Chapter 2
I hope his decision wasn't a mistake.
The teacher started to walk out the room and gestured for Ami to follow her, "Are you coming or not?"
Ami sat on the couch troubled by the teacher's tone. She started to put her face in the couch again.
Koga glared at her, wanting to get on to her. Ok, this girl really is the strangest person I've ever seen…. And this is including my class…
Koga held himself back knowing that he'd only make the situation worse, but it was more tempting than the plate of chocolate cookies he saw earlier…
The teacher glared at Ami harshly and walked over to grab her wrist, "I'm not standing here all day kid."
A tiny scream left Ami's throat as she tried to run away like she was being lead to her doom.
After that Koga lost it.
"It's just a freaking test, why are you so terrified?!"
Ami's eyes went small once he was finished. She started to cry loudly, the loudest she's been all day.
One look at her teary eyes was enough for Koga to regret what he said…
And the teacher's angry face too.
Her really angry face.
Shoot… Koga's eyes got small as he stared at her.
She stomped over to him, dragging Ami, and looked like she wanted to say so something much worse than she said… "Aren't you the kid who said some rude things to your Alice history class teacher earlier?"
Koga gulped. Shoot…. I completely forgot I was up here for that…
The teacher looked down on him ominously, "It's in my memory that I'm in authority to give out small punishments…."
Koga was more than a little scared for his life…
"After this," she looked at Ami, "child finishes her test, watch your back…"
Koga was shaking by the time the teacher managed to get Ami out the door. Ami was shaking quite a bit herself.
Once Koga knew no one could hear him, he screamed,
"Does this mean I get to go back to class now, huh lady?!"
…..
The teacher continued to drag Ami down the long hallway; they even passed the bathroom Koga was talking about.
Ami could feel the angry stress coming from the teacher, which made her feel both scared and guilty. What did I do?...
Ami couldn't bring herself to ask where they were going. She felt bad enough as it was.
It wasn't until they reached a small, nearby building that they stopped. The teacher dragged Ami inside and made her sit in a chair in the middle of the room.
"This is where you'll begin your test," The teacher said with an angry undertone, "you should see your surroundings change in a second."
Ami looked around the room and saw nothing more than a tall man leaning against a corner. It was so dark that she could only see his figure, nothing else.
It was then that Ami started to feel fear about this test. What does she mean about my surroundings changing?...
The teacher nodded off at the man, and just like she said, Ami's surroundings started to change.
Ami was so shocked at what was happening that she couldn't really feel much awe from it.
Everything about her was silent, even her thoughts.
The entire room disappeared and was replaced with an area that looked like the bottom of an ocean. It was complete with sand, sea creatures, coral, bottom creatures… everything that Ami had ever heard about from listening to others. She could even feel the water against her skin.
It was a strange feeling.
But… the pain in her chest was even stranger….
Within a few seconds of her feeling the "ocean's" water against her skin, Ami's chest burned with a pain so intense that she thought she'd die right there.
Or in a matter of seconds at least.
What almost even worse was that no matter how much she moved, her body stayed relatively still. The only movement she had was a little height from her frantic arm and leg movements.
A second later she couldn't take it anymore and let herself fall to the bottom. The feeling of pain from her unmoving chest started to go away.
Then suddenly her surroundings changed again.
The ocean started to change into a green valley with large mountains standing behind her. A stream, leading into a waterfall, came down from the mountains and into a nearby river at the edge of her view. The sun shined against its waters.
Ami sighed, air filling her lungs. Why did my chest hurt so much?...
Over the initial shock of the change, Ami looked at the mountains and valley with complete awe. She'd never seen that much nature in one place before.
Ami stood there breathing the mountain air in deeply. For some reason she savored it more now.
Then she suddenly tensed.
Ami turned herself towards the mountains and noticed a small rock falling. She tensed tighter until she was on the verge of shivering.
It was almost like she was expecting the boom that came from the edge of the mountain…
A huge rock-like monster climbed out and roared so loud it was like it shook the mountain itself.
His eyes were set on Ami.
And Ami's eyes were so small with fear that she could feel herself getting faint.
She stood there as if she was waiting for the monster to hit her…
The sharp pain from the monster hitting her stomach was almost worse than the pain she felt from malnutrition. It just felt slightly different.
It was not a good different.
Ami was punched into the stream where she got caught in the river rapids. Once again, her flailing did nothing.
She was constantly pushed underwater and the pain in her chest started to return.
She had tears in her eyes. I don't like this pain… It needs to go away…
The rapids started to wrap around her until they became something akin to a tornado, leaving her at the center.
Her chest got tighter and the pain intensified. She screeched as loud as the water would let her.
The center of the rapid tornado started to loose some of its height, and allowed Ami's head to get above water. The tightness and pain in her chest left immediately, and she sighed in relief. I don't know why it's gone, but I'm glad it is…
Ami watched as one of the round edges of the tornado started to shape into a finger, and then the next, and then the next.
Until the tornado she was just sitting in turned into a gigantic hand…
And the rapids started to add to it until it became a gigantic person.
