Enter The Light
Part Ten: The Second Day – The Longest Journey into Night
Standard Disclaimer Thingie: Digimon is not mine. Plot is. Short, sweet, to the point. PLEASE don't steal, it's really the only thing I own. :sobs pitifully:
Hikari had no knowledge of how much time had passed. She might have spent only minutes sleeping, or it might have been hours or even days. There was only the dim light of a single torch near the door to give her view of her surroundings, no windows to mark the time, no noise from beyond the door.
Now though, her energy seemed revitalized – even with only a few sips of water to drink since she'd arrived. She had slept and now she was awake, staring dully at the thick stone walls that surrounded her, wondering what had happened in the rest of the world, what had happened to her partner, what had happened to the other Chosen, what had happened to Daisuke. No answers and no insight came to her, and she felt weak and hungry.
There was hideous screeching sound of metal upon metal, coming from the heavy iron door. Hikari thought to stand, to meet head on whatever was entering the cell, but her muscles didn't seem willing to cooperate, and she found herself unable to muster the energy or the will to stand.
The door swung open slowly and three Bakemon entered. Hikari thought to be frightened or angry, but had not the energy to act upon these feelings. The ghosts moved aside, the door shut sharply behind them, and a single figure stood in the middle of where they had once been.
It was the boy that had given her water earlier – a day ago, a minute, a year, Hikari wasn't certain, but she recognized him. Even now, seeing him face on, it was difficult to describe him in anyway that was appropriate. The only defining characteristic seemed to be that he was dressed, as before, in only the ragged and tattered remains of what were probably not the nicest clothes to begin with. He carried a wooden bucket in both his hands.
"You again," she managed to say, surprised that her voice worked at all, and surprised that it was barely a whisper.
He didn't speak, only bowed deeply in greeting and knelt before her, opening the bucket. There was a small mug and bottle of water, and he filled the mug with the cool liquid and handed it to her. Hikari took the cup with hesitant hands, her fingers feeling weak and her hands shaking, but she didn't spill it and she brought it to her mouth and drank.
The water was tastier than any water she had ever had before – and that included the water she had first drank after she had trekked through the desert for an entire night at the whims of a group of controlled Veggiemon. "Thank you," she said then. "Why are you – who are you? Why have you brought me this?"
He took a small wooden box from within the bucket and opened it, removing a few small pieces of fresh, still warm bread. He held these out to her, extending his arm. She didn't take them immediately, and he waited.
"Why ?" Hikari asked again.
"It is the wish of my master," he said, turning his head away as though such a statement were punishable by death.
This offered no clarification. Hikari shook her head to clear the fog from her mind, but it didn't much help. "Why does your master wish to bring me water and bread?"
A small shrug. "A slave knows not his master's motives or thoughts, only his orders."
She took the bread – the smell of it was causing her stomach to turn about several times, and she could no longer offer much resistance to offered food. At the words, though, she halted and asked: "A slave? But - ."
His silence was enough of an answer. Hikari remembered a conversation she'd had many months ago and chose not to argue. The smell of the bread lured her to eat, and she finally took a bite.
The taste of it was better than the smell, and to one as hungry as she was it smelled and tasted like a feast. When she had finished it, though, she turned her mind again to the one who had brought it. He had gone though, as silently as he'd entered, leaving behind the bottle of water.
Shortly after what would have been dawn, Miyako awoke in the darkness, shivering under the blankets. The fire she had lit before she'd fallen asleep had died, and she sat up, mustering her magical energies enough to reignite the flames.
There was noise outside her door, of hurried footsteps and conversation, and she hurried about, dressing herself as quickly as was possible, sure to wear a few extra pairs of socks. She opened the door just as Takeru was about to knock on it, and it was only his quick reflexes that saved Miyako from a significant tap to the face.
"What's the commotion?" she wondered, rubbing her eyes and yawning.
Takeru blinked at her, a blank expression on her face. Miyako had the feeling she'd missed something of significant importance at the previous evening's meeting. "We're leaving, in about an hour…," he said in the sort of tone one usually takes when reminding someone of something they ought to know already.
"We?" Miyako echoed, blankly. She'd definitely missed something.
"All of us," he clarified, still speaking in the same tone. "Are you feeling all right? You seemed a bit…." He trailed off, uncertain of the correct word, and shrugged.
