She could see things... from her earliest memories, she had always seen what she called, the others. Sometimes they saw her, other times they did not... but she always saw them. She had thought it normal at first. Then people mentioned imaginary friends and soon she learned the value of keeping such things to herself. She did not think she was imagining them. They were so real, so solid to her.
Erisia Nakayama had long ago learned the value of silence. Children were to be seen and not heard in her household... Her father tolerated little. Her mother would once have been considered a noble woman but the standards of the day had changed such ideas. Her parents were both dead now, but that mattered little. She had taken to using her mother's maiden name instead of the surname of her father... She had hated the man.
Her back still bore scars from the belt he'd used to drill silence into her. She had her own small apartment on the fringes of Karakura town. It was not much but it was enough... It was just her so she didn't have need for a lot. Now that she was alone, sometimes the spirits she met would come to visit her. There was a little girl who was so lonely and though she knew that the girl was a ghost, Erisia often allowed the girl to find what peace she could within the apartment.
She had often wondered why she could see these spirits but she figured that it was the will of the Gods that she see them. She tried to help them when she could... And some in turn repaid her by keeping her company. She had a little gray and white fluff ball of a cat she called Hana because that was where she'd found the little kitten, bouncing among the flowers... but sometimes she needed someone to talk with who could actually speak back.
Hana seemed able to see the spirits as well, but she wasn't surprised... Cats were on a different plane than people were. Her life had been pretty plain and unexciting really. That was until recently. The dreams had been getting stranger and stronger... the message was being repeated louder and louder but in symbols Erisia could not yet understand. And starting around the time that the dream did, she'd began to see stranger and stranger things.
The black tear in the sky for one. Like something had sliced it open to reveal the black expanse of space... What had made it she did not know, only that it filled her with fear. Then there came the horrible big spirit beasts... She didn't know what to call them, she did not know that they were Hollows... All that she knew was that she had to keep far from them. Instinct told her to run and run she did... She was good at running and hiding, she had learned it from a very small age. First to get away from her father, then to get away from the bullies at school and now... to get away from Oni.
Last night had been the strongest of the dreams. She felt as if something were pulling her along... attempting to guide her somewhere, but she didn't understand where. There was this sound somewhere between a growl and a purr and something nudging her down a path to some as yet unknown end. Whatever nudged her was lower to the ground, for whatever pushed her hit the back of her thigh, just above her knee... So many strange feelings...
She'd always been sensitive... she had always felt the fluctuations of emotions and such in the people around her... but this, this was something new and she wasn't yet sure if it was going to turn out to be pleasant or to be a new kind of hell. She couldn't think on such things now, she had work to finish.
She was at University now... and she had a ton of class work to catch up on... It always seemed that the worst of it came right before break. She muddled through her next assignment and decided that perhaps a walk was in order. Her mind was just far too distracted now to properly focus. She slipped on her light jacket and slipped her feet into her shoes and after making sure she had her keys, she made her way out of her apartment.
The air wasn't cold but there was a slight damp chill to it left over from the rain... But the air smelled clean... She always loved the way the world smelled after rain... as if it had been purified again or something. The calm and quiet soothed her and all the strangeness started to slip away from her mind, which was good. It was also very necessary.
So many strange things... like the animal like shadow she sometimes caught out of the corner of her eye... Stop it Eri, stop thinking about this stuff... she chided herself. She needed to let it go so that she could return to her class work refreshed and finish it before it was due. She hated leaving things to the last minute when it could be avoided. She had a very organized and orderly way of doing things...
Her apartment reflected this. There wasn't a whole lot, but what there was, was neat and orderly... She kept things well organized and kept clutter to a minimum. She had little in the way of personal effects. A picture of her mother, a painting she'd done when she was younger... and a lot of books. Other than that, she really had nothing to note.
She paused at the entrance to a small park and decided to go in and sit on the swings for a little while... The cool breeze felt good and she wasn't quite ready to return to her apartment yet... She still felt oddly unsettled.. but it seemed to be getting better.