Chapter One: Dream or Reality?
She stood looking at the sacred tree silently. At sixteen, she now wondered if everything had been a dream. The well was dead, and the dream was over. But was it really a dream? Sighing, she walked back to the shrine home and entered the house, looking once back to the shack that held the mysterious well.
When she had woken from her strange dream, her mother had told her that she had been in a coma for several months. Somehow, that had been rather familiar. In her dream state, that is exactly what had happened, and now frowning, closing the door behind her, Kagome wondered if everything had indeed been a fluttering of clouds through her mind.
Shaking her head, Kagome had even tried her hand at archery, but to no avail. In truth she had not even come close to the target. She had even tried to locate the grave of a woman from her dream, but that wasn't anywhere either. Sitting at the table, she watched her mother bustle about the kitchen tirelessly, preparing the evening meal.
Names still hung fresh in her mind, and she wondered if she had such a vivid imagination as to think up so many. The history books said nothing about those people and this caused her great confusion. Everything in her dream had been so real.
Once Kagome had even gotten up close and personal with the sacred tree, searching for a hole that had been present in her dreams. She had, in her dream cut her finger on a sharp object, but even the hole was gone. Sighing again, her mother turned around and smiled gently.
"Why so glum, Kagome?"
"I don't know mom." She answered absently. Her mind still fumbling over her strange dreams. Standing up, Kagome climbed the stairs and entered her bedroom. Sitting down on her bed, she stared at everything around her. It was the same as in her dream. Something was missing though. She knew that it were those people from her dreams. Even when she remembered the first moment that everything was familiar, she had desperately tried to place herself back into those dreams, but that had been so many months ago, and she was still here.
Lying down on her stomach, Kagome laid her head on her folded arms and thought back to that night when she had tried to jump into the well. Of course nothing had happened. "But everyone felt so real." Oh indeed she remembered their names, what they looked like, and she had even drawn images of them to show her family. Obviously those pictures had not even jogged their memory.
The doctors had proclaimed that coma's did different things to people. Her's just happened to be full of strange dreams. Kagome was so frustrated though. She even remembered that evil demon Naraku. Shaking her head and pushing herself up off the bed, she pushed the curtain aside from her window staring out as she had in her dreams.
Frowning, her last dreams were cloudy. They had fought that monster Naraku, killing him finally, and everyone had been there. The monk and demon slayer, Kohaku, Shippo, Sesshoumaru, Kouga, Ayame, Kikyou, and whoever else Naraku had betrayed or used. Even that half demon had been there. That one who she fell in love with. Clenching her hand into a fist, she slammed it down on her window frame. "It had to have been real!" She cursed.
Yet there was nothing there to even prove it to herself. Her dream had abruptly ended when she had gathered the many shards of the shikon. In her dream she had placed them in her hand and a bright white light engulfed her. She had woken in the hospital with her mother staring down at her crying.
Kagome had tried so many things, to prove that everything had not been a dream, but because of her coma, she had been sent to many doctors who told her it had been nothing more then her way of protecting herself from pain.
Finally, after months of therapy, Kagome had admitted that it must have been only what the doctors had said. Instead of continuing on like a mad woman, Kagome had decided to write everything down in a journal. Of course she had to hide it from everyone, or they would send her back to those psychiatrists. She knew that.
Shaking her head, and turning away from the window, Kagome sat down at her desk and opened her drawer revealing the brown book that held all her thoughts. It was strange, inside were drawn pictures of her friends, looking so fresh and alive, but so angry now, she threw the book across the room.
Try as she might, Kagome seemed lost. She had even tried to go back to her old life, or at least the one before the coma, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't escape those so fresh memories. Slamming her hand on her desk, she quickly corrected herself. 'Dreams! Dammit!'
Standing up angrily, she stalked across the room, snatched her book off the floor and tossed into her desk. Slamming the door behind her, Kagome exited the house quickly. She needed to clear her mind. Why couldn't she just live her life? Her friends had finally given up, saying that they had no such conversation with her about Hojo or Inuyasha. Hojo had even denied that he ever asked her out on a date. He said he had a girl friend, and that he would never date a junior. That had been Kagome's first tumble to a life of loneliness.
The next one had been when she had walked with her friends telling them about her dream of Inuyasha; they had called her a nut case, and politely suggested she get professional help. Kagome also had gone to look at her pink bike that had been destroyed in her dreams, but she found it whole in the shed of their shrine home.