"Ah, yes." Nodding, Miyako turned to shut the door behind her. "Leaving…uh…where are we going?"
All night, Shijo had stayed awake, watching and listening the Bakemon float past him, shivering in part from the cold and in part from his own anxious fears. He had thought long and hard on how he was to get the golden ring inside the prison without attracting the attention of the ghostly guards, but he had come to no conclusions.
Now as the sun slowly made its appearance, hiding the almost-full moon, Shijo turned to his partner Koromon with a grim expression. "It can't be done," he announced simply. "It can't be done. It's not possible to get into that building without the Bakemon noticing."
Koromon yawned, watching his partner with some concern. "What will you do then?"
"The only way to get into the building is by way of the Bakemon," the boy replied, a strange grin on his face. Koromon frowned, not entirely pleased with this decision. A strange sound could be heard from behind the boy, and when he turned to see what it was, he saw that the stranger had returned and was standing there.
The strange noise had been a single chuckle, swallowed almost before it had escaped. Shijo had never heard the stranger laugh before, and stared blankly for a moment before he ventured to speak.
"What's funny?" he demanded.
"You remind me of someone I once knew," the stranger answered, the humor completely gone from his voice. "He would have suggested the same thing, now that I think of it. It seems my memory may be returning to me."
"Do you think it's a good idea then?" Shijo questioned, confused.
There was a long silence, and the stranger turned to face the towering black prison. He seemed to be thoughtful. "It is dangerous and it brings great risk to you," he answered finally, and let out the same half-laugh sort of sound. Then, he shrugged his shoulders. "Still, you will get inside. If you're prepared to accept the risks and the pain that will surely come, then do it."
Even beneath the warmth of not only her thickest cloak but also a warm blanket, Miyako felt cold. Sora huddled next to her, sharing the blanket. The back of the wagon was open and cold, but it was the only vehicle that would carry all the Chosen on their journey.
They were traveling south, towards the place where Miyako had sensed Ken's presence. It would seem that this was the same place where both Koushiro and Wizarmon had sensed a great darkness coming from – possibly the source of the spell that had affected the entire kingdom, and possibly where Hikari (and perhaps Daisuke as well) was now located. According to Takeru, all of this had been discussed, planned, and agreed upon the evening before, which explained why Miyako had known nothing about it.
The countryside was eerily quiet, and when Miyako ventured to look beyond the edge of the wagon, she saw only a dim gray haze. Not long after their departure, they came upon a wagon that had been stopped at the side of the road. The driver of the cart and his partner had both fallen asleep, the same thin layer of ice over their bodies. The pair of Monochromon that had been pulling the cart were still awake, munching calmly on blades of grass, content to wait for their driver to awaken and decide to move again.
They drove on, having decided that they could do nothing for the driver as they had been able to do nothing for those at the palace. Mimi shivered, looking back at the wagon as it slowly disappeared into the heavy fog behind them. "Who would do such a thing?" she wondered. "And why?"
No one had any satisfactory answer to give her. Before long, they would find out who and why.
From the comfort and safety of a perch within a tree, two pairs of eyes watched as a small figure made its way across the bridge that separated the town from the prison and the eastern hills. Even from such a distance, the boy was obviously nervous, his steps slow and hesitant, his gaze wary as it leapt from bush to rock to tree.
"I'm not sure you ought to have let him do this," said a small green caterpillar resting on a branch. "It sounds very dangerous…."
The figure beside him sighed, slowly lowering the hood of his cloak. "I'm not sure it's the wisest of ideas, either. Still, he volunteered, and I must admit…."
The caterpillar waited.
A shrug. "I haven't any better plans. I can't slip past the Bakemon undetected, and nor can he. Even when I have made myself visible to the ghosts, they seem not to be interested in me, only interested in driving me away from the walls. But this boy - ."
Both figures turned their gaze to the ghosts below. Five had been circling the walls of the prison before Shijo had begun his approach. Now, he reached the end of the spindly wooden bridge and waited, steeling his courage for the last steps to the doors. Immediately, the Bakemon turned, seeing him.
Before he could take another breath, the boy was surrounded by the ghosts as though he had been bait dropped in the midst of a pool of hungry fish. So thick was the crowd of ghosts that Shijo could not be seen from the tree.
"I sure hope they don't kill him," the caterpillar fretted.
