Someone shakes my shoulder gently, waking me up. I tentatively open one eye only to close it again.

The headache, fuelled by the light, does not go away. Something bony is stuck in my lower abdomen and my forehead, laying on a cold surface, is abnormally swollen. My muscles are sore lumps, stiff from aches and pains. My joints turn reluctantly with a crunchy feel to them, as if greased with sand.

I sigh, eyes still closed. The gentle shake comes again.

Morning drowsiness is so comfortable, when you can roll and relish in it. It is but a few precious moments. You don't remember your problems, nor your late homework nor your personal disasters from the day before. Not yet.

Then sleep spits you out completely. Your inner peace is extinguished by a cold shower of panic.

The circumstances of my loss of consciousness come back in a rush. I try to stand too studently and in response the floor starts to spin. I wobble, but the same hold from the wake up shake keep me seated.

The scenery stops its waltz, I allow myself a careful visual intake of the situation. The wagon is silent, most of the passengers conspicuous by their absence.

A discreet snore makes me look down. My poorly padded futon was none other than Hinami, who was breathing steadily, her features soothed. Her elbow was digging into my ribs...

I am gently pushed away from her. My gaze rests on the hands that support me, frail on their equally small white arms. I turn around completely. A boy, about ten, is facing me. His half-length hair falls over his white tunic. Under his straight fringes, his pale eyes smile at me. His right iris is a rich dark brown in which the pupil drowns. It radiates a comforting warmth. It shines with benevolence and simplicity. The left is a striking, mysterious green. The light reflections gives it a wild glow. On one side his features are delicately outlined, seem quite real. The other half appears swallowed by shadows, hiding him behind an enigmatic mask. The contrast is such that his face is split, inhabited by two different entities. His body is enveloped in a pure white aura, which I know well. His smile widens when I question him, doubtful:

- Shiro?

A calm, smooth voice answers me; answers me at last, after five years of mimes and silences:

- Chihiro-nee

I put my hand to my neck, the stone is no longer there. The boy opens the cloth of his tunic and reveals the top of his torso. The pearl is set in his skin, probably in the bone, just above his heart. I stare at it for a moment, not daring to touch. He crosses the fabric again and throws himself at me.

My arms hesitate. Then a wave of happiness overtakes me and I respond to the embrace. Swollen tears of joy bead in my eyes and blur my vision. His light laughter echoes mine. Our emotions respond to each other splashing bright colours in our minds.

He pulls away, crushing his tears in his fists. I let mine flow, a little overwhelmed by his feelings. A snore from Hinami brings us back down to Earth. I look at her, hesitating to wake her up right away. Shiro moves away from me, sit down in front of her relaxed body, interrogates me with a look.

I loosen my limbs, change my position. The daylight projects large rectangular shapes in the metal compartment. It soften the lines of the enclosed space. I wipe my cheeks, then shake the sleeping girl.

She grunts, rolls over onto her stomach. She expresses the same willingness to get up as any other day of the year. I insist, until finally her eyelids flutter. She sits up with difficulty. The futon wasn't comfortable for her either.

- Hiro-chan, what...

She opens her eyes wide, puts her hand to the back of her aching head.

-What the hell happened?

Then following this question, many others:

- Where are we? Have we missed our stop? Ah, no, the train's stopped... What time is it? How long did we sleep? Damn it! We're going to be so late!

At this idea and the consequences it implies, Hina-chan lets out an agonizing moan. I sigh. My friend continues to massage her scalp, grimacing. She notices my companion hiding behind me:

- Who is he? Whaoh, have you seen the bump on your forehead? Did you cry? Are you all right? You're not hurt, right? Are you...

Shiro puts his index finger gently to her lips to tell her to be quiet. He was always troubled by her speech races, and by some of her quirks. She stares at him, shocked by the gesture and the cold, strange touch, which sends shivers down her spine. He pulls away and before I can say anything, or attempt to answer any of the questions, a sound of twisting metal makes us turn our heads towards the end of the car.

The door opens, two men stand in the frame, one of them shouting to the back:

- There are more here!

Shiro falls back behind me, wary. The two men come forward, looking tired, a bit haggard. We remain on the ground, watching them. The first counts the other sleepers, shakes one of them, the second one comes and squat down in front of us.

- Are you children all right? Hurt anywhere?

Weak collective head movement, negative. An awkward smile tries to lighten the mood.

- Good. Were you accompanied?

Hina takes the lead, as usual.

- No. We were just going home. Do you know what happened?

- We have no idea...

