Irusu (A BNHA x IT AU)

by Seroyonin

It started in the winter of 2004, after the death of Midoriya Izuku's little sister Eri, and it would end almost 16 years later, after Kaminari Denki made his six phone calls. After all, they had all promised that they'd come back. (An "IT" AU with *that* part removed) (Cross posted from Ao3) (Every trigger warning imaginable applies- seriously, proceed with caution)

12. Kaminari Denki Notices Something Odd

—1—

JUNE 13TH, 2005 / IRUSU, JAPAN

Unable to sleep, plagued by bad dreams, a boy named Kaminari Denki shoved open his bedroom window, and quietly crawled out onto his front lawn- his tiny form making it easy to sneak underneath his mother's bedroom window towards the shed where his solid black mongoose bike was kept. He threw his leg over the bike, patted the pocket the envelope he planned on delivering was residing in to make sure it was secure, and spent a good few minutes adjusting to the pro-mountain bikes height.

The bike was too big for him.

Everything was too big for him.

Kaminari Denki was short- extremely short. He was 4'4 but usually lied and told people he was 4'7 though that only worked for so long, as that Deku kid/ the third shortest kid in their grade, (Kaminari was the second) was 4'8 and when they stood side by side one another it was quite obvious that Deku was a lot more than one inch taller than him.

'Well, it doesn't matter much anymore,' Kaminari thought, finally beginning to peddle down the path leading through their sugar beet fields and taking a sharp left towards the wheat to avoid getting to close to the small wooden fence that separated the Kaminari's farm from the Shigaraki's. He didn't even want to begin to imagine what would happen if Mr. Shigaraki decided he was to close to their property.

The small eleven-year-old's bike hit the dirt-paved back road that led into town. It was past curfew, but there weren't any street lamps this far from Irusu's town square, and Kaminari highly doubted that there would be anyone driving out to the stix this late at night.

He shivered a little, the night air chillier than the summer day. His fading Pokémon movie T-shirt blowing back behind him, his military-green cargo shorts sticking to his legs, muscles burning red hot, as he pushed his to-short legs against the bike's peddles. The envelope in his pocket seemed to be burning a hole through the fabric, urging him to push harder.

It was foggy- he couldn't see it so much as he could feel it- a slight dampness that stuck to his skin, hair, and clothing and made his shivering worst. He could feel his heartbeat steadily rise as he continued to exert himself, rocketing towards town as quickly as possible.

It'd been a long time since he'd last been there.

A red-hot flashing mixture of shame and anger crashed over him then, so sudden that he had to slam on the breaks of his bike to keep himself from crashing into a recycling bin someone had dragged to the curb a couple of days early. He wiped at his eyes as he felt tears beginning to well, memories from last winter... memories of the insults and name-calling (from children and adults alike) he'd been subjected to flooding over him all at once.

It had been his own fault, really- the harassment and bullying. He should have realized he wasn't like everyone else. It was just that- he had been so sure that Sero was the weird one then- convinced that it was just another thing to add to Sero Hanta's steadily growing "Freak List"- (as they had so lovingly dubbed it one afternoon in Grade Three.)- and that he was perfectly normal.

But, looking back now, he really should have known.

—2—

NOVEMBER 25TH, 2004, IRUSU, JAPAN

"What do you mean you don't like both?"

Sero shrugged, not taking his eyes off the screen of Kaminari's TV, grey orbs narrowed in concentration as he played through one of his Zelda games- Windwaker, Kaminari was pretty sure- only halfway paying attention to the conversation they were having.

"Are you sure you don't?" Kaminari asked again, rolling over on his back and staring at Sero's profile upside down.

"I'm pretty sure," Sero responded, letting out a hiss of frustration towards the game. "But maybe I just haven't come across a guy I've found attractive yet."

"Are you saying I'm not attractive?" Kaminari pouted, causing Sero to roll his eyes at him and smile.

"You know what I meant, dumbass."

"Yeah yeah," Kaminari laughed, sitting right-side-up as his vision began to blur and swim, the blood rushing from his head causing him to flop down onto his stomach and close his eyes. "It's just weird that you don't find any guys cute."

"I guess I'm just weird, then- as if we didn't know that already." Sero shrugged, pausing the game and turning towards his friend. "What guys do you find cute?"

Kaminari felt his face break into a wide smile, his chest filling with warmth, his face going a little pink: "Todoroki."

Sero snorted, before beginning to actually laugh- Kaminari laughed a little with him, his face burning even more now as a few pinpricks of anxiety began to stab in the back of his mind- he finally got Sero to stop by chucking a pillow at his face, the far-to-skinny boy reeling back as if he had been hit with a ton of bricks.

"Don't laugh- I think he's awesome."

Sero, still giggling a little, nodded. "Yeah, he's pretty cool- I get my cigarettes from him."

"He's cute too, even with the scar."

"I guess so."

"And his hair- I mean- it's half white half red- how does that even happen? It like- I dunno- winter-fire or- or January Embers-"

"Winter-Fire and January-embers?- what does that even mean?"

"I dunno."

"But you're the one that said it?"

"Yeah but I don't know what it means, it just feels like it's right."

"..."

"..."

"You're a freak."

"Says the walking skeleton with the shitty mom."

Now Kaminari was the one getting hit with a pillow, Sero towering over him and laughing quietly. Kaminari grinned up at him cheekily, the flush still burning across his cheeks.

Sero was cute too, he decided then.

"So, you really don't think Todoroki is attractive?"

Sero laughed exasperatedly, and collapsed beside him on the bed, turning towards Kaminari- so close their noses were almost touching. "I mean- I think he's good-looking, but I like- wouldn't wanna kiss him or anything."

"I would."

"You wouldn't be able to reach."

"Shut up."

"You know it's true, he's way taller than you."

"Yeah, but that makes me like him more- tall people are hot."

Sero rolled his eyes. "Everyone's tall compared to you, idiot."

"That's probably why I'm attracted to everyone then."

"Everyone? Even me? And your mom? And Shigaraki Tomura?"

Kaminari made a disgusted face at that, though felt his heartbeat increase rapidly and his face go ablaze once more as the quick acknowledgment of his best friends cuteness flashed across his mind for the second time that afternoon, causing him to look away and let out a 'pfft' noise: "You know what I meant."

"Yeah, I did." There was a beat of silence, and then: "Maybe you could ask someone else about liking both? I might just be weird for only liking girls- the older kids would probably know better than me."

"Yeah... I'll ask tomorrow."

