Annihilation
Part Eight
Ya know, I was looking for Odaiba on a map of Japan and for some strange reason I couldn't find it. Could it be that that Odaiba doesn't exist? Or is it that I'm not spelling the name right? Maybe I should put it that they all moved to Nagano… Well, anyways, enjoy! Ja ne!
Kari had moved her hands around in the handcuffs until the skin on her wrists had gone raw. Her mouth was gagged with a foul tasting cloth and she been blindfolded as well. She hadn't gotten the chance to see her kidnappers but whenever she heard them breathing or a muffled talk she held a photo in her mind. They looked like someone Kari had known personally in her dreams, but as dreams are usually after a point of awakening, the picture seemed blurry and far off.
Now the truck bumped and rattled on some sort of country road and a hand grabbed her arm to steady her. Kari let out a frightened whimper.
The picture came back again, but Kari didn't know whom it was. She could see clearly the brown hair but everything else was blurry. The hand let go and the picture faded.
A mechanical voice clicked on the other end of the line.
"I'm sorry, the number you reached is not available right now. If you would like to try again, please press one. If you would like to leave a mess-"
Davis slammed the pay phone onto its receiver.
"That is the last time I waste my money on Jou! You're up."
Ken shook his head sadly.
"Just because you called ten straight times in a row doesn't mean he's going to answer."
"Fine. Enough time dealing with Jou, let's try to find Kari."
"Where do you propose we search first?"
"At her apartment of course."
Rolling his eyes, Ken followed the exuberant Davis down the road. "Do you even know where we are?"
"Uh…" Davis turned around slowly. "Not…really."
Ken fell down dramatically.
"But hey! We can take the subway! Fastest way to travel and easy!"
Hours later…"Uh…okay. If we take the train to North Odaiba, then we could get on a track to North West Odaiba, and then from there we could either catch a cab or we could start walking. See! Easy as that!"
Ken pushed him over roughly, staring at the underground map hard.
"There's no way we walked that far! We can't be in Southern Odaiba! It's impossible!"
Davis got up off of the ground, rubbing the back of his head.
"Hey, if that's what the map says then I'm willing to believe it."
"Whatever. Let's hurry up because the next train to North Odaiba is leaving-" Ken gasped and looked at his watch, "ONE MINUTE! Hurry Davis! Get the tickets!"
"But I don't have enough money!"
Ken shoved him towards the ticket booth and took money out of his pocket.
"Here, use this!"
They both froze as the sound of a train passed them.
Note: Please reread the last time with Tai, Mimi, and Sora in the previous part. It helps with the understanding of what is happening here. Arigato. Oh, and yes, I was a little disturbed in this certain part. ^.^
…if I think that my courage is gone, then it will be gone. But if I just trust in myself…
The explosion died down in the distance, but a white wave rushed towards them.
*This "white wave" is the effect of a nuclear weapon. It is formally known as a "blast wave" and it moves away from the main fireball at a supersonic speed. It can demolish buildings over large areas.*
Tai didn't even get a chance to blink before he was dead.
"Here we go. You guys are positive you want to go to the digital world? I mean, we could just forget Davis and go do our own thing."
Yolei dropped her arm and gave T.K. a funny look. "What are you talking about?"
"It's just that…I'm getting a bad feeling…"
"Well, sorry. I didn't know that you were in tune with spirits and everything." Yolei crossed her arms over her chest and squinted one eye at him
"I just…don't want to go."
"Well than don't go. Cody and I will be fine without you."
"But…Matt might be there."
"And?"
"And I need to talk to him."
"Tell you what. If we find Matt - which I'm sure we will - we'll bring him back so then you can talk to him. Okay?"
T.K. looked long and hard at her.
"O…"
"Good! Let's get going Cody! Digiport open!"
T.K. stopped, open-mouthed, staring at nothing, wondering if he had done the right thing.
This is getting really hard to write…I'm running out of characters!! *cries*
Davis kicked a can non-too gently. It slammed against the wall where Ken had his back.
"Watch it," his friend mumbled, clutching the bus ticket.
"Well I'm getting bored and my mother is probably wondering about me."
Ken opened one eye and looked at Davis. He was standing there with arms over chest, studying the dented can. Davis flicked the can with a light kick and it landed in Ken's lap.
"Look, that doesn't give you the right to kick cans at friends."
Davis sneered. "But I didn't kick a can at a friend."
"Is that supposed to mean something?"
"Uh…no…"
They both stopped to look up at an overhanging light fixture. The light flickered some more until finally it turned on completely.
Davis groaned. "Ah great. Now I know it's late."
"Our train should be getting here any minute now."
"What time is it?"
"Almost eight."
"Almost eight?!" A light rumbling sound emitted from Davis' stomach. He blushed faintly and forced a laugh.
