A/N: This would be one of those times where I had the chapter all ready to go and kept on forgetting to post it. :D Whoops.


5. Her Senseless Tears

Hikari drifted.

She'd lost her sense of direction some time ago…except for the cries she was following. She passed buildings and parks and water and stone and dirt – and she shivered upon a certain spot and sped up. Something told her she didn't want to be there.

She drifted back into cityscape: more buildings, more people who didn't look much bigger than ants, and she almost giggled again. But the crying was stronger now, and it plucked at her heartstrings and made her want to cry as well.

So she neither laughed nor cried. She just drifted towards the sound.

And, finally, she stumbled upon a funny looking cat wandering in the crowd and she knew, instinctively, that she'd found the crier.

She wasn't sure how she knew. The cat had no tears streaming down her face; rather, her eyes were dry. But the cat's heart cried. Hikari knew it; she could hear it so very loudly – and everything else around her sounded like it had been wrapped in plastic wrap: all soft and bubbly.

She drifted down and petted her fur like her mother or father or brother would pet hers when she was sick and in tears.

The cat didn't seem to feel it, or see her. Like everyone else. But Hikari continued anyway.


The cat drifted out of the crowd and went to that dark scary place, and Hikari followed. Better than the apartment, she thought, she reasoned. Better to the apartment covered in her blood.

The ground opened up and swallowed the cat. Hikari was a little slow and drifted through layers of soil.

That was frightening. She wondered if she'd died. If she'd been buried. If she was trapped beneath the soil and wouldn't be able to come back out again. Or maybe they'd cremated her.

She should know the answer, she thought. But she couldn't remember which doctrine they followed, or what her parents would want.

Maybe she wasn't dead at all.

But it wasn't like when she was sick and in bed, or at the hospital. She was heavy then. She floated now.

She floated out of the soil and took great, gulping breaths of stagnant air.

It stank, but it was better than the soil which was so suffocating. And she drank the air greedily. Then, when she could see something other than soil again, she started following the cries again.

They were stronger, somehow. Stronger, louder. They had a voice. They sounded female.

So the cat was a girl as well. Hikari smiled. She wondered if she'd make a nice pair with Miko.

But before she could find the cat again, the darkness exploded with light.

It was a nice light though. Still, it made her vision white for a moment.

The crying or the light. The light had gone. The crying was stronger.

She could find out about the light later, she decided. She followed the crying again.

And she found the cat.

She was alone in a small dark corner, shivering. She still didn't quite have tears in her eyes but she was nearer now. Her front was marred: a red, ugly welt that wasn't quite bleeding but was nearly there.

Hikari stretched out a hand and felt it gently. It burned under her hand. And when she drew back, she left a line of a different red.

She'd forgotten about the blood on her hands. Whoops.

She looked at herself. She was wearing her yellow dress and pink pants. The pants were better to wipe blood stains, she thought. She wiped her hands, leaving red mixing in with the pink.

There was no coppery smell. She was glad. She didn't like the smell of blood.

Once that was done, she felt the welt again. The cat didn't flinch, didn't feel her. And the cat looked a mix of sad, hurt and…lost?

Hikari regarded those blue eyes a moment, then nodded to herself. Yep, lost.

'Let's be friends,' she said.

The cat didn't hear her.

Still, they could be lost together.

And as a new friend, she had to find a way to take care of that painful-looking welt.

She looked at herself again. Slippers. Socks. Pants. Dress. Scarf –

She fingered her scarf. People wrapped up wounds with scarves. Though they were usually on the arms or the legs. But the cat was so small the scarf would wrap the torso well as well.

She pulled it off, then reconsidered when she saw all the blood at the back of it.

She felt the back of her neck again.

Her hand came back red again.

But she didn't hurt. She didn't feel dizzy.

She wondered if that made her a ghost or a spirit from a dream.

She hoped it was the latter. She didn't know how to make people stop crying if she'd died.