"Be sure to let me know if I'm even more of a freak than we thought before."

"Of course- you need to build up your roster after all."

"Fuck you."

"You know you love me, Hanta."

Sero sighed, the smile in his voice evident, "I do."

Kaminari turned back towards Sero and gave him a genuine, kind, and good smile, "I love you too."

Sero's smile widened.

From there, he had done exactly what he and Sero had agreed on and had come to the cruel and harsh realization that he was the freak- not Sero.

He had asked a friend of his in grade six, Hideo Obi, if he liked both boys and girls, and before the question was even fully out of his mouth he had been called a "Faggot"- the first of many times to come.

He hadn't known what that word meant then, but the way Obi had sounded when he called him it let him know instantly that it couldn't be good.

It had spread through the school like wildfire, everyone knew by the end of the day. The entire town, including his mother, knew by the end of the week. Adults and children alike called him names like "Faggot," "Fairy," "homo," "invert," and all sorts of others- he had things thrown at him, parents yank their children away from him as if he were infected with some sort of disease, and almost every one of his former friends turn on him- it was hell. He felt like he was suffocating.

Not everyone was horrible, though. Sero stood by him loyally and got tormented worst than ever for it, that Deku kid and his friend with the asthma and shark-teeth (Kirishima, Kaminari thought his name was) made a point to be kind and include him in as many things as they could, this boy named Iida Tenya was paired up with him for a project and treated him nicely- didn't even acknowledge the snickers and jabs thrown in his direction when his name was called and didn't mention anything other than project stuff to Kaminari when they broke off into their pairs- and Bakugo Katsuki had even kneed some grade six in the stomach so hard that he puked up his lunch all over the soccer stands because he'd called Kaminari a "clumsy fag" after he'd failed to block a goal.

He was grateful for the little things.

Then there was Todoroki Shouto- the very person that had awoken the realization that he liked boys in the same way that he liked girls- the week before the end of their fourth year. Sero had been out sick and Deku and Kirishima had tried and failed to get him accepted into a game of kickball in the schoolyard, so he was sitting all alone underneath the bleachers, trying his best not to be seen, when Todoroki Shouto had ducked under there beside him with a lit cigarette clamped between his teeth and a tired expression on his face.

"Hi."

Kaminari blinked, not sure if he had imagined it or not. He looked up at Todoroki and found his mismatched eyes fixated on him in an intense gaze, so intense Kaminari was almost sure he would melt under it.

"...Hi?"

"I like boys too."

Kaminari blinked.

Kaminari paused.

Kaminari felt his eyes bug and his mouth go dry, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. Surly he was hearing things- there was absolutely no way that Todoroki Shouto had just- "What?"

"I like boy's too, like how I'm supposed to like girls. Except I don't like girls, only boy's."

Kaminari gaped, taking a few moments to gather himself. "I'm sorry."

Todoroki's left eyebrow twitched upwards, barely noticeable, as he took a puff of his cigarette. The tips of his ears and nose were a rosy red, an oversized black and white Irusu High School varsity jacket with his older brother Natsuo's name embroidered on it was draped over his school uniform, flakes of snow flurries sparkled in the crimson parts of his hair, a purplish-reddish bruise bloomed over a slightly crooked nose, knuckles, raw and split, clashed harshly with his porcelain skin...

He was the most beautiful (Guy? Person? Being?) Kaminari had ever seen, so gorgeous Kaminari almost had to look away, suddenly feeling almost unworthy of being in Todoroki's presence- like and intruding force. Somewhere inside him something clicked and he was suddenly able to understand those silly shots in romcoms where everything goes in slow motion as a beautiful girl appears accompanied by some cheesy love song- this was that moment and the music was certainly playing in his head.

"Why?"

"...huh?"

"Why are you sorry that I like boys?"

And then he was crashing back to reality, broken out of his momentary stupor, his internal record player scratching, everything going back to its normal pace. He flushed a little, and coughed. "Because apparently, it's unnatural."

"Says who?"

Kaminari snorted, "Pretty much everyone in town? Besides like- Sero and my mom, and maybe a couple of others."

"Natsuo says that it's not like that everywhere, especially in larger cities."

Kaminari perked up a little at that, "Your brother knows about you liking boys?"

"Yes."

"And he didn't tell anyone?"

"No."

Kaminari blinked. "Huh."

"You've just got to get through a few more years, and then you can leave Irusu and never come back- put all this behind you," Todoroki said, stomping out his cigarette as the teacher blew the whistle to signal the end of recess.

"Yeah... okay... you're right." He felt strange, and a little sweaty despite the cold bite of December air. "You're right."

And then, Todoroki did something that has been burned into his memory ever since: He crouched down, and kissed Kaminari Denki on the cheek.

A soft, sweet, barely there peck. His lips just barely making contact with Kaminari's hot skin. Kaminari felt his jaw drop and all the spit in it go dry- completely light-headed.

When he pulled away, Todoroki was smiling. A smile so pure and- and good- that it made Kaminari feel weak in the knees, and made his heart pound deafeningly in his ears and harshly against his rib cage, and made his head swim dangerously enough that he was almost certain he'd pass out. He put a hand up to his face, lightly touching where Todoroki had kissed him, and flushed to the roots of his hair.

Todoroki Shouto, his own face a light shade of pink, turned, and disappeared as swiftly as ghost.

Kaminari was pretty sure he wanted to marry him.

But he was certain that he was in love.

—3—

JUNE 13TH, 2005 / IRUSU, JAPAN

Todoroki Shouto... that kiss had lit a fire inside Kaminari, opened doors that had previously only been cracked... he felt his cheeks begin to color.

He was outside the Todoroki's apartment building now- feeling only slightly creepy. Up ahead, Todoroki Natsuo was storming down the stairs with an angry look in his eyes and a snarl on his face, making him appear quite menacing in the dim lighting that illuminated the stairs. Kaminari watched from the shadows as the teenager skipped the last two steps by hopping to the gravel drive way below and approached a running truck. The driver was a fellow teenager, a girl with long blonde hair, who looked fairly worried. It wasn't long before the truck drove off, kicking up gravel as it went.

huh.

'Wonder what that was about?' Kaminari thought absently, watching the taillights disappear into the foggy night. Eventually, he shook his head, remembering what it was that he came here to do.

He pulled the envelope from his pocket, feeling his face beginning to heat up ever-so-slightly. 'SHOUTO' was written in Kaminari's chicken-scratch handwriting in oversized lettering- it looked very childish, which made Kaminari frown a little.

