4/25/06

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Night Out

Sakura Kinomoto cursed silently as she walked down the street. She had the most beautiful emerald green eyes, her shoulder length auburn hair swayed in the cold night air. She couldn't shake the puzzling feeling that someone was following her. How could she forget it was the dark of the moon?

Overhead, low, thin clouds crept around the red-tile roofs and brought the ocean's cold. The cold didn't come to her all at once, but slowly and gently. She started to shiver and wasn't sure if it was from the cold or fear. She started to regret wearing the black skirt that reached above her knees and the black tank top Tomoyo made her wear to Planet Bang which revealed all her tattoos and piercing. Luckily she brought her leather jacket, but the black flip flops she was wearing didn't exactly warm up her feet.

Sakura had passed two houses when a soft scuttling sound made her stop and turn. The breeze picked up, and a bunch of dead leaves scraped down the sidewalk towards her. She felt a surge of relief and smiled. She tried to focus on something pleasant to keep her mind off her fear.

She thought of Syaoran Li. How his messy chestnut brown hair was always untamable. He had strong angular features, a sexy smile, and piercing amber eyes. Even now, fear of jinxing what might be forced her to push that sweet thought away. He made her feel all fire and ache down to her bones. That was good, but it was also very bad. How could someone as different as her ever be expected to do a normal thing like have a boyfriend? In fact he was her first crush, and she felt this as a sort of weakness. She was never into boys, even though they were into her. Her mind and body just couldn't help it, he was just so different. He didn't hit on her like all the other guys at school, she kinda considered them her friends, even though they hit on her, they weren't girly and she liked that. She'd never go out with them though, her only girl friend was Tomoyo. Her mind then switched to fighting skills and her power...

Abruptly she sensed that someone was on the street with her. She looked behind her and expected to see a person in a bathrobe walking a dog, a wad of plastic bags in hand, or a homeless person trudging down the middle of the road pushing a shopping cart, but the street was empty. Was it the dark of the moon that was making her so jumpy?

She tried to concentrate on Syaoran again and not think about the creeping shadows that seemed to be pressing closer with each step. She thought abput what she would do about this feeling, would she just ignore it? She never felt a feeling so strong. She thought about Planet Bang. Syaoran had asked to dance with her eight times tonight at Planet Bang and he would have spent more time with her if Megumi Minagawa hadn't kept pulling him out onto the dance floor. She tried to remember the feel of Syaoran's cheek, his hand on her waist, his-

She saw something through the corner of her eye. She turned sharply. Whatever it was had slid across the shadows and disappeared. She took two steps back and scanned the street, she then knew. Relief broke through her fear. Her best friend, Tomoyo, must be following her. Why didn't she think of that before? It wouldn't be the first time Tomoyo had tried to scare her, thinking it was funny.

"Tomoyo" she said. "I know it's you, come out." She spoke loudly, tremor evident in her voice. No one answered. "Tomoyo," she started again. Her voice was soft now, a whisper of fear. She peered into the dark that clung to the side of a house. What had once been there was now gone. Had it only been an illusion of the dark?

Finally, she turned and started walking again, her feet steady on the cool cement. Her mother had warned her how dangerous it was for a girl to be out alone in Tomoeda at night. Now anger filled her and made a knot in her throat, it shouldn't be dangerous. Girls had a right to enjoy the night, to run wild under the moon and stars, not to stay at home huddled behind bolted doors.

Anger quickened her pace and made her brave. When she got to the next corner, she stood defiantly under the steady glow of the street lamp. She waited a long time in the amber light. If it were someone with evil intent, a gangbanger, a mugger, or desperate homeless person, they would have attacked by now. She thought of Syaoran again, his hand on her cheek. Had he been leaning down to kiss her when Megumi pulled him away?

Something skipped through the darkness. Something trying hard not to be seen. She was certain it was real this time, no trick of light and shadow. She turned to run and tripped over a tricycle lying on its side. The handlebar pushed painfully in her stomach. The tricycle hadn't been there before. She would have seen something that size. Someone had crept behind her and placed it there. But how and when?