Descending the stairs that lead away from her home, Kagome walked down the sidewalk sadly. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get over the dreams. Lifting her eyes to the sky, she sighed again. What kind of life would that have been, anyways? Snorting to herself, she turned back to the shrine and climbed the stairs again. Lately, she had no reason to go far. It was summer, so she had no school, her friends had abandoned her and even her family seemed to keep her at a distance.
Walking over to the shack that held the well, she opened the sliding doors and slipped them closed behind her. Staring down at the wooden well that was covered with a large wooden board she frowned. This was where her dreams had started, and playing everything back in her mind, she slowly walked down the steps pushing the lid off carefully. Every week or so Kagome would come here and jump into the well, only to be met with the hard packed earth below, and she felt tears well up in her eyes.
Sliding down leaning against the side of the well she sobbed. What kind of life was she going to live if she couldn't get past her dreams? Her mother had told her that she was in a coma for eleven months, and for four months, Kagome had gone to therapy. She sobbed harder. Her birthday had been spent in the psychiatric ward in the hospital, her having gone crazy with denial.
Now that she was free from that horrid experience, she found herself wanting desperately to return to the coma and back to her dream friends. She would relive that entire experience if only to see those people again. How she wanted to see him again.
Smiling sadly, she remembered his little puppy dog-ears and his golden eyes. Was she really crazy? She must be if she could completely dream up a whole world, and continue wishing it were real. Shaking her head, she stood up and stared once again down into the well. It looked the same as it always did, as it did in her dreams, and as it did now.
Sitting on the ledge she lowered her head, her eyes longing to be swallowed up by the darkness. Brushing her bangs out of her eyes, she moved her eyes away from the well instead looking at the damp darkness that surrounded her.
Mother had told her that a car, which had caused her coma, had hit her not falling into the well. Kagome wondered how she had been hit in the first place. She didn't even have a memory of that incident.
Her grades had begun to decline, and she knew she had to come to terms with her crazy behavior before she did something really stupid, but no matter how hard she tried, those people's faces would not go away. She knew the history of the shikon jewel, when a wish is made it was granted. But if that were true, why would she have wished to return home with dreams, and no one else to remember them as they had in her dreams? That had been the only thing that was the same from her dreams, that stupid jewel.
According to the history books the jewel had been lost at the end of the feudal era, and had yet to be found again. Kagome had even gone so far as to lift her shirt in the middle of the library, searching for the scar that had been left behind in her dreams, where the jewel had been ripped out of.
Even that had not been there. However her embarrassment had definitely been real, when Hojo had walked around the corner, seeing her exposed upper body, kneeling with a book in her lap. His words had stung; he had definitely been kinder in her dream.
"Put your stupid shirt on girl. Get over yourself or go back to the psychiatric ward. You're driving everyone nuts." He had turned away angrily, and had informed his friends who had told their friends, and so forth spreading the rumor that she had displayed herself like a whore for him.
Kagome's life had gotten even worse after that. At first the girls in the older classes had begun whispering about her, then talking about her, while she was right there. Then as the months past, the younger girls were starting to talk about the slut who shamelessly showed her body to Hojo to get his attention. After that Hojo's girl friend had basically bullied her to tears on several occasions, and Kagome was finally glad that school had ended, leaving her a summer to herself.
Still she wasn't happy. Standing up remembering her dreadful last months at school, she glared down into the well and yelled. "Why me? SIT!" Of course even though in her dreams a certain half demon would crash to the ground at that word, nothing happened now. The well remained quiet silently mocking her. "Well damn. Why would I be so stupid as to let myself remember everything if I desired to come home? It must have been a stupid dream for all this shit to happen." Shaking her head and stalking away from the silent well, Kagome slid open the doors of the shack and grumbled. "Get over yourself, Kagome! Everyone is right, you are slowly drowning in your own self pity that only you can surface from."
Declaring to herself that she needed to do something, Kagome finally decided to forget those dreams, and start thinking about her life that she had now. Obviously she had to do something, rather then allow herself to be constantly filled with grief. She needed to get on with her life, but how was she going to do that? The life she had lead in those dreams were so much more enjoyable then the one she was leading now. Shrugging her shoulders, she planted a false smile on her face and decided what better time to do this then now? It was time she forgot about those people, and start reflecting on what she would do with her life now.