Chapter four
Before Sunrise
Across the hall, in the room Yusuke and Kuwabara shared, Yusuke was already in bed and asleep. Kuwabara, being paranoid, sat up straight in his bed. His bed was up against the sidewall and far wall; he was facing the wall with the door on it. To his side was Yusuke's bed, and between them was a dresser with enough drawers for both of them situated under a window. On Kuwabara's wall was the door to the bathroom, and on Yusuke's wall was the door to the walking closet. The room appeared empty, but he felt otherwise. He glanced around the room again before lying down and pulling the covers up to his nose. He started to feel sleepy; something caught his eyes- wait it's just a sock glowing because of the moonlight. Wait; weren't the curtains closed? Kuwabara risked looking over to the dresser and saw the curtains were definitely closed. He saw a little girl sitting on the dresser; her hands were holding the surface on either side of her while she kicked her legs childishly.
He sat bolt upright, eyes wide. The little girl looked at him softly, her gray eyes half closed in a sleepy sort of way. Her glowing image flickered like an old movie reel as she stared at him, but as he kept staring back, her image became stronger and the flickering less apparent. His vocal cords failed him as he tried to call the sleeping boy across from him, scream, cry, anything! "Ura-meshi…" came his weak voice. "Urameshi!!" he whispered a bit louder. "Mmh!" the stubborn teen rolled away from him. "Urameshi!" the carrot top groped around for something, found a shoe, and threw it weakly at Yusuke. "Hey! Kuwabara, what the hell's your problem?" Yusuke was on his stomach, propped up on his elbows, glaring at Kuwabara. "Urameshi, there's a-" he waved frantically toward the dresser. The spot was empty. Yusuke glared, "What?"
"I saw a ghost! Seriously, I swear! She was sitting right there!" Yusuke did not argue back, for he was asleep again. Kuwabara sat up in his bed, pulling the covers around him like a cape. He didn't want to go to sleep now, he was too afraid of the little girl. He stared at the spot on the dresser intently. A cold hand touched his shoulder; he turned to the ghostly little girl sitting next to him. She smiled at him, He jerked away from her, terror on his face. Her smile slowly began to fade. Her eyes turned red, her face changed in a horrible way, and she snarled at him with an animalistic voice.
He went out like a light.
Keiko turned uneasily in her bed; Lil's story had been rather disturbing. Yukina had fallen asleep the minute she got into bed. Keiko was envious of her sleeping habits. The room kept getting colder and colder; Keiko pulled her covers back and stood up to get another blanket from the linen closet. She breathed out white smoke as if the room had dropped below zero. The carpeted floor suddenly became stiff and uncomfortable beneath her bare feet. She shook her head; Yukina is an ice-maiden after all.
She walked into the bathroom and opened the linen closet to get a blanket. After choosing the thickest one she could find, she closed the door and turned to the door. The cold tiles made her toes numb; she breathed out fog again. Wrapping the blanket around herself, she left the bathroom. She gasped, drawing in frozen air, freezing her throat and lungs. Yukina lay on her back in midair, nearly three feet from the mattress. Her blanket had slid from her body and lay crumpled below her.
Keiko dropped the blanket and ran out of the room. Her feet slapped the wooden floors; she nearly tripped over her own feet as she stopped at the door next to her room. She knocked loudly on it; the occupants shuffled about before a tired Shizuru opened the door. "Keiko?" she yawned. Botan popped up behind her, "What are you doing up? Is something wrong?" the ferry girl rubbed her eyes. Latching onto Shizuru's wrist, Keiko nearly ripped her arm off dragging her back to the room. "There!" she said, pointing to Yukina's bed. It was empty. "What exactly am I looking at, Keiko?" Shizuru dislodged her wrist from the girl's grip.
"Yukina! She was floating above her bed!"
"I don't think ice-maidens levitate," Botan commented.
