Chapter 7: The Coming Darkness

TK didn't stop by my apartment on the way to school. Instead, Matt walked by. He told me that TK was sick and that he wouldn't be in school. To be honest, I didn't feel very good either, but I didn't want to worry my mother. Ever since I had to go to the hospital as a little girl she gets really worried whenever I get sick.

"So what do you think is up with that kid?" Matt asked as we walked along.

"I don't know, but I've got some classes with him, so I'll talk to him today," I replied. I didn't have any idea what could be wrong, but I know that it's wrong to judge people. I couldn't tell Matt that I thought he might have a serious problem.

"Well I'm going to call Mimi and see if she can get us in touch with that Michael kid. He'll probably know what's wrong," Matt said.

"Do you really think we should be snooping? I mean, if Will doesn't want to tell us, he must have a good reason," I argued.

"Just like he has a good reason for not telling you that he is a digidestined, right?" Matt had me there; Will had faulted on that question too. He had seemed like a really nice kid, but now all of the unanswered questions were making me nervous. The weirdest thing was that he would lie about what his crest was. I'm not sure if anybody else noticed, or if they had weather or not they thought it important, but Will's body language and voice were tell tale signs that he had made up the crest of 'helpfulness' on the spot.

"Maybe he'll be in a better mind today. He was probably scared because of all the questions," I said.

"Maybe," Matt said, not really believing it. "I've got to get going. Rehearsal. See you later Kari."

"Bye Matt," I called out as he walked away. I got the feeling that he didn't believe Will about the crest of helpfulness either. I tried not to think about why Will would lie to us as I walked the rest of the way to school. In my mind, it wasn't really worth thinking about. He was a digidestined, and he certainly seemed like a good person. There had to be a reason why he didn't want to tell us.

I saw Will as I walked into the classroom. He was seated at his desk, staring at a page of notes. His hooded sweater had been replaced by a backwards baseball cap and a black T-shirt that said something in English on it, but since I didn't know English then I couldn't read it.

"Hey Will," I said as I sat down at my desk and looked across TK's empty chair toward him.

"Hey," he replied without looking up.

"Whatcha studying?" I didn't want to annoy him with all of the questions I had about the previous day.

"Math," came another quick reply, still not looking up.

"Will, uh, is this a bad time or something?" I asked, feeling that he didn't want to talk.

He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and then finally looked over at me. "Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind right now."

"Oh, okay. Maybe I can talk to you later today, or on Monday?" I asked, trying to sound cheerful despite the fact that he seemed to be intentionally ignoring me.

"I won't be here on Monday," Will said simply, returning to his notes.

"Is your family going on vacation?" I asked.

"I'm transferring to a different school."

If he had said that to get me to stop asking questions, it certainly worked. My first thought was that we must have offended him in some way. There had to be some kind of weird American custom that we had accidentally violated or made fun of, although I couldn't imagine what it could be, and now he hated us for it. But as I thought on that idea all through class, it made less and less sense. He had started acting funny when Davis had asked what his crest was. That couldn't be what offended him, because he had wanted to know ours also. Was it one of our crests? He had stared for a long time at TK and me after he heard about our crests. Perhaps he had some kind of problem with them. But that wouldn't make any sense either. Why would light and hope offend him?

I made an effort to track him down during lunch. I explained what had happened the previous day to Cody and Yolei, and then searched for him. He was at a table across the lunch room with three other kids, but he wasn't talking to them, and they pretty much left him alone. I sat down next to him, but he didn't seem to notice. He had his eyes closed, and was swirling his spoon around in his milk.

"Hey Will," I said as cheerfully as possible. He jumped up, startled, but sat back down again. He pulled the spoon out of his milk and set it down.

"Hi, Kari," he said unenthusiastically.

"Will, are you alright? You seem like you've got something on your mind." I said.

"I'm fine Kari; don't worry about it, alright." Will said.

"Well did I say something that made you mad? Or did TK? Or anybody? You can't be mad at me for no reason," I said.

"I'm not mad, I just need to leave. It's complicated," Will said. "Just please let me be right now."

"But if something's bothering you it's much better if you talk about it," I said.

"I'd rather not," Will said simply.

Will, I just . . . Will?" He stood up and walked away. I knew that something really must have been wrong, because nobody could change this much in one day. Something really weird was going on, and I was going to find out what.

But that proved to be much more difficult than I thought. I searched the school after classes ended, but I could find no sign of Will. Davis and Yolei hadn't seen him either. I found Cody and Izzy working in the computer lab, but they said that they hadn't seen him. It seemed almost like he had disappeared. I wandered outside and sat down on a bench, staring up at the sky. I really wanted to help him, but I couldn't if I didn't know where he was. Then I saw something on the roof of the building. It was a kid's figure, and it seemed to be leaning against the wall of the stairwell that led to the roof. The figure was so still that it almost seemed asleep, but occasionally it shifted positions just slightly.

