Chapter 3- The Home
When Tai woke up, he found him self in a rain forest area. The air was moist and damp. The leaves of the trees dripped now and then with water. He was sitting up against a large tree between two roots about as wide as his waist. He held his head, because of a pounding headache that hit him when he woke up. He was still a little dizzy from what had recently happened. He looked at his hand. He was human again. He didn't know what day it was. He thought everybody would be worried about him. "You awake?" he heard a voice, and snapped his head up. He found a girl with brown hair that was in a braid that went all the way down to her waist; she looked about his age. He flinched when he tried to stand up, and fell back down. She giggled and sat down in front of him on her feet, knees bent. Her eyes were a dull yellow, remarkably like his, and she was wearing a white oxford shirt with a black fleece vest along with a short leather skirt, the shirt was hanging out under the vest over the skirt. There was a black string around her neck with a tooth at the end. She had on black leather, knee-high hiking boots. "You had a really bad attack back there."
"Where am I?"
"No Shinka."
"Where?"
"The World that hasn't evolved. Your Earth was hit with a meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. This world didn't, yet somehow man was able to get on with life. Man isn't as dominate as he is on your earth." "Can you explain . . . what is happening to me?" Tai said.
The girl smiled, the smile was warm and welcoming, "Of coarse it's happened to us to. About fourteen years ago there was a scientist who thought that man could be the dominate species. His name was Malone and he thought this because he was on your planet. So he used orphaned infants to try and find some way of making them more . . . strong and dominate to the dinosaurs. He worked in secret using the infants as lab rats." She stuttered trying to find a way to say it. "Then, one day the scientist had succeeded in his task. He thought he had done something great and told everybody. People called him crazy, and he was sent to an Insane Asylum. He spent many days wondering way nobody wanted to be like your Earth, and way they didn't want to stop all the deaths caused by the dinosaurs. Then one day he disappeared. They went to his lab to destroy it, when they realized that the serum that made the humans change into something that would make them dominate, was gone. They sent a search party to look for the scientist. They never found him, or the infants. Some say he was killed, some say he drank the serum. Bull shit if you ask me. I, along with some others, think that he traveled to the other Earth."
Tai felt like he shouldn't ask but the words fell out his mouth, "What did he do?"
The girl looked down, "Nobody knows, " She looked over to her right. He looked over in the direction and stared. There sleeping, was a little girl who looked about seven in age. She had curly (kinda "Shirley Temple" curly) purple hair that reached her shoulders. She had navy blue jeans on and a tuxedo shirt with a dark navy blue collar and trim. She also had a necklace with a tooth on the end. She flinched and rolled over, still asleep.
Tai spoke a little amazed, "Who--"
She interrupted him, "That's Hoshiko's sister, her name is Bambi. She changes the same time we do."
Tai's face was still looking at the little girl, but his eyes wear focused on the older girl. He found himself observing at her every detail, surveying her up and down. She also found herself doing this to him, and felt her face turn warm. She turned away, embarrassed, "I'm telling you this because your one those lab rats." Tai turned his head to her and stared, confused and weak. "But when we found out about you, we came to find you and we noticed that you had changed. This confused us because we would have changed too. Do you know why that happened?" Tai shook his head, and by the look on his face, she could tell he didn't believe her. "You don't believe me do you? Now think about it." She repositioned her self, turned her head sideways and glared at him. "Did you ever make things happen? Things you couldn't explain, that happen when you were angry or scared?" Tai thought but couldn't think of anything. "You're a digidestined, I know you can think of something." He thought through all the adventures and enemies he had fought. Nothing came to his attention. Then it hit him. During the fight with Piedmon, he had stood up to him alone and had taken some of the attacks. He had gotten beaten up badly but, now that he thought about it, he was in the same condition as his digimon. "See what I mean?" Tai snapped back to reality. "Strength like that isn't human and you know it."
"How did you know what I was thinking of?" Tai asked, astonished.
She pointed at the courage crest sign on Tai's tooth-necklace, "That's a digidestined crest sign isn't it?" There was a pause. "Oh! I'm Keiko. This is basically your room." She nodded at the tree Tai was sitting up against, "You sleep here and lay around on this tree instead of down on the ground. We each have our own."
Tai asked quietly, "Is this he same place were that scientist lived?" "Yes but -" she trailed off, looking at him questioningly. "You look concerned." He was looking at his feet, thinking deeply. "Tai?"
He looked up at her. Even with the unnatural color of them, her eyes seemed to be looking deeper and deeper into his subconscious. "It's nothing." Somehow, she didn't believe him. He didn't want to think of the fact, which might prove the danger of his friends. Their friendship might end up killing them. He didn't want to think that his old family might be replaced, although, at this point in his life he couldn't find a place in the old group. After what happened with him and Sora, he had slowly drifted from the group and had liked the feeling. Especially walking alone in the rain. It seemed to be feeling the feelings he wouldn't have that day, even though he was never sad about it. But now, he felt worried that after everything they had gone through, he wouldn't be able to save them. He also didn't want to admit the fact that he thinks he knew who this "Scientist" was.