That night, Kari had trouble falling asleep; her thoughts just kept chasing each other round and round inside her head until she felt she would scream.
What are we gonna do? she kept wondering. I don't think we should go—it's just not worth it. T.K. could really be in danger. She glanced over at her clock just as the glowing green digits changed from 11:54 to 11:55. I'll tell him tomorrow, I guess--it's too late to call him now.
With a sigh she rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes. Just before she dropped off, a sleepy thought drifted across her mind:
I hope Tai and Matt find whoever is responsible for this. Whoever it is will be in big trouble if they do.
Little did she know that neither Tai nor Matt would find their opponent: she herself would be the first to encounter their enemy, and when she did, there would be 'big trouble' . . .
With a sigh, Kari slipped into a deep sleep.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
In her dreams, Kari found herself at the Homecoming Dance. She and T.K. were slow-dancing, twirling gracefully across the floor. What is this? Kari wondered as they danced. Is this some kind of vision, a view of the future? She forced herself to relax and smiled at T.K., who was looking very handsome in a tan sports jacket and slacks. If this is how it's going to be, maybe it won't be so bad . . . She suddenly noticed that they'd stopped dancing. T.K. was looking down at her with a new sort of light in his eyes. He pulled her gently closer, looking deeply into her eyes, and—
Without warning the ground lurched beneath them, the violent jerk throwing them to the floor. The lights began flickering, and Kari heard a sharp cracking noise; looking up she saw that the roof-dome was splitting. The building continued to shake violently, and bits of plaster--some small and others of considerable size--rained down on and around them as the ceiling crumbled like stale bread.
"What's happening?" she yelled at T.K., trying not to panic.
"I don't know! Maybe it's an earthquake!"
It was not an earthquake.
A huge dark hand suddenly thrust itself through the ceiling, then ripped itself back out, tearing a gaping hole and exposing a jagged slash of the cold, starry night sky. As the dust settled, Kari, coughing hard, pushed herself upright and looked up at the rent in the once-smooth dome . . . and then wished she hadn't. Through the fissure in the roof, she could see a hulking, dusky figure. She couldn't make out the exact shape of the monster; all she knew was that it was huge, towering over the Odaiba Tokyo Hall. The shadowy creature seemed to meld with the night sky, making it indistinct, but one thing that was very clear was a pair of slanted, glowing red eyes . . . eyes that were focused solely on Kari. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream, her eyes going wide, and she glanced around, desperately searching for T.K.
She suddenly saw him lying a few feet away, half covered with dust and rubble; his eyes were closed, and he appeared to be unconscious.
"T.K.!" Kari tried to get to her feet, but her left ankle couldn't support her weight, though whether it was broken or merely sprained she couldn't tell. Determined to reach her friend one way or another, she began to scramble through the rubble on hands and knees. The going was slow, and much of the debris was sharp, shards of glass from the lights mixed with the shattered concrete and steel supports.
Her heart lurched as IT suddenly spoke: "Child of Light, come with us!"
Kari shivered, trying to shake off the chill that those words cast over her, and kept crawling towards T.K.'s motionless form, ignoring the fact that her hands and legs were cut and bleeding.
"Child of Light," the voice hissed again, "Come with us!"
"No!" Ignoring her pain, Kari lurched to her feet. "No, I won't go with you!"
The jet-black figure gave a cold laugh, and Kari shuddered again. "You will come," it said, suddenly shooting out an inky tentacle. "One way or another!"
Kari realized just a second too late what was about to happen: the tentacle wrapped itself around T.K., lifting his limp body up and out of the ruined building. She lunged at him vainly, letting out a piercing cry:
"T.K.! No!"
The murky thing laughed again, holding its lifeless prize high. "You will come," it repeated, "Or your little friend will be in deep trouble."
The monster's figure, already indistinct, began to waver, taking the captive boy with it.
"T.K.!"
His eyes fluttered, then snapped open as he realized, at least partially, what was happening. "Help!" he cried, trying to work his way out of the dark creature's grasp. He noticed Kari standing there, and cast her a desperate, pleading glance. "Kari! Run away! Get out of here while you still can!"