'Can't do anything about it now.' Kaminari thought. He took an anxious step towards the staircase, took a deep breath, and began to climb as quietly as possible... the last thing he wanted was for Mr. Todoroki- or Todoroki Shouto himself- to catch him here... or to see the letter that he had purposely left anonymous.

As quietly as a mouse, Kaminari Denki slipped the envelope into the mailbox labeled 'TODOROKI' and slipped into the night as easily as a shadow.

—4—

Kaminari hopped off his bike and leaned it against the giant Kitsune statue situated in the middle of Ukiyo park. The stone woman dressed in a beautifully crafted kimono stared across the small man-made creek that babbled and popped in front of it, her fox form to her left posed as if she were drinking from it. Koi fish swam happily towards the red gazebo posted at the end of the creek, accessible only by bridge, in the middle of a medium-sized koi fish pond.

This was Kaminari Denki's favorite place in Irusu- his go-to when things got to be too much for him. It was peaceful, and had a very distinct sense of intoxicating calmness. It was almost like you couldn't help being relaxed here- and, after the stunt he had just pulled, that the energy he needed quite badly.

He had one foot on the gazebo's bridge when something caught his eye.

Something, quite a distance away, was glimmering in the moonlight- close to the concrete edge of the canal.

It was then that he noticed the smell: a salty, fishy, ocean, smell that seemed to encompass the park, and only grew as he made his way towards the shining object in the grass. It wasn't all that abnormal to smell the sea in Irusu, they weren't very far from the coast at all, but this was the strongest it had ever been- thicker- and for whatever reason it made Kaminari's skin crawl with a startling intense sense of danger.

He reached the shimmering object and bent down to pick it up. It was a pocket knife, one of the flimsy cheap ones you could get for 15¥ at the Ori Road Trade. The cheap plastic handle had the initials J.K. scratched into it messily. Kaminari shrugged and shoved the knife into his pocket- finders keepers and all that jazz.

He glanced around, towards the park's main entrance (he had come through the back as to not be seen by the Irusu Patrol cars combing the streets), and saw an overturned bench with its legs sticking up towards the starry night sky. He righted the bench, settling it back into the home it'd carved into the earth's surface throughout the years, and looked around again. A couple of feet ahead of him was a matted patch of grass. He cocked his head curiously, looking amusingly similar to a golden retriever pup, and noticed that beyond that were two grooves. The grass was starting to spring back up, but the grooves (which lead back into the canal) were still quite clear. And there was blood.

(the bird remember the bird remember the-)

But he did not want to remember the bird, so he pushed that thought back down.

'It was a dog fight, that's all.' He thought, a crushing sense of unease beginning to weigh down on his chest. 'One of 'em must have hurt the other one pretty bad.'

It was a convincing thought by which he was somehow not convinced. Thoughts of the bird kept wanting to come back-the one he had seen out at the Kanazaki Ironworks, one Iida Tenya never would have found in the bird-book he had checked out earlier that day.

But instead of getting out, he followed the grooves. As he did he made up a little story in his mind. It was a murder story. Here's this kid, out late, see. Out past the curfew. The killer gets him. And how does he get rid of the body? Drags it to the Canal and dumps it in, of course! No one would ever find a body there, it'd be out at sea never to be seen again in no time! The perfect crime!

The marks he was following could have been made by a dragging pair of boots or sneakers, he supposed.

Kaminari shivered and looked around uncertainly. The story was somehow a little too real.

And suppose that it wasn't a man who did it but a monster. Like out of a horror comic or a horror book or a horror movie or

(a bad dream)

a fairytale or something.

J.K... wasn't there some girl in his grade with those initials?

Kaminari swallowed nervously, suddenly overcome with anxiety. He decided he didn't like the story. It was a stupid story. He tried to push it out of his mind but it wouldn't go. So what? Let it stay. It was dumb. Riding into town this morning had been dumb. Following these two matted grooves in the grass was dumb. He was dumb. His mom would have a lot of chores for him to do around the place tomorrow. He ought to get back before his mom comes in there to check on him and finds him gone or else he'll be in the stalls during the hottest part of the day shoveling horse shit with the other farm-hands instead of hanging out with Sero or playing on his PS2. Yes, he ought to get back. And that's just what he was going to do.

'Sure you are,' he thought. 'Want to bet?'

Kaminari could hear the canal running now- not much louder than the creek which now felt impossibly far behind him. And then, through the fog and velvety blanket of night, the concrete edge seemed to materialize out of nowhere- beckoning him towards it.

And there was something else in the grass.

Of course, there was something else in the grass.

He moved towards it, feeling almost as if he didn't have a choice, and then a gull screamed somewhere and Kaminari flinched, thinking again of the bird he had seen that day, that day just this spring.

'Whatever that is in the grass, I don't even want to look at it.' And that was oh so very true, but here he was, already bending over it, hands planted just above his knees, to see what it was- heart-pounding just as hard and loudly as it had the day Todoroki had kissed him and told him that he also liked boys, however, unlike with Todoroki, it wasn't accompanied by a dizzying amount of euphoria; The weak knees were present, though.

It was a piece of fabric.

A piece of fabric torn from something dark purple, half of it drenched in blood.

The seagull cried again, and Kaminari flinched.

(-Remember the bird remember the bird remember the bird the bird the bird the birdthebirdthebirdthebirdthebird-)

—5—

APRIL 5TH, 2005 / IRUSU, JAPAN

Each year during April and May the Kaminari's farm woke up from its winter slumber.

Kaminari would let himself know it was Spring not when the cherry blossoms bloomed, or when everyone began to wear T-shirts and shorts instead of winter coats and snow pants, or even when the countries tourist industry began to boom once more- to Kaminari, it wasn't officially spring until his mother woke him up at 5:30 am to help her push their beat-up old truck out of the barn. It was a 1992 Ford Ranger painted an ugly dark green, the tailgate having been replaced with the remainders of an old hen house door, it's back windshield missing. If the winter hadn't been too cold, the two of them could often get it going by pushing it down the driveway. The truck's passenger-side door was jammed, and couldn't be opened at all. The seats weren't the originals, instead having been scrounged from the dump yard down in the barrens a couple of years before (Kaminari and Sero had quite liked scrounging around for junk-parts down there with his mother, it was one of their fondest memories) The stick-shift ended in a glass doorknob.

