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Ch. 3
I awoke out of a sleep I hadn't felt myself slip into and whipped my head around, scanning the room for any signs of my companion or the man with the striped hat. Realizing that the room was entirely empty and the sky peeking out of the window shone with the light of a full moon, the sudden urge to get up and explore entirely took over me.
A few hours ago the pain in my chest held the intensity of a roaring flame and had now, somehow, felt more like cooling embers. Now able to move with more ease, I propped myself up and swung my legs beneath me, slowly rising to stand. My chest felt as if it were collapsing in on itself for a moment but I held back the scream that threatened to escape my lips and wake up the entire house.
"If this is going to work, I have to be silent as a ninja," I thought to myself and almost laughed at the newfound irony held in that phrase.
Ever so carefully, I allowed my pinky toe to reach down and meet the cold bite of a sturdy wooden floor. Lightly shifting my weight, I completed the first step into the tantalizing darkness held behind the threshold that connected my room to a corridor; closely resembling the entrance to a cave. As I started stepping at a steady pace the phrase, 'Toe, ball, heel…Toe, ball, heel….," was ever present in my head. Looking into the hallway, I could see rooms lined up; three on one side, two on the other. Apparently my room had been located at the end of the hall. As I peeked into the first doorway, I saw a cat curled up on a cot and thought about how peculiar that was…..giving a while bed to such a small creature. But, I suppose, everything was peculiar here. Suddenly I was reminded of a very strange story my mother had read to me once called "Alice in Wonderland" and felt instantly connected to Alice's emotions in the book; lost, confused, and hopelessly curious to what the future might have in store.
After passing the 'Room of the Cheshire' (as I decided to dub it), I continued to the next room. There, in the center of a cot, identical to that in the other room, Urahara sat lotus style with his eyes closed. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest and my breath hitched, in fear that he might open his eyes at the slightest hint of noise. But at that moment he let out a thundering snore and toppled to one side, still maintaining a lotus position. Trying not to burst out giggling, I covered my mouth with both hands and quickly naming his room without a second thought, 'The Mad Hatter's Domain".
The next room I passed featured a sweet looking girl with long black hair. She looked to peaceful but was surrounded in enough medical supplies to heal a small army. Taking a closer look at her, the faceless images from before, during the surgery, seemed to fill in.
"So she must be Momo….," I whispered and then regretted it a second later when I saw her stir from under a thick blanket. Sucking in air and hoping with all of my might that I could disappear in an instant I reluctantly awaited for her to wake up and blow my cover. Luckily, though, she just resettled and was soon breathing deeply again.
I took a moment to think over her gentle completion and helpful nature, suddenly knowing exactly what to call her room; 'The Palace of the White Queen'. I made a mental note of it and continued down the hallway with a bit more confidence and a bit less of an edge to my breathing.
The room adjacent to 'The Palace' held a boy with flaming orange hair. I took a moment to appreciate the color and had a hope churning in my stomach that it was natural. Since I naturally had such shockingly white hair for an 18 year old, I thought it might be nice to make a companion with this form of similarity.
The boy's face was nearly as unusual as his hair. Instead of bearing soft features, he instead bore creases all over as if he were in the midst of a fight, determined and angry, even as he slept. A thought popped into my head and I decided what to call his room; 'The Mouse House'. This teenager's demeanor had reminded me all too much of the knightly mouse in the storybook; strong and brave…but way too far in over his head".
The very last room held a boy with a similar room to Momo's in regard to the medical supplies strewn about the floor. The only noticeable difference was the trap door in the corner that had been poorly half-covered by a fuzzy blue area rug. The boy's face was settled with worry but remained sweet and gentle. I wondered if he always looked so distressed and felt a twinge of sympathy for this boy whom I was more than likely to meet soon. His face seemed to fill in for the previously unknown figure in the images that still raced through my head. After a moment, I named his room, "The Rabbit Hole," since his troubled complexion was almost identical to that of the rabbit with the clock.
The radiating pain in my chest decided that this had been enough moving around for one night so I began to sneak back to my room at the end of the corridor. The floor hadn't creaked once, right up until I entered my room and took a single careless step causing the wood to groan under my bare foot. I cringed in response and quickly looked back to the hallway which seemed to still be perfectly sound. Relieved, I turned back to my room only to be struck by sudden terror at the darkened figure standing right in front of my face. My eyes widened but before I could make a sound the familiar voice of my best friend whispered, "Ready for your first day of training?"