"No, they won't kill him," returned the other, but he had gotten to his feet, perching perilously on the branch he'd been sitting on before. "I think that whatever that object I found was, it's something the Bakemon have been searching for."
The caterpillar nodded, accepting this statement. "You didn't have it with you when you approached the walls before? What do you think it is?"
He shook his head in answer to both statements. "I don't know." For a moment he was silent. The crowd of Bakemon, the boy in the center of it all, moved toward the prison building. Strange and eerie noises came from within, but no shouts of pain or fear. The massive gates opened and the huddle disappeared, the gates slamming shut behind.
For a moment, there was silence. In the west, the sun was slowly drooping behind them as the day grew ever closer to night. "Its out of your hands now, then," the caterpillar said with a sigh.
The other sat down once more on the branch "Whatever it is, it doesn't belong with the Bakemon or whoever is giving them orders," he stated with certainty. "As the boy said, it is full of something good. And yet, it also is quite powerful."
"What do you think it could be?"
"I don't know." He shut his dark eyes for a moment, thinking. "It might destroy the Bakemon and wake the people. Do you think ?"
"I hope."
"Hope…."
Bakemon seemed to emit of coldness, for being closer to them prompted Shijo to feel colder the closer he got to them. If he'd had any magical senses, he might have guessed the coldness to be the air of darkness, but he had no experience with evil, and no experience with any sort of magic at all. He shivered, surrounded by the pack of ghosts, his skin feeling cold, clammy, and icy to the touch.
He had hidden the object – the strange golden ring – in a pocket, and he felt some sort of warmth against his leg now in the face of the coldness of the ghosts. Shijo jammed his hand into the pocket of his trousers and felt the warmth of it envelop his fingers. It was but a faint warmth, but enough to invigorate the muscles of his fingers.
The Bakemon began to make strange noises. Before, they had been laughing, a creepy sort of sound that would have sent shivers down the spine of any human even if they had been in the midst of an arid, hot desert. Now, though, they were making odd moaning noises, communicating amongst themselves with some sort of undead language that Shijo couldn't begin to fathom.
Suddenly, one of the Bakemon changed slightly the pitch of the moaning that it was producing. The others began to follow this change in pitch, each one at a time, until the entire crowd was mumbling and moaning in this new register. Then, they began to move, the crowd slowly closing in on the boy. He stepped backwards, away from a wall of ghosts, and realized that they were leading him somewhere, attempting to push him to go in a certain direction.
He couldn't see which way they were headed through the wall of Bakemon, but he hoped they were heading for the prison.
Miyako felt a headache beginning to form beneath her skull. She was uncertain if it was the dark magic which affected her or if it was only from a lack of sleep. Her vision was blurred and her eyes were tired of having to squint through the dark haze that became deeper with every step of the Monochromon.
For brief periods, she donned the spectacles that Wizarmon had given her, and they did help her to see better, but for the most part, she was content to shut out the outside world and ride with her eyes shut, feeling the steady movement of the wagon wheels over the rocks and through the squishing mud.
All the while she could feel the darkness growing stronger and could tell that they were most definitely headed for the source of it all.
The others could feel it as well. Taichi's headaches had grown stronger, and Koushiro confessed he felt a bit nauseous – and it wasn't due to the movement of the wagon. Wizarmon said nothing of his feelings, but his grim expression told all that he, too, could sense the growing darkness.
Even those who were without magical senses knew something of the danger that surrounded them. Takeru had an uneasy feeling in his stomach and his skin felt cold and clammy to the touch. He wrapped his coat around him and felt too warm, and yet when he removed it, he shivered and felt cold. Within the back of his mind was the feeling that all was not as it should be – that something was terribly wrong. It was a feeling he was not well acquainted with, and could only remember experiencing once before – when his partner had been deleted, before he had been reformed as an egg. Memories of that event still made him ill to think about it, and yet now it felt as though he was reliving the event once more.
The rest of them were nervous and uneasy as well. Iori kept himself busy peering over maps he had brought, charting their progress as they traveled south, even though it wasn't likely they'd get lost on the main road. Jyou was rummaging endlessly through his medical bag, engaged in a continuous inventory of his supplies. Yamato shared the duties of driving, and his eyes were constantly alert, scanning the horizon for any sign of danger, usually a Bakemon drifting across the road. Mimi huddled next to Miyako, wrapped tightly in her own cloak, shivering in the cold and strangely silent. Sora was worrying about Taichi, constantly looking at him with worried eyes and wringing her hands together.
