Chapter 28: A Life worth Living

Must be your skin that I'm sinkin in
Must be for real cause now I can feel
and I didn't mind
it's not my kind
not my time to wonder why
everything's gone white
and everything's grey
now your here now you away
I don't want this
remember that
I'll never forget where your at
don't let the days go by
glycerine

I stared at the scene before me. Once again, I found myself on the small, tree-lined street. The snow was falling again, blanketing everything in a soft white. The clouds high above were screened by the falling snow, giving the sky an appearance of endless light gray coloring that was neither happy nor sad. I only noticed these things for a second before I remembered what I had seen before. I decided that I had to find the branch again, just to see if it was still catching the snow. I wanted to ask it why it did, because I had not gotten a clear answer from it before. I somehow knew that if I found the branch, my questions would be answered.

I began to walk down the street, watching the road for any signs of the branch. The road seemed much longer this time, and I walked on and on without seeing it. Eventually I began to worry that I might not make it to the branch in time. I wasn't sure how much time I had left before I wouldn't be able to find the branch. I quickened my pace, not wanting to miss my chance to figure out the mystery of the tree branch. But I still couldn't find it. I began to jog, slowly becoming more and more afraid of not finding the branch. As my pace increased, the snow seemed to move rapidly past me. The big white flakes blew by me faster and faster as I began to run down the street, desperate to find the branch before it was too late. I ran on and on down the perfectly straight road, but no matter how far I went I couldn't find the branch.

As I kept running, my foot finally slipped on the wet road. I tumbled to the ground and rolled a few feet, soaking my clothes. I slowly sat up and looked around me. There was till no sign of the branch, and now I didn't know which way I had been running. The snow, which had seemed to move so quickly past me, now fell slowly down to the ground with a pristine beauty that I hadn't noticed before.

Then the snow began to stop falling. High above me, I saw clouds parting, revealing a soft blue sky above the trees. Off on the horizon, the sun was quickly slipping away. I looked above me again. The sky was growing darker. Soon there would be no light, and I wouldn't be able to see the snow or the branch. I couldn't do anything except sit there and stare at the sky as it grew darker and darker. It seemed that the whole world was now slipping away into the darkness.

But then something happened, and ever since that dream, I've never been able to look at the sky again without remembering it. Far away, in the darkest part of the sky, a single star appeared. A tiny, almost insignificant light in a mass of darkness. And yet it seemed so bright, as if all by itself it could light the world. Around it, more stars began to appear, and as they did, I realized that I was still able to see everything around me. The stars were so beautiful; floating in the darkness; sharply contrasting the black sky all around them. The first star that had appeared was the brightest, and as I stared at it, it almost seemed to be trying to tell me something. I had the feeling that it was speaking to me, but that the words were just a little too quiet for me to hear. I strained against the night to try and hear the star, but all I could find was the feeling that it wanted to tell me something. Then the dream began to fade slowly into nothingness.

My eyes opened slowly to the dim white light all around me. My vision was badly blurred, but I could make out the outline of a figure leaning over me. My head seemed to be swimming around in a sea of nothingness, even as my vision cleared and I was able to recognize the faces.

"Tai, Gatomon?" I asked feebly, barely able to think of the words because my head was filed with an odd floaty feeling.

"Kari, you should be sleeping. You need your rest," Tai said.

"Where am I, Tai?" I asked. I tried to lean up, but for some reason my mind couldn't make my body move.

"You're in the hospital, Kari," Gatomon said. Suddenly, the memories came flooding back to me. The memories of Gatomon pushing me out of the way of a sword, the unbearable pain of the one that hit me, and the sight, just before I passed out, of the blood staining my shirt and the ground, all rushed to the front of my mind. It temporarily broke the painkiller-induced daze that I was in, and I was finally able to clearly see the hospital room I was in.

But it was a good thing that I was temporarily awoken from my dreamlike reverie, because I saw Tai and Gatomon clearly. I saw the little smiles on their faces, and the tears that filled their eyes, and I suddenly understood what the star had been trying to tell me.

I smiled weakly, my mind again beginning to slip away to the power of the drugs.

"Tai, is everyone else okay?" I asked as my vision began to blur.

"Everyone else is fine, Kari. Just try to get some more sleep, okay?" Tai told me.

"Is Will okay?" I asked, barely able to maintain consciousness. I wasn't even sure what made me ask it, but for some reason it seemed important to me.

"He's fine. He's just worried like the rest of us," Tai said.

"Okay . . ." I managed to reply before my mind slipped back into a quiet sleep.

I don't know how long I slept after that. I didn't dream at all after the dream about the stars, and I was semi-conscious for short periods of time. During these times I was aware of people in the room, but it was hard to figure out exactly who was there.

I finally awoke in the middle of the night, fully conscious of where I was and what was around me. I was aware of the IV tube in my arm, and of the knowing pain that was growing in my stomach as the painkillers wore off, and of a pile of get well soon cards and little treats on a small table next to the bed. I was also aware of someone else in the room, talking in a hushed tone so as not to wake me up.

"It seems like you're studying an awful lot lately, Joe," Sora said.

"I've got to," Joe said, still staring at his book. "If I want to get into med school, I can't let my grades slip.

"C'mon, Joe, you've been studying all night," said Gomamon. "Take a break."

"Gomamon, I've got to take this stuff seriously," Joe said.

"You're always too serious, Joe," I said weakly. My stomach hurt when I tried to talk, but I quickly found out that if I talked quietly it wasn't bad.

"Kari, you're awake!" Sora said, standing up.

"Why are you guys here? The clock says that it's two in the morning," I asked, indicating the clock with my eyes.

"We didn't know when you'd wake up again, and we wanted somebody to be here when you did, so we've been taking turns staying here," Joe explained.

"You didn't have to do that," I said.

"Don't worry, Kari, we all wanted to," Biyomon said. I smile at her and tried to sit up, but I promptly fell back down due to the pain in my stomach.

"Try not to move," Joe said. "It'll be a while before that pain goes away."

"Right, I forgot," I smiled. I looked over at the pile of get well cards again and blushed.

"Do you want us to read some of them for you?" Sora asked.

"No, I'll read them in a little while," I said, still blushing. "You guys really didn't need to go through all this trouble . . ."

"Nonsense. If you can take a hit like that for us, it's the least we can do," Gomamon said.

"Thanks Gomamon," I said. I looked out the window at the night sky. The lights of the city prevented me from seeing the stars, but I knew they were there all the same.