I walked up the stairs as high as I could go, but the door to the roof was locked. Will had to of gotten up there somehow, but he couldn't have gone through a door. I thought for a moment, and then it suddenly came to me, a window. He must have climbed out and up to the roof from somewhere. I looked around outside a few windows, but I didn't find anything until I reached the end of the hallway. A pipe sitting easily within reach of the window led up to the roof. I looked down at the ground, three stories below me, and then at the pipe. It couldn't really be that hard to climb up it, and there was nobody around on the ground to see me. I climbed out onto the sill and held onto the pipe with my hands. I then stepped up onto a joint in the pipe, and pulled myself upwards. From here, I was able to get my hands onto the edge of the roof, but there were no more joints in the pipe for me to step up onto. I held on tight to the roof and thought about how I should go about getting the rest of the way up, but then my foot slipped off of the joint. I let out a small scream, but my arms managed to hang on to the building. I tried to get my foot back onto the joint, but I couldn't pull myself up high enough. The window sill was just a few feet below, but it wasn't big enough to land on. I desperately searched the ground below for someone to help me, but there was nobody. Directly below me was nothing but the concrete, and I wasn't strong enough to pull myself up from here.

"Kari!" I looked up to see Will standing on the roof above me. "Hang on, just a sec," he said as he knelt down. He grabbed one of my wrists with both hands and started to pull me up onto the roof. "C'mon, just a bit farther," he said as he strained to lift me. As soon as I could I fell forward, laying my upper body on the roof safely. Will helped to pull me the rest of the way up.

"What on God's green earth were you doing?" Will asked.

"I saw you on the roof, so I decided to come find you. But I found out the hard way that I don't know how to climb up pipes," I explained. "Thanks for saving me."

"Why would you even bother? You could've gotten hurt, or worse, killed! What possessed you to come up here after me?" Will asked, sounding angry.

"Will, I just wanted to be a friend. You've obviously got something wrong, and I want to help. That's what friends do," I tried to explain.

Will was quiet for a few minutes as he leaned against the stairwell again. He looked like he was still mad, but when he opened his eyes they seemed sad rather than angry.

"It's my crest." Will said simply.

"What about it?" I asked.

"It's not actually helpfulness, but you probably guessed that, didn't you?" He said.

"Well, it did sound kinda funny at the time," I admitted.

He was quiet again, almost as if he was considering taking back what he'd just said. He still didn't want to tell me. Then, he reached into his shirt and pulled out a tag and crest which hung around his neck. The crest was jet black, and two silver curves made the shape of a crescent moon. I started to sense a strange energy coming from it.

"It's darkness," he said.

"What's darkness?" I asked, missing the point.

"My crest is darkness. It's the crest of darkness," Will explained. There was a long silence, in which he seemed intent on waiting for a response which he thought he knew was coming. My first reaction was to think it might be a joke, but Will was deadly serious. I thought for a long time about what it could mean. The crests were supposed to represent a person's strongest attributes. How could a person's strongest attribute be darkness? That didn't seem to make sense. All the other crests were positive traits, and darkness clearly was not. I almost couldn't think of anything to say.

I finally came to the conclusion that there had to be a good reason for someone who seemed as nice as Will to have a crest like that. More importantly, I didn't want him to leave. "Well, what's the problem with it?" I asked finally.

Will looked at me, somewhat surprised. "That's not the reaction I got last time somebody found out," He commented.

"See, you don't have to leave Will. We can e your friends no matter what your crest is," I said happily.

"It's still not that simple, Kari. I want to be your friend, but at the same time, I can't. It would cause problems," he said.

"What kind of problems?" I asked, not understanding.

"I don't know exactly, but it will. Please don't bother me with this again, okay?" Will said.

It was then that I got a really good idea in my head. I would take Will to the digital world and show him that we could be friends. I could tell him about all of our adventures and how we were always there for each other. No little problems were worth wasting a perfectly good friendship.

"How do I get down from here?" I asked, hoping that he would stay long enough for me to put this plan into action.

"The door in the stairwell will open from this side," Will said.

"Thanks," I said as I bolted down into the stairwell. I blocked the door with my backpack and ran to the computer lab.

"Hey Kari! Matt and Tai are going to talk to Mimi in a few minutes," Izzy said as I ran in.

"Hi Kari," Yolei said. She had apparently arrived in the last few minutes. "I heard about yesterday. Have you talked to Will?"

"Yes," I said quickly. "Izzy I need to borrow your laptop."

"Go ahead Kari, but can I ask why?" Izzy said.

"Just gotta do something with it," I replied as I ran out back toward the roof.

"Kari wait a sec, what's going on?" Izzy called after me, but I was already to far gone. I thought I heard someone chasing me down the hall, but I wasn't sure. I raced back to the stairwell while starting up the laptop. I got into the program Izzy had created so that our D3s could open digiports on any computer, and it was ready just as I got back to Will.

"Kari? What are you doing here again?" Will asked.

"I want to show you some stuff," I said as my D3 opened the digiport.

"Kari what are you talking . . ." but he didn't have time to say anything. I grabbed his arm and fell into the computer, dragging him with me.