Chapter Two

Tohru thought that the light she was seeing was the light of God as he took her through the Heavenly gates and the coolness was of clouds in light ray touching her skin as it washed away her injury and pain. But something felt odd, out of place. If she was in Heaven, where was her mother?

Tohru…Tohru…

That voice, someone was calling to her, but it wasn't her mother.

Tohru…. Tohru…

Who could it be? Tohru wanted to find out and the only way she could was by opening her eyes, and as she did, she found herself in a strange room. It was very bare but also decorative in certain detail that was due to some ornaments in that room. There were two bookshelves standing on either side, a desk with a stack of books and papers and other objects that were all in covered by glass or in frames hung. Tohru groaned as she tried to sit up but a sudden voice beside her called to her. "You shouldn't be sitting up after getting nearly hit and skidding on the side of the street."

Tohru turned to see a woman by her side. A beautiful young woman. A woman with long black hair, blue eyes and tan skin. She looked like something out of a fairy tale or of royalty with the jewelry and the white dress she was wearing.

White dress…wait, she's that person I saw, the one speaking those strange words to that man, the one who hit me, Oh!!!

Tohru immediately bowed her head down, bopping it up and down and saying, "Gomen nasai, gomen nasai, gomen nasai, gomen nasai…" The woman stared at her confused, watching bedazzled as the girl continued saying sorry to her.

"Gomen nasai, I'm sorry about being in your way when you came, I'll pay for any damage done to your car that I was way in, I know it must be really expensive and—" But Tohru's words were interrupted as the woman placed a finger over her lips. "It's alright, it wasn't your fault, my driver, Koju couldn't see through this blasted weather and I should be the one apologizing for you could have been seriously injured or worse than just a scratched or dent in a car."

"But but…" Tohru suddenly wince as pain rendered up from her stomach to her chest, it felt so tight now and she felt nausea inside as it twisted and turned like one of those very fast rides inside her stomach.

I think I'm going to be sick…she thought weakly. The woman noticed this and went over to the side to pick something up. "Here." She handed Tohru a teacup filled with brown murky liquid. Tohru took the cup in both hands and smelled the wisp of the wonderful aroma coming from the brew. She took a small sip, let herself savored it, then took some more as the delicious brew helped settle her stomach and made a wonderful impact to her taste buds.

"Oh this is delicious, I never tasted anything like this ever before." The woman smiled. "I glad that you like it, Tohru." Tohru stopped from taking another sip as she heard her name said. How did this woman know if she didn't give her name?
As if reading her mind, the woman picked up the case that had Tohru's name written to the side on the tag.

"I was trying to decided whether to take you to the hospital or not, seeing if the injury were serious, so I had to check and see if you had any medical records for any if your name was applied. Don't worry, I didn't check your bag, just the tag and took care of checking if you were alright. Luckily though, you just have a big bruise that will go away later in a couple days." The woman then stood up and smooth out her dress. "And forgive me for my late introduction, I am Isuzu Ishtar, but call me Isuzu or Isis."

"Tohru. Honda Tohru, it's a pleasure to meet you Isuzu-san." She said bowing to her in a better matter. Isuzu smiled wistfully. "Please just Isuzu or Isis is fine." She then looked up and headed over across the room towards where the window was. "It's going to be raining for quite a while, so I suggest we wait till it clears, then I'll ask Koju to drop you off."

"Oh thank you, it's all right I think I can walk home but where exactly am I?" She said, asking the top question that had been bothering her most. The room, looked like a study, was she in the woman's house or something. Isuzu said, "We're inside the Domino museum, this is my private studies, I moved here just a few days ago myself."

"EH!?!" Domino, Domino City! Sheknew of theplace and heard it was so luxurious and beautiful to come by to see this wonders, but the fare of cost for a train here was a lot and it would take about two hours to get here by car.

Wait a minute, two hours, what time was it? She looked at her watch and nearly fainted. "Ten thirty! Oh no, Shigure-san, Sohma-kun and Kyo-kun must be worried by now, and dinner oh no! I didn't leave any dinner in case I didn't show, I didn't know I was going to be late but I have to get home. Oh I got to go, I have to go and…"

But as she was getting up to leave, Isuzu went to her side and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Tohru, relax. Call your guardian and inform him of what happen and tell him that you'll be dropped off later when the rain lightens up." She went over to her desk and carried over a black phone and handed the set to Tohru. "Call and let him know you're fine."
Tohru nodded. "Hai, arigato Isuzu." She nodded then walked out of the room leaving Tohru to have privacy with her call. She dialed and waited and on the third ring, she heard it picked up and Shigure spoke, "Moshi moshi, Shigure speaking?"

"Hello Shigure."

"Tohru? Tohru, where have you been?! My little flower, where are you, are you all right, were you kidnapped?! No don't tell me you got locked away in a tower, or oh my poor wife!"

"Shigure, no no! Nothing like that happened, you see, I was walking down the street…" And started to explain what happened up to the part of the woman, Isuzu taking her to her study at the museum and letting her rest and call him.

"Hmm…Isuzu, Isuzu, what's so familiar of that name, no it's her last name I think or was it her first, oh so tell me what's she like?"

"Well she's nice, kind, sweet, pretty…"

"Pretty, as in beautiful, like what?"

"She has tan skin, black hair, blue eyes, very exotic looking I think."

"Exotic, hmm, interesting, is she young, single? Perhaps I should be picking you up over there."

"Eh, no no, Isuzu offered me a ride home so there's no need to come here."