"Say, Ken, do you think that they have vending machines here?"
"Probably." Ken leaned back and closed his eyes again.
An intercom buzzed overhead.
"Attention. All people boarding for North Odaiba, your train is here. All people boarding for North Odaiba, your train is here."
The device clicked and some people walked past the two boys.
"Come on Ken, I don't want to be here all night."
Ken stood up slowly and brushed off the back of his pants. "Finally."
Okay, this is getting really hard to write. Help me! I'm thinking of doing a 'lost part'. It'd be great. I could include all the things I wanted to do in my story but didn't do. It would probably be rated x or something, but hey…I'm just kidding; I wouldn't make it that nasty. But any who…on with the extremely hard to write story. *sighs*
The vehicle stopped moving and a series of door slamming occurred. A hand grabbed her arm and roughly pulled her backwards. The image occurred again, a little bit clearer this time.
Someone started talking in a deep voice, and onto her mental image a beard was added. Not a long beard, but a beard that was scratchy and short, like it had just grown over the previous days.
Kari was lifted by her arms from the vehicle, and placed on a rough, gravel type ground.
She had lost three of her senses; taste, sight, and smell, but she still had two other useful senses; touch and hearing. She used them at all possible times, straining her ears for familiar sounds, and acknowledging the roughness of the hands upon her. Her mental eye could lead her wrong, and Kari knew that, so she tried to rely on the two senses she had.
"Where do we put 'er?"
There was a mumbled response that Kari could not hear.
She tried to swallow the fear present in her mouth but the foul-tasting feeling stuck. The hand grabbed her again, but this time by the waist. She was swung upwards and onto a broad shoulder.
Kari closed her eyes tighter and told herself that there was nothing she could do.
~
Tai opened his eyes slowly, and then he heard a shot. Pain was quick, and he closed his eyes again.
~
Taichi awoke in a cold sweat. In his mind's eye he saw Kari and her kidnappers and a great anger swelled up inside of him. He rose to his feet quickly, trying to place his surroundings.
"Kari?"
The chibi Kari stood in front of him, holding her whistle at arms length. Everything else around Tai disappeared as he stared at the younger version of his sister, with his mouth agape. The Kari giggled and shrugged her shoulders, and in doing so she lifted a great weight from Tai's heart.
"Kari…" Tai started walking towards her slowly, but every step he took forward she took two back.
"No Kari! Wait!"
She faded away, her giggles bouncing off of the "walls" around Tai.
"Hikari…wait."
He closed his eyes tightly, trying to stop the tears from sliding down his cheeks.
What am I doing here? How did I get here? Wasn't there something I was doing?…Someone I was with?
Yolie stepped out onto the dead, brown earth, unbelieving. Everything was gone. There were no trees and very little grass, no digimon in sight or people. She turned around to look at Cody.
"I think," she paused, catching her breath, "that if the older kids had been taken here then they would be dead."
Cody dropped to his knees and inspected a dead plant stump. It was pushed in one direction, right.
"Lets go that way." He indicated with a way of his hand to the right.
"All…right."
They set out towards a barren wasteland of nothingness, unknowingly walking towards a gravesite.
A 'click' sounded from behind Kari and the handcuffs she wore loosened. She pulled at them and felt them slide off, but those rough hands grabbed her arms and the man started whispering in her ear.
"I know what you have, girlie, and I want it. These other people around here don't know nothing about your little gift, but I do. Yes, you better watch yourself, because when they're through with you, I'll be coming for ya." The man ripped off her gag and released her arms. He spoke to her in a normal voice now, so all could hear. "The boss is gonna see you now so you better be corporative, otherwise I'll deal with ye."
Kari shuddered and licked her lips. There was a horrible smell here, more horrible than the cloth that had been around her nose.
Tai was back in his apartment. There, on the coach he had sat on so many times, was Kari's whistle. The light from the glass door played over it, making it twinkle like a lonely star in the dark room.
A doorknob clicked.
Suddenly he heard voices from outside the front door. He swallowed a lump rising in his throat and tried to think quickly. He wasn't quick enough.
The door opened and his parents stood looking straight at him. No. They weren't looking at their tattered and bruised son. They were looking past him. They were looking at the whistle.
A silence hung in the air so heavy that Tai felt smothered under it. He continued to stare at his parents, but they didn't seem to see him. All they saw was the whistle, bright and shiny in the dark gloom. It was a painful reminder of their lost daughter and her lost brother. So painful, they couldn't look away.
Davis smiled pleasantly at an old lady next to him, trying hard not to yawn. The two boys were on their second train that would drop them off at north Odaiba and from there they would have to walk the rest of the way home to the northwestern part of town. They had missed their big soccer game and were both dreading the feedback from their teammates. But worst of all, they hadn't accomplished anything in the hours that they had been gone.
"I wonder if T.K. and the others have found anything."
