A/N: This fic is a prize for sc333. Sc333's fanfic To Open Your Eyes won The Fallen Ones' R.I.P. fan fiction competition. (By the way, if you haven't read To Open Your Eyes then go read it, and then come back. It's a great piece of angst from Matt's pov, with hints of Yakari.) This is an unsual undertaking for me because it has romance and it's centered in the real world. I don't normally write chapter fics like this, so let's hope I don't screw up.

I had some trouble writing this at first, like I said not my normal stuff, oddly enough it was a Slipknot concert that tore down my writer's block. During the concert they played a video for Vermilion part 2. The video was of a woman lying in a country fild with the wind lifting her off the ground. Don't ask me why but for some reason I was picturing that video when I was writing the first scene of this fic, and the rest just sort of followed.

Anyway, this is a Yakari with mentions/appearances of Sorato, Takari, Taiora, and TK/Catherine. Also beware of angst, some adult language and content, and suicide.

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.


Will We Burn In Heaven?

Chapter 1: The Unrequited Dream

She ran into her room slamming the door shut behind her. The loud bang that rang out as the door met the limit of its hinges seemed soft and soothing when compared to the noise she had just escaped. The noise of two spiteful voices screaming at the top of their nicotine contaminated lungs.

After the door was shut (she didn't bother locking it because she knew no one would trouble with checking in on her) she swaggered as though she were on the verge of fainting to her queen size bed and then fell face down upon the mattress. Her short, sandy brown hair fell over her ears, veiling the remainder of her face while her shoulders shook with silent sobs. She cried without sound because there were no words left within her. Nothing left worth saying, and no one who would bother listening even if there were.

She was at the end of her rope, and at last she felt ready to let go. But how many times had she told herself that, and not gone through with it? How many times had she stared at the endless abyss beneath planning to plunge in but never letting go of her iron grip on life?

'Too many times.'

She reminded herself bitterly. Too many times she had promised herself relief, and had baked out right when her salvation was attainable.

The voices were louder now. They had to be standing in the room beneath her, merely a wall away. That is how she felt lately, a wall away from everything and everyone.

Shakily she rose on to her elbows, looking like a wounded soldier rising from a dusty, corpse-covered battlefield. For a moment she just listened. The sound of her mother and older brother throwing accusations and insults at one another filled her ears like water. She felt drowned in the sound of their screaming.

She wanted nothing more than for their screaming to stop, forever, but she knew how ridiculous that desire was. The fights had gone on for nearly two years now with no end in sight. And she knew that an end would not come unless her asshole of a dad sunddenly and miraculously decided to drop his sluty mistress and come back to them, but the odds of that happening where about as good as monsters attacking from another world.

She hissed out the breath she had been holding. The screaming had stopped. So everything was all right. Their family, what remained of it, was still together… right?

That was what she hoped, but hope was a lie, just like family.

The sound of the front door slamming shut was like a jolting pain, the kind you feel randomly (and usually without any apparent reason) in your back. Only this was worse, and it didn't stop in her back. It spread through her entire body like something was tearing at her insides.

She had heard the front door slam shut like that before. It wasn't a booming or cracking noise; it was a sharp cold kind of noise, like that first leap into freezing water. It was the mere quality of the sound that reminded her of when her dad left, and that is how she knew, that her big brother was never coming back.

He left their family. He left her.

She felt the sting of tears on her cheeks as she slowly crawled off her bed. She walked to her bedroom window like a zombie, a machine without a ghost. The back yard seemed empty, just like her home, and just like her.

Still in a daze she turned from her window and walked slowly to her bedside table. There was nothing unusual about the bedside table; it looked like any other piece of furniture you'd find in a fifteen-year-old's room. Wood painted white with a pink and yellow lamp on top and a picture of her boyfriend framed in a purple fuzzy picture frame. Completely normal on the outside… just like her, completely normal until you look inside.

She bent down a bit, taking a hold of the handle to the small drawer of her beside table. Slowly she pulled the drawer open and then peeked inside. She half expected to find the normal teen girls' accessories and trinkets, but instead she found two items. One was a picture of her family; her family as it once was and should have always remained. A loving, happy family, with all the members smiling and standing close together, but even then it was all a lie. Her dad and mom had already started bickering, and her dad was already screwing that bimbo from the gym.