The Bakemon themselves were constantly wafting along the edges of the road, coming into view for only brief periods of time before gliding away. The Monochromon were nervous, as were all the other digimon. Everyone – human and digimon alike, began to get the strange sensation that they were being watched and followed by the ghosts.
And the sun slowly sank lower into the sky, bringing nightfall ever closer.
When the crowd of Bakemon had moved away, Shijo could see only heavy stone walls. He felt disoriented and cold, the result, he concluded, of having spent too much time surrounded by the ghosts. A small insect of some sort moved across the stones near his feet, and he felt nauseous as well as cold.
"I'm very curious…," said a voice, a deep voice, and he looked up to see yet another man dressed in a dark cloak, eyes and face hidden from his view. "Very curious as to how it is you managed to escape the effects of the spell. You don't seem to be a wizard of any sort."
Shijo found that he was shivering and shaking rather violently – not only from the cold, and took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself. It didn't accomplish much. He shook his head in a vague response to the statement, but didn't yet trust himself to speak.
"I also have it on good authority that you are not a Chosen, unless you are one which has not yet been discovered."
"Ch-chosen, sir?" Shijo managed to echo blankly. The word meant little to him. Chosen for what? Perhaps Chosen was the name given to those who would become wizards someday?
The figure had turned away from him briefly, and now turned back towards him. Beneath the hood of the cloak he could see two dark eyes glaring at him with some intensity. Shijo felt his body grow even colder and he felt stiff, unable to move. "You carry something with you – something which does not belong to you. Tell me, child, why did you venture toward this place instead of away from it?"
Shijo felt as though every bit of his body was compelling him to state his entire purpose to the one who now questioned him – to explain everything that had happened to him since he'd awakened to find the rest of the village asleep. He felt the object in his pocket grow heavier and warmer, and he shivered.
"You carry something," said the man, as though he had read his thoughts. "As I had suspected. Boy!"
At this abrupt summons another creature appeared from within the shadows – a haggard looking creature clothed only in rags and looking rather shabby and thin. Shijo thought briefly that to call it a boy was a compliment of sorts and rather stretching the definition of the word. He seemed rather an ageless creature – not clearly defined by the word boy or man, although most definitely human and the first Shijo had seen since awakening that was not hidden by the hood of a cloak or fast asleep.
His features were altogether unremarkable, but his eyes – the eyes were a thousand times more vivid and aware than the rest of the body, and Shijo found himself drawn into them, and his mind stretched toward them, seeking something recognizable. Some part of his distant memory called out to him – urging him to seek something to identify with those eyes, and yet he could not. The effort left him tired.
"He possesses what I seek," stated the man simply. "Take it from him and bring him to her. Then, bring the object to me." Then he was gone, disappeared into the shadows of the room. A bang sounded, a door slamming.
Shijo was overcome with a burst of confidence. If this boy, this thin, weak creature, was going to try to take the object from him? He could easily defend himself against this one! He had been in fights with the village boys, defended himself and his brothers and sister against the rougher bullies and survived without much more than a few scrapes and scratches. Yet when he tried to move, to lift his hands, he found it impossible. The more he attempted to struggle, the more exhausted he felt, and yet there was no movement.
A spell of some sort? He could only guess – he had no experience with magic and no idea what it felt to be enspelled or what it took to cast a spell. The boy assigned to the task reached within his pocket then and removed the object, the golden ring, an effortless task that was easily and quickly accomplished.
"No!" Shijo managed to gasp. "I'm supposed to – I have to give that to the person it belongs to!"
Surprisingly, the boy stopped and turned his gaze toward Shijo. Though his facial expression was one of bland disinterest and mindless obedience, his eyes seemed to show some emotion – confusion, perhaps, or surprise? It was difficult to tell. The moment passed, he blinked, and then his eyes were as the rest of him – resigned.
Again, Shijo felt a tug in his memory, but it wasn't strong enough for him to do anything about.
An endless amount of immeasurable time had passed, and nothing had changed. Hikari had finished a thorough examination of the walls she could see with her eyes and was now beginning to start on the rest of the walls, using only the sense of touch. The room was small and, she suspected, inescapable, and yet she took her time, feeling along the stone should there perhaps be some clue.