"Nonsense, I insist!"

"But Shigure—" Suddenly the rain poured hard and lightening appeared across the sky and the light went off and the phone went dead in her hands.

"Hello? Shigure?" She said tapping the dial number but no ring was heard, just dead tone.

Giving in to light panic, she wonder if Isuzu was outside the room at that very moment or some place else when the power went off. She got off the couch and walk slowly in the room, feeling about on the wall as she made her way to the door. She opened it lightly to the hall that lay outside this room. She didn't see Isuzu out there, so she must be out somewhere. Alone and in the dark.

"Isuzu, hello?" She started to call out, wondered if Isuzu was in any of the room somewhere but remember that Isuzu told her it was a museum. Museum had long corridors and bigger rooms with grand spacer along with many different routes and directions to take when inside a museum depending where you're going. It took many ways to having to search through each rooms, seeing all the interesting artifact that decorated and dedicated each one but found no sign of Isuzu anywhere.

So big, Tohru thought walking down the empty rooms and exploring as she checked them out. So many were filled with statue of half-human, half-animal people, others with paper that were so ancient and brown that looked ready to crumpled to piece if touched, and some stone tablet with pictures and strange marking on them each.

Hieroglyphics, that what they were called, Tohru recalled in some note in class of different letterings in different places. Hieroglyphics were what Egyptian's used to carve in the tablets of temples, pyramids and pillars, speaking of past history and great battles won.

Past history, hey that sounded like a good idea! Tohru thought that maybe since she was in a museum and seeing all this artifacts could give her ideas on her project. Yeah, Egypt, with a lot of pharaohs, gods, history and ideas…

For a while, she felt secure and relaxed as she forgot the ebony darkness and gloomy atmosphere while searching for Isuzu. Maybe Isuzu knew more about this stuff too because she seem to looked most likely Egyptian like the ones in the hieroglyphs and she had spoken to that driver in that language…

Suddenly she heard a noise coming from one of the other rooms. A door opening and closing.

Was that Isuzu? Did she just come back from somewhere or something? If she did then why wasn't she hearing footsteps or Isuzu calling out to see if Tohru was all right?
"Isuzu is that you?" She started to call out. No sound. "Isuzu." She called louder again and her voice traveled down the empty hall to the other rooms with no reply in return.

Maybe, she can't hear me, Tohru thought as she walked out of the room and headed down to where the others were, trying to figure where she had heard that door open. She looked in all rooms until she reached the last where the room looked the same as the other but had a door there. Maybe she's there.

Tohru walked over to it and grabbed the knob and felt a cold shiver crawl down her spine. Tohru let the knob go and felt the chillness disappear. Just when she touched it, it seem to make her cold all over, giving her the chills.

Maybe it was her imagination getting to her or something? Tohru touch the knob with her fingertips this time and felt none of the strange coldness but something didn't feel right.

But Isuzu could be in there, and this was the last place she hadn't checked! Gripping the knob tight, she twisted it and pushed forward the door and walked in. When Tohru stepped into the room, the door slammed shut behind, leaving her in an even darker place than where she was before.

Tohru tried to feel for the door or knob but it was like it wasn't even there as Tohru felt blindly around.

Oh no, I'm trapped! She was rapidly feeling scared and worse terrified as she worried what the Sohma's were going to think when they didn't see her coming home. Oh poor Shigure, Kyo-kun, Sohma-kun, and all the others, they'll probably worry and wonder if I ran away or something. There had to be a way out.

As Tohru wondered, she saw a glowing light coming from behind and turned to see it coming from down to the right side of the bottom floor. Light, maybe Isuzu was really down there. She started walking down the flight, no railing to hold on as she made way to the bottom. But when she entered the room where the light was coming from, she saw no Isuzu but another hall, only different. The hallway looked more damp and darker and seem to have an aura that was bringing a bad sign to her. The torch on the side flicker in the wind.

Wind, was there wind here, then it must lead to outside. Tohru, grabbing the torch out from the post hanging and handling carefully, she walk down the room until she reached an edge to where a long still walkway leading to the other side.

Why do I have a very odd feeling of this? Tohru walked carefully on it as curiosity gave the best to her to see what was on the other side. It seem to take forever to getting to the other side as she had to make sure not to stand too close as to judging from the fall on where the height was.

This had to be her imagination, it had to. But when she made it to across, she realized it wasn't. And standing there in the center of that edge was another statue. She saw the body was of a woman except for the head, claws and tail, which were of a cat. In the statue's hand was a box, a box with written hieroglyphics along the side and one huge Egyptian eye in the center, staring right at her. She should turn and run from here, but something in that box was calling out to her, tempting her to peek in and see what was in it that just made her want to look in and see. Tohru found an empty post next to the statue and laid the torch in as she went toward the statue again. Tohru pried the box carefully out of the statue's hands and gently opened it.

What happened next was all a blur of mystery as all of sudden a wave of light spurn out of the box and covered the entire room, blinding and beautiful as something emerge from it's hold. The cat statue, if Tohru had looked, was aglow with golden light and an eye appeared in the middle of its forehead and headed directly to her.

Another figure saw this as he watched this display of the power that was revealed from the box and onto the unknown person. He watched and waited, seeing whether if the spirit of the item and the goddess would chose this person to be its host or victim to the shadow realm. He held a scale in one hand and the Anuk necklace around his neck glowed as he waited for the judgment of the spirit.

Let us see if it choose her to become the host or the one to pay with her own life…