Only a Memory

Chapter Two

Toki barged into her room, a look of complete exhaustion on her face. She dropped her bag and collapsed on her bed, the nightmares of her first day of school flooding her mind. She grabbed her walkman absent-mindedly and placed the thrift-store headphones over her ears, pressing play and turning the volume all the way up. She desperately needed someone to talk to, but her father was at a meeting and her brother was out with his stupid girlfriend. Why wasn't her mother answering her phone? Where was she anyways?

I should probably be doing homework right now, she thought. Still, she didn't budge. She didn't know half of what she was supposed to be doing anyways. She would just wait until Kame came home so he could help her, as her father wasn't much good when it came to homework, and her mother was always to busy to help her. Now she just had to hope Kame wouldn't try to run away from home again.

Suddenly realizing she was hungry, Toki threw her headphones off and headed downstairs. She flipped through the cupboards and finally decided Ramen was the best thing in the entire house. She was about to take a bite when the phone rang. Rolling her eyes, she walked towards the phone.

"Hello?" she said into the receiver.

"Toki?" came her little sisters voice. "Is mommy there?"

Toki hesitated. "No hun, I don't know where she is."

"She was supposed to be here thirty minutes ago," Kimo sounded scared. Toki bit her lip.

"OK babe, I'll be there in fifteen minutes. You just wait in the office, OK?"

After getting off the phone, Toki ran behind the house to the shed. Leaning against it was her brothers bike. Muttering about how Kame was going to kill her, she took off. She pedaled hard. She had told her little sister she would only be fifteen minutes. As it started to pour, she knew that was a lie.

With thick forest around her, Toki was a little freaked out. Not to mention she was worried about her mother. Her mom just didn't forget about Kimo. Kimo was her baby. Toki could still remember her first day of school, only a year before. Her mother had been balling her eyes out, and she was there an hour and a half before Kimo got out of school. She would never forget her baby. Never.

Toki was now drenched and she could hardly see where she was going. That was probably why she didn't see the rock in the middle of the road. The one that made her fly off the bike into the rapids of the river.

She struggled to keep herself above the water. Nothing worked. She knew if she didn't grab something she was as good as dead.

She suddenly hit something… a rock. She gripped the sharp edge of it the best she could, every other part of it being to slippery to even think about trying to grab hold of. Her hands were cut, gushing out blood. It was all she could do to just hold on.

An eternity passed. The edge of the rock was now deep in her numb, trembling hands. Her lips were turning blue, and she had a bluish tint to her skin. Her breath was coming out in rasps of white mist, and she didn't think she's live to see another day.

I'm so sorry, Kimo, she thought. I promise…I was coming, I just…

Suddenly, an object of some sort hit her head, and she let go of the rock. Someone then grabbed her around the middle.

"Tsubame, I've got her!" said a voice that was oddly familiar. Then everything went black.

Toki awoke eighteen hours later. Everything was blindingly white. Her hands were bandaged, and she had an iv in her arm. When her eyes adjusted, she saw her father standing beside her.

"D-dad?" she whispered weakly?

Her father looked up and smiled. "You're finally awake." He looked like his soul had been sucked out.

"W-what happened?"

"Kame was driving home and saw his bike in the middle of the road. He pulled you out of the river."

"And Kimo?"

"I picked her up from school."

Toki hesitated. "Where's mom?"

Her father looked like he was going to cry. "The… the authorities found her car on the… the side of the road…" he swallowed. "The door was… ripped off and the car… was empty."

He got up and left the room. Toki knew he didn't want her to see him cry. Toki started balling. She had been so angry at her mother, and now she might never see her again. It didn't seem real, any of it. It all seemed like a never ending nightmare that she couldn't make herself wakeup from. She just wanted it to stop.

Suddenly Kame came in. Toki smashed her face in a pillow. Kame just stared. Finally he spoke.

"Dad's sending us off to live with grandma."

Toki sat up. "But she lives all the way in Tokyo."

"Yeah, well," he said, sitting down. "He can't take care of us right now. Funny, as he's letting Kimo and Shizu stay. He says we need to be away from it all right now."

"That's not like dad," Toki said shaking her head. "Something's up."

Kame shrugged. "All I know is that grandma's going to be picking us up and hour after you get out of the hospital. Dad even had me pack for you! What's up with that?"

He turned to leave. "Kame," Toki said softly. He turned to face her. She smiled. "Thanks for saving my life."

He smiled at her for awhile, then raised his eyebrows and left.