Last Life
The Darkness
The battleground was set. The sun had sunken far enough behind the bustling city to cast ominous shadows over the two players. What small remnants of afternoon that remained were quickly fading into the green of twilight. Over their heads the moon hung, half concealed by shadow, and glowing a sickly pale yellow.
A moderate breeze blew around them, causing the overhead wires to shake and wobble, like strings on a harp. But the wind touched neither of them. So absorbed in the battle they were, they noticed nothing of their surroundings, or the change that would soon occur.
Kenta was sweating despite the cool winter air. With slightly shaken hands he pulled a card from his hand and placed it on the playing board.
"Angewoman's arrow." He stated raising his minty eyes to meet Hirokazu's.
Hirokazu smirked and Kenta groaned.
"Is that the best you can do?" He asked mockingly raising one, thin eyebrow. His smile broadened.
Kenta flinched noticeably as Hirokazu pulled a card from his hand and held it propped between his index and middle fingers. The way Kenta stared in that fear filled awe gave him a rush of adrenalin and power.
"Let's see what you're future has to hold Kenta, dear." He said laying the card over another on the playing board, "DNA digivolution."
"Oh come on, how is that possible?" Kenta jumped to his feet and threw his hand of cards on the board, "You can't do that."
"Says who?" Hirokazu replied cocking his eyebrow again and wiping his side of the playing board free of cards.
"You can't make them DNA digivolve! It just can't happen." Kenta argued stomping one foot on the ground while pounding his thighs with his fists to accent his argument.
"It can and it has." Hirokazu replied calmly. He started shuffling his deck with his eyes closed, "Wake up and smell the bananas chumly, you lost."
"Only because you cheated." Kenta sat down Indian-style on the floor, across the playing board from Hirokazu, and pouted.
"Want another game?" Hirokazu asked smiling as Kenta eyed him dangerously and muttered:
"Not with you."
Hirokazu shrugged and tipped Kenta's cards off the board before folding it up and throwing it on his bed. Kenta glared daggers at him and cleaned up his cards.
Hirokazu couldn't resist smiling. As much as he hated seeing Kenta get all pouty and distraught over a card game, he loved the triumph that came whenever playing against him. He may have been a nerd but he knew nothing about strategy.
They sat in relative silence for a few moments before Kenta started chuckling beneath his breath. Hirokazu considered him closely, he laughed harder. Unbeknownst to Kenta, Hirokazu's smile widened. Soon they were both red faced and laughing like madmen.
The lights flickered and died but they both continued laughing until they were out of breath.
"What happened to the lights?" Kenta panted. He was still visible against the window, where the remnants of twilight gave just enough light to see, but his face was completely shrouded in darkness.
"I dunno." Hirokazu replied, wiping tears away from his eyes, "I'll go check the dining room.
The whole house was out of power. They could hear the neighbours voicing their discontent, in particular the old man who was frequently drunk and always unpredictable. Hirokazu was afraid of him, Kenta was petrified.
"Looks like the whole towns out." Kenta called to him from the balcony.
Kenta was close to understatement. Indeed the whole town had descended into darkness, every building for miles was black as night. The only light was from the street below where cars bleeped noisily and their headlights flashed like a sea of stars all fallen from heaven.
The man from next door wrenched the sliding door to the balcony open so fast it threatened to fall off its tracks. The old man shambled out onto the balcony and let a string of drunken curses fall from his lips. Despite the coolness of the air a rank smell reached their nostrils. A combination of alcohol, sweat and the putrid stench of poverty. Kenta's eyes widened and his hand found Hirokazu's shirt sleeve on which he tugged like a small child.
"Lets go back inside and find a torch." He said softly, eyeing the man cautiously.
Hirokazu nodded, took one last look over the balcony railing at the sea of headlights that lit the city as best they could, and let Kenta drag him into the apartment.
He hadn't realised how cold it was on the balcony until he was indoors again. It was also considerably darker indoors, Hirokazu shuddered. He wasn't afraid of the dark, not in a sense. He was more afraid of what had caused the darkness. The thought made him shudder again. He had a morbid imagination.
