Chapter 3

Takato put on his shoes and grabbed his backpack. It was 9:00 am and visiting hours for Monday began at 10:00 am.

"Bye, Mom and Dad. I have to visit Jeri now, okay?"

A barrage of customers were mercilessly swamping his parents.

"Um. Son," said his father hesitantly as he rolled out dough and began cutting them into strips, "we really wish that you told us this last night. We told you for weeks that we were having our big pastry sale today."

"But I told Jeri that I would visit her first thing this morning."

"I don't care. We really need your help right now. It will only take you a couple of hours."

A couple of hours? Takato groaned and walked back behind the counter to put on a smock and help his parents with baking and sales.

…..

It was 9:00 Jeri was sitting at the table of an evaluation room. The table was littered with a variety of testing paraphernalia that reflected which types of questions she was asked; "what is the difference between these two pictures?" "how would you move the shapes to match the picture?" "What are the meanings of these words?" "What are the relationships between these items?" "If I show you this picture, how much of it can you remember?" "How do you think the girl in this photograph felt when it was taken?" "Here are different smiley faces. Which emotions do they signal?" "Can you repeat back to me any of the words or numbers that I gave you?"

As the test progressed, Jeri became less interested. It was most of the same questions that were given to her when she was first committed to the hospital.

"Jeri?" asked the female doctor clad in a white labcoat., "Could you please answer these questions?"

At the beginning of the examination, Jeri was cooperative and open. At this point however, she would only hang her head low and wait for the practitioner give up.

"Okay Jeri. Let's stop the test for a while. You seem to like to tell stories. Why don't you tell me one?"

Jeri lifted her head and whispered.

"Could I tell you the story in a different way?"

"You mean like with a puppet? Normally, I would say, "sure, go ahead." But I think that your parents would prefer that you tell me by speaking. I've heard that you are quite the talker with your friends. How come you feel like you can't tell me what happened to you? I have been seeing you for the last few years."

Jeri bit her lip and gritted her teeth. She wanted the doctor to give up and let her go home. But of course, she knew that by not answering her questions, she would only prolong her visit. With her head still bowed and without giving the woman eye contact, she told a story.

"One day, a little girl got a kitty for her birthday. She was excited because all of her classmates had puppies and kittens, but she was the last one to get one. She thought that she would never get one, but luckily, she did. Over the next few days, she realized that she loved the kitty and she liked to play with him and tell everyone how proud she was to have him. But then, not long after she got him, a mad dog killed him. The dog tore him to pieces right before her very eyes. She still has nightmares about it and sometimes she can't pay attention in class because she keeps thinking about it."

This strange story appeared to pique the doctor's interest.

"Forgive me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, you never had any pets, Jeri. Can you tell me what this story is really about?"

Jeri clenched her left wrist underneath the table. "Jeri? What are you doing? Wha…". As Jeri silently remembered what happened in class that day, her nails gripped her skin even tighter.

"It's…just a story, you know. You said for me to tell a story."

"Jeri, I know that something traumatic must have happened to you. You've been here for years. Now is the time to help us find out what your problem is so that we can help you."

Silence permeated the evaluation room. The eighteen year old bit her lip and lowered her head even further.

"Okay, Jeri. How about we get you back to your room? We can continue your reevaluation another time."

"Does that mean that I can go home now?" Tears streaked down Jeri's cheeks. She suppressed a sob in her throat as she silently pleaded with the doctor to release her to her parents.

"I'm sorry, Jeri. What it means is that we have to finish another time. I can't tell you for sure if you can go home after it, but for now you should just go back to your room and contain yourself. Don't you have a visitor coming?"

"I…guess." a nurse greeted Jeri and walked with her back to her room.

…

"No! Why isn't it here? They took it, didn't they?" the tortured girl was screaming as she erraticaly searched her room for her sock puppet. She had overturned various furniture and books in the process.

Jeri sat at her bedside and sobbed. She wished that she had never been brought to the mental hospital in the first place. She wished that what transpired those years ago were just a bad dream.

….

It was a Tuesday afternoon and Jeri was fighting to stay awake in class. She had been getting less than an hour of sleep every night for the past two weeks. No matter how hard she tried, every time she tried to sleep, the horrible memories of Leomon's death would haunt her.

"Jeri," a girl next to Jeri tapped her on the shoulder, "Jeri, the teacher is asking you a question."

At this time, it seemed that Jeri was reliving Leomon's death every few seconds. She would see him, and the he would die. See him. Die. See him. Die. See him. Die.

"Jeri, you really need to….wha?Aahh!"

The entire classroom turned their heads to train their gaze on the horrific sight. Jeri had pinned her classmate to the ground and had a pen's tip buried into her shoulder. The cap remained on the pen's point, so it did not make too deep of a puncture. Despite this, the girl's shoulder was still furiously bleeding from the attack.

Once she realized what she had done, the distraught sixteen year old leapt off of the girl and extended a hand.

"Oh my God! I'm….I'm so sorry!" Jeri looked around the room to find the open mouths of her classmates. The teacher, remembering her training, had grabbed the room's telephone to call school security.

"What have you done!" screamed a nearby boy, "Guys, we have to help her, Yuki is a hemophiliac!"

….

Takato watched the clock at his parents' bakery. It was now 11:15 and he still needed to create the custard for their store's specialty confection. While stirring the custard, he let his mind wander to that fateful day when Jeri was apprehended.