They would push it down the driveway, one on each side, and when it got rolling good, Kaori, (Kaminari's mother) would jump in, turn on the switch, ignite the spark, step down on the clutch, punch the shift into first gear with her calloused working hand clamped over the doorknob. Then she would holler: "Put me over the hump!" She'd pop the clutch and the old Ford engine would cough, choke, chug, backfire... and sometimes actually start to run, rough at first, then smoothing out. Kaori would roar down the road toward Kaminari Farms, turn around in their driveway (if she had gone the other way, Shigaraki Tomura's crazy father probably would have sicced his hounds on her), and then roar back, the unmuffled engine blatting stridently while Kaminari jumped up and down with excitement, cheering, and if Sero were there (and he almost always was) he'd stand in the kitchen doorway, wiping his hands on a dishtowel with an excited aura around him, cheering right along with him.

Other times the truck wouldn't roll-start- and even though he would never tell his mother, he almost preferred it this way- because that meant he got to pop the hood and help her fix what was wrong.

Kaminari wasn't very book-smart, it was one of the many things on a decent-sized list that made him such a target to harassment. In fact, it had been number one before the whole "fag" thing got so out of hand that his mother pulled him out of school.

That was probably the angriest his mother had ever been, he thought- he'd come home with a busted nose, drenched in mud, "Faggot" written in sharpie across the front of his uniform courtesy of Shigaraki and his friends. One of the Grade Seven teachers had watched it happen, and hadn't said a word- and Kaminari Kaori had marched her tiny 5'4 self into that Principle's office with his ruined uniform in a bag, and ripped everyone in there a new one. She'd signed Kaminari up for a homeschooling program the next year.

His mother was a tough and fiery woman that cared fiercely for everything she called her own. She refused to sell their animals to butcher's despite how much she could profit from it, she built up relationships with stray cats and dogs until she was able to capture them, fix them, and turn them into barn cats and herding dogs. She had practically adopted Sero Hanta at this point- he even called her mom, and she encouraged it. He was just as much her child as Kaminari was.

When she had found out about Kaminari's sexuality from one of his classmate's mothers (who had offered her condolences and encouragement that it wasn't her fault, but his father's for leaving when Kaminari was only four years old) while in the check-out line at the Irusu Produce Mart, Kaori had rounded on her and gave her a verbal lashing so fierce the woman had been reduced to tears. She'd come home that night, Sero Hanta in tow, (She'd found him sitting on the steps outside of his house, his mother had seemingly locked him out) and allowed them to eat ice cream and stay up as late as they wanted, watching whatever they felt like.

Kaminari Denki loved his mother immensely, and she loved him too- even if he was "Bi" (that's what his mother had called it when he had tearfully explained to her his attraction to both boy's and girl's) and not very smart.

Despite the fact that he wasn't good at tests or math or anything like that, car's just made sense to him. For as far back as he could remember, he has been able to just- look at a car and figure out what was wrong with it and how to fix it. His mom seemed to think that meant he was secretly a prodigy of some sort, but Kaminari wasn't so sure- but the thought made her happy and so he let her believe it.

She's pop the hood, Kaminari would look inside and in a matter of minutes he'd know exactly was wrong- usually, a loose spark plug, one time one of the belts snapped, another time something had punctured through the fuel tank- and then she'd go to town and come back with what they needed to fix it, and they'd spend the morning doing just that. She'd mutter under her breath the entire time about how the next year, she'd trade it in for a newer truck, but she never did.

When it was running, and Kaminari was sitting in the passenger seat, smelling hot oil and blue exhaust, excited by the keen breeze that washed in through the missing rear windshield, he would think: 'Spring's here again. We're all waking up.' And in his soul, he would raise a silent cheer that shook the walls of that most cheerful room. He felt love for everything around him, and most of all for his mom, who would grin over at him and holler: "Hold on, Denki! We're gonna wind this baby up! We're gonna make some birds run for cover!"

Then she would tear up the driveway, the old Ford's rear wheels spitting back black dirt and gray clods of clay, both of them bouncing up and down on the inside, laughing like stark natural-born fools. Kaori would run the old truck through the high grass of the backfield, which was kept for hay, toward either the south field (potatoes), the west field (sugar beats and Onions), the east field (Corn, asparagus, and Pumpkins), or the North Orchard (Cherries). As they went, birds would burst up out of the grass before the truck, squawking in terror. Once a short-tailed albatross flew up, a magnificent bird with a pretty yellow head, the explosive coughing whirr of its wings audible even over the pounding engine.

Those rides were Kaminari Denki's door into spring.

The year's work began with a rock harvest. Every day for a week they would take the ugly green truck out to the fields and load it up with rocks. Sometimes the old truck's tires would get stuck in the soft earth and Kaori would mutter darkly under her breath, swears Kaminari surmised. He knew some of the words and expressions like "son of a bitch", but the other variant his mother liked to use sometimes ("son of a whore") confused him- because, well, he didn't know what a "Whore" was. He had once set out to ask his mother, but the Ford truck had been in mud up to her coil-springs, there had been thunderclouds on his mother's brow, and he had decided to wait for a better time. He would end up asking Bakugo Katsuki later that year and Bakugo would tell him that he had been told by a cousin that a whore was a woman who got paid for having sex with men. "Oh." Kaminari would say, and Bakugo would roll his eyes and walk off to talk to Kirishima.

Once, while he was helping his mom dump the rocks into the Irusu Junk Yard, Kaminari asked her why the rocks came back every year despite them harvesting them every April.

Kaori had only shrugged, taking a sip of water from her "JA Group Partner" tumbler, and said: "Your grandfather used to tell me that they were gifts from the spirits that watch over Irusu."

"How are rocks gifts?" Kaminari had asked incredulously.

Kaori shrugged again, smiling. "Maybe they just don't know what human's like."

A Japanese Sparrowhead cried out from somewhere across the Shibui in a dusky sunset that had turned the water a rosy-red. It was a lonely sound- so lonely that it made Kaminari's arms break out in prickly goosebumps.

"I love you, mom," Kaminari said abruptly- almost urgently- suddenly worried that if he didn't say it now he wouldn't get the chance to tell her ever again.

"I love you too, Denki." His mother laughed and pulled him into a side-hug while ruffling his hair. Kaminari felt the soft fabric of his mother's tank-top brush against his cheek and found it strangely comforting. "Now how about you and I run home and take showers? If we're quick enough, I might just be willing to drive you and Sero up to Kitami and get a hotel for the night- he seemed a little upset when I mentioned going down to the barrens and you and I could certainly use a break."

