Chapter 2: Alone

==o==

Notes :

(1): Marukaite Chikyuu is the theme song to Axis Powers Hetalia. Which I also don't own. But it's a super-peppy song that would be good to sing in an eerily quiet house.

==o==

Bakura's house contained three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a tortoiseshell cat named Tama, and not much else.

"Father never spent much time here," Bakura explained, "and we just moved in a few months ago, so we haven't had time to fill it up yet. You can feel free to spread out and make yourself at home, though. I'm pretty sure Father has online subscriptions to several anthropology journals, so you can make use of those if you need. He won't notice."

Shizuka noted, with some satisfaction, that Bakura's politeness didn't seem to extend to his father. In the master bedroom that he and Otogi now shared, she'd noticed a box full of artifacts and quite a few empty display placards on the wall. She hadn't commented.

Bakura led the group to the kitchen. "Help yourself to whatever's in the refrigerator," he said. "Don't be shy; it'll all be expired by the time we get back anyway."

"The pantry too," Otogi said. "I have quite an impressive collection of ramen in there, but I'm pretty sure I'll need to go low-carb for a while after a month-long trip to France. Best to remove the temptation." He shot her another debonair smile.

Oh, Otogi. He could charm the legs off a chair. She remembered how surprised she'd been when he'd first taken an interest in her, how flattered she'd felt when he'd smiled at her and flirted with her and tried to hold her hand. But oddly, that was all she'd felt. Charmed and flattered and surprised.

In a way, she supposed, Otogi's crush on her was the first step in her figuring out that she wasn't really interested in men. Over the next ten years, she'd mostly come to terms with the whole 'probably-being-a-lesbian thing' (as she called it in her head), but she hadn't told anyone yet. It wasn't that she thought her family would mind. (Well, her dad might, but she didn't care much for him anyway.) She just didn't think there was much point in bringing it up until she actually had a girlfriend.

The thesis wasn't the only thing that Shizuka was procrastinating.

At that thought, Shizuka realized she'd been staring at Otogi for rather a long time, and that people might start to get the wrong idea. Time to change the subject.

"Uh, Bakura-san…" she began. "Didn't you say there were three bedrooms in the house? I'd very much like to see the third."

Bakura suddenly looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Um, well, yes. But the third is a mess, all packed full of boxes from when we were moving in; I don't think there would be much room for you in there. At all. Um. You'll probably want to sleep in my old room; we haven't been using it for anything so it's nice and empty." He looked at her hopefully, pleadingly.

Shizuka decided not to press the matter. After all, Bakura would be leaving soon.

==o==

An hour later, Bakura and Otogi finally stopped chatting with Shizuka and Katsuya and left to catch their flight. A few minutes after that, Katsuya gave his sister a hug goodbye, told her to take care of herself and not to talk to strangers, ducked when she tried to smack him upside the head, and left as well.

She locked the door behind him and watched out the window as her brother's old Toyota backed out of the driveway and clunked away down the street. As she squinted into the mid-afternoon sunlight, the sounds from the car grew softer and softer until they finally faded away into the distance.

Shizuka was alone.

It was strange how the house seemed to change now that it was empty. Where just a few minutes before there had been Bakura's quiet voice, Otogi's snickers, and Katsuya's raucous laughter, now there was just…nothing.

Nothing but Shizuka and an empty house and the quiet.

This was a house where dead people had lived, Shizuka reflected morbidly. Bakura's mother and little sister. They'd walked these floors and eaten at these tables and left through that door before the horrible car accident that had taken both their lives.

It wasn't that she hadn't known before. She'd known the fates of the house's previous tenants and it hadn't really bothered her. It wasn't like car accidents were contagious.

It was just that…now it was quiet. And the quiet made things clearer. The absence of noise made other absences more apparent. Like the absence of a little girl's laugh.

God, it was so quiet.

A sort of…resonant silence.

Shizuka realized she'd forgotten to pack her iPod. Crap.

Well, that was one less thing that could distract her from her thesis. Yes. She'd unpack her things and then get to work immediately. She marched resolutely across the floor towards her suitcase.

Creeeakkk…

Shizuka jumped in surprise. She landed with a thump.

And a creak.

Oh. Well that was stupid. She raised her foot and lowered it again softly.

Creak.

Shizuka mentally berated herself. It was just the floorboard. But…had it made that noise when Bakura had taken the group on their tour around the house?

Of…of course it had. She just hadn't heard it because they'd been talking and she hadn't been paying attention. God, she couldn't act like this the whole month, cringing at nothing, jumping at shadows.

