DISCLAIMER: If I owned Vocaloid, the world would end. But the world hasn't ended. Yet.

Chapter 6

Rin's POV:

I smiled as I walked home from school, excited and expectant. Finally, my father would be back from his three-week-long business trip. His work always took him from dawn to late at night, sometimes oversees, and I would barely see him at home. Today, though, I would have a chance. Although we never acted particularly close to each other, I missed him and wanted to talk to him about many things.

I opened the front door of the house, and called out, "I'm home, Dad!"Only to be greeted by silence.

Confused, I walked up to the kitchen table, and saw a thick envelope on it.

Slitting it open, I pulled out a single sheet of paper. I read the thin, spidery handwriting on it over and over again, not quite believing what it said.

Rin,

Many people in our company have been fired, and the few left remaining, including me, must double our efforts to maintain our business' outstanding reputation.

I must take another business trip to Japan, and it will take two months.

I hope that you're doing well in school. Remember to do your homework every day and study for tests. Don't do anything dangerous in my absence.

I've paid all of the bills and taxes needed for the house, and I've given you $300 dollars of cash for food and other necessities. I'm pretty sure that, with this money, you can make it through these two months, assuming you don't waste it on anything else.

Dad

That was all he wrote. Not, "Miss you, can't wait to see you again," or "Love, dad." Maybe he was too exhausted to write anything else.

Taking everything else out of the envelope, I saw that, true to his word, my father did give me $300 in cash. Only.

How was I going to make it through with only this much money? $300 seemed like a lot, but money depleted very easily. Doing the math, I would have to spend $6.25 each day or less. However, food wasn't the only thing that was essential for me to stay alive.

Looking on the optimistic side, I had plenty of money in my lunch account at school, so lunch would be taken care of, five days a week. Also, the refrigerator and toilet-paper supply of the house was full for now, so hopefully, I wouldn't have to worry about those for a while. Since I was already fifteen, I could also get a job as a waitress at a restaurant. If worst came to worst, I could even sell some of the furniture at my house.

Wearily, I went to the fridge and looked for something to eat for supper, while wishing that my life was different. Something, or someone, seemed to be missing. I had no idea who or what they were, but I needed them. Very much.

My footsteps echoed on the concrete pavement, and the metal gates of the cemetery were ice cold. It was a foggy day, and to me it seemed that not one living thing stirred outside. Holding a bouquet of fresh roses, I stepped inside the graveyard and looked for a certain tombstone.

For years, when I was younger, my father would visit the cemetery every day. Sometimes I accompanied him; sometimes, I didn't. However, he always went to the same, expensive-looking tombstone with the words:

LILY AKITA

1980-2005

AS A LOVING MOTHER, BEAUTIFUL WIFE, AND CARING FRIEND, MAY SHE REST IN PEACE.

I had no idea who Lily Akita was, how my father knew her, or how she passed away. But I did know that my father was heartbroken because of her death.

As his work started to demand more time and energy, my father gradually started visiting less and less, until he stopped altogether. But when he thought no one was watching, I always saw a wistful expression on his face, as if wishing he could visit her.

Determined to fulfill my father's wishes, I started to visit the grave myself. Even though I had no idea who she was, I placed flowers on her grave and prayed for her every weekend, in my father's place.

Although my father seemed to care nothing for me except my brains and talent, I still loved him, and wished to do everything I could to keep him happy. He never seemed to realize that I visited the grave, though, and I could never muster up enough courage to tell him.

He was my only parent for as long as I could remember. I knew that at one point in my life, I must have had a mother. But whenever I asked him about her, he always brushed me off coolly and changed the subject.

Carefully setting the flowers on the grave, I slowly knelt on my knees in front of the tombstone and closed my eyes. Clasping my hands together, I whispered, "Whoever it is that is missing from my life, please come back. I don't know who or even what you are, but I need you," hoping that my request would reach the ears of whomever I was talking to. I knew that it seemed stupid, but I was desperate for answers.

