Disclaimer: I don't own any of the original Card Captor Sakura characters. They all belong to Clamp. Everything else comes from MY imagination. 'Nuff said.

Author's Note: ^.~ C'mon! GIMME SUM SUPPORT! *whew* Longer than I thought, but good! YAH!

Chapter 2

It started raining. The cold, wet water drops dripped onto the street, the dark clouds gathering together. Sakura was still out. Crying. Her own tears mixing with the tears of the world. She couldn't understand it all. Why? Why was she crying? Why did she feel like, the note had been meant for her? Why did she feel like. innocent people were dying?

She couldn't move. She could barely breathe. She couldn't even think. Cars zoomed by, splashing water all over her thin pink windbreaker. Sakura shivered as a large force of wind rushed against her. She needed to find a place to crash, fast.

It was too far from Tomoyo's house, she could tell, since she had been walking for at least 2 hours. She was close to her dorm, but not close enough to make it there before she was completely worn. Many of the shops in the city started closing and some stayed opened. She saw a little bookshop in front of her, with an 'Open' sign on it, just as she saw thunder strike in the sky above. Sakura ran in the door, soaking. The little bell ringed as she walked in, dripping water everywhere.

"Hello?" It was very dim inside, barely any lights, but it was surprisingly warm. She looked around. It wasn't a bookshop. It was something else.. She turned to her right, and found candles, to her left, books, and in front of her, a whole table of strange ingredients for. magic. It was a magic shop.

She hugged herself as she walked around, looking perhaps for a coffee machine or a vending machine with something warm. Sakura yelled out as she tripped over a rock, and she looked down to see what it really was. It wasn't a rock. It was a cat's skull. She screamed out in shock.

"May I help you?" An elderly-looking man walked out from behind a curtain, that held the words 'Employees only' written on a sign. Sakura grew a sweatdrop on her head.

"Uhm, gomen nasai (sorry)," She bowed. "I-uhm well, just sort of tripped. That's all." The man looked at her with a small twinkle in his eye.

"Are you sure my dear?" A chill ran down her spine as he smiled.

"Yeah." He nodded and went behind the curtain, leaving Sakura to look around the shop. The shop and burning incense, and black candles burning. Suddenly, the shop had suddenly started scaring Sakura, remembering a lot of these things were used when summoning dead spirits. When summoning ghosts.

She backed away from the incense, and bumped into something tall and hard, she turned around to apologize.

"Gomen, I wasn't-" It wasn't a person. It was a large, dead, stuffed black crow standing on a stick. Sakura shivered and ran away from the stuffed animal, running to the other side of the store, the side with more books.

It looked a lot safer here to Sakura, because what harm could a simple book possibly do to her?

More than she thought it would.

She walked casually down the aisles, looking at the titles. Most of them were about the stars, summoning spirits (which was something she did NOT want to do), curses, love spells (maybe later she might look at that), or how to accomplish evil. She came upon a book with the title 'How to Turn Your Life Around: Forgiving Yourself" and she picked it out. On the cover was a picture of a mask, half sad, half happy. She looked through it and thought what a book like that was doing here. Then, just as she was about to put it back, a sudden image ran through her head. An image, of a man lying on the ground, a knife sticking out of his back, his neck, wrists, and ankles brutally cut.

She shook her head and put her book back, saying to herself over and over that she needed to stop watching late night television. Then, she saw a thick, red book that read, in fancy gold letters "Sweet Love Stories," which immediately caught Sakura's attention. She flipped through it, and stories about sacrificial love, eternal love, almost any love you could think of. Beautiful pictures accompanied the stories, and almost every story she looked at, there was a happy ending. She decided she would buy the book. She walked out of the aisle, but not before another book fell down. It was also thick and red, except the title was written in a darker red. A darker blood red. Sakura turned it over, it read "Gothic Love: A Collection of Cryptic Tales" She gently set the other book down and looked through this one, thinking Gothic as in Medieval, she was always interested in those foreign princess and prince stories her roommate had always talked about. She decided to skim through the pages, and see what this was about..

