17

Restlessness

"Through the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,

Past the wan-mooned abysses of night,

I have lived o'er my lives without number,

I have sounded all things with my sight;

And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright."

– H. P. Lovecraft, "Nemesis"

By the time Takeru opened the door of his apartment, he was nearing the point of exhaustion. A combination of two restless nights, worry for the future and his friends, the excitement of the day, the climb up the crypt stairs, the bad news upon return, and the walk home from the Yagamis' apartment had worn him out. Iori and Miyako had walked with him, though they spoke little. Even Miyako was relatively silent.

He left them at the eighth floor and walked down the hall to the apartment. Once inside, he sat down to remove his shoes. As he was finishing up his mother poked her head out of her office.

"You're very late getting home," she said with some annoyance. "Where were you all day?"

"With friends," Takeru said. Natsuko noticed Tokomon sitting beside her son.

"What happened to Patamon?" she asked. Takeru said nothing, too busy searching for some half truth with which to sate her curiosity. "Were you fighting?"

Tokomon waited for his partner to reply.

"A little," Takeru said, "but it's over now. Don't worry."

"You sound done in," she said, her tone softening somewhat. "I do trust you, but I wish you would keep me up to date."

"I'm sorry," he said, taking Tokomon in his arms and standing up. "Were you waiting up for me?"

"No," she sighed. "I was working. It's been a busy past few days. I'm writing about those strange earthquakes."

"Earthquakes?"

"The past week or so there have been some unusually strong earthquakes in odd places. Just today there was another one in France. I talked to your grandfather about it today."

Takeru and his partner looked at each other. They had just remembered the unusual seismic activity that had begun in the Digital World a couple months ago.

"Anyway," Natsuko continued, "you had better get to bed soon."

Takeru nodded slowly.

"Actually, so should I," she continued. "The story isn't written yet but I could use some rest. I haven't been sleeping well recently."

Takeru looked up quickly from Tokomon's own black eyes and scanned his mother's face.

"What do you mean?" he asked. Natsuko was puzzled at his obvious interest.

"It's nothing," she said. "Just some odd dreams."

After the business of the day, the six current Chosen Children did not, for better or worse, have much trouble getting to sleep. Daisuke did not exactly dream, but occasionally he would start awake with a fading sense of oppression. When this happened he would listen to Chicomon's barely audible breathing until lulled to sleep again, only to have the same thing happen again an hour or so later.

Many people around the world would have the same problem that night, but a far greater number would be troubled by true dreams. The most disturbing dreams were reserved for other Chosen Children. Out of the twelve, most of their nightmares were retreads of the last two nights, though a few suffered from new visions.

Miyako was one of these. She dreamed that she had awakened in her own room. Her curtains were open, and she could see that outside it was a dark day, covered by dense clouds that were lit by occasional lightning. Her partner was not in the basket which served as his bed, nor could she find him anywhere else in the room. She stepped out into the apartment's living room. Here the curtains were not only open but blowing in the wind coming in through the shattered glass doors which led out to the balcony.

Besides herself there were no signs of life in the apartment. Miyako went first to the broken doors and walked out to the balcony railing. There were no people in the street below, and no vehicles still moving. Many of the windows in the other buildings had also been broken. There were cracks in the blacktop. Something…

She went back inside and turned on the television, but there was only static on the screen. She turned it off and looked back into the empty apartment. Not a sound but the wind and the thunder. She passed quickly through the entire apartment, checking each room. The computer's screen had been broken inwards. Her parents and siblings were nowhere to be found. Gradually the realization came to her that something incredible had happened. While she had slept, the world had died.

Alone. So often Miyako had wished for time to herself, without the bustle of her family. She would have it now, the certainty came to her. She was the last human being on the planet. Over the years she had developed an overblown personality as a tool for attracting attention, but there was no one to talk over now. Alone forever. Lightning exploded in the distance.

She spent the entire night in that dream, not recognizing it for what it was until a thousand years had passed and she woke with Poromon sitting on her chest.

In an apartment building some way down the street, Kido Jou dreamt that he was drowning in a sea of blood, and Izumi Koshiro imagined himself falling through boundless space full of strange laughter. Still farther down the street, Yagami Hikari had been drawn once more to the old town by the dark sea.

She was upstairs in one of the ancient houses this time. She didn't want to make a noise lest her appeals to the waking world should fail and the home's potential inhabitants hear her. Cautiously, trying to prevent the boards beneath her feet from creaking too loudly, Hikari moved through the room. She saw that the door had been burst open from within, and was reluctant to walk out into the rest of the house, where anything might be waiting.

In the end, though, she did pass through the doorway. Exploration was not the best course of action, but she didn't like the thought of waiting in a place with only one exit. The fishy smell was not as strong out in the hallway, which comforted her somewhat. It was dark, but Hikari felt her way down the hall and found stairs leading to the ground floor.

She now found herself in the house's cramped foyer. The half-light of the gray sky filtered in through the dusty panes of the windows. Hikari headed towards the front door, intending to get out of the house and into the relatively open streets. She reached for the doorknob, but before she even touched it, it began to turn. She didn't wait for the door to open, but retreated down the hall, looking for a place to hide herself. Behind the stairs there was a door which she opened, finding another flight of stairs descending into the house's cellar.

There were footsteps now in the foyer. The girl went through the door and stood at the top of the stairs. The smell of salt and decay was again strong here. There was just enough light to make out a bolt on her side of the door, and she slid it home. Hikari could still hear the footsteps, which paused just outside the door. From the sound of them it seemed that the being was wearing shoes, so presumably this was the man with the cold voice, and not one of the things which went barefoot. A moment later and her suspicions were confirmed.

"If I were in your position," he said, "I would open this door. You never know what might be hiding in the attics and basements of this town."

She said nothing.

"Wouldn't you rather come with me than take the chance of…" As the man's voice trailed off, Hikari heard the wooden staircase groan somewhere below her. Something was ascending.

There was no time for indecision. In a sudden panic she grasped the bolt and tugged at it, but now it did not move so easily. The stairs creaked under soft, wet feet. With the strength of desperation Hikari wrenched the bolt fully to the side. A crack of brighter light appeared between door and wall – but she was grasped from behind by half a dozen slippery black paws, and was pulled down and backwards into the dark. She did make a noise then.

Sato Katsu's eyes snapped open. He was awake again, had come out of the trance. And that meant Yagami Hikari had awakened as well.

"Damn it," he muttered, and sat up. He was deep below the rest of the base, in a vault of black stone. This was his shrine, the place where he came to worship his god. He also came each night, passing into a trance as he harnessed the power of the call to penetrate Yagami Hikari's subconscious and insinuate himself into her dreams.

Here was the end of the third night, but he had made little progress. Sato knew, and had no doubt that he admitted to himself, that it was only a matter of time before their repeated nightmares broke the Chosen Children's spirits. They had no rest by day or night. And yet… seventy-two hours later they still endured.

"I've had enough of this play," Sato said to the black room. It was time to add a third front to the war. The Digital World and the minds of the Chosen were both under attack, and now would come the human world. Sato climbed back up to the base proper. Here he took his cell phone out of his pocket and speed-dialed Hiraga Ayaki.

"I have new instructions for you," he said when Hiraga picked up. The mercenary didn't have to ask who was calling. "You should expect the arrival of some guests."