She pulled herself up and got into a stance looking at her surroundings for anyone who might attack her. She didn't scream, a scream used up too much oxygen and made her seem like one of those helpless, defenseless girls. This is why she trained martial arts and how to fight. Seeing that no one was near, she ran with savagery, her arms pumping at her sides. Already she could feel the arousal in her molecules, a soft and pleasant tremble. She could give in to her special power, but it was too much of a risk. She had a horrible feeling that what was happening to her now was somehow connected to her strange power. She was always afraid that one day someone would discover her secret.

If one person discovered the truth, she would be hunted down, taken to some cheesy place like Las Vegas, and be put on display. Maybe whoever was following her was trying scare her into using her ability. Maybe that person held a video camera trying to record the unthinkable and then sell it to the highest bidder, and she wouldn't let them do that. Whoever it was, was getting nearer. Footsteps could be heard softly in the grass behind her. She didn't look back to see who it was.

Her molecules grew more excited, begging to be freed from gravity. She imagined herself, invisible, running through her clothes. 'Stay', she thought, 'Stay'. She had to concentrate to keep her molecules together. Her body longed to give in to the stretch of bone and muscle, and dissolve into million fragments. Then another sound made her heart wrench.

Other footsteps joined the ones of the person chasing her. This time, more than one person, possibly more than two. Could it be even worse than she first thought? What would her mom do when she found out that her daughter was a freak?

She heard someone's voice, she then realized that the words were coming from her own mouth in a high, keening pitch. What was she saying? Some prayer her mother taught her as a child? Her lips formed the strange words again "O Mater Luna, Regina nocis, adiuvo me nunc." Besides English, Japanese, and Chinese she knew only a little Spanish. These words were definitely not Spanish or any other language she knew of. Where did they come from? From the corner of her eye, she saw a hand reaching for her.

The words gathered on her lips again, hard and strong "O Mater Luna, Regina nocis, adiuvo me nunc." The power radiating from the words filled her as she spoke. Then the chasers were gone. She kept running, afraid to trust what she knew was true, she was alone.

At the next block, she stopped and turned back. She stood resting for a while, very light pants coming from her mouth, she was already experienced in running long distances. The street behind her was empty. A trio of lawn flamingos stood right in front of her. She walked backwards for about half a block from Melrose Avenue, and that meant people. She turned and ran toward the comforting traffic sounds.

She stopped near a bus stop and stared at the street from which she had ran. Four boys and a girl were sitting on the bus bench. The boys wore the uniform of modern primitives. Silver hoops, pierced nipples, eyebrows, nose, and lips. Tattoos curled in odd designs around their necks and arms, and black leather vests flapped against their naked white chests.

"Who you running from?" the tall boy with the ratted black hair asked as he noticed that she was barely panting. She smiled to reassure the boy. He stepped back stumbling off the curb, his eyes looked as if he saw something in Sakura's face that scared him.

"Go haunt another corner," the girl suddenly spoke. Sakura left them staring at her and started walking down Melrose. Her feet stepping in the dark grime that covered the street. She hated to think about what kind of grotesque things were gathering between her toes seeing as her black rimmed flip flops didn't exactly protect her feet.

At home, the porch light blazed a welcoming sight. The twisted cherry blossom tree stood rigid right outside her bedroom window. She crept to the side of the house hidden in the darkness. When she was positive no one was following her, she walked to the back door opening it and stepped on the back porch.

"Sakura," Nadeshiko called. She walked into the warmth of the kitchen, smells of coffee, glue, and pencil shavings wafting to her nose. A large bulletin board hang on the wall above the table. Her mother called it her "inspiration board". Sketches and bold colored swatches were tacked to it now. Her mother worked as a costume designer for the movies.

Her big brother Touya then came up behind her mother looking a bit angered.

"You're late kaijuu." he stated as her mother rushed to her. Fear and anger was evident in her emerald orbs. Her hair looked as if it was raked with worried fingers. With cold fingers she caressed Sakura's face and held her tightly. "I was worried about you. I hope you didn't walk home. You know how I feel about that."