The first page she turned, there was a grim reaper, with a heart to the side, and on the other side of the grim reaper, was a banshee, with the grim reaper's ax sticking out of her chest. For a split second, she thought the picture had moved. Sakura blinked. And slowly, but undoubtedly, the banshee turned her head toward Sakura, and her eyes glowed green. She screamed and shut it completely and dropped it onto the floor, and stepped back from it. This is such a freaky place, she though to herself. As she was about to pick the first book up, a heavy book fell on her head. She winced at the pain, and yelled out again.

"What is-" She turned around and saw the book. It was a brown leather book, and she was about to put it back up into the shelves, when the color slowly swirled into a navy blue. She froze. A feeling of shock went throughout her body. The same shock she got when she saw the broadcast. She slowly read the cover, and there, in shiny, black, leather printed words, it read: "Cazeo Cosoka: Wizard of the Night." She ran her fingers over the title, and a Sakura felt a strange sensation. She opened the heavy cover, and the first page was old and worn, sepia-toned and blank. She turned to the next page, and there was a poem written on the page.. Something bumped into her from behind.

"Oh sweet dear, gomen, gomen." The same employee from before chuckled.

"It's alright," Sakura replied hastily. The man eyed the book she was holding with a smile.

"Sensational book that one is." He pointed to the navy blue book in her hands.

"Really?"

"Yes. Really." He turned his eyes to the book about Gothic Love, and eyed her again.

"Uhm..?"

"That book on the ground? I don't believe I've seen that one.. And I'm the owner! Silly me." He laughed. Sakura laughed along, but in a more nervous sense. The man picked the Gothic Love book up, he turned the first page.

"Ah, the grim and the banshee, what a wonderful story! So dark and always told in such a bloody way.. For love! Hah!" Sakura stared at him. She looked around for the first book she had found, but was not successful. She couldn't find it anywhere.

"Would you like that book you hold?" Sakura swallowed.

"How much is it?"

"It's four yen day in my store, lucky you, so everything's four yen!" Sakura forced a smile.

"Oh.. Wow."

"Anything else you would like? Perhaps eye of dog? Tongue of frog? Heart of pig? Brain of hog?" Sakura swallowed and again forced a smile.

"No, I guess, I'll just get this book." She suddenly looked out the window, and the rain seemed to stop right as she said that. Weird.

"Well then, right this way!" He walked up to the counter. Sakura followed silently. As he typed away at the cash register, Sakura swallowed.

"Uhm, don't you have a book called Sweet Love Stories?" His eyes looked up from beneath his glasses. It was the first time she had really got a good look at them, his eyes. They were grey.

"Dear dear, I'm afraid you have our shop confused with someone else's shop."

"Are you sure? It was red and I could've sworn-" He turned towards the clock and cleared his throat.

"Look at the time! Oh, I have an important ceremony to attend to at six! And it's almost five! I'll never make it. It's to my daughter's birthday party you see, and it's farther downtown, it'll take me forever to get there at this rate!"

"Oh! Then I'll hurry up so you can go!" Sakura smiled and handed him four yen.

"Thank you thank you," He barely looked as he stuffed the money in the register. He looked up again, and strangely, his eyes, had, well, swirled blue. It didn't just turn blue, it swirled blue, the white melting into the color of the cold rain that swam across the city. Sakura blinked.

"What? Is there something behind me you would like?" He pointed to the racks of potions and animal skins behind him. Sakura gulped.

"No, nothing."

"Alright then, love to stay and chat, but I have to go! My darling cherry blossom is very important to me." Cherry blossom? But, that was-

"Your daughter's name is Sakura sir?" He nodded and smiled fondly. He tried to smile fondly. Though Sakura could notice part of his mouth curling up into a smirk. She wondered why that was.

"Yes, sweet cherry blossom she is! I am guessing it is your name too? Since you asked, of course!"