"We have to find her!" Keiko ran down the hall in search of the Koorime. Botan went to wake up Lil. Shizuru followed Keiko down the dark halls. "Yukina…Yukina!" she called in a whisper. They went down the hall and as far as the landing with no sign of her. They doubled back to their rooms and joined the other teens. Botan stood with Lil and Yusuke. Kuwabara seemed to be in a coma-like sleep, so he was not (could not be) woken; Kurama was ruled out because he shared a room with Hiei, who would not take lightly to the situation; Botan did not think it important to seek help from Jin and Touya. Lil passed out flashlights to the drowsy teens, "Yukina is probably sleepwalking, and in this unfamiliar territory, she could hurt herself. Split up with your roommates; Yusuke, you go with Keiko, you know this house almost as well as me. Don't wake up Grampa; he doesn't need to know about this. If you find Yukina, don't wake her; it's dangerous for a sleepwalker to be woken. Guide her back to her room. Alright, lets move." They split into their teams with flashlights and took off.
Botan and Shizuru stayed on the second floor, Yusuke, Lil, and Keiko went to the first floor. The minutes ticked by, Yukina was not found. "Where could she have gone?" Lil grumbled, peeking under the furniture in the den. Yusuke was looking through the bookcases, even though he knew she could not possibly have hidden in them. Among the shelves were several thick volumes on boring subjects that didn't interest him. He touched the dusty head of a bust statue. It was the bust of a Greek goddess, Artemis, which seemed fitting because it was placed among several books on mythology. The head of the statue gave under his hand and clicked. The entire shelf leaned toward him, a secret passage. He pushed the shelf back into place and heard another click; it closed "Yusuke, what are you doing? Shine the light this way." Keiko said.
"She's not in here," Lil decided, "C'mon, we still have to check the dining room, drawing room, kitchen and the living room." She trudged out of the room with Keiko at her heels. Yusuke looked at the bookcase, and then followed the girls.
The whole house was searched and no Yukina was found. Five very disgruntled teens gathered on the third floor near the dojo. "We've checked every nook and cranny, Lil, except the fourth floor." Botan said.
"But Grampa said-"
"Screw what James said!" Yusuke nearly shouted, "We're going to the fourth floor! Now, where's the stairs?" Lil lead the way, walking stiffly as far away from the annoyed Yusuke as possible. The dusty, unused steps near James' room led up to the fourth floor. The door at the top of the stairs was hanging open. The three flashlights among them were concentrated on the floor; which was littered with odds and ends of various decades. The fourth floor was divided in half; one half was a huge room, probably a ballroom of another time; the other half was inaccessible through the piles of junk, mainly a grand piano. Shizuru focused her flashlight on a set of footprints in the dust. "Look there!" she pointed to the trail leading to a small balcony. The French doors leading to it were open, letting the gentle rain leak in. "Oh, no…"
Sweet smelling breezes wafted through her hair, a butterfly landed on her nose. The ice maiden sat up on her bed, but then realized it was a bed of flowers instead. The sky above her was pink and yellow, like a sunset, only all over the sky, and it was bright as noon. Yukina rubbed her eyes, was this real? The butterfly that had landed on her nose fluttered around her head; it was huge, the wingspan was nearly the size of her hand from her middle finger tip to her wrist. Choosing one of the large pink and yellow flowers around her, it landed and fluttered its wings slowly, as butterflies tend to do when stationary. A furry gray bunny lollopped by her leg and nibbled the grass. Yukina stood up in the fantasyland, "Where am I?" she said out loud.
A little girl came into her view on a small hill. She smiled at the Koorime, and beckoned her to come. Yukina would have known better, would have sensed the danger of strangers, would have hesitated, but this dream world made her feel…happy, carefree, and naïve. Yukina made her way towards the little girl, walking around large smooth stones that sparkled in the nonexistent sun. The hill she climbed the small hill where the little girl stood, but as soon as she made it to the top, the little girl ran away. She giggled, her brown hair flowing behind her. Yukina stopped. Was this a game? Should she chase the little girl? The little girl waving to her interrupted her thoughts. She wanted Yukina to follow. So she did.
The little girl led her across a hilly place; always going up and back, and up and back. The pretty flowers and the little animals running around her feet made her giggle, kept her happy; squashed the nagging thought in the back of her mind. The little girl skirted around a rising cliff, the sides were covered with thorn less rose bushes with sturdy thick branches. Yukina watched as the little girl climbed quickly to the top of the cliff and waved back to her. Smiling, she took hold of the strong rose wood and climbed.