Ami watched it wide eyed until the head was finished.
The hand she was sitting in folded in and tightened on her, and threw her back into the water until she jammed at the bottom. In that moment, Ami could feel some of her bones breaking.
It was yet another kind of pain that felt different, a pain she hadn't felt in a while.
If her tears weren't warm, she'd never know she was crying.
The gigantic water person above stared down at the spot he threw Ami. He sucked in some of the nearby rapids and was fixing to send a hydro pump of water to finish off Ami for good, but…
Everything froze.
("What the heck do you think you're doing Tobita?! This is supposed to be difficult!")
("But… But having her seemingly killed by a monster is too cruel…")
("Auraghh! Just move on to the next one! I have all the information I need from this!")
And with that Ami's surroundings changed without her barely even noticing it in her numb state. The transition was so easy for her that she barely even sighed when her lungs filled with air, and didn't even notice her bones strangely healing themselves.
Ami found herself in the middle of a large room in a skyscraper. There were all kinds of objects scattered around the room. Colorful, bubbling liquids were on one corner, metal objects and tools in another, flour and other baking goods in the center next to her…
There was even a pair of silver kitting needles with a few colors of yarn…
Ami instinctively put her hand into her front pocket and pulled out an ornate piece of knitted yarn that looked like it was meant to be a blanket. In amazing detail, it had the picture of a young woman who was holding hands with someone off the piece of yarn.
The yarn next to the needles had the same colors as her piece of yarn.
She walked over to the needles slowly and started to touch them to try and figure out what they did.
The surface of the needles was smooth and shiny when she rubbed her fingers across its side, and she put the tip of her finger over the pointy edge.
After looking at the needles and back at her piece of yarn a few times, Ami set the needles down, forgetting why they attracted her so much in the first place.
Ami did similar things with the other objects, but none of them had the same strange familiarity as the needles.
Once she sat herself in the middle of the room, completely done at messing with the objects, the surroundings changed.
She sat in a bench next to an ally in a city that didn't look much different than the Tokyo she was used to. It was full of signs she couldn't read, strangers she couldn't talk to, and speech that she could barely understand.
A cat from the ally started to walk past her bench and looked at her curiously. Ami returned its curious stare, not even thinking of getting up and petting it.
The cat eventually lost interest and went back into the ally. A woman waiting for a bus replaced it and sat on the bench next to Ami.
Ami asked her a question, wanting to know where she was, "Hello?... Where am I…?" she blushed in embarrassment and barely spoke above a whisper.
Surprisingly the woman heard her, but was too busy thinking about other things to take time answering Ami's question. Ami blushed even harder at her silence and promised herself she wouldn't ask again.
The bus came and the woman got up in a hurry causing a nearby tree branch to tickle Ami's neck. She scratched her neck immediately.
The branch kept resting on her neck and tickling it until Ami innocently slapped it away. It slapped her right back in the face.
She jerked back and tried to look at it, on guard. What actually got her to scream a little was the bug climbing across it into her clothes.
Ami was pretty used to bugs, but she had no idea what this one was….
She shook her shirt up and down until the bug fell out onto the ground and huffed. She couldn't tell what the bug as at first glance…
It wasn't much longer after the bug incident that the landscape started changing again.
Ami was sitting on a bed with walls so ornate that it can be assumed that she was in a mansion, but Ami had no idea what a mansion was.
Actually she had little concept of what a home was much less a mansion.
Ami was taken at the beauty of the paintings and masterful wood and stonework that made up the walls and columns. She felt the softness of the bed under her hands. It was a new feeling, but she really liked it.
She would of sat there all day if she didn't see the door handle move up and down.
Ami climbed down from the bed and walked over to the door slowly and carefully She stood next to the door for a second before making the decision to open it.
The feeling of wood from the door handle sent a nervous yet excited shiver up her spine. Somewhat by coincidence, Ami had never opened a door for herself. She only saw other people doing it or someone doing it for her.
She pushed the door out to reveal a rectangular sort of half hallway lined with mirrors and doors that looked like it was on the top floor. Ami slowly walked to the edge of the middle railing and looked down the seemingly endless number of floors.
The sheer number of what she could see caused Ami to stare at it wide eyed in wonder. I didn't think having this many floors in one place was possible…
Ami's only concept of floors came from looking at tall skyscrapers from the outside, but even after seeing that on a daily basis, this was a lot in her mind.
Once she walked away from the railing and down the hall she caught a glimpse of herself in one of the mirrors.
She walked over and put a hand on it realizing that her hand showed up in the mirror when she moved it there.
Ami had seen herself in water before, but it was never this clear.
Her skin was on the paler side with a couple freckles, and hair was almost like a peachy red with her eyes being a dark blue.
She stared at herself in awe at the mirror's clearness. Ami never knew she had freckles until then.
Feeling a dust like substance on her bare feet, Ami looked down and saw that it was sparkly. She bent down to pick some of it up.