For a moment her eyes rested on the face of her older brother. The face was some three years younger than the one she had just seen, with laughing brown eyes and a sweet smile; it was so unlike the skeleton of a face it had become. The sight of her brother's younger self invoke some feeling in her, and for a moment she dared to hope.

Maybe things would get better. Maybe he'll come back… maybe…

But the now complete silence in the house seemed to say otherwise. It said, loneliness, complete and total loneliness.

Angrily she jerked her gaze away from the picture to the other item in the drawer, a bottle of prescription sleeping pills. The pills were prescribed to her by some know it all psychiatrist. As if that doctor could talk to her for one hour three times a week, and really know what she needs. She had been too bitter to use them yet; instead she had saved them for just such an occasion.

Greedily she grabbed the bottle of pills as a triumphant smirk spread across her face. That prop would think twice before he tries to medicate another kid's problems away. And her family will finally realize that they shouldn't have sent her off to someone else to solve her issues. If they had really cared they would have talked to her, and waited until she was ready to talk back. But now it was too late. She never got the chance to talk to her family, and now she'd never talk again.

She popped the lid off of the bottle then picked out the cotton on top. There was a swing in her steps as she walked to the other side of her room to retrieve the glass of water sitting on her desk. The glass felt cool beneath her fingers, and she knew she was going to like that coolness running down her throat. With one last flicker of life she began popping the pills into her mouth like candy, using small sips of water to help her swallow them.

Soon the bottle was empty. She knew she didn't need to take all of them, but there was no reason to let the pills go to waste. With a final gulp she emptied the glass of water then set it down before returning to her bed.

Once again she fell back onto the mattress only this time she rolled over onto her back. The fading light of the setting sun leaked through the windows, splattering spots of gold upon the dim gray of her room.

Specks of light fell upon her pale skin, and she delighted at their gentle touch. A bit of warmth was welcomed in her cold and empty world.

The warmth entranced her; it seemed to spread from where the light touched her skin into every corner of her body. The air felt cold when it entered her lungs, but the warmth returned when she exhaled. And each breath seemed to last longer than those summer days with her family by the lake. The warmth seemed like the warmth you get from a good mug of hot cocoa after playing all day in the snow. The light was like silk sheets, or the purest water you could image.

Everything seemed more beautiful. She had never been so at peace, and that's how she knew that she was breathing her last breath.

Her eyes slid shut and the light and the warmth faded.


'I was standing in the dark alone. It had taken me a long time to come to this place.

First I had to walk down an empty, black street. The street lamps where on, but the pale gray light radiating from them was little more than a dim halo encompassing the bulb. The air felt thick as though it carried an invisible weight. This weight filled my lungs with each breath I took, causing my chest to feel uncomfortably tight.

I could see, even with the strange darkness, but seeing was different here. I knew what was around me; a sort of sixth sense interpreted my environment so that I could visualize it all perfectly in my mind. It was a sort of seeing without seeing. A knowledge that your five senses alone could never tell you. And that's how I knew that I was walking down a city street.

There were no particular items that stood out or left an impression on my mind. No road sings, garbage cans, or benches, but I am certain that I past many of all three of these up.

The street was like a canyon, with many brick buildings making up the steep walls. The walls stood so tall that they over shadowed the entire lane, making it impossible to distinguish anything beyond their tops. Colorful graffiti covered the brick walls. I couldn't read the messages. They seemed to be written in a sort of gibberish, and now I am grateful for that because I know that they were sermons of hatred, anarchy, and blasphemy. I didn't have to read them to know that. I just sort of knew.

You would think that with such tall, closely placed buildings surrounding me that I would feel claustrophobic, but I didn't. Instead of feeling clothed and concealed, I felt naked and cold. I was utterly exposed, vulnerable, and weak.

These feelings are normal, or so they say, when we first encounter strange, new situations, but despite what they say, I am certain that my feelings were due to the watchers and not the unusualness of the road I was traveling.

I'm still not certain who or what the watchers are. Maybe they were once like me, dammed souls traveling a dark road in search of the light. But instead of finishing their search they grew tired and decided to stay here and rest, forever. Or maybe they were beings already on the outside, and they just got their kicks from watching the strangers passing by. I guess it really doesn't matter what they were, all that matters is that they were there and they were watching me.