It was just that the so…so empty. Noiseless.

Lifeless.

OK, this was just getting ridiculous. If she thought it was too quiet, she could darn well hum her way through the month. Or sing, even. It wasn't like there was anyone around to hear her.

Shizuka started a rousing chorus of Marukaite Chikyuu and hauled her suitcase up the stairs and into Bakura's old bedroom. By the time she had finished hanging up her clothes and putting her library books into the bookshelf, she was starting to get really sick of the song. She stopped singing.

Scratch…scratchscratch…scratchscratchscratch…

Claw-murderer-horrible-death-serial-killer-hook-hand-demon-ghost-SHUT UP BRAIN.

Shizuka steadied herself. She was going to walk into the hallway. She was going to see what was making that scratching noise. And she was going to stop letting her imagination get the best of her.

She stepped out of Bakura's bedroom and immediately sighed with relief. At the other end of the hallway, the cat, Tama, was scratching at a door.

Shizuka told herself that all future weird noises would be attributed to the cat, and no more silliness would be had.

But suddenly, a much more pressing matter made its way to the front of her brain. That cat wasn't just scratching at the door, it was actually scratching the door. Long, pale claw-marks appeared where the varnish had been scratched away, and more were being added by the second.

Great. She'd been house-sitting for all of an hour and already there was property damage.

She ran to the door and started to scold the cat in her most authoritative voice. "No! Bad Tama! Naughty kitty!"

Tama gave one final scratch down the door, and Shizuka cringed as she saw little wood splinters flying off into the hallway. Her work done, Tama stopped her scratching, shot Shizuka a look that clearly said 'Bitch, please,' and sauntered away insolently, flicking her tail behind her.

Shizuka sighed and bent down to survey the damage. It was as bad as she'd feared: the bottom third of the door was covered in fresh scratch marks. She supposed she'd have take the bus to the hardware store in the next couple of days and see what they had that could fill in the scratches. But it was no use despairing. She was sure that she could make this bedroom door look like the others.

This…bedroom…

Shizuka did a quick room count. There were five doors on the second floor. At one end of the hall was Bakura's old room, the one he'd asked her to sleep in. Next door was the bathroom, and next to that, the linen closet. Then there was the master bedroom, and then…

Then there was the third bedroom. This was the third bedroom.

The one Bakura had ever-so specifically, ever-so cryptically, ever-so enticingly asked her not to go into.

Well, forget that.

Shizuka popped up as if on springs and immediately reached for the doorknob.

It didn't budge. She rattled it a little. Nope, it was definitely locked. Darn. Oh well, it looked like she wouldn't be doing any secret-bedroom-exploring today. Having run out of things to do to procrastinate, Shizuka realized she was going to have to start working on her thesis.

It wasn't until she had gone back downstairs, turned on her laptop, opened a new document, and started her usual staring contest with a blank screen that Shizuka realized something important.

There wasn't a keyhole on the outside of that doorknob. The room was locked from the inside.

She wondered how Bakura had managed that.

==o==

Dreamtime is a common term within the animist creation narrative of the indigenous Australians. It may be understood as a 'timeless time' of formative creation and perpetual creating. It was the time in which the universe was created, but simultaneously, it is a time that exists eternally.

Shizuka sighed. She'd been staring at that paragraph in one of her library books for at least fifteen minutes, and she still couldn't figure out how to turn it into a coherent topic sentence for her thesis. To be totally honest, part of the problem was that Shizuka didn't totally understand the idea of Dreamtime herself. She'd committed to the topic months ago, back when it was an exciting view of non-linear time and immortality, totally foreign to her understanding of the world. But now…now what had been fascinating and unknown was just confusing and tiresome. And she'd probably forgotten much of what she'd learned about Dreamtime during spring term. Some re-reading was definitely in order. Yes, before she started to write, she'd certainly have to re-read at least two of her library books, maybe three…

The lights flickered.

Well, that was odd. Was there something wrong with the wiring?

Shizuka looked out the window and nearly fell out of her chair in surprise. Where there had been bright sun just an hour before, it was now raining heavily, and she could just barely make out the sound of thunder in the distance. Had she really been so immersed in her reading that she hadn't noticed such a dramatic change in the weather? She hadn't felt more focused than usual…

CRASH.

A giant rumble of thunder shook the house right down to its floorboards. A second later, there was a blinding flash of lighting, immediately followed by a sad electrical noise as the power went out.

She was blind.

Shizuka's day vision was poor, but it was practically 20/20 compared to her night vision. In the dark, she could literally see nothing. Nothing but blackness, total and absolute.