Kaminari's eyes lit up, and he nodded excitedly. It wasn't often that they got to do things like this. "What about planting tomorrow?"

"Orochi can take care of things by himself for one day- the other's listen to him just as well as they listen to me."

Kaminari grinned up at her excitedly, before grabbing her hand and dragging her, giggling, out of the barrens and towards home.

That night, as Sero slept peacefully beside him in their shared queen-sized hotel bed, Kaminari thought to himself. 'Spring is here.' And turning to sleep, sinking down, he had heard a Sparrowhead call again, the distance of its marshes blending into the desire of his dreams. Spring was a busy time, but it was a good time.

(He had been blissfully unaware that those 48 hours in Kitami would be the only time he would step foot out of Irusu for the next fifteen or so years)

The following week was spent plowing the fields. Every day from sunrise to sunset Kaminari, his mother, and their farmhands would take to the fields. Despite how sore he always was afterward, Kaminari truly enjoyed the work he did on their farm- he honestly didn't mind his April's, June's, July's, and August's being consumed by it- in fact, he looked forward to it every year.

Sero would refurbish Akira, Kayo, and Shig, their three scarecrows, and Kaminari would help his mother put mooseblowers on top of each straw-filled head. A mooseblower was a can with both ends cut off. You tied a length of heavily waxed and rosined string tightly across the middle of the can and when the wind blew through it a wonderfully spooky sound resulted-a kind of whining croak. Crop-eating birds decided soon enough that Akira, Kayo, and Shig were no threats, but the mooseblowers always frightened them off.

Come July, there'd be harvesting added to the roster as well- specifically of the sugar beets and Wheat. Then the corn, Asparagus, and Cherries in August. In October there'd be more corn, but also Pumpkin's and Potatoes. And then, as the days shortened and the air sharpened, he and his mom would take in the mooseblowers (and sometime during the winter they would disappear; it seemed they had to make new ones each spring). They'd spend the next three weeks digging up the last of the potatoes, and then it'd be winter and the fields would lay barren and frozen until April came around once more. Birds would land on the shoulders of now voiceless Akira, Kayo, and Shig, and stay as long as they liked.

Kaminari would not exactly be dismayed by the thought of another year ending-at nine and ten he was still too young to make mortal metaphors-because there was plenty to look forward to; sledding in Ukiyo Park (or on Suika Hill down by the High school if you were brave, although that was mostly for big kids), ice-skating, snowball fights, snow fort building. There was time to think about snowshoeing out for a Christmas tree with Sero and his mom, and time to think about the Nordica downhill skis he might or might not get for Christmas. Winter was good... but watching his mom drive the old Ford back into the barn

(spring vanished summer gone harvest-time done)

always made him feel sad, the way the squadrons of birds heading south for the winter made him feel sad, or the way a certain slant of light could sometimes make him feel like crying for no good reason. 'We're getting ready to go to sleep again...'

His life wasn't all work and chores though- his mother believed quite strongly that children needed time to be- well, children. So sometimes during the harvesting season, Kaminari would wake up to a note taped to the refrigerator door, his mother's messy scribbles telling him to visit somewhere in Irusu and bring Sero back a souvenir.

One time the note instructed him to go look at the old railroad tracks out by Chie lane. That night he and his mother had talked about them extensively over dinner, and she had shown him pictures from her Irusu Historical Photo Album that had been started by her great grandfather and would hopefully one day be continued by one of Kaminari's own children. In the old leather-bound album there was a black and white photo of his great great great grandfather Kaminari Tsuda dressed in a conductor's uniform, leaning out the door of the train engine, a goofy grin identical to Kaminari's own stretching across his face.

Another time, she had sent Kaminari to Ukiyo park and had instructed him to inspect the Kitsune woman statue that marked its center. Later that night she had shown him a photo she herself had taken in 1982 the day the statue was unveiled to the town.

Kaminari quite enjoyed this hobby of theirs, and by the time he was ten years old, Kaori had projected her interest and love of their town's history onto her son. Sometimes, as when he had been trailing his fingers over the rough surface of the stand in which the Ukiyo Park statue was set, or when he had squatted down to look more closely at the trolley tracks which grooved Chie Lane, he would be struck by a profound sense of time... time as something real, as something that had unseen weight, the way sunlight was supposed to have weight (some of the kids in school had laughed when Mrs. Moriko told them that in grade four, But he had been too stunned by the concept to laugh; his first thought had been, 'Light has weight? that's terrible!')...time as something that would eventually bury him.

The first note his mother had left him in that spring of 2005 had been scribbled on the back of a receipt from the gas station up the road. It had read: 'No chores. If you want to, ride your bike out to Kanazaki Drive. You'll see a lot of tumbled masonry and old machinery out in the field on your left. Have a look around, bring back a souvenir. Don't go near the cellar hole! And be back before dark. You know why.'

Oh, Kaminari knew why.

'P.S. On second thought, only go if you can bring Sero with you.'

He rode over to Sero's house, just as his mother had asked, but he had heard lots of yelling and banging coming from inside when he approached to knock and knew it would be better for Sero in the long run if he didn't knock on the door and ask for him. So Kaminari rode his bike over to Kanazaki Drive alone. Kaminari figured it was three o'clock by the time he leaned his bike against an old wooden slat-fence on the left side of Kanazaki Drive and climbed into the field beyond. He would have maybe an hour to explore and then he would have to start home again. Ordinarily, his mother would not be upset with him as long as he was back by six when she put dinner on the table, but because of recent incidents, that rule had changed.

He walked across the field towards the twisted metal remains of the Kanazaki Ironworks. He had ridden past it a hundred times but had never thought to actually explore it, and he had never heard any kids saying that they had. Now, stooping to examine a few tumbled bricks that had formed a rough cairn, he thought he could understand why. There was something really odd about the field. It just didn't feel right. Something in the air.

Up ahead and to the right, he saw the rounded side of a massive tile cylinder rising out of the high field grass. He ran over to it. It was the Ironworks main smokestack. He peered into its bore and felt a fresh chill worm up his spine. It was big enough (or maybe he was just small enough) so he could have walked into it if he had wanted.

He didn't want to.

Who knew what was in there? What kind of nasty gunk, crawly bugs, or diseased beasts could be residing inside? The images that popped into his mind made him shudder and take a couple of steps backward from the smokestack. The wind gusted. When it blew across the mouth of the fallen stack it made a sound eerily like the sound of the wind vibrating the waxed strings he and his mom put in the mooseblowers every spring. It reminded him of the "classic" film that had been playing on TV the night before- "Rodan" Kaminari was pretty sure it was called- every time Rodan would appear on the screen, he and Sero would pretend to shoot it with finger guns lightheartedly, his mother laughing and shaking her head at the two of them in amusement.