Suddenly, I felt the air grow warmer. The rigid, bare ground beneath my knees turned into soft grass. Hesitantly opening my eyes, I stood up and confusedly looked around. I found myself in a small, circular park on a sunny day, with a single slide, two swings, and a wooden bench. The place seemed oddly recognizable, but at the same time, it felt distant and ominous.

In the park was a family of three, with as much happiness emitting from them as heat from a burning stove. Their laughter filled the park, and their smiles were simple and friendly.

Sitting on the right swing was a little girl. She looked about three years old, her carefree expression full of nothing but youth and innocence. Her free blond hair flowed behind her and her bright-turquoise eyes sparkled with delight. With every swing, the little girl giggled merrily, her rosy cheeks flushing.

Pushing her was a young man in his early twenties, with pale blonde hair. He turned his head to the left to exchange smiles with a beautiful young woman seated on the other swing. She had sweeping, golden hair that flowed all the way down to her waist, with casual bangs that fell into her electric-blue eyes.

There was a shimmering quality in the atmosphere that made me think this was a vision. Perhaps it was a hallucination, too. But although it was a happy scene, I felt my heart shatter into pieces. As tears filled my eyes, threatening to spill over, I gazed at the family longingly.

When was the last time that I had been that joyful? I didn't have a mother, and my father didn't even love me! Oh, how lucky was that little girl to grow up in such a loving family. I hoped that she would never be lonely, and that her family would keep on loving her forever.

When was the last time I had reflected on my past? Unlike most teenagers my age, I didn't remember anything about when I was five years old or younger.

As I watched the family in the park, they disappeared. White mist filled the park, and when it cleared away, I was in a completely different place. It was a vast field of knee-length grass. The sun, now an orange orb low in the sky, washed everything in a golden light, making a breathtakingly magical sight. Hearing laughter near me, I turned around, just in time to see two small children run past me. Even though the grass was waist-deep for them, they moved with ease, as though they had played on this field many times before.

One of them was a girl, the exact same one as in my first vision. Only this time, she was about four or five years old, and she wore a floppy white bow on her head. Running alongside her was a young boy of the same age. He had golden-blonde hair, tied up in a small ponytail, and deep-blue eyes that looked like the ocean. Holding hands with the girl, he pointed at the sunset and grinned. Both of their expressions were completely free of any worries, and I could almost sense the unwavering trust between them. As they ran off into the distance, the sound of their innocent, pure laughter faded.

I almost started to run after them, when the scene changed once again. This time, it was a dark, gloomy hospital room. There was a bed in the center, and three adults crowded around it. I recognized that two of them were the young man and woman I had seen in my first vision. Only this time, they were not happy. Looking at the third adult, I realized that he was a doctor, holding a clipboard and wearing a grim expression on his face. Peeking around this group, I saw the person lying on the bed, and gasped. It was the young girl, unconscious and with her head wrapped in blood-stained bandages.

Turning to the adults, I realized that they seemed to be arguing with one another. But this vision, unlike the last two, had no sound.

The doctor seemed to be reporting about the young girls' injuries. The young man shook his head in a desperate manner, and the young woman burst into tears. She tried to get closer to the girl, but the doctor stopped her, and said something else. This upset the woman even more, and she seemed to call out the girl's name.

Stirring, the girl's eyelids fluttered open, and she blinked confusedly at the scene in front of her. The doctor, taken aback, let the woman run to the bed and throw her arms around the girl's weak shoulders. But the girl pushed her away and spoke three words. This, I could hear clearly. So clearly, in fact, that they resonated through my mind and dazed me.

"Who are you?" the girl asked.

I never saw the woman's reaction. The scene faded, and I was in the graveyard again, staring at the tombstone. I was kneeling on the ground, in the exact same position from before I "left" the graveyard, and the sky didn't seem to have changed one bit. Expect for the tears that flowed down my face, it could have never happened.

Sighing, I placed the flowers on the grave, turned around, and slowly walked away.

Please review, everyone, and stay tuned for Chapter 7! Thank you!

~Rikasa