I couldn't see their bodies, it was too dark, but I could see their eyes. Large unblinking eyes, that seemed to glow like small flames, shined beyond the glass windows of various levels of the brick buildings. I tried to ignore those glistening orbs, but it was difficult. Their other worldly glow was both entrancing and unnerving.

I continued my trek down the barren street, but the presence of the eyes never fully left my thoughts. As I continued to walk I felt a chill run down my spin like a large clawed hand ripping through the back of my shirt, leaving my sensitive skin exposed to the elements.

I hate the cold. It reminds me of winter. Winter, the barren season when all is gray and dead. I also hate the quiet empty street. It makes you think of things you normally would never consider. It makes you realize how truly alone you are. It makes you realize that you are weak and helpless.

And oh, how helpless I felt, standing there amidst the darkness. I had to get away, and the only place left to go was the end of the street. The end, the unknown. What's at the end of this street? What's waiting beyond the brick buildings and useless street lamps? I couldn't tell you then, I'm not even sure I could tell you now, all I can tell you is that I had to get away from that street and the watchers within the buildings. And the only place to go was forward. I didn't care about what lied ahead, it didn't matter, the only thing that mattered was my escape. And so I ran.

The sound of my bare feet flopping on the concrete ground seemed crude and clumsy on this silent street, and the jolts of stinging pain accompanying each step only served to remind me of how stupid I was for running barefoot on hard asphalt.

My pulse began to quicken and I could hear the blood racing through my veins and pounding on my eardrums. Each heaving breath I took forced down gulps of sharp cold air into my burning lungs. The cold air running down my throat felt like sand paper mercilessly rubbing against the sensitive skin. But none of this could make me stop running.

I ran so fast that the air I was moving through scraped against my eyeballs causing salty fluid to surface and coat my eyes protectively. Soon my sight began to blur from the quickly changing scenery and the layer of moisture on my eyes. But my eyes could only make out shadows against the darkness. Black against total black. And so the loss of my sight barely fazed me.

I continued to run. I ran until my legs ached, my feet were raw and blistered, and my lungs were twisting from over use.

But soon an overpowering exhaustion washed over me and I lost the will to run. I stopped then struggled to stay on my feet. My mad dash had come to an end. I had succumbed to weakness. I had quit the race, but that did not mean that I would drop pitifully to the ground. I had to remain standing, and so I placed my trembling hands on my lower thighs, hunching over so that I could breath with more ease.

Once I cooled off and caught my breathe I reluctantly opened my eyes. To my surprise there was not a building or street lamp in sight. I did it. I ran to the end of the street and then beyond, but my sense of victory seemed hollow. Yes, the street was frightening, but something told me that those horrors would seem mild, if not completely silly, in comparison to what awaited me here.'

A quick jerk followed by the screeching of breaks tore her out of her thoughts forcing her to grab hold of the seat in front of her with one hand while the other hand held on tightly to the purple pen and pink diary resting on her lap. Her head and shoulders lashed forward then whipped back causing her to thump against the seat behind her.

"Dammit!" she hissed between her teeth once the large vehicle she was riding in came to a complete stop.

She hated buses. They were noisy, smelly, crowded, and certainly not the smoothest ride out there, but living in a metropolis all her life had forced her to adapt beastile vehicles. Normally she would have been prepared for that jerky halt, but today she was just too tired and in too much pain to care.

"All right kids," a short chubby woman with amber hair and blue green eyes shouted, gaining her the attention of all the students within the bus. "Single file, and remember to be respectful." the woman warned in a scolding voice. She didn't really need to shout or scold, the school bus was as quiet as if none of the students were there at all. "Follow me." was the last command before the chubby woman turned to her left and excited the bus. A trail of solemn teenagers followed her slowly to the outside.

"Are you coming, Kari?" a timid voice questioned gently.

Kari turned her head slowly then smiled a small, sad smile. Everything about this trip seemed surreal, like it was all just a hazy dream. Colors looked dull and faded, noise sounded far away like a distant echo. And people seemed but shadows of who they really were. The girl standing beside her was no exception. Normally her friend was neither quiet nor timid, and you rarely caught her without a confident grin on her face, but today she looked like a beaten dog.