"I got a ride," she lied. "Tomoyo's mom gave us a lift." Her mother shook her head. "Tomoyo's mother wouldn't care if you stayed out all night." She didn't approve of how she let Tomoyo run wild. "I'm sorry I'm late," Sakura said. She felt guilty that she had caused her so much anxiety. "Planet Bang closed at 1 a.m., not midnight." she said. "On a school night? That's too late." her mother stated.

"Now that the kaijuu's home, I'm going to bed." Touya got up and stretched ready to leave, not before Sakura came up to him and said "Sakura no kaijuu!" and stomped on his foot. Touya swore silently before grabbing his foot and hopping up the stairs towards his bedroom, not before seeing a smirk on his little sister's face.

"I'll make sure that I check the time next time." she told her mother not wanting her to worry about her. "If there is a next time." she heard her mom mutter. "Mom everyone goes to Planet Bang on Tuesday nights. Tuesdays and Fridays are the only nights they let kids under 21 yrs. old in." She stopped and followed her mom's gaze. Her feet were dark with all the dirt, one big toe bleeding.

"For kami's sake, Sakura, what happened to your feet?"her mother blurted. Sakura was about to begin another lie but stopped, not saying anything. Why did it seem that the conversations she had with her mother started or ended with lies?

"From now on I'm picking you up. This won't happen again. 11:30 is late enough for a school night. You should be in bed by now." Sakura walked towards the sink and poured a glass of water. "Did something happen tonight that you want to talk about?" her mother said, suspicion was clear in her voice.

"Nothing." Sakura replied."Well something's wrong if you're about to drink that tap water." Her mother said as Sakura took a sip of water and quickly spit it out. "You'll poison yourself that way." she announced. Sakura poured herself a glass of water from the cooler in the corner and gulped it down. She then stared at her mother, she never thought of telling her mother her secret. She never felt so close to being discovered. What would her mother do? Maybe she had powers of her own and had been waiting all this time for Sakura to bring it up.

"Mom, are you..."

"What?"

"You know...different? I mean, besides the clothes." Nadeshiko dressed on the cutting edge of fashion, wearing clothes before anyone knew they were in style was her job, but sometimes it was embarrassing to have a mom that was so overly trendy. She's been wearing high-waters and pedal pushers, 2 years ago everyone thought her pants were too short. "A psychic once told me I didn't march to the beat of a different drummer." Her mother explained. "She said I had a whole band marching behind me."

"No, I mean really different, like in the freak category." "Oh, honey." her mother hugged her. "It's perfectly normal to feel you don't fit it doesn't matter if you're popular or not, since when did you even care?" If only her mother knew how much of her real self she kept hidden. Some kids at school don't like her now, wait until they learn the truth.

"That's not what I mean, mom. I never cared about popularity even though I am well known." Sakura was well known at school, mostly for her looks. She was the most beautiful, not the most popular, girl at Seijou High but hid her body in all her clothes.

"Do you recall the night when I was little and I woke up crying from a nightmare?"

"Which night? There were so many."

"The night you thought I was playing hide-and-seek."

"Yeah, I found you sleeping in the bathroom and then I carried you to your bed."

"I wasn't hiding." "Then what were you doing?"

"I was..." she stopped.

She looked at her mother. How can she tell her that she had become invisible that night.

"I was...that night I found out..."

-Flashback-

That night was the night Sakura first experienced her power...

Little Sakura woke up from a nightmare and looked down but couldn't see her body! Nadeshiko heard her crying and ran into her room. Little Sakura lifted her arms to be lifted but her mother couldn't see her. That made her even more frightened, while Nadeshiko was looking for her daughter, Sakura's molecules came back, but they came back wrong. Her face looked deformed, she quickly locked herself in the bathroom and fell unconcious. When she woke up the next morning, she looked normal.

-End of Flashback-

"Sakura, what did you find out that night?"

"Nothing important." Her mother lifted her chin. Emerald met emerald. "You're shaking." "I just wish..." Sakura began. "Tell me." her mother encouraged.

"Nothing, forget it." she said, barely above a whisper.

