AN/ Hi everyone! You have entered the fifth chapter of Salvation in the Darkness, which premieres the Shindou's meeting with Eiri Yuki! This chapter will be mainly about Yuki getting to know the Shindou family life style. I'll tell you what the next chapter will be about at the end of this one.

Yay! I've just downloaded episode 17 of Tsubasa Chronicle. I'm so happy! It's getting REALLY good so far, and I can only hope that the series will land in the Legal Drug world. That'd be so awsm! If you don't know what this anime is, it's about ALL of the Clamp characters from each Clamp series mixed into one big anime. I haven't seen Chi from Chobits yet, but I hope to! Though this is one of my favourite animes, my all time fav. Is GRAVITATION… of course. And one more thing. I may accidentally repeat some of the stuff I've said in other author notes, so please bare with me if that happens. I don't have much of a memory… ;

Inside the Shindou's home, all was peaceful again once Aizawa and his goons were out of the way. If it wasn't for the blonde stranger, their would have been another deduction from the family. After the tussle in their yard, Mrs. Shindou invited the traveller to their kitchen, where the four sat around the table silently (except for the constant praises of their mother toward the man).

"Thank you. Thank you so much for helping us out there. You don't know how much that meant to me. Ahem… children. Don't you have something to say too?"

"Thank you so much, sir! I'm very grateful that you came along!" Maiko stared all starry eyed up at him. "You're just like a knight in shining armor!" The girl clasped her hands together dreamily.

"Uh… yeah. You're welcome." The author scooted his chair away from the exuberant teen.

"Shuichi. What about you?" His mother addressed.

"Hm? Oh. Thank you for helping my sister." He bowed his head lightly.

"Whatever. I was just passing by when I heard some noise that was breaking my concentration. So I decided to put a stop to it. It's hard to think at night when you got people having a cat fight outside their front door." He retorted plainly.

Shuichi was disturbed by the rude comment, but couldn't deny that the man still saved them. So he kept his eyes from twitching just this once.

"Where have you come from, Mr…uh…" Mrs. Shindou felt embarrassed that she didn't properly introduce themselves yet.

"Yuki. Mr. Eiri Yuki. I'm from America."

"This is my daughter Maiko, my son Shuichi, and you may call me Mrs. Shindou."

"America! You came all the way from there!" Maiko's eyes popped out of her sockets.

"Yes."

"What made you come on such a long journey, Mr. Yuki?"

"I'm a travelling author. It seems that my writer's block was longer than I intended it to be while I was living in America, so I came here to see if I could find any inspiration that could release me from this troubling stump. So far, all I've found are intolerable upper class nit-wits and aggravating money misers." He snorted.

'A travelling author? Inspirational journey? Eiri Yuki?' The pink-haired boy thought about this for a moment. "Oh my gosh…"

"Hm? What?" The man glanced at the flabbergasted teenager.

"You… you must be…" Shuichi pointed.

"Uh-huh?" The blonde tapped his fingers in anticipation.

"…You must be… really tired after walking all the way here on foot!" Shuichi blinked.

"…."

"…."

"Umm… yeah. I am. But I came from America by boat." 'Doesn't this kid know about the over-sized puddle that separates America from his own country?'

"Oh…" Shuichi dropped his hand.

"But I am a bit tired now. You people wouldn't know where to find a close by inn to stay at would you?"

"Well, no." The mother answered. "We've never been to an inn with the little money we have… as you probably assumed when those tax collectors were here…"

"Ah. I see. Then I guess I'll be heading off on my own to look for one." Yuki said, feigning disappointment.

"But you can stay here if you like!" Mrs. Shindou quickly added in. "After all, you've done so much for us. Accept our offer as paying you back for what you did."

Bingo. "I don't know. You seem to have a lot of problems on your hands, and I don't want to disturb you…"

"Please stay as long as you like, Yuki-san." Maiko chimed in happily.

"Well, if you insist." A small victory sign flashed in his mind as he "humbly" accepted the Shindou's offer. 'At least I got a place to stay tonight. I feel like a race horse after a go around the track.' He thought wearily.

? ? ? ? ?