I hesitate to speak up. A woman appoaches, I didn't see her coming, she calls out to the guy talking to us:

- Nakamura-san, the phones are out of order, the line must be cut. Impossible to know what's going on. Some people went up to the locomotive. The cabin is empty.

He turns around and sighs.

- We can't get anything from this. Hotaru-san, could you take care of these children, I must admit I'm not very comfortable.

He moves aside, she takes his place. We exchange a few words, to give consistency to the presence of others. Slowly, we accept that this is not a dream. Shiro clings to me, without making a sound. He looks at these figures moving around us, which stare back at him, and he melts a little more against me. He had never felt present before this strange breakdown. The weight of it on his frail shoulders makes him tremble.

The hubbub slowly increases, yet no one is doing more than whispering. We let ourselves be carried along by the tide. I discuss with Hinami about futile things. She doesn't seem to pay attention to the white boy anymore. The latter seems to have lost himself in his thoughts, he's been staring outside with a vague look for a few minutes now.

When finally one of the adults decides to open the door of the wagon, Shiro's grip tightens around my arm, until he pulls me to my feet. I turn to him, surprised to find myself standing.

His fringe suddenly ruffles, clearing his forehead.

In the shadows of his lowered features, a light just awakened.

His irises are illuminated from within by what his pupils discover. He is focused on this exterior that has just been revealed to us, zeroing down on this window leading to the rest of the universe.

The man at the exit is still on the step, taking note of the height he has to hop down from to reach the rails. Shiro shoves him unceremoniously and drags me behind him. My feet are off the ground in an instant. I'm pulled along in the wake of his movement. The metal ramparts of the compartment fade at the corners of my eyes. Shiro's tunic and diaphanous skin make a large white patch around which the outside spreads. The clear blue of the sky has a glaring intensity. I put my nose down, and discover, way far below, the gravel of the train way.

I am not the only one caught off guard by my companion's thoughtless act. Behind us, I hear the man swearing and Hinami shouts my name. Too late. The wagon stand high and huge on its wheels. It is far too high for the leap we are taking to end anywhere but on my broken knees. I close my eyes and grit my teeth in apprehension. It's not like the stairs, I'm not prepared for it. Yet, my friend's frightened voice fades away without the shock occuring. My thoughts desert me, as I take a peek through my eyelids. Shiro has his back to me, both feet firmly planted on the ground. His arm, turned backwards, still holds onto me. A strange energy pours out of him, subduing gravity.

In weightlessness, my clothes flap like sails. I float, carried by the embodied wind to which he whispers. His inner voice echoes faintly in my head, his whistles wandering in the unearthly breeze.

- Shiro. Get me down!

Without releasing me, he runs towards the meadow that spreads out, bordered by the elevations that surround the valley. He pulls me behind him like a tamed cloud. His bare feet scarcely touch the grass, which bends without a rustle. We are just a few steps away from the train, but already its rumours are fading. All I can hear is his ragged breathing, the furious beating of my heart, and the caressing spirals of the wind. It winds up, unwinds, escapes in powerful gusts from the cottony cloths that dress my friend. I fall back into a long-faded dream, where the immensity of the sky was the nest sheltering the bonds of my friendship with a ryuu, with a dragon, guardian of a choked and dried river. I am getting back in touch with this material that I discovered a few springs ago, at the turn of a tunnel:

From him to me, from him to the wind, flows magic. The very same magic that pulses all around us, gives body to my phantom companion. This magic that stretches, awakens from the long slumber of the forgotten, whose galvanizing touch makes my sleepy heart go haywire.

However, the wind is freezing, drains Shiro of his strength. He uses too much of it, not worrying for the cost. I feel his presence weakening, he doesn't care and keeps propelling us further. His fingers are so thin, and so cold all of a sudden that they could shatter like glass, like fragile crystal.

- Shiro, just stop! Please!

He slows down, for his breathing to catch up. I regain an upright position, and land gently. His hand slides along my wrist so that our fingers come to intertwine.

- It is so beautiful.

The words I wanted to say die on my lips as he formulates the obvious. A phrase that defines the world that he can finally embrace with his senses. I also lose myself in a sudden contemplation, my curiosity awakened. Habit had erased wonder from my mind. His simple words, so apt, have just returned it to me. I stare at this ordinary landscape, at its magnificent colours and volumes.

I turn around, the railway is a line that brutally interrupts the curves of this dream. It cuts through the serene haze into which I was beginning to sink. The poles supporting the electrified wires, which follow the track, are swallowed up by the horizon on either side. In the center sits our train, where the other passengers are moving blobs, wandering out, one by one.