It didn't seem like light-hearted fun to Kaminari now, though. Now, looking into the dark abyss of the smokestacks opening, it was all too easy for Kaminari to picture that bird crouched at the far end, leathery batlike wings folded over its back, staring at the small, round boy face looking into the darkness, staring, staring with its gold-ringed eyes...

Kaminari shivered and took a few more steps back.

He walked aways down the smokestack, which had sunken into the earth to half of its circumference. The land rose slightly, and on impulse, he scrambled his way up on top. The stack was a lot less scary on the outside, its tiled surface sun warm. He got to his feet and strolled along, holding his arms out (the surface was really too wide for him to need to worry about falling off, but he was pretending he was a tightwire-walker in the circus), liking the way the wind blew through his hair.

He hopped off the far end and began to examine the bricks, warped molds, hunks of wood, and rusted machinery that seemed to litter every square inch of the field. 'Bring back a souvenir,' his mother's note had said- something meant for Sero. He wanted to bring him back a good one, he'd need something to cheer him up after that fight ended.

He wandered closer to the mill's yawning cellarhold, looking at the debris, being careful not to cut himself on the broken glass. There was a lot of it around.

Kaminari was not unmindful of the cellarhold and his mother's warning to stay out of it; neither was he unmindful of the death that had been dealt out on this spot thirty-odd years before. He supposed that if there was a haunted place in Irusu, this was it. But either in spite of that or because of it, he was determined to stay until he found something really good to take back for Sero.

A warning voice inside his head hissed at him he was to close to the cellar as he skirted along its edge looking for goodies. He shoved upwards against a rusted chunk of metal and tipped it over on its side. Underneath it, there was a pillar to large for him to move on his own. He crawled over it and-

'What if I find a skull?'

The thought was so sudden and jarring that it caused him to lose his balance and fall on his back on the other side of the pillar. He lay there for a moment, breathing heavy, staring wide-eyed up at the cyan sky above- The wind blew a low conch-note in his ears and a cloud's shadow cruised silently across the field, like the shadow of a giant bat... or bird. He became aware all over again of how quiet it was here, and how strange the field looked with its straggling piles of masonry and its beached iron hulks leaning this way and that. It was as if some horrid battle had been fought here long ago.

'Don't be such an idiot,' he thought to himself irritably, pulling himself to his feet using the concrete pillar. 'They found everything there was to find thirty years ago. After it happened. And even if they didn't, some other kid-or grownup-would have found... the rest... since then. Or do you think you're the only person who ever came here hunting for souvenirs?'

'No... but... it's not... it's not that... it's...'

'But what?' that rational side of his mind demanded, and Kaminari thought it was talking just a little too loud, a little too fast. Even if there was still something to find, it would have decayed long ago. So... what?

His eyes made his way to the cellar hole again.

He walked towards it.

'But what if there are ghosts?' That's but what. 'What if I see hands coming over the edge of that cellarhold, and what if they start to come up, kids dressed in clothes that are all rotted and torn and marked with thirty years of spring mud and fall rain and caked winter snow? Kids with no heads (he had heard at school that, after the explosion, a woman had found the head of one of the victims in a tree in her back yard), kids with no legs, kids flayed open like codfish, kids just like me who would maybe come down and play... down there where it's dark... under the leaning iron girders and the big old rusty cogs...'

'Stop it!'

But another shutter forced its way through his small body, and he decided then that it was time to take something and leave. He grabbed at the ground, taking the first thing he could grasp in his shaky hands (a gear-toothed wheel about 7 inches in diameter), and shoved it into his pocket. It was time to go now.

Except his feet were moving in the wrong direction, and suddenly he was leaning over the side of the cellar. It was then that he had been hit with the horrifying realization that he had a need to go down there- a foreign sense of urgency to know what was inside.

He gripped the railing of some sort of machine, and leaned over a bit farther, trying to see into the darkest parts. His mouth was dry, his hands clammy, weak knees supported only by his tip-toes as he leaned his short torso over the beckoning edge...

Nested in the cellarhold, the bird looked up.

At first, Kaminari hadn't been entirely sure what he was looking at. All the nerves and pathways in his body seemed frozen, including those which conducted thoughts. It was not just the shock of seeing a monster bird, a bird whose breast was as orange as a robin's and whose feathers were the unremarkable fluffy gray of a sparrow's feathers; most of it was the shock of the utterly unexpected. He had expected monoliths of machinery half-submerged in stagnant puddles and black mud; instead he was looking down into a giant nest that filled the cellarhold from end to end and side to side. It had been made out of enough timothy grass to make a dozen bales of hay, but this grass was silvery and old. The bird sat in the middle of it, its brightly ringed eyes as black as fresh, warm tar, and for an insane moment before his paralysis broke, Kaminari could see himself reflected in each of them.

And then he felt the weightlessness and the sense of his stomach dropping as the soft earth beneath his feet shifted. He heard the shallow sounds of roots tearing from the ground, and he realized all at once that he was sliding.

With a yell he threw himself backward, pinwheeling his arms for balance. He lost it and thumped heavily to the littered ground. Some hard, dull chunk of metal pressed painfully into his back, and he had time to think 'Ow' before he heard the whirring, explosive sound of the bird's wings.

It rose out fo the cellar hole, and the world went dark- It's impressive wingspan blotting out the sun. Its scaly talons were a dusky orange. Its beating wings, each more than ten feet across, blew the scraggy timothy grass this way and that, patternlessly, like the wind generated by helicopter rotors. It uttered a buzzing, chirruping scream. A few loose feathers slipped from its wings and spiraled back down into the cellarhold.

Kaminari was running, not knowing when or how he had gotten to his feet just that he had and that his legs were moving. He pounded across the field, not looking back now; afraid to look back. The bird did not look like Rodan, but he sensed it was the spirit of Rodan, risen from the cellarhold of the Kanazaki Ironworks like a horrible bird-in-the-box. He stumbled, went to one knee, got up, and ran on.

It didn't take long for it to close the distance between them, screeching demonically as it did. A suffocating dusty, attic, smell accompanied every beat of its large wings, making it hard for Kaminari to breathe.

