Chapter 6: pain

I walked down the hallway and into the library room with the reception desk. I was starting to feel dizzy, so I decided I was going to walk home as quickly as possible. I didn't have any training until next Tuesday so I was good. If I wasn't feeling well after today's events, I would have the weekend to get better.

The closer I got to my house, the more I began to feel something wasn't right. It felt like my brain was working just fine, but my body wasn't obeying its commands properly. I barely managed to stumble into my room before I fell sideways onto the floor. By the way I couldn't get up; I decided that I was going to be here for a while. It scared me half to death as well. I didn't know what could have caused this or what was wrong with me. My head pounded like someone was repeatedly hitting it with a brick.

The phone rang, but my body felt like lead. It rang repeatedly, but I couldn't even move to pick it up. I felt a disgusting taste in my mouth, like something rusty. I couldn't even force my eyes to open. This was getting scarier and scarier. This was just like the way my mom had died when I was young.

I was beginning to have strange memories, memories of when I was younger. This was the darkest part of my cinematic record. I had actually seen my cinematic record once in my life when I was five because I had accidentally cut myself on my dad's death scythe because it looked fun to play with. Usually, all strings of film in a cinematic record glow white. In mine, there were a few strands that actually gave off a black aura.

The first memory was one from my very early childhood. There were very few memories that I had from here. It was me and Grell as little kids, he was about six and I was five, playing.

"Hey lee-lee"

"Yeah"

"Do you think all this will ever be over?"

"I dunno… I don't wanna think about it."

Far away, we could hear people yelling. My mom kept on glancing nervously out the window. Grell's parents also stared out the window, looking worried. Now that I thought about it, I had never paid attention to the fact that the door to our house was made out of thick steel, like the door to a vault. My dad's old carriage stood parked outside. We screamed as it burst into flames.

There was another memory I didn't have any words for, it was so horrible. There was another one which wasn't so bad.

Grell and I were standing on a hill, overlooking many ruined houses. We were standing in front of what looked like a small hastily made cemetery. Both of our families were here. A little over to the side were several other places that looked like ours. The entire hillside was covered in family graves. Crudely made wooden crosses marked their places. There were no names, as we couldn't find anything to write with. At this point, it didn't matter. In this memory, we were older. He was about fifteen, and I was fourteen. Grell gazed down bleakly at the graves.

"Leah… I think I'm going to become a grim reaper."

"A grim reaper?"

"Yeah. So I can protect you. So you don't have to be sad anymore."

Everything went black just as I heard familiar footsteps coming up the stairs.

I got jolted back into reality. I shot up so fast I saw stars. It was dark.

"Leah?" I turned to see Grell sitting beside my bed. For once he wasn't smiling. His face was bone pale. I hadn't seen him this serious since that day. The day almost everyone in our district died. I had almost died the same way. He looked scared. I realized I was in the infirmary, and that I could move normally again. My head still hurt like hell, however.

"Ow… what happened to me?" I asked.

"I don't know… no one does. They said it was some kind of poison but I don't think it was." Grell looked down. "You scared me to death, Leah. Do you remember how…"

"How our parents died? Yeah, I do. I'm sorry." I said quietly.

"Well, the good thing is that you're alive." Grell looked around. "I don't think anyone's around now. Do you feel better?"

"I will once I'm out of this place."

"Then let's go!"

He pulled me out of the infirmary bed and we walked outside to see Grell's old red Harley motorcycle which he never rode anymore because nearly everything was within walking distance. I had no idea why he'd even bought the thing in the first place. He had said it looked amazing because it was new and it was red. Motorcycles and cars weren't very popular here, only for people who had to get from the blue city to the green city and back every day.

"What day is it?" I wondered.

"It's Monday." Grell said.

"Already? I was out for that long?"

"Three days" He said as we rode down the streets, which were mercifully empty.

"At least it wasn't longer. This way I get the rest of the evening to recover and go back to shinigami training."

"Don't push yourself too hard, Lee-lee. I'll go talk to William about it, you don't have to."

"I want to. Besides when am I going to finish my training if it's not now?"

"Suit yourself…" Grell sighed. He parked the motorcycle at the back of the house.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

"Yeah, see you later." Grell said as I walked into my house and fell onto my bed. God, what a nightmare. I wondered what could have caused this. I didn't really touch anything, and I didn't really eat anything either that could have caused it. The water could have been poisoned, but since the girl had been playing on the armonica as well, that couldn't have been it… could it? Could the poison have been in the water? Too tired to think about it any longer, I fell asleep.

I woke up the next day for my shinigami training. I had put my uniform in the dryer. William would probably scold me for not wearing the uniform but I didn't care. I put on black army pants and a red t-shirt with a black skull outline on it. My skull bracelet/death scythe jingled on my wrist. I didn't bother brushing my hair and just put it into a high ponytail. I walked outside. It looked like it was about to rain any second, and I could smell it, so I ran as fast as I could to the library.

William was already waiting.

"Good morning" He said.

"Good morning" I replied carefully. Something looked different about him. I had no idea what it was. Something had changed, but I couldn't put my finger on it. He still looked exactly as he did.

"Shall we get started?" He asked.

"Why not…" I tapped my silver bracelet twice and it spiralled into the bone white death scythe that I favoured so much. He had me attack him several times so that I could get the hang of swinging the thing around. After all, it was huge. It was bigger than I was. The rain drummed lightly on the roof of the arena. I thought I'd love attacking him with my death scythe, but for some reason, I didn't.

We practiced for a little bit, and then William let me leave.

"Don't forget that our next training session is on Thursday."

"Yeah…" I turned away.

"And Leah…" I froze in place. That was the first time he had ever called me by my first name.

"I'm glad you're all right." He told me