The corner of the tiny cell nearest the door was lit by a torch that had burned brightly since her arrival. Unless less time had passed than she suspected, Hikari guessed that it was lit with magic, for it had not shrunk or gone out, and no one had entered to replace it. The rest of the room was without distinguishing features. There were stone walls and a stone floor, covered with dust and a thin layer of dirt. The thought of being there made her shiver partly from fear and partly from a slight disgust.
She was beginning to wonder if she had made the right decision.
The door was swung open heavily, and it slammed noisily into the wall behind it. Hikari turned to face it and was surprised to find that another human entered the cell. To say that he was thrown would not have been an exaggeration, for he landed with a heavy thud on the hard stone floor.
For a moment, he lay still and silent, and Hikari was frightened that perhaps her visitor was a corpse. Then he groaned and slowly got to his feet. A few Bakemon stood in the doorway, giggling in the eerie sort of way that sent shivers down the spine of anything living. They disappeared, shutting the door behind them only seconds before the boy thrust his fists against the heavy metal.
"No! Give it back! It's not supposed to be given to you!"
It didn't take a genius to determine that the Bakemon weren't going to heed his words or follow his orders, and the boy wisely abandoned his attempt. He turned and sat down hard, leaning back against the door. "Well," he said then. "It was futile. Still, anything else would have been, too, right?"
"What was futile?" Hikari asked.
The boy looked up, surprised at the sound of the voice and then once more at the source of it. "I know you!" he gasped with some astonishment. "I know you!"
"The sun will set before long and then there will only be tomorrow before the full moon appears," stated the small green digimon.
"I know," said young man beside him, face turned westerly, tinted orange from the glow of the sun.
For a long time there was no sound. The already quiet riverbanks were silent except for the quiet hum of water running steadily.
Then, the figure stood, again perched on a branch, and turned to the north, squinting his eyes, perhaps in hope of seeing something, perhaps because he thought he did see something. The caterpillar watched him for a time before he ventured to speak.
"Do you see something, Ken?"
"Are we almost there?" Mimi asked, voice barely a whisper in the silence of the encroaching evening. It was growing ever colder as the sun sank lower. Now nearly darkness, the small caravan had slowed to a crawl and yet no one had spoken of stopping for the night.
"Can you tell, Miyako?" Hawkmon questioned of his partner, huddled for warmth under a thick blanket.
"I feel the darkness growing stronger," Miyako answered, venturing to open one eye and squint through the dark hazy air at Mimi. "We can't be much further away now."
"Is there any sign of Daisuke or Hikari?" Palmon wanted to know. Mimi lifted her digivice, but it was as silent as ever, emitting no extra noises or lights. She shook her head.
There was a creaking noise as the beleaguered wooden wheels slowly turned over another time, but all else was silent. Mimi felt her eyes grow heavy, and she yawned.
"I hear something," said Patamon then, titling his head and squinting in concentration.
"What is it?" Takeru asked when his partner didn't immediately continue.
"I'm not sure," he answered. "It sounds like – wings. Like a lot of little wings, all beating in the sky, coming this way."
"I don't like the sound of that," Jyou said, shivering. Takeru had already crawled across to the back, open end of the wagon and was peering out. "What do you see?"
"Nothing, yet," Takeru answered, turning his head to look in all directions. "Are you sure what you heard, Patamon?"
The small digimon nodded. "I'm certain. Look up."
He did so.
Mimi shrieked, causing Yamato to tug sharply on the reins and bring the wagon to a halt. "What – are those things?"
Hopefully, this isn't too obvious. It is to me, but that's because I'm writing it and I know what's really going on. Heh.
To the kind reviewer who told me I am misspelling Koushiro or Koushirou's name, I would take your comments much more seriously if you could either a) back them up with hard evidence or b) actually manage to spell some words correctly in your review. I found no evidence that your claim is correct. Also, it's customary in reviews to actually say something about the story you're reviewing. Thank you.
To the rest of you, thanks for reading, etc. Warn me if the plot becomes too unbearably predictable for you. I'm actually going to be quite cruel for a while and give few clues as to what is or has happened to Daisuke. I hope you can manage to deal with that for a little while at least. If you can guess the truth, great! Eventually, I'll reveal all….