He took a sharp left and found himself running towards the eerie mouth of the smokestack, pushing himself into a sprint in order to reach it before the bird bore down on him from above- Something slammed into the back of his head just as he reached it. Warm fire traced its way up the nape of his neck. He felt it spread as blood began to trickle down the back of his shirt-collar.

The bird whirled around again, meaning to pick him up with its talons and carry him away like a hawk with a fieldmouse. Meaning to carry him back to its nest. Meaning to eat him. For a moment, its talons closed around Kaminari's left arm, shredding the skin. The bird's flapping wings were a rumble of thunder in his ears; he was dimly aware of feathers falling around him, some brushing past his cheeks like phantom kisses. The bird rose then, and for just a moment Kaminari felt himself pulled upward, first straight, then on tiptoe... and for one freezing second he felt the toes of his converse's lose contact with the earth

Somehow, someway, that Kaminari himself wasn't even aware of, he managed to yank his arm free, crashing back down to the ground. The bird let out a demonic, utterly pissed off, shriek, and dove for him again.

As it flew at him again, swooping down, it's black, horribly alive eyes fixed on him, Kaminari ducked into the smokestack, no longer caring about what may be waiting for him inside. The bird had missed him- but just barely. The dusty smell of its wings was overpowering, unbearable.

Still coughing, eyes stinging from both tears and whatever vile dust coated the bird's feathers, he leaned against a tiled side. Golden eyes watered, crimson blood flowed down his arm and matted the blonde hair on the back of his head- his heart pounded erratically against his rib cage. There was no thought now of what might be lurking inside. He moved further into the darkness, his gasping sobs taking on a flat echo. He went back perhaps twenty more feet and then turned toward the bright circle of daylight. His chest was rising and falling in quick jerks. He was suddenly aware that, if he had misjudged either the size of the bird or the size of the smokestack's muzzle, he had killed himself as surely as if he had put his a shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger. There was no way out. This wasn't just a pipe; it was a blind alley. The other end of the stack was buried in the earth.

The bird let out another deafening squawk and jammed its head through the smokestack's entrance, blanketing them both in darkness- only tiny slivers of sun peaking through now. The bird's beak opened and closed, opened and closed, and each time it snapped shut he heard an audible click, like the sound you hear in your own ears when you snap your teeth together hard. 'Sharp,' he thought. 'Its beak is sharp. I guess I knew birds had sharp beaks, but I never really thought about it until now.'

It squawked again. The sound was so loud that Kaminari clapped his hands to his ears- sure his eardrums were going to burst.

The bird began to try and force the rest of its body through the hole in the stack.

"No!" Kaminari cried, backing up a little, hissing as his injured arm brushed against the wall. "No, you can't!"

More and more light faded as more of the bird's body pressed its way into the stack's bore ('Fuck, why didn't I remember it was mostly feathers? Why didn't I remember it could squeeze?!') The light faded... faded... was gone. Now there was only an inky blackness, the suffocating attic-smell of the bird, and the rustling sound of its feathers.

Kaminari fell to his knees and began to grope along the floor of the pipe blindly, working on autopilot, not entirely sure what he was looking for. He felt detached from his body, almost as if he were watching this happen on a TV show or a movie instead of living through it- he watched himself grab a broken piece of tile, cock his arm back, and chuck it as hard as he could at the monster bird's face. There was a thump. The bird uttered its buzzing, chirruping sound again.

"Leave me alone! Get out of here!" He watched himself yell.

There was silence... and then that crackly, rustling sound began again as the bird resumed forcing itself into the pipe. He watched as he felt around for another chuck of tile, found it, and threw it at the bird again. He watched himself do this, again and again, hearing the dull 'thump' of contact sound off each time with nothing to show for it.

'Please, No,' Kaminari heard himself think incoherently. Please No, please No, please No -'

It came to him that he ought to retreat down the smokestack's bore. He had run in through, what had been the stack's base; it stood to reason that it would narrow as he backed up. He could retreat, yes, and listen to that low dusty rustle as the bird worked its way in after him. He could retreat, and if he was lucky he might get beyond the point where the bird could continue to advance.

But what if the bird got stuck?

If that happened, he and the bird would die here together. They would die in here together and rot in here together. In the dark.

"Please!" He heard himself cry,

He saw himself throw another piece of tile, and he would tell the others much later, that he had seen something- someone just behind him- and that someone had given his arm a tremendous push. He was sure of it. Certain. Positive.

This time there was no feathery thud; instead, there was a splatting sound, the sound a kid's hand might make slapping into the surface of a bowl of half-solidified Jell-O. This time the bird screamed not in anger but in real pain. The tenebrous whirr of its wings filled the smokestack; stinking air streamed past Kaminari in a hurricane, flapping his clothes, making him cough and gag and retreat as dust and moss flew.

Light appeared again- and suddenly Kaminari was thrust back into his own body- once again living instead of watching. Hot, relieved, tears began to fall down his face as he grabbed for more tile, throwing them at the injured bird with all his might- hoping to get another good hit and scare it off for good. Without any conscious thought, he ran forward with both hands full of tiling (in this light he could see the pieces were splotched with blue-gray moss and lichen, like the surface of slate gravestones), until he was nearly at the mouth of the stack. He intended to keep the bird from coming back in if he could.

It bent down, cocking its head the way a trained bird on a perch will sometimes cock its head, and Kaminari saw where his last shot had struck home. The bird's right eye was nearly gone. Instead of that glittering bubble of fresh tar, there was a crater filled with blood. Whitish-gray goo dripped from the corner of the socket and trickled along the side of the bird's beak. Tiny parasites wriggled and squirmed in this milky discharge.

It spotted him with its good eye and lunged forward, screeching furiously. Kaminari began to unload on it once more, his time as the Irusu Elementary School baseball team's best pitcher evident as each blow struck its intended target. It withdrew for a moment and then lunged again, beak opening, revealing pink lining, and revealing something else that caused Kaminari to freeze for a moment, his own mouth dropping open. The bird's tongue was silver, its surface as crazy-cracked as the surface of a volcanic land which has first baked and then slagged off.

And on this tongue, like weird tumbleweeds that had taken temporary root there, were a number of orange puffs.

Kaminari threw the last of his tiles directly into that gaping maw and the bird withdrew again, screaming its frustration, rage, and pain. For a moment the small blonde could see its reptilian talons... Then its wings ruffled the air and it was gone.

A moment later he lifted his face-a face that was gray and mucky under the dirt, dust, and bits of moss that the bird's wind-machine wings had blown at him-toward the clicking sound of its talons on the tile. The only clean places on Kaminari's face were the tracks that had been washed clean by his tears.