Even after looking at it for a few seconds, she couldn't tell what it was, I've never seen this kind of stuff before…
Eventually Ami found her way to the dining room, which had enough plates of food set out to feed an army. Usually she would eat it all in less than a second, but she was so full from her feeding tube earlier that the thought of getting that overstuffed was not appealing…
She sat in one of the chairs just to rest her legs from walking, and glanced at the plates again. All this food is going to go to waste…
She felt guilty at leaving all that food, never in her memory had Ami ever left food uneaten. Food was a luxury that shouldn't be wasted… but her fullness…
Actually Ami had never felt true fullness before.
Biting her lip and feeling horrible, Ami left the room slowly and crept her way down the floors of the mansion searching everything she could see. Some areas of the mansion were particularly dark, causing shadows to appear in some of the corners.
Dolls were in some of the rooms like a little girl lived in the mansion, and toy trucks and building blocks were in another room like the little girl had a brother.
Other rooms had almost life-size train sets, microphones of all kinds, books, video games, everything you could imagine.
But the most shocking thing was in the huge study.
Ami ran into a real life person, and she ended up interrupting his secret plans in taking over whatever "world" Ami was in.
That secret was now busted.
Ami's voice was quiet and innocent, "W-what are you doing?..."
The man couldn't hear her well, but he heard her. He pushed his wooden chair out from his desk and stood quickly, "You saw nothing!"
Ami stepped back at his tone and reaction, "A-am I doing something wrong?..."
The man slowly walked forward, air encircling his hands, "You will pay for busting my secret plans!"
Ami was at a loss for words. She stood still with her hands up.
The man reached into his pocket and pulled what looked like a small ball with a time on it and a trigger. He pulled it and set it in the center of the room.
It said 1:00… One minute...
The man pulled his hands back and then forward again causing a blast of air to come straight at her.
Ami could do nothing but let herself get hit.
She grunted softly and slammed into the door. Pain shot through her entire body, What's going on?... How does he control the air like that?...
The time was already half gone by the time Ami got herself up from the ground. She was too petrified to really do anything, and she still hadn't realized what the circle was.
The man glanced at the bomb, "Your time's almost up girl! The bomb will go off in less than ten seconds!"
Ami's eyes got wide. Bomb?...
It was at five seconds.
Four.
Three.
Two.
And one.
Ami stood and did nothing as the bomb went off, causing her to get caught in the explosion.
After that she saw her surroundings change back into the building she was sitting in this entire time. The only change was that there were lights on.
It took Ami a few seconds of staring out into space for her to somewhat comprehend what just happened.
The teacher narrowed her eyes and took a pair of reading glasses off. She had a pad of paper with her with scribbles of writing all over it.
She tried to get Ami's attention, "That concludes your test."
Ami was still staring out into space.
"Hey! Wake up kid!" she yelled at her.
Ami jerked out of her spaced out state and stared worriedly at the teacher. The teacher crossed her arms, "Your test is over."
Ami looked down and asked quietly, debating if her question was even ok to ask, "How did I do?..."
The teacher's answer rolled off her tongue easily,
"You failed."
…
Koga purposely walked as slow as he could back to his Alice history class hoping that it would end before he got there. It was already bad enough that the bus was on time that day...
He hated that class with a passion and everyone knew it.
Koga was an occasional troublemaker when he felt the need be, but it wasn't regular. Usually it was because he would say a little too much of his opinion about things he happened to dislike.
Alice history happened to be one of them.
Along with Alice mechanics, Alice use, Alice types, his own Alice, cool Alices…
Basically anything that involves Alices in general.
Koga was approaching the elementary building faster than he would of liked. He was almost certain he'd have to endure ten more minutes of that class….
Just my luck… he thought angrily.
Trying to make his walking even slower once he entered the building, Koga managed to save himself a few minutes, but he still had to walk in during the middle of class.
And the teacher he happened to hate looked him square in the eye.
Koga growled at the harshness of his teacher's glare. He's been waiting for me to come back hasn't he?
He and Mr. Reikishi had a mutual hatred for each other that eventually changed into a more friendly rivalry over who could make the other's day the worst.
For now, Koga was sure he won today.
Mr. Reikishi had a satisfied smirk on his face, his voice was full with satisfied pride, "How was it, Koga? What kind of punishment did you get?"
Koga glared at his teacher's pleased and almost sarcastic tone, "Interesting to say the least," Koga stared right into his eyes, "but I still didn't get a real punishment."
Mr. Reikishi's face sunk in disappointment, "Surely Miss Oko was up there though... There's no way you could of missed it…"
Koga heard an I instead of a you in that second sentence, "Maybe she just likes me…" he felt cockiness fill his tone, "Like. Every. Other. Teacher. Here"
Mr. Reikishi gritted his teeth in thought. Darn you Koga Ekitai… Always one step ahead of me…
Within the not so caged mind of Mr. Raikishi, he imagined himself holding up a fist with flames surrounding him. One day I will outwit you Koga Ekitai! Just you wait!
Koga smirked at him while he made his way to his seat, his classmates were watching curiously.
I didn't think I'd get the upper hand like this today… and I have to admit; messing with his mind like this does make this class a little less of a waste of time.