Hello peeps!

Summary: AU. 21 year old Mikan Sakura starts getting nightmares of her high school sweetheart Natsume Hyuuga, who went missing on graduation night and is now presumed dead, telling her to commit suicide. Are these just dreams, or is something else at work? M/N

Warning: Has some dark themes, mentions of suicide and death, and language.

Disclaimer: Not mine! It's all Higuchi.

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Chapter 1: The Beginning

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Liquid, pouring down her face in thick streams, down her face, dropping onto her shirt and neck at an unsteady pace. Her beating heart, mercilessly fast, almost as if it wants to break free from her chest.

Bright eyes, peering out, but seeing nothing. Just black, pure dismal black, but not calming; it only heightens the terror and fear. Is this what it is to be blind? But something tells her it is not, it's more like a blindfold is over her eyes, preventing light from reaching her thirsty pupils. But there isn't a blindfold, nothing is covering her eyes, but there is the feeling of suffocation. Something is so wrong, she can sense it, there's a pure feelings of d e a t h that won't go away, there's a stench of w r o n g n e s s that lays in the air like a blanket, and nothing can stop that rising bar of t e n s i o n trapping her in midair.

Then there's a steep drop, and she's falling. Her arms rise slowly to touch the air, fingers wrap around nothing as her body falls into a pit that's bottom is so far away. All that liquid is flying off her face, fast, it's all running away…

There's a flash. There are h i s eyes hanging in the air, right before her, and then vanishing as she drops. And then her back reaches the floor of the pit, and she breaks apart. Her head is in one place; her legs are gone to another. But her body is intact. It's her soul that is breaking.

He's standing before her eyes again, all of him, not just his eyes. His hair flies in nonexistent wind, his voice reaches her even though he is several feet away.

You should be dead by now.

Regular people don't last this long.

I knew you were special.

But this isn't right.

This isn't right.

Please, just go away already.

Please, just forget about me.

Please, just…

Please, just, just…

M I K A N ! ! ! !

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She woke up, breathless as ever. Even though this has happened many times, it doesn't get less scary. In fact, some might say that is just gets scarier. Because the dreams just get worse, and worse, and worse.

Her hand strokes her cheek as she recalls the dream. His voice. For the first time, it had sounded desperate, not cold. And a trace of tenderness that lurked behind, buzzing in her mind told her that he didn't want her to die because he wanted her gone.

It sounded as if he was trying to get rid of her before something else came.

And she remembered something else he had said.

Regular people don't last this long.

What did he mean by that? By comparing to other people, it meant that he had done this to others, or knew people that had.

What was going on?

Mikan sat up straighter in bed, upright as a stick. Even though it was one in the morning- the clock read 1:03- she felt wide awake. Thinking about the dream she'd just gotten out of, reliving it- it woke her brain up, it worked even better than water.

She closed her eyes again, remembering him.

His black hair around his face, his red eyes, his smooth skin on his hands as he cradled her face.

They met as children. They didn't like each other then, she was too happy, too naïve, and he was too cold, too negative, he knew too much.

But then as time passed, they became friends. They understood each other; they learned from each other, they protected each other.

She never thought of them being more than that until they were.

"N-Natsume- what are you doing?"

She was about to say more, but her words went away when he kissed her, unexpectedly and without warning. Mikan didn't react in her shock. The moments went by slow as she realized what he was doing. Kissing her, more tenderly than she'd ever imagined a kiss could be. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her close to him, a gesture, a hug.

And then he was away, and she missed him already.

"I love you."

He didn't look at her directly, only looked away and on the ground, anything that wasn't her.

"I've loved you for a long time."

Finally he looked up, eyes ablaze with something that she'd never seen before.

Then there was silence, she couldn't say anything, wouldn't anything, because there was nothing to say. She just lifted up her fingers to gracefully go across her lips.

He took that as a response, and held her close, her head in the crook of his neck.

"I didn't think that we could ever be this."

"I've always known it."

But it had been so short. One week, there had been one week of happiness, one week of bliss, one week where they thought that it would last forever, that every minute that flowed by would last an eternity.

It didn't.

It all came to a screeching halt when he disappeared.

"Mikan, have you seen Natsume?"

"Not since yesterday at the graduation party, no… why?"

"He's gone."

"What?"

He had disappeared. There was no trace of him; it was as if he'd been wiped from the world. They searched. They searched everywhere. But there was no finding him or anything that led to him- it was a cold case.

And it just got colder. Years went by, spent trying to get a steady job because she wasn't smart enough for college, and no sudden evidence appeared. She got a job working at a middle-class restaurant that provided enough money for her. They rented an apartment, Hotaru and Mikan, and it worked out. And even then, when she was just starting to get comfortable, nobody came running to the police claiming to know something about Natsume's disappearance. It was not spoken of, but everybody assumed him dead.

She hoped so hard in her heart that somebody would learn information about where he had gone. Because she knew that he was alive, he just had to be. He'd been a continuous existence for much of her life. He couldn't just be gone.

And then the nightmares started.

They all thought that it was just a short little thing, created when she got desperate to keep a hold of him. But the weeks all piled up, and it was no use denying that something was happening.

The dreams were simple at first. Every single time, she was sitting in a pure white room, she sat in a spotless chair, and she heard his voice telling her to do bad things. He told her to cut herself. He told her to think of how lovely it would be. He said that it was what she was meant to do.

But the peaceful way he told her to hurt herself didn't last long. In the time of a month, he'd changed from politely asking her to maliciously whispering in her ear, telling her things that chilled her to the core.

And the room got darker as he got more frustrated. At the beginning, the walls were shining white, so bright that it hurt her eyes. And then there were splotches of grey splattered on the wall, and more, and more, and soon the whole room was smooth ebony, but it got even worse than that to a nightmarish shade of complete black that was just utter darkness. The walls faded out, and soon she wasn't sitting in the chair, she was being held somewhere, stretched into different positions that pained her, sometimes she lost her vision, of hearing, or sense of self. And sometimes it made her lose control all at once, like she was a toy.

Just recently the blood had started coming. She felt it on her face; felt it all around her, like it was an ocean of blood; felt it spraying around her in jets as if it was alive.

And it was his voice telling her all this. His voice, something that couldn't be duplicated. She knew that it was him saying those words.

But now, he was telling her to commit suicide, straight out. There was no covering it up.

She never stopped being horrified. It was something you couldn't get over.

It had only been two months, but it felt like a lifetime.

But no matter how much hurt it caused, she wouldn't give up, she knew that. Her own life was something precious that she did not want to throw away.

There was a more important reason, though. The real reason.

Truth was, she wanted to find out why he was doing this to her.

She didn't believe that these nightmares, these horrible steeds, were created in her mind. Mikan believed that someone was causing them, and that there was some way to stop them.

These two situations seemed to be connected. Natsume disappeared. And then, when she was still grieving, she started receiving horrible dreams that told her to commit suicide. In. His. Voice.

Today, she didn't cry. She wouldn't cry anymore. She needed to be strong in order to find out what was really happening.

She was going to find out the reason for his disappearance.

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Well, sorry for the long wait in updating this and adding the chapter. I'm been busy working on my other works.

I may not update this for a long time, I warn you. I really want to finish one of my other stories, Huntress, and to focus on that before doing this, because that's my main priority.

See you when I update!

Also, as a note, I'm sorry if the grammar or whatnot is a bit off in this chapter. I wanted to post this before I go on a short trip for a few days.

If you noticed the overuse of she/he, that style was intentional.

Please review. All reviews are appreciated, whether they are positive, negative, or just plain odd. =) Thanks for reading.