"Yeah, it is. And I know what you mean, it's not like you can read my mind." Sakura laughed nervously. Could he? She thought inside her head.

"No, of course not." He laughed. Sakura walked towards the door.

"Well I'll be going now. Sayonara! (Bye!)" She pushed open the door. He bowed.

"Sayonara, and hope we meet again." As she left, the man twirled his fingers. The sign on the door turned by itself, now reading 'Closed.' The man finally smirked and went into the curtains where supposedly only the employees should be.

---

"Amazing work sir."

"Thank you."

"She bought every word."

"I could tell. Nice disguise, as that stuffed raven."

"You too, I mean, the old clerk thing? And you scared her some too. Nicely done."

"Thank you again.

---

Sakura clutched the book to in her arms as she walked down the streets. This part of the city seemed to look unfamiliar to her. She looked at the name of the street she was walking on. 'Young Misery Ln.' She blinked. That didn't sound like a street's name to her. She kept on.

Though the sun was out, black clouds kept it from showering its bright light over the city. It seemed as if suddenly, all the water that had poured down from the Heavens earlier, was all gone. No puddles, no water, there was nothing left to show that there had ever been a storm there. Sakura shrugged, maybe the water just evaporated quickly. The streets were empty, which was odd. All her life Sakura had lived there, she remembered the city as busy, cars never ceasing, not even at night. The eerie silence was a change.

The city seemed to have lots its grace, its happiness, its light. Now it seemed dark and cold, she shuddered as another cold wind blew against her face. Sakura looked around at the shops, thinking maybe she should turn around and ask where she was. But bizarrely enough, every time she tried to retrace her steps, it seemed as if the whole street and changed and rearranged itself. She laughed harshly. That was impossible.

Or so she thought.

Maybe she should ask the first open shop she came to. Sakura nodded and walked ahead again, for a long time. She probably would've actually gone in and asked for directions, but the problem was, all the stores were closed. She even knocked on windows, with no answer whatsoever. A hotel! She thought. A hotel has to be open! She ran again, hoping to meet a hotel, or some apartments, or any building with life inside.

She never came to one.

Sakura finally lost hope of finding a building with some humans in existence, and rested at a bench at bus stop. She had never been so tired in her life, she wondered, why now? She panted and gasped for air and clutched the book closer to her stomach. Then, another shock went through her body, and another and another. They wouldn't stop. A zap of pain went through her head, another through her chest, one through her stomach. Sakura doubled over in pain, collapsing.

Sakura fell off the bench, still clutching the book. With on arm she supported herself, breathing heavily. She saw her short breaths appear in the cold smoke in front of her. Sakura blinked. It hadn't been this cold a minute ago. She looked up at the sky. The clouds were parting. Why is it so cold? She thought. It's only July!

Tiny snips of ice began to drop from the sky as the clouds parted. Snow? In this part of year? They dropped heavier and heavier, till they began to form into sharp pieces of hail.

"Hoe!?!" Sakura yelled out, shocked. It wasn't possible for snow to become hail! Especially not in such a short time ranging from 5 minutes to 10! She still had an arm on the ground, trying to push herself up. She looked at the sky again. The clouds were dark and bunched together again, except the hail kept falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

They rammed into her back, paining her from head to toe. Sakura could feel the back of her jacket ripping as the size of the hail grew bigger and bigger. Pieces fell onto her arms, injuring her painfully. Tears streamed for eyes. She tried to stand up, tried to take cover, but she could not move. Her legs turned into stone.

Finally she gave up and her other arm dropped, her whole body on the ground. Just then, she felt the ground beneath her crumbling, the ground around her began to shake, the hail coming down harder than before. Sakura screamed out in fright as the street completely disappeared, and she fell into a hole. And so she was falling, with no support at all. The hail still fell though, as she fell. Sakura tried to grab onto anything, anything at all. But all she had was the book, and both of them were falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.