- It's different to really see, hear and touch. I don't feel things the way I do through your eyes and ears.

- Shiro? What happened to you?

- I can't explain it. My body materialized in an instant. I felt the sky fall... and then everything else, as I rushed towards you.

He is silent, playing with his various joints, unclenching his muscles, exercising with renewed surprise. I listen to him, still watching the people pouring out.

- What about the train? Do you know?

- No, I don't. I was knocked out too. It was like being back in the pearl, but different. I woke up earlier though. Some of the passengers disappeared before my eyes.

- Disappeared?

He hesitates, searching for words as he rubs his chest through the tunic.

- They were asleep, but their bodies became transparent, you could see through them. Then you couldn't see them anymore.

A worry twists my stomach.

- Can this happen to others?

He shrugs his shoulders, his features pensive.

- I don't know...

I pull him behind me, back to the train.

- We'll find Hinami.

He simply nods, takes my hand again. My feet sink into the swampy grass. The humus is loose, spongy as after a rain shower that it couldn't entirely swallow. Shiro wades, seeks his balance. He is confident in his movements but does not quite control them. He has just entered the sentient world, he has to sort out what is going on inside and around him.

His sensations are strange whispers that spread in my head. They allow me to grasp tiny differences in the air, vague as the trembling of the horizon on a summer day. Everything is blurred.

A figure runs towards us, my friend almost falls into my arms. I grab her wrists, to see that they are real, that they too are not vanishing in a smoke.

- What was he thinking? How did he do that? Where did he come from?

I settle for a short answer to stem her flow:

- It's Shiro.

Her jaw drops, but true to herself, she assimilates the information and immediately picks up. She approaches the unseen revealed. The boy recoils, remembering the various experiments she has tried on him. He is apprehensive about her little whims, especially now that he is within reach.

- Shiro?

She grabs him by the shoulders, without him being able to object, she marvels:

- You have a body?! and you do magic, real magic! Can you make me fly too?

- It's not a good idea, Hina, it exhaust him. And you're upsetting him again.

She let go of him, feeling sorry to be refused a ride, and to have offended him. He keeps his eyes on the ground. My classmate's thoughts go a long way and then lead to her saying:

- Wait… Is this the spirit world? This is the home of the kamigami!

- I don't think so...

Shiro shakes his head 'no'.

- If you don't know either, let's see what the others think!

I hesitate:

- Haven't we drawn too much attention?

- Oh no, believe me, they haven't seen anything. They are occupied with other problems!

Back at the side of the track, the passengers call out to each other. Some of them get carried away but a relative calm is maintained. Shiro, frightened by so much excitement and noise, clutches my sleeve and hides behind me, contrite.

- No phone, no driver, and without electricity the controls are at a complete standstill.

- We have no way to contact the authorities.

- Calm down, the railway company must be aware of the situation.

Shiro staggers, and his thin voice whispers, like an uncertain confidence:

- It's not the train.

He seems a little lost, his eyebrows furrowed, as if he doesn't know the meaning of the words he has just spoken. He listens, by instinct, to his new perceptions, without understanding them yet...

He repeats, with a hint of questioning.

- It's not the train?

The conversations start up again, the tone rises:

- I mean! If this is a bad joke, my husband would not have participated of his own free will! But I can't find him anywhere!

- I don't think a parent can leave a child behind them like that, either!

The three of us stand silently, spectators to the prelude to chaos.

'Passengers are gone', body and soul, Shiro told me. Yet, their loved ones, their friends, are still there.

Shiro makes me leans over to him, to confide in my ear once more:

- It wasn't the train.

I stare into the lucidity of his eyes, he opens his mind a little and lets me share his secret.

The world as I knew it, as all humans knew it, stood on straight, solemn pillars. The structure was almost perfect, its borders well defined, its foundations solid.

Yet the world caught in the psychic nets of the little ghost glowed with iridescent magic, shimmering with the colours of the early ages. The stone vault has collapsed, taking down with it the Order we had always known. In their place, a new equilibrium has been established, an architecture with a fantastic, magnificent arborescence, which takes root in the heart of every person. It is the confluence of two tumultuous waters, splashing existence with drops of light and shadow. They are two colossal satellites, orbiting around an universal point of gravity, that have deviated from their eternal course to collide and pulverise each other.

We are not in the spirit world... not in the humans one either...

There are no more borders.

There is only one world now,

We were all...

... spirited away