She left and went upstairs to wash her feet. She took a bath and put on black baggy pyjama bottoms and a black tank top. She then went to her bedroom, she loved it so much. She had window seats and shutters. Everything looked dark in her room. She had a queen sized bed that had black sheets and a lot of pillows that were also black with the occasional black winged angel design. Her walls had posters of some of her favorite bands like Linkin Park, Green Day, Fort Minor, Nickelback, and a lot of other bands and of manga/anime characters like, Digimon, CCS, TRC, Wolfs Reign and a lot more. She had shelves filled with her favorite manga like TMM, Yotsuba, Orphen, and Desert Coral. She also had a separate shelf with anime DVDs like, Chrono Crusade, Elfen Lied, and Gilgamesh. Her whole carpet was also black. Her personal bathroom was also dark. If it wasn't black it was either gray, white, or a dark version of a color. She had a medium big screen TV with a DVD and a stereo to listen to her music which held a big pile of CDs. Leaning on her stereo was a black electric guitar that had a lot of cherry blossom petals scattered in one area and as the cherry blossoms traveled farther, there was less. It was given to her by her father, before he died, she had always held a passion for music and fighting. She turned on her, also black and silver swirl design, computer and clicked on a program called "Sky Show" she had purchased through Astronomy magazine. A thin slice of moon came up on the screen. She looked at the date, according to the program, today should have been the first crescent moon, a time when she should feel adventurous and filled with curiosity.

But the program had made a mistake. Looking out the window she could see it was the dark of the moon tonight. Those three nights when the moon was completely dark and out of sight from earth had always had a strange hold on her. She felt nervous, as if a part of her sensed danger. Tomoyo's mother said superstitious people believed the dark moon brought death and destruction, and freed evil forces to roam the night.

A breeze ruffled the black slight see-through curtains, she hadn't left her windows open, maybe her mother opened them when she was gone. She shut the window and locked it, she then sat on her bed and stared at her computer. The door to her room opened and her mother walked in. "I came to kiss you goodnight," her mother said. "Why does it feel so cold in here?" "My window was opened, didn't you open it?" "No, but that explains the breeze I kept feeling all night."

"My program's messed up. Did you mess around with my computer?"

"No, why?"

"No reason." Sakura sighed. Her mother kissed her forehead quickly and started to leave.

"Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know what this means?" She tried to repeat the sound of the words she had spoken earlier "Oh, Mah-tare Loon-ah, Ree-gee-nah no-kis, Adyou-wo may noonk."

"That sounds like Latin." Her mother smiled, "That's what you did when you were a little girl."

"Speak Latin?"

"No," her mother said. "You use to hold your moon amulet that way." She glanced down. After Fujitaka died, her nightmares had become stronger. It was always the same dream– black shadows covered the full moon and then, like a specter, took form and started chasing her. She always awoke clutching her moon amulet. She was gripping it now like her life depended on it.

"'Night mum."

"'Night, sweetheart." Her mother kissed the top of her head and left her room. Sakura stared outside her window, where could she have learned Latin? She knew it had to do something with her power. If it wasn't so late she would call Tomoyo. Now she'd have to wait 'til tomorrow to find out if Tomoyo had ever uttered words that she didn't understand.

She crawled under her black covers. She glanced back at her computer, for the first time she noticed her black and silver alarm clock, it was turned towards the wall. She got up and turned it up to face her, she then also noticed her black digital watch. It was turned face down. Weird. Maybe Tomoyo had been playing around and left a calling card. She'd have a serious talk with her tomorrow to tell her that this time her jokes had gone too far.

Next Chapter-Tomoyo's Secret-The Tunnel : "Hurry up and eat," Tomoyo told her. "Why? We still have plenty of time." Two minutes later, Tomoyo put her hand on Sakura's shoulder. Her eyes were dilated and looked as if powerful energy was surging to her brain. Sakura took a glance at Tomoyo's watch, the minute hand was moving backwards. "Don't," she begged. "This'll be the third time we've left without paying." "But they won't find out, as far as they know, we never came."