The five teens stepped out into the rain, searching for the lost Koorime. She was nowhere to be seen. "Where did she go?" Lil's flashlight swept around the side of the house; it stopped when it landed in the latticework. The criss-cross wood was tangled with the dead vines of ivy and roses. They would bloom again in the spring, but their dried, hardened thorns were just as dangerous in the fall. Lil had stopped and stared at the latticework because a shred of baby blue fabric clung to the thorns. Yukina's nightgown had torn there; she had to have been climbing the latticework to get to the… "She's climbed onto the roof!" Lil cried.
"She sleep walked to the roof?!" Yusuke swept his flashlight upwards to try and see. "Botan, get your oar; we have to find her before she falls or something." Lil turned to the ferry girl. Nodding, Botan flicked her wrist and her flying paddle appeared in her hand. She motioned for Lil to mount behind her, "I won't be able to get to her if she falls; you have to grab her." Lil clambered onto the oar and they flew into the air.
"Yusuke, you, Shizuru and Keiko stay here and keep a look out. If you see Yukina, give a holler." Yusuke nodded and kept his flashlight in the air. The roof to the Victorian house was sloped on the sides and flat on the very top. Several chimneys loomed over the two on the oar. They slowly circled the rooftops; Lil kept her flashlight on the house. "There she is, Botan!" Lil pointed to the highest steeple. Yukina clung to the lightning rod, waving to some unknown audience. "How can we get her down? There's no where to land." Botan said. Lil tightened her grip on her flashlight and the paddle.
"Get me as close to the steeple as possible. I'll jump on and try to keep Yukina from falling; you fly and wake Jin up; he could probably get us down."
"But you could get killed!"
"And if I don't and Yukina does, Hiei will kill me anyway. Now go!" Botan said nothing to this but furrowed her eyebrows. The rain had soaked their clothes to the skin, and it didn't help it was fifty degrees with a wind chill factor to boot. Botan tilted the handle of her oar towards the house. The steeple was a few feet away from them; Botan leaned in closer so Lil could reach the rod. Yukina had her eyes closed, but she somehow sensed Lil's presence. Lil jumped onto the steeple, clinging on for dear life. 'Yukina had better appreciate what I'm doing for her,' Lil thought, shivering.
Yukina had climbed the cliff; the little girl greeted her on the top. She turned to the other side of the cliff and showed Yukina a pool. The water was sparkly and blue, a few lily pads floating freely with pearl-colored blossoms on top. Yukina's friends were all there, Keiko, Botan, Shizuru, Lil, Kurama, Hiei, Kuwabara, Yusuke, Jin, Touya, even Chu, Rinku, and Genkai. They were all swimming, laughing and having fun. The little girl stepped up to the edge of the cliff and jumped into the pool. She resurfaced and waved to Yukina, 'join us,' she seemed to say. Yukina waved to her friends and prepared to jump down and join them. She came to the cliffs edge and looked down. She was about to jump when she felt a hand on her arm. She looked over and saw a horrible monster.
It was taller than her, with black skin that looked like bark. It had horns like a ram and a twisted, ugly face. Its clawed hand dug into her arm. Yukina screamed and tried to pull away. The monster grabbed her other arm and tried to pull her away from the cliffs edge. She struggled violently, trying to get away from the monster, but it held on tight. The scenery around her had suddenly changed. The sky was black and red, the flowers and grass had turned to barren dust and stones. The pool beside her turned into a lava pit, and her friends that were swimming turned into horned creatures like the one in front of her. Her dream was now a nightmare.
Lil fought to hang onto Yukina and the lightning rod. The rain had made the roof, as well as everything else, slippery to her shaking hands. Yukina was battling with Lil to get away; Lil could not, would not release her hold on the ice maiden. One of her hands slipped away, Yukina dug her nails into Lil's cheek, luckily Yukina's nails were just as weak and dull as her own, but it still hurt. "Wake up, Yukina, darn it!!" Lil shouted, trying to recapture Yukina's other hand before she tried to scratch her again. Too late; another shallow but painful channels appeared on Lil's neck. "Alright, that's enough!" Lil slapped the ice maiden. Hard. The momentum threw her off balance; she swayed and fell, because she was latched to Yukina, she fell too.