Kenta seemed indifferent to the situation
"Hirokazu, do you have a torch?" He asked, only narrowly avoiding the coffee table but tripping in the corner of the couch, "We can tell ghost stories."
Again Hirokazu shuddered. Only one word came to his mind at the mention of ghost stories. Digimon. To his great surprise the thought scared and intrigued him. He hadn't seen a real digimon for almost a year now and his memory of them wasn't exactly homely. As much as he tried to prevent it every thought of digimon brought him inevitably back to one thing, one memory that stood out against the rest like neon lights. The D-Reaper.
No matter how he denied it, he was more than petrified of it. For a week after the 'incident' he had flinched every time he saw red jelly. He was now, officially, feint hearted when it came to blood. There were good thoughts that he associated with digimon. Digimon cards, Guardramon, the digital word, all of those were good thoughts. There was only one horrible, gaping flaw. They all brought him hurling back to the D-Reaper.
"I don't think we have one." He replied distractedly. Kenta groaned and managed to feel his way to the kitchen bench in the faint light the moon provided.
"Candles?"
"What do you take me for? I don't follow some strange cult. Who keeps candles in their house?"
Kenta sighed again and began picking at the broken bench top. They sat in a relatively uneventful silence for at least five minuets, though it felt a lot longer to Hirokazu. He still couldn't manage to get the D-Reaper out of his mind, or why it so incessantly haunted him. None of his friends seemed to be as affected by it as he was, not even Kenta, and he was practically scared of his own shadow.
Hirokazu jumped when the silence was broken by Kenta's cell phone. His heart went ballistic in his chest and his hands were instantly slicked with sweat. He was still jumpy.
"Hello?" Kenta answered his phone; it was probably just his parents. Hirokazu was positive this black out didn't just affect his district, "Takato?" Or not.
"Who is it?" He asked. Kenta looked at him, or at least he thought he looked at him. The moonlight caught his glasses blocking his eyes from view.
"Who called you? Why?" Kenta's face turned as serious as stone in the blink of an eye. Hirokazu felt an ominous dread rise up in his gut, "You've got to be joking… you are joking right?"
There was no doubt about it, Hirokazu was indefinably becoming worried. He hadn't seen Kenta that serious since he failed that math test, on account of he was studying digimon cards instead.
"…They're going to what? How? Why?"
"Kenta, what's going on?" He couldn't keep it in any longer; the suspense was eating him up. However, Kenta didn't answer him, only nodded silently to the phone
"Okay, we'll be there soon." He hung up, but didn't look at Hirokazu. Instead he took to staring blankly at the floor.
"Kenta?"
"We have to meet Takato and the others in the park." A strange tone laced through his voice making his eyes, his whole demeanour, slightly hysteric.
"What's going on?" Hirokazu asked after a moment's silence. Kenta didn't answer at first, only shook his head faintly. His eyes brows were pinched slightly in the middle and his mouth turned down into a frown
"I don't know." As soon as the words left his mouth he shook his head more vigorously and whatever vexation had plagued him vanished, "Come on, he said it was an emergency."
With a wave of his hand Kenta made his way hastily to the door. When Hirokazu didn't follow he became agitated.
"Come on Hirokazu, it's an emergency.
"What's an emergency?" Hirokazu asked, placing his hands on his hips and stubbornly remaining where he stood.
"I'll tell you on the way, we have to go." The hysteria was back in his voice and he hopped from one foot to the other while holding the door to the apartment open.
Hirokazu didn't have time to evaluate the situation, the frightened glint in Kenta's eyes and the way his hands shook slightly on the door handle compelled him to move. His thoughts were so jumbled as he left the apartment, ushered hastily be Kenta, that he forgot to lock the door.
"So what exactly is going on here?" He asked, feeling his way through the darkness to the stair case.
"Takato didn't really give me that much detail but from what I can gather there's something wrong at Hypnose and they need our help."
"Something wrong?"
"Yeah, don't ask me what it is because I'm about as clueless as you are."
Hirokazu felt a shiver involuntarily run down his spine at the thought of Hypnose. Like everything else from his past the mention of that particular organisation sent his mind reeling with memories of the D-Reaper. As they made their way stumbling down the stairs towards the exit he silently prayed to whatever god cared to listen that it hadn't returned.