A prickle of fear ran down Shizuka's spine. She didn't know what to do. The safe thing would be to just curl up here and wait for the power to come back on, but that could be hours, maybe even as much as a day. And she'd still have to eat and go to the bathroom and stuff…that would never work.

Not to mention she'd be the helpless little blind girl again, curled up in the dark, the object of pity and charity. She never wanted to feel like that again.

No. She wouldn't just sit idly by until someone on the outside turned the power back on for her. She would get up and do something, damn it. She could feel her way around the walls for a closet; if she found one of those, maybe she'd be able to get to a flashlight.

She took a few hesitant steps forward, and then…

MROW!-crash-clatter-thud-HISS…

Shizuka landed on the floor in an undignified heap. Ouch. If the angry feline noises and the scratch on her leg were any evidence, she'd just tripped over the cat. She took stock of her body. No major injuries, although the cat scratch smarted a bit and her palms were a little sore from where she'd caught herself. Still, she hadn't hit her head or anything. She just had to stand up and try again.

She tried to push herself to her feet.

And failed.

Wait, what? Shizuka tried again.

Nothing happened.

It wasn't that she wasn't strong enough to push herself to her feet. It wasn't even that her legs weren't steady enough to hold her. Nothing happened. Not a single muscle contracted, not a single limb budged. She was paralyzed.

Paralyzed and blind.

Shizuka started to panic. And not the stressed-out 'What if?' panic she was accustomed to from school, either; this was pure, sharp wordless panic. The panic of being trapped here, paralyzed on the floor of this strange house, forever, unable to cry for help, unable to move, unable to see.

Blind panic.

But it was strange, because even as her mind whirled, her body remained unchanged. Her heart didn't speed up, her breathing didn't quicken, she didn't even sweat. She just remained there, frozen on her hands and knees, staring down at the floorboards of the strange Bakura home. She couldn't even hear the thunder anymore. There was just motionlessness, blindness and silence.

And then suddenly, there wasn't. Sound and motion and vision.

She could see. It was still dark in the house, but all of a sudden she could see. Not just shadows and outlines, but detail . Here a chair, there the sofa—it was incredible. And just as Shizuka scratched the surface on that realization, she felt her body move as if pulled up on strings. She was rising, rising…She was apparently standing up, but the motion felt just as beyond her control as her original paralysis.

It was as if she was wearing someone else's body. Seeing through someone else's eyes.

And when Shizuka heard a voice coming from behind her, she would have screamed if she could have moved at all.

"Amane," said a woman's gentle voice, "are you alright? I heard a crash."

When Shizuka felt her own vocal cords start to vibrate and her own mouth begin to move, she was so surprised that at first she didn't listen to what she was saying.

"…just tripped over the cat. I couldn't see her in the dark."

Shizuka turned. No, that wasn't quite accurate. The body she inhabited turned, taking her with it.

Standing in front of her was a tall, thin woman with white hair and concerned brown eyes. Bakura's eyes, Shizuka realized.

"I was just going to get some flashlights," the woman said. "We have no way of knowing how long the power's going to be out. Are you sure you're alright?"

Shizuka felt herself nod. "Yes, Mom," the voice-from-her-mouth said. "You worry too much."

But the moment her mouth stopped speaking, Shizuka immediately felt her surprise replaced with rising panic. This had gone on too long. She'd lost track of how long it had been since she'd been in control of her own body. Had it been a minute? Five minutes? Would she ever get it back? The fear in her gut multiplied until…

She felt her body start to sit itself back down onto the sofa, when suddenly, it collapsed. She fell backwards against the sofa…but no, it wasn't a sofa anymore, it was a hard, like a desk chair…Her head rocked back at the fall and smacked against the backboard. She closed her eyes at the impact.

She had willed her eyes closed at the impact. She was back under her own control.

And she held her eyes closed. She squeezed them closed with all her might, as if in controlling that simple action, she could undo the terrifying minutes of lack of control, of paralysis. And she hoped, more fervently than she had ever hoped before, that when she opened them, everything would be back to normal.

She opened her eyes.

And it was.

She was sitting in her desk chair again, still in front of her laptop. The window outside showed a bright sunny day; all remnants of the thunderstorm were gone.

Shizuka wiggled her fingers. She could move again.

She immediately started to cry out of sheer relief, collapsed over onto the tabletop that hadn't been there just a few moments before. She let the sobs rack through her body, unashamed and unrestrained.

After all, she was alone.

==o==