"Yeah, I'm coming Nikkii, I just need a minute." Kari replied weakly, even her own voice seemed diluted some how.

Nikkii nodded with understanding then walked out of the bus following the path the other students had treaded.

For a moment Kari just stared after her friend's retreating back, but once Nikkii was out of the bus her eyes shifted back to her lap where her diary and pen rested. She looked down at the page she had just been writing in. Her spidery hand writing seemed grotesque upon the pastel pink pages, like cobwebs strung upon a flawless antique vanity.

She had taken up the habit of keeping a diary when she was eleven. At first she only used it to record amazing battles and plots to foil a dark Emperor, who was trying to conquer a secret world. But those days of glory had long since ended, and the wars had been over for nearly two years. The secret world was now at peace, so soldiers were no longer needed. She was no longer needed.

With a sigh she closed the diary. An animated blonde little girl with small white wings and a white lacy dress was on the cover. The angel-girl was so pretty but so fake. Only Kari, and a handful of others, knew that angels were not fairy like creature skipping around with flowers in their hair and butterflies around them. Angels were beautiful, but they were warriors, they were killers.

Quickly she threw her diary and pen into her black purse and then stood. A long fitted black skirt flowed from her hips to the ground; she was wearing all black today. Normally she preferred bright, happy colors like pink and yellow, but today was different. She was different. She looked older and more dignified with her tight, black lace, short sleeve shirt, her long skirt, and her black strappy shoes. But it was not simply her clothing that had changed. The normal rosy blush of her checks had been replaced with a sickening paleness and her once soft pink eyes had darkened and were cold and sparkling like frozen blood. She certainly didn't look like the perky child of light now. She looked more like a cold queen or a dark enchantress.

Her incarnadine lips frowned with solemnity as her vermilion eyes narrowed upon the black rubber isles between the bus' benches. She stood perfectly still for a moment as if considering whether she really wanted to exit the bus, and then finally making up her mind she began to move gracefully towards the door. Leaving the shadows of the bus behind she walked into the sunny afternoon.


She sat upon her balcony staring out at the city beyond and below. Her white wife-beater fit tightly around her upper body while her light pink pajama pants where held to her hips with nothing more than a sting, allowing the rest of the fabric to fall loose around her long legs. On a normal day it would be another two hours before she'd get home for the evening, and at least another hour after that before she'd shower and change into her night clothes, but nothing on this day had been normal. This had been one of those days when you didn't know what to say or do. This had been one of those days where nothing felt right, making her wonder if anything would ever feel right again.

"Meow …. Meow…"

The feeling of a soft paw followed by a tiny prick of claws forced her to turn her eyes away from the blazing sky to the feline trying to get her attention.

"Oh Meiko!" she whined before picking the stripped tabby up and placing her on her lap. The faint sound of purring reached her ears as she began to stroke the cat's soft fur.

Meiko licked the side of her mouth then rolled over in Kari's lap until she was laying on her back with her yellow cat eyes staring contently up into teen's face.

Kari scratched Meiko's head for a few seconds then turned her eyes back to the sky. The sun was setting to her right, causing streaks of fiery oranges and electric pinks to paint the vast heavens. The sight of such uncontrollable beauty could make even the most devout atheist falter, and hope that there is a heaven up there just so that they could touch those colors.

"Heaven…" Kari whispered the word reverently, "Do you think she's up there Meiko?" she asked, all the while keeping her eyes upon the prismatic sky. "Do you think she's up there, and happy? Is there even a heaven to go to? And if there is, do you think it's a happy place? Or is like here, where all happiness is mingled with some kind of grief?"

The teen waited for answers, but none came. 'Of course how could my cat know more about heaven than my parents or the priest at the temple?' she reasoned, but a part of her whispered that she knew a cat that was wiser than any human she had ever met.

The sky was growing darker. To her left shadows rose into the air like liberated spirits and they began moving slowly towards her. For a moment she felt like the shadows were coming for her. Like the darkness was reaching out with phantom claws to grab her and drag her in forever. She thought about getting up and running into her bedroom where the artificial light could rain down upon her from her ceiling, but she was tired, exhausted even, at this point it seemed better to be eaten alive by shadows then to rise to her feet.