The bird walked back and forth overhead: Tak-Tak-tak-tak.

Kaminari retreated a bit and gathered more ammo, arm cocked, and ready to strike at any moment. His chest burned from the dust, dirt, and who knows what else he'd been inhaling inside the pipe, his muscles ached with overexertion.

Kaminari swallowed, the dry sides of his throat rubbing together for a moment.

Overhead: Tak-tak-tak.

How long did that bird intend to wait? How long could Kaminari wait before needing food or water?

Kaminari rubbed the palms of his dirty hands along the sides of his shorts and waited to see what would happen next.

A space of time passed before something did-whether five minutes or twenty-five, he could not tell. He was only aware of the bird walking back and forth overhead like an insomniac pacing the floor at three in the morning.

Then its wings fluttered again. It landed in front of the smokestack's opening. Kaminari, on his knees just behind his pile of tiling, began to peg missiles at it before it could even bend its head down. One of them slammed into a plated yellow leg and drew a trickle of blood so dark it seemed almost as black as the bird's eyes. Kaminari screamed in triumph, the sound thin and almost lost under the bird's own enraged squawk.

"Get out of here!" Another projectile bounced off the bird's beak with a sickening 'crack'- "I'll keep hitting you until you do! Go away!"

The bird flew up to the top of the smokestack and resumed its pacing.

Kaminari waited.

Finally, its wings ruffled again as it took off. Kaminari waited, expecting the yellow feet, so like hen's feet, to appear again. They didn't. He waited longer, convinced it had to be some kind of a trick, realizing at last that that wasn't why he was waiting at all. He was waiting because he was scared to go out, scared to leave the safety of this bolthole.

'Stop it! Stop acting so stupid! You're not a rabbit!'

He took as many chunks of tile as he could handle comfortably, then put some more inside his shirt. He stepped out of the smokestack, trying to look everywhere at once and wishing madly for eyes in the back of his head. He saw only the field stretching ahead and around him, littered with the exploded rusting remains of the Kanazaki Ironworks. He wheeled around, sure he would see the bird perched on the lip of the stack like a vulture, a one-eyed vulture now, only wanting the boy to see him before it attacked for the final time, using that sharp beak to jab and rip and strip.

But the bird was not there.

It was really gone.

Kaminari's nerve snapped, and reality began to tilt and shift as he let out a loud, shrill, cackle. His small frame was wracked with bone-rattling laughter as he stumbled towards his bike and peddled home- nearly hitting a curb and flipping over his handlebars in his hysteria. He had no idea where the tiles disappeared between the Ironworks and the farm, but he didn't really care all that much.

When he got back home, he nearly crashed into an exhausted-looking Sero in the Cherry Orchard. He helped Kaminari wheel his bike up to the shed where it was stored, and Kaminari thanked him by pressing the gear wheel into his palm.

"Thank you."

"Mm..."

"Why do you look so disgusting?"

"Mm..."

"...Shigaraki?... he didn't get you again, did he?"

Seeing it as the easiest way to explain away the traumatizing afternoon he had just had, he simply gave Sero a tired look- which made the ebony-haired boy frown and pulls him into a side hug- which Kaminari greatly appreciated.

When his mother tried to talk about the Ironworks with him over dinner twenty minutes later, he shut her down by saying he didn't feel too great. She sent him off to bed with a thermometer in his mouth and an ice pack in his hands.

He really hadn't felt that great- though the shower he had taken before dinner had helped a little. Kaminari had fallen asleep also as soon as his head touched the pillow.

Luckily, he hadn't dreamed of birds that night- only turtles.

—6—

JUNE 13TH, 2005 / IRUSU, JAPAN

Kaminari rubbed at his right arm, a phantom ghost of pain shooting through it, three white, puckered, scarred gashes ripping through his forearm. He shivered.

It always struck him as odd that his mother had never mentioned them.

'Don't think about that now,' Kaminari Denki thought, looking at the grooves which went up to the concrete edge of the Canal and stopped there. 'Stop thinking about it, was probably just a dream, you probably got the scars while working the fields, and-'

There was more blood on the lip of the canal.

Kaminari looked at it, and then he looked down into the Canal. Blackwater flowed smoothly past. Runners of dirty yellow foam clung to the Canal's sides, sometimes breaking free to flow downstream in lazy loops and curves. For a moment-just a moment-two clots of this foam came together and seemed to form a face, a little girl's face, its eyes turned up in an avatar of terror and agony.

Kaminari's breath caught, his mouth going dry.

The foam broke apart, became meaningless again, and at that moment there was a loud splash on his right. Kaminari snapped his head around, shrinking back a little, and for a moment he believed he saw something in the shadows of the outflow tunnel where the Canal resurfaced after its course under downtown.

Then it was gone.

Suddenly, cold and shuddering, he dug in his pocket for the knife he had found in the grass. He threw it into the Canal. There was a small splash, a ripple that began as a circle and was then tugged into the shape of an arrowhead by the current... then nothing.

Nothing except the fear that was suddenly suffocating him and the deadly certainty that there was something near, something watching him, gauging its chances, biding its time.

He turned, meaning to walk back to his bike-to run would be to dignify those fears and undignify himself-and then that splashing sound came again. It was a lot louder this second time. So much for dignity. Suddenly he was running as fast as he could, jamming the kickstand up with one heel and pedaling for the street as fast as he could. That sea-smell was all at once too thick... much too thick. It was everywhere. And the water dripping from the wet branches of the trees seemed much too loud.

Something was coming. He heard dragging, lurching footsteps in the grass.

He didn't waste time trying to adjust to the bike's height, instead, knocking the inside of his thigh harshly against the bike's seat as he slammed down on the peddles, not caring how bruised and sore his legs were going to be come morning. He shot out onto Main Street without looking back, not caring how he was much easier to spot this way, nor that he was dangerously close to flipping over his handlebars. He headed for home as fast as he could, wondering what in hell had possessed him to come in the first place... what had drawn him.

The same thing that had led him to that cellar.

He shivered.

And then he tried to think about the chores and nothing but the chores. After a while, he actually succeeded.

And when he saw the headline on the local news two days later while he and Sero helped his mother cook chocolate chip pancakes (MISSING GIRL PROMPTS NEW FEARS), he thought about the pocket knife he had thrown into the Canal-the pocket knife with the initials J.K. scratched on the side. He thought about the blood he had seen on the grass.

And he thought about those grooves which stopped at the edge of the Canal.