Kari's feet felt rooted to the floor. She glanced quickly around her at the building full of screaming, running people, desperately searching for Gatomon, Patamon, Tai, Matt, or even Davis, someone, anyone who could help. On impulse she pulled out her D-3, trying to locate her partner.
The dark monstrosity gave a loud cackle, and Kari glanced up just in time to see it simply fade away into a cloud of black mist. Soon that dissipated as well, leaving no trace of the monster . . . or of T.K.
Kari found herself standing alone amidst the wreckage, staring up at the dark, cold night sky. Tears streaming down her face, she called his name helplessly:
"T.K.!"
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Kari sat up straight in bed, her heart beating wildly. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her body was drenched in a cold sweat. Gatomon was not on the bed beside her, and fear clutched at her heart for a moment before she remembered: Gatomon had been helping Tai with a project of some sort and was going to stay in the extra bed in Tai's room.
Kari closed her eyes again and put a hand to her chest, breathing deeply and forcing herself to calm down. I need to talk to Tai, she decided, glancing over at her clock. Now the numbers read 5:30--not that long until it would be time to get up.
Still shaking, she climbed out of bed and slipped quietly over to Tai's room. She peeked through the half-closed door and sure enough, there was Gatomon, curled up in the top bunk; Tai was sprawled, snoring, on the bottom. Kari smiled at how peaceful they looked as they dreamed . . . then a shadow passed over her face as she remembered her own dream.
"Tai." Crossing the room, she gently shook her big brother's shoulder.
Tai continued to snore.
"Tai," she tried again.
More snoring.
"Kari?" Gatomon asked sleepily, rubbing an eye with her paw. "What's going on? Is something wrong?"
Kari smiled gently at the sleepy feline. "Hi there. I was trying to get Tai up, but it's not working." To prove her point she shook him hard once more, with much the same result as before--none, that is.
"Oh!" Gatomon was fully awake now. "Wait here," she told Kari as she slid from the bed and scampered out of the room. She padded quietly into Kari's room and dug into a desk drawer, apparently looking for something. Finding it, she returned swiftly to Kari's side. "Here, Kari. This'll wake him!"
Kari smiled impishly as she caught the object the digimon tossed to her. "Last chance, Tai, before I get you up Gatomon's way!"
Tai just snored even louder.
Kari took a deep breath, raised the object to her lips . . . and blew. The silver whistle—the one Kari had given Gatomon years before, the same one Kari had once used to wake Tai up with all the time—let out a clear, piercing note, and finally Tai jerked awake.
"Huh? Wassamatter?" he mumbled, somehow looking both half asleep and unusually alert at the same moment.
Kari giggled softly. "You wouldn't wake up, that was the matter!" With a moan, Tai rolled over, pulling his pillow over his head. "Tai . . . I need to talk to you."
Something in her voice told Tai that this was important. He rolled back over and slowly sat up, carefully meeting her eyes. "Are you all right?" he asked, the note of concern obvious in his voice. One look at her pale face answered his question. "What's wrong, sis?" he asked, motioning for her to sit down on the end of his bed.
She took her time settling herself on the foot of the bed, using the extra time to take a few deep breaths and figure out exactly what it was she wanted to say. Tai listened carefully as she told him about her dream, every now and then breaking in to ask a question or get clarification on a certain point. When she was finished they sat in silence for a while, side by side in the darkness, both lost in thought. Finally Tai sighed deeply and ran a hand through his tousled brown hair. "I don't know what to tell you . . ."
"What do you think it means?" she asked anxiously.
"I—I just don't know." Something seemed to suddenly dawn on Tai, and he looked over at Kari sharply. "You know . . . this isn't the only time you've had a dream like that."
Kari's eyes widened, and she swallowed hard, remembering.
"Well, we'll just do now what we did then."
Kari looked uncertain. "What's that, Tai?"
Tai's brown eyes narrowed sharply. "We'll fight it." No one's gonna lay a finger on my little sister without going through me first.
But even as those confident, protective thoughts ran through her brother's head, Kari's doubts began to rise through one strong, nagging thought of her own:
. . . But how do you fight a dream?
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