The reason for her exhaustion was both a lack of sleep and extreme sorrow. The kind of sorrow that you carry around like a weight. It fit cruelly upon her shoulders, pushing her deeper into the ground with each step. She didn't know how to get rid of it, she wasn't even sure that she wanted to get rid of it. There was a kind of peace in grief that was non existent in happiness. When your happy something can always go wrong, something can always be taken away from you, but when your sad nothing seems to phase you.

"Kagami, why did you do it?" she practically screamed out into the open air, hoping her question could be caught by the wind and carried to the one she spoke to. But again no answer came.

And from what she heard no answer would ever come. The authorities had found no suicide note, no last words from a bleeding heart before it bled itself dry. And no one had really seen it coming. Kagami had been one of the richest and most popular girls in school. She was your classic daddy's little princess. A cheerleader with a C average, dating one of the most popular boys in her class and best friends with all the popular girls, including Kari. The last one you'd ever suspect.

Of course no one had seen the decaying soul behind the pretty mask. Kagami, the girl who had it all, had been suffering for years, and no one even knew it.

Kari took in a sharp breath then stood, causing Meiko to roll off of her legs. The silence was beginning to get to her. Her exhausted mind began to play scenarios behind her eyes, forcing her to ask questions like, "Why didn't I notice that my best friend was in pain?" or "Kagami would never swallow a bottle of sleeping tablets… maybe she was murdered, and the killer is still out there…" and then finally "If someone like Kagami could kill herself, then what's stopping someone like me?"

This last thought froze her blood and stilled the air in her lungs. She had never been suicidal, she had never even considered it, but grief and exhaustion can make even the sanest person fall apart.

"I need noise!" she shouted in a panic.

Her apartment was hardly ever quiet. Her family held the record for the most times the apartment security officer has paid them a visit to tell them to keep it down. Normally her home was a bundle of laughter and voices, but right now it was as silent as a grave.

Normally she was the last to arrive home for the evening, giving her mother, father, and older brother plenty of time to chase the phantoms of silence away, but today she had gotten home first. This was because she had taken the day off from school so that she, along with a few other students, could ride the bus out to the temple where Kagami would be laid to rest. They had gotten back early from their little "fieldtrip", but no one even considered holding cheerleading practice today, so Kari had the rest of the evening to herself.

Ignoring the confused Meiko who had not yet gotten over her sudden drop to the balcony floor, Kari walked with determination into her bedroom and then flopped down upon the black office chair in front of her computer.

Wearily she lifted her hand to the mouse and began moving it around, clicking on programs until at last she heard the familiar buzzing and ringing of her computer connecting to the Internet.

The mechanical noises stopped and the screen changed to her Internet provider's home page. The words "You've got mail." flowed from the two speakers on either side of her flat screen monitor, but for the moment she ignored the announcement along with the neon blue box that flashed the words New Mail at the top of her screen.

She wasn't in the mood to read, she needed noise. Moving the mouse around she clicked on the My Radio link causing the screen to change again. Now there were several files listed in the middle of the screen and news about popular J-Pop artist on the top. She scrolled down the screen looking for one of her favorite stations. The station was a popular music station, with all kinds of pop and emo music.

At this point she wasn't really paying attention to what she was doing. Looking without seeing she moved her mouse down to click onto her radio station, but she accidentally clicked on the link below it. A new window popped up for the radio station, and she stood and went to her bed, not realizing she had made a mistake.

She laid down on her bottom bunk and stared dully at the railing for the bed above her. She waited patiently for her music to start, but when it did it was not the noise she had been expecting.

The sound of guitars, playing dark rifts with an untainted garage band style flooded into her ears.

Of course it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize she had clicked on the wrong station. Her radio stations were all J-Pop, and this music was neither Japanese nor pop. At first she didn't like the music, it had a dark, rustic quality that didn't fit into her bright, clean, pink world. She thought about getting up to change it, but laying down had felt so good that she didn't want to move now, not even to correct her mistake. Of course all she had wanted was a bit of noise in her otherwise silent house, and this satisfied that purpose just as well as any other station would.

So she allowed the music to play. Closing her eyes she focused on what she was certain would be English lyrics, this would be good practice for her, after all, she did have an English test coming up next week.