"That loser? He couldn't find a nail if he was sitting on it."
Ken passed Davis a quizzical look but refrained from saying anything. His traveling companion had turned short-tempered in the past hour and Ken was sure that anything could set him off. He tried a different approach to a conversation.
"I heard that the after school computer courses are over next week. We'll be able to visit the digital world more often soon."
Davis grunted.
Ken opened his mouth to talk about V-mon but an intercom beat him to any words.
"Passengers, uh…there's a slight blockade happening in the tunnel," there was a brief pause and then a hurried afterthought, "but please do not panic. By any means do not panic."
The buzz that followed was extremely loud in the dead silent train.
An irritated look in Davis' eyes was dispersed by a fear look from Ken. Davis shrugged off a heavy weight of uncertainty and tried to smile, but it was an unconvincing smile.
Kari was held down tightly with ropes. The ground beneath her was cold and separated…like rails. She wiggled her wrists for the hundredth time and prayed to any God that she was not on train tracks. The lack of sight drove her wild and she continuously prayed time and time again that, by some spiritual gift, she would be able to see everything with her mind. But there was only one thing that she continuously saw. Her whistle.
Tai listened to his parents talk from his bedroom. He was crying. He was crying so hard and sobbing so loud into his pillow he was sure that soon he would run out of tears. But one thing was happening that made him cry harder. His pillow wasn't wet.
"Do you remember when we…when I hit T…Ta…Tai?"
There was silence.
"I couldn't help it. I was just so mad at him."
Once again, silence.
"Do you? Do you remember that?"
"Yes."
"And when Kari…I think that they were hiding something from us."
"I do too."
"What was it?"
"EVERYTING! EVERYTHING!" Tai screamed.
"I'm not sure."
Tai cried harder until he could hardly breathe. Everything…everything, mom. The digimon, the digital world, the fights, the pain…the losses, the victories, the enemies, the friends…everything that had ever happened to him to change his viewpoint on life, he hadn't told her. I could of told you, but I was so afraid…
Tai lifted his head slowly. Suddenly he didn't hear his mother reminiscing. Suddenly his tears stopped and his breath returned. If that was all that he had ever been afraid of…all that had ever haunted him…but it hadn't been. There were other fears. Fears he had never faced.
That's why I'm still here, right? I haven't finished what I came here to do.
And suddenly everything was clear to him. The answer was spread out before him like a feast that he had turned his nose up at all these years.
The only thing that could ever prevent him from achieving his life goal was another person's hatred.
T.K. paced around the computer room, talking to himself.
"Okay. Okay. I can deal with this. This is all some gay prank that Davis thought of and now everyone is watching me on some hidden camera and laughing."
But something deep in his body told him otherwise. That feeling was so sure and too painful to face that T.K. dismissed it time and time again from his thoughts. But it came back. It always came back.
There were footsteps outside now, making T.K.'s pulse rise. Why the hell am I alone at a time like this?
The doorknob started to turn and he heard…voices. In his panic stricken mind T.K. saw Devimon. Devimon was out to finish what he had started, he was sure of it.
T.K. raised his digivice hurriedly and whispered, "digiport open."
*flahback*
"Kari…Kari?"
A wide grin found Kari's face as she looked up at her brother. "I'm fine, T-T-"
Her head fell heavily to the ground and her eyes closed from a mixture of exhaustion and feverish pain. Then there were bright lights, a sensation of rough linen sheets, and a missing piece of memory.
"Tai – I'm sorry I couldn't kick the ball back to you…"
She watched from afar as Tai was hit by her mother – their mother. Angry words filling a waiting room and…Tai crying. Never before had she seen Tai cry. She wanted to reach out and hold him, but he couldn't be reached. She wanted to tell him not to worry, she would be fine, but he wouldn't listen. That was when she knew.
She was going to die.
"KARIIII!! Kari where are you?"
Lost in a desert? No problem, Tai mused as he walked across a land of nothingness. Just bring some food and a game with you so you don't lose your mind or your life.
"Did I mention bring someone else, too? Helps with the 'not losing the mind thing'. Just a little bit."
Tai smiled at the last line. Matt had always said that. Poor little bugger…if only he were here.
"He'd probably try to kill me again. Just gotta love that."
Tai drew in his breath. The nothingness ended abruptly, fading off into some dark place. Too dark to see.
"Kari?"
He could feel her near. She was somewhere in there.
"Kari?!"
He had reached the border between light and darkness and now he peered into the foreboding dark. Abruptly his ears picked up two sounds. They were both whistles.
One had a childish ring to it and Tai could picture it in his mind. It was made of silver and it was strung on pink yarn. Kari's whistle. The second was loud and as sinister as the dark it came from. It was a train's whistle.
"KARI!"
Without thinking, he jumped from the white into the black.