croak out was, "Naraku!" Then the sound of someone worriedly calling her name faded into white noise as she fainted dead away.