It seems like every day's the same

And I'm left to discover on my own

It seems like everything is gray

And there's no color to behold

They say it's over

And I'm fine again, yeah

Try to stay sober

Feels like I'm dying, yeah

A deep, somewhat raspy, male voice flooded through her tiny computer speakers and she listen closely, his words having a hypnotic effect on her.

And I am aware now

How everything's going to be fine

One day, too late

I'm in hell

I am prepared now

seems everyone's going to be fine

One day, too late

Just as well

Somehow she could understand this song. It felt like some one was articulating her feelings for her. She had never been very good at releasing her emotions, she always just let them build up inside her until at last the wall she had placed around herself would crack and then crumble under the pressure. Her emotion would then come spilling out like a dangerous title wave, threatening to sweep her and everything she loved away with it.

I feel the dream in me expire

And there's no one left to blame it on

I hear you label me a liar

Because I can't seem to get this through

You say it's over…

As the song continued she realized that it wasn't that bad of a song after all, in fact, she really kind of liked it. And then she realized why she hadn't liked it in the beginning, because it wasn't what she expected. She had been expecting synthesized music with a perky pop voice, and she had gotten the exact opposite. It was like when you take a drink, expecting it to be Sprite and then realizing it's water. You had been expecting something sweet and crisp, but instead you got something smooth and pure. You had to get over the shock of not receiving what you originally wanted before you can fully appreciate what you now have.

Another song started, this time with an eerie female voice and an almost demonic male voice. The song wasn't bad, but she didn't like it as much as the first one, it seemed to lack some of the poetics.

Another song started, this time with a male voice whispering the words "I push me fingers into my eyes…" the song quickly change into heavy metal, sounding like the beating of war drums, and oddly enough she liked this song too.

Curiosity finally got the better of her and she scooted off of her bed and walked over to her computer. Once again she flopped down upon the black leather chair and turned her attention to the monitor.

A play list was in front of her showing the title of each of the songs that had plaid since she logged on. The first song, the one she had felt so drawn too, was Fine Again by a band called Seether. The next had been Nymphetamine Fix by Cradle of Filth, and the one that was currently playing was Duality by Slipknot.

"This can't be one of Tai's station, and it sure as hell isn't mine." she muttered aloud. She clicked on the information page, wondering who had added this station to her computer's play list. The user name DanceswithWolves was displayed solving the mystery.

'Matt must have added it back when he was over here all the time, but that was a long time ago. He's been gone since he and Sora broke up.'

Kari bit the side of her lip. She had always felt bad for the older boy who had lost his true love to his best friend, but of course she couldn't feel too bad, after all his best friend is her big brother.

Kari didn't know many details about the dramatic split which had only served to further distant all of the Chosen Children, all she knew was that her brother was finally happy again. Besides, Matt was the first of the Digidestined to start following his own path, a path that led a way from the others, and now he was gone. He had moved to America with his dad a month after the break up, and that was a year ago.

"Well, Matt, I never really knew you that well, but thanks for leaving me a piece of yourself behind."

Kari whispered and then yawned. She finally felt like she could sleep. Leaving the music going she returned to her bed and crawled under her covers. With a sigh of contentment she closed her eyes and let the music carry her away.


Okay, I hope that wasn't a confusing chapter. I didn't want to go too deep into Kagami's story because this isn't about her, it's about how her death, along with growing up, effects Kari. Also no Matt yet, you'll see him in the next chapter. I wanted Kari to have a reason to seek out Matt, which is why I gave her a sudden interest in the music he likes.

Oh, and Kari's strange diary entry is based off of a dream I had. It's just meant to be a sort of window into her internal struggles, and I will add to it later.

Also this isn't going to be a Sora or Tai bashing fic. Sora and Matt were together at the end of season two, obviously they would have to break up in order for Matt and Kari to get together, so yeah, there's no character hating in this fic, just the simple facts of life.

Please let me know what you think. This isn't my usual type of fic so I'm a little nervous about it. If you think there are some things that should be changed let me know, constructive criticism is always welcomed. Also I update my fics according to demand, if a fic has more readers then I try to update it more often for the sake of the readers, so the time it takes me to update this fic will vary, but don't worry it will be updated.,

So please review and if you have any questions or criticism by all means let me know.