While in the custody of two police officers, Jeri walked solemnly out of the school in handcuffs. Her body trembled vigorously, as she attempted to comprehend what had just happened to her.

On the third floor of the building, Takato as well as his entire class was watching through the windows to get a glimpse of the attacker. Takato clenched his fists and left the room to gather his composure in the hallway. Just minutes before, he received a text from numerous people relaying rumors that his girlfriend, Jeri Katou, was the assailant. When the first text from Henry came in, he did not want to believe such an extreme accusation. But once more messages poured in from Kenta, Kazu, and other concerned students which flooded his inbox, he realized that all of these stories could not be coincidental. It took the boy awhile to realize that this incident was most likely the consequence of Leomon's death.

Once Takato realized that Jeri was sentenced to therapy and treatment rather than prison, he was beyond relieved. But he could not help feeling immense guilt. Jeri was one of the last of the kids to get their digimon, and she was the only one of them to have their partner die.

"Takato!" the teen's father shouted. "Pay attention!"

Takato jolted once he realized that he had stirred to custard for far too long and the pastries that he was supposed to remove from the oven were beginning to burn.

"Aww, man."

….

The troubled eighteen-year-old girl laid on her bed without even bothering to wipe away the tears the rolled down her face. She was about to drift off to sleep until she felt a furry claw wipe away a tear.

"Is it him? NO! I've imagined him too many times. I have to let him go!"

"Jeri? It's me. Don't you remember?"

The girl opened her eyes and gasped at the sight. Lo and behold, Leomon was crouching over her bedside.

"Leomon!" she held the lion's mane close and cried tears of joy. "But how is this possible? Y-you…I saw you die!"

The lion digimon escaped her embrace and pointed to a dark purple vortex opening from the window.

"If you come with me back to the digital world, I can show you how this is possible."

Jeri grabbed onto Leomon's arm in an attempt to stop him.

"No! I won't let you leave me again. I let you die on me once, but I won't let you die in that dangerous place."

"But Jeri, I didn't die in the digiworld. I died here; in a place that is supposed to be safer."

The frustrated teen bit her lip once she realized that he was right.

"It's not fair, Leomon!"

Leomon's face took upon a more grave expression.

"You're right, Jeri. It isn't fair. It isn't fair that I died before the others. But you know something, we aren't the only ones who have realized the great injustice committed against us. Thanatos has arisen and he is the one who resurrected me from the dead."

Jeri walked closer to Leomon while still eyeing the vortex in confusion.

"Who's Thanatos?"

Leomon smilled.

"Thanatos is a mighty force who has been unleashed upon the digital world. His power is great and his allies are legion. He gave me specific instructions to retrieve you in hopes that you will aide us in our cause. With him as ruler of the digital world, all will be made right again."

Jeri furrowed her brows and walked closer to him.

"You're right, Leomon. Something about the digital world needs to change, and we can be the ones responsible for it."

Leomon took her hand in his and they walked into the spiraling vortex before them.

….

Henry opened his father's laptop and connected its cables to his family's big screen television set. Henry was in the living room of his family's apartment and had just finished the search program that morning. While his father was in his home office doing work, Henry thought it would be interesting to see if a wider monitor such as his large screen TV would be helpful in visualizing the script. After debugging the small text code for the past few days, he was afraid that he would lose his vision.

Once he saw the output of his father's desktop on the TV screen, he opened the program and typed in the ID signatures of Terriermon, Guilmon, and Renamon in the appropriate fields. After telling Rika and Takato of his plan on Friday, they both delivered their D-powers to him to see if he could crack them and search for their digimon as well.

Henry ran the program and waited for results. After five minutes, nothing seemed to change on the screen. The enterprising teen gave the program another five minutes. Still nothing.

"Oh well. I guess it's back to the drawing board." Henry's shoulders sagged dejectedly. There was nothing like working for weeks at a time only to find out that despite intensive double checking, the problem may have been that there was nothing to even suggest that the operation was possible in the first place.

Henry looked up to face the TV to see if anything changed. To his surprised, he noticed a thin white sock-like appendage with green tips.

"Terriermon?"

A low muffle that sounded like "Henry?" was heard in what sounded like inside of the television. Henry looked upon in awe as the dog digimon emerged his full head out of the screen.

"Henry! I found you!"

Terriermon was pushed out of the screen with Renamon following behind him. The fox creature was linked to Terriermon with their paws, and Impmon's arms was linked to her's. Attached to Impmon's arm was Guilmon's distinctive red claw. Although the other digimon had made it out of the portal, Impmon still had his arm stuck inside the screen.

"Hey, you big goof!" yelled Impmon furiously, "What's takin' ya?"

Guilmon peaked his head through the monitor and flailed what arm that he had out there.

"I can't get all of myself in!"

Henry sighed as he saw the digimon back in the real world again. His shock at seeing them had finally worn off.

"It's a widescreen, Guilmon," said Henry supportively, "Just lie on your side and crawl out."

Guilmon did as he was told and soon enough, he fell onto the floor with a thud.

"Henry, what in the wo—," Janyu Wong had left his office and found his son with the long-lost digital monsters.

"They're…they're back?"

"Yeah…" moaned Guilmon languidly, "we're back…and I need bread."

"I need to hug Henry!" shouted Terriermon as was already encasing Henry's head with his parachute-like ears.

"I need a bath," groaned Renamon irritably.

"I'll take a bath with Renamon." proposed Impmon in a mock-helpful tone.