p class="MsoNormal"strongOne/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal"The bird had died./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanGrandpa stood up from his almost permanent kneeling position in front of the shrine to his two daughters, opened the door to the landing and looked at the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span"Such a shame." He sighed whimsically. "You were such a good bird."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Grandpa?" Koichi came up the corridor and saw the old man staring into the living room./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""The bird," the old man pointed a trembling finger./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"Koichi stood back, sighing a little. "I'll bury it," he said, taking the cage off the hook it had swung from./p
p class="MsoNormal"The old man nodded, turned slowly and headed back to the shrine./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"It was a brisk morning, but the cold air did him good as he dug a small patch at the bottom of the garden with a trowel. He felt sad, but more because he was grateful to not have to hear its repeated cries of 'Why Rei-chan, Good morning Rei-chan, Why Why Why!' They'd driven him spare, the one memory of the horrible thing he'd done./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"His phone fell out of his pocket and knocked against a rock. He snatched it up to check it's state. He heaved a relieved sigh when he saw that the screen had miraculously been spared. Then he stared at it, trying to build up the courage./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"He wanted to leave. Saving the lives of the people around him was too much a burden to bear when it involved having to live with the memories, the nightmares of classmates killing each other in a desperate attempt to save their own lives, of bringing a pick axe down on his own aunt in the middle of a rain storm, of the ghosts that haunted his waking dreams and tormented his sleeping ones. Wouldn't it be so much easier to insist he leave for India to join his father?/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Koichi?" startled from his dilemma, he looked up and found that his classmate was wheeling a bike over towards him./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Mei?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""What are you doing?" she leant her bike against the fence and crouched down beside him./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Burying the pet bird." He tried to seem unbothered./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Weren't you close to it?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Not really. It's … was my grandparents."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""I see." She picked up his forgotten trowel and pushed at the tiny hole he'd made. "I'll help you."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""The earth's a bit compact here." He said by way of an excuse, both for why he hadn't gotten very far and also for taking the trowel off her./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""It's fine. I'm used to it." She lifted a significant chunk of earth with a tug./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"They continued in silence until a tiny grave with a named ice-lolly stick for a marker lay before them./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Thanks, Mei."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""You're welcome." They looked at their handiwork in silence./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""I might need to get a replacement for my grandparents."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""I see." She looked at him intensely through her non-bandaged eye, waiting for his next move. He washed the trowel and put it back with his grandfather's tools, wiped his hands and made his way back towards the gate. She grabbed her bike and followed him out of the gate and down towards the pet shop./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Any thoughts about high school?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Not really. I don't know that we'll be allowed to sit the end of year exams without a form teacher," she said listlessly./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""I hadn't thought about that."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""No." it was an agreement. "Were you thinking of leaving?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Maybe. I was considering joining my father in India."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Is there a Japanese school there?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""I hadn't thought that far."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""I see."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Or I could try and make it on my own in Tokyo."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""I see."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Well now that we've managed to fix the curse, there's nothing to worry about here anymore, right?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""I see. You think we're out of it?" The question wasn't looking for comfort or validation. It was slightly scathing, in her strange condescending way./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""You don't think so?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""I've been thinking. The original Misaki died and merely appeared as a phantom character on the photograph. He was never actually present. But Ms Mikami was real. Not a shared hallucination. She was dead. But she was present. Corporeal."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""What are you saying?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""Maybe we didn't end the curse. Maybe we just ended one cycle. Maybe there's a common source that we haven't found. Maybe you should stay to see this out till the very end." She looked at him over her shoulder, stopping next to him. "Maybe there's more to this."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""What?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal""If the dead walk among us," Mei continued, unphased, "in the flesh, they are not doing it themselves. We attributed it to the curse, but without the walking dead, there is no curse. Something or someone is bringing the dead to life."/p