That morning, Eiri Yuki woke up… in Shuichi Shindou's bed. (AN/ It's not what you think. Get yer minds out of the gutter people!). The 19 year old had been forced to sleep on the floor by his mother. Luckily they had one of the clean quilts laying out for him to rest on, though that didn't mean it would have eased his pain from the rock hard floor… because it didn't. The exhausted traveller hauled himself out of the not to comfortable bed and dragged his aching feet over to the bathroom. There he saw a solitary bucket of water for washing your face in.

'….How many people have used this same bucket of water? Oh well. I'm not gonna find out. Those kids have probably washed their booger infested hands in it.' He groaned and decided to do his business before his bladder exploded. Afterwards, Yuki trudged to the kitchen and washed his hands as well as his face in the old faucet over another bucket since the water was cleaner there. While the man was standing in the den, not knowing what to do next, a growling puppy sound projected from his stomach. It was definitely breakfast time. In fact, it was almost past breakfast time. Where was the service button in this… house? What kind of place exactly was this? It was way too small to be a suitable home. More like an outhouse than anything. It was too dark for him to see last night where he was, and if he would've known how poor these people were, he would not have intruded… for his own personal reasons. How sanitary was the food here? Not to mention the water. And who knew what diseases these people had living in conditions like this? Maybe that's why the kid's hair was pink? That certainly wasn't a normal hair colour. Not even for Americans (at least not in this time period). The boy possibly had some kind of rare tuberculosis… or some form of rabies. The way he was biting those men's arms last night was making Yuki lean more toward rabies. Well, whatever kind of weird problems this family had, he was NOT staying to find out. He came to a conclusion that it would be better to leave than waste these people's times with his good looks and sultry voice. Maybe the daughter would be a little upset, but hey… he's only known her for ten minutes. Once the author grabbed his belongings and touched the door knob, it rattled from the other side. In came Mrs. Shindou with a bundle of onions in her apron.

"Oh! Mr. Yuki! I didn't expect you to be up yet. I was just fixing breakfast. Please, have a seat at the table." He could tell that she was trying very hard to impress him, so his plans changed a bit to leave AFTER breakfast. Though the tiny black bugs crawling all over those onions didn't look very appetizing at the moment… "Shuichi is outside chopping some wood for our living room fire, so we'll get this place warmed up in a sec!" She smiled cheerfully. It looked like this woman hasn't had any company for a long time. This place was very dusty, which caused Yuki's nose to tingle at times. "Shuichi!" His mother called out the small window. "Are you done with that wood?"

"Almost, mom!" He called back from outside.

"He's a very obedient young boy. I don' t know what I'd do without him sometimes." She laughed a bit and went to washing and slicing up the onions. Overall, this seemed like a perfectly normal family (not including the pink hair), except… something was missing… where was the father?

"I'm making something special this morning. I hope you like omelettes." She said in a sing-song voice.

"Sure." Yuki said quietly. Usually the man of the house would be chopping wood. So why was her son…?

"Mom! It smells really good from my room. What are you making?" Maiko chirped while skipping into the kitchen.

"Omelettes!" She answered just as cheerfully.

"Yay! I haven't had those in a long time!" She hopped.

"That's because we have a guest over. Why don't you go sit down with Mr. Yuki and keep him company?"

"Okay!" She said proactively. Once the 16 year old plopped down into her seat, all she could do was yammer on about herself and her wonderful brother. Yuki was about to whack her over the head with the nearby vase, when a sweating pink mop came in with a few cylinders of lumber.

"I'm back! And I got what you wanted mom." He said out of breath. With such a small body structure for a boy, Yuki was surprised he didn't get crushed by the overbearing weight of the wood.

"Good! Could you set them in the living room and then put a few in the fireplace. It's freezing this morning!"

"Can do!" He saluted, which almost made him lose his balance. This guy was way too spirited after cutting up a dozen logs. The man was getting tired just looking at him. Well, nobody's perfect (with the exception of maybe himself). Staying here for a while was better than staying nowhere. Perhaps they would keep him entertained for a week or so. And who knew? The life style of this peculiar family may give him some inspiration that he didn't know existed.

AN/ WOOT! This one is done! In the next chapter, Shuichi and Yuki get to talking a bit more. So be ready for some questioning! The main plot will be introduced in about… one or two chapters. Depends on how long I make this prologue. We'll just have to wait and see! I'm starting ch.6 right now, so be checking for more updates either tonight or tomorrow! And please REVIEW! Thanks! -