Author's Corner

I've run out of Sess/OC fics to read so I thought I'd have a go at writing one myself. Here goes nothing!

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. It belongs to the extremely talented Rumiko Takahashi.

EIGHTH BLOOD

Chapter 1: Beginning

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Octavia was only eighteen years old, but her life was already over.

She slumped in her economy plane seat and fumbled around in her carry-on bag for her earplugs. The novella on her lap sat neglected. A friend from university had recommended it to her, pitching it as a horror-fantasy mashup, but there was too much murder and not enough magic for her liking.

Twenty-three hours and two connecting flights later, the plane finally arrived at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. She collected her suitcase from the baggage area and wheeled it to the airport's arrivals section. Her ride was waiting by the automatic doors leading out to the pick-up zones.

Akane Higurashi's son was a young man with dark hair and brown eyes—not handsome, but with a certain charm. He wore a blue button-down shirt with a collar, grey slacks, and was holding a sign with her name on it.

"Petridis Octavia?" he asked when she approached him.

She mustered a smile. "The one and only."

He offered her his hand and gave it a firm shake. "It's good to meet you. I'm Higurashi Sota. You've been exchanging emails with my mom, right?"

She nodded. "It's nice to meet you, too. Your mum's told me all about you."

"Likewise. She found you on some ancestry website, didn't she?"

"That's what she said."

"And you're the granddaughter of my grandpa's ex-wife?"

"Apparently."

"Wow. Small world, huh?"

They chatted about the weather as they walked to his car. There were two matching green and yellow V-shaped stickers on the front and rear ends known as shoshinsha marks. Sota explained that all new drivers were required to display the plates for a minimum of one year after obtaining their driver's license.

As they were driving out of the airport, Octavia rolled down the window and took in the sights as they drove through the city. It was crazy busy. The pavements were crammed with pedestrians, and the traffic moved at a snail's pace.

"How was the journey?"

"Long," she replied. "To be honest, I slept through most of it. Kraków and Shanghai were cool, though. At least, their airports were."

"What do you think of Tokyo so far?"

"It's not as peaceful as it looks in the movies."

He laughed. "You'll like the shrine, then. It's nothing like the rest of the city."

"I've never been to a shrine before. Or a temple."

He seemed surprised. "Really?"

"Uh-huh."

"Aren't you originally from Greece?"

"Well, yeah. But I haven't been there in years. I've spent most of my life in England."

He tapped the steering wheel whilst waiting at a red light. "My mom told me about that. She said you moved when you were four."

"That's right."

"Because your parents disappeared or something?"

"Mhmm."

"What happened?"

She gave him a tight smile. "I don't know. I was just a kid at the time. There was a fire, so the police thought they'd burned to death at first, but their remains were never found, and my dad's car was missing. It turned up a few weeks later on a country road outside of Athens, but there was no trace of them there, either."

"Weird," said Sota.

"Extremely," she agreed. "Anyway, with them gone, I was left in the care of my aunt. We lived in a flat in East London for a bit, until she lost custody of me. Then I got moved to a care home near the city centre."

"Why did she lose custody?"

"Apparently she was neglecting me. Not letting me out of the house, missing doctor's appointments, stuff like that. I haven't seen or heard from her since."

"How come no one ever adopted you?"

"I've been asking myself that question for years now."

She could see the sadness in his eyes. "What made you want to move to Cardiff?"

"I liked the look of the university there."

His expression brightened. "My mom mentioned that, as well. What is it you're studying again?"

"Illustration."

"Sweet."

He parked on the curb in front of a set of stone steps. Octavia climbed out of the car and tipped her head back to study the red archway at the top, which looked like it was swaying in the wind. They shared the bags between them and made their way up the steps.

The shrine was a large structure with long red beams and a hat-like roof, which was a watery green. The paintwork was blistered and peeling. Even the stone statues on either side of the shrine were stained from heavy rains and blooming with lichen. The inside of the shrine was concealed by a wooden grid, peppered with small square holes that fed light into the structure. In front of that was a small wooden hut containing a rusty bell.

"The house is this way," called Sota.

Behind the shrine sat a two-storey house with cream walls and a tiled roof. They were greeted at the door by a middle-aged woman with short, curly hair and a green apron. She smiled when she saw Octavia and bowed her head. "It's a pleasure to meet you at last," she said. "My name is Higurashi Akane."

Octavia returned the gesture and introduced herself. "Thank you for inviting me. I'm looking forward to getting to know you all."

The woman's smile widened and she clasped her hands together in excitement. "You're just in time for dinner. Why don't you take your things upstairs and freshen up? It'll be ready soon."

"That sounds great. Oh, and by the way, you speak English just as well as you write it."

"Aww, thank you, dear. It makes conversing with tourists so much easier."

Sota helped haul her bags upstairs to the room she'd be staying in. The walls were an immature shade of lavender, complemented by pink rugs and purple curtains, and the floor was cushioned by light green tatami mats. The desk housed schoolbooks and pencil cases, and the calendar on the wall had been scribbled on with gel pens. It wasn't this year's, though, which she found odd, but decided not to comment on. There was a single bed that had been pushed against the wall, and the billboard above was bursting with post-it notes and photographs. Octavia moved closer to inspect them. A teenage girl in a school uniform appeared the most often. She had glossy black hair and brown eyes.

"Who's this?" she asked, motioning to the girl.

Sota laid her suitcase on the bed. "That's my older sister, Kagome. This used to be her room."

"Did she move out?"

He failed to meet her gaze.

Octavia's heart sank. "Oh my god. I'm so sorry—"

"No, no, she's not . . . She's away travelling right now. She and her husband are really into backpacking."

"Oh. Phew."

His laugh sounded stiff and unnatural. "Yeah. I guess I just miss her sometimes. Anyway, I'll leave you to get changed or whatever."

She smiled. "Sure. I'll see you in a few minutes."

He left the door open and jogged down the stairs. Octavia's eyes strayed to the photographs of Sota's older sister. She looked a little young to be married. Maybe there were more recent photos of her elsewhere in the house. Not everything was a conspiracy. Just because her life revolved around a mystery, it didn't mean everyone else's did.

She left her phone on the bedside table and went to use the bathroom.

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The next morning was warm for the time of year. Octavia woke up in Kagome Higurashi's bed drenched in sweat. Light streamed in through the window and a breeze caught the curtains, making them dance.

She took a quick shower before throwing on a pair of denim shorts and a white vest. Whilst brushing her hair, she walked by the window and caught a glimpse of something unusual taking place on the grounds of the shrine. An old man dressed in a kimono hurried over to a little shed on the other side of the property.

Octavia ran downstairs and nearly tripped over the family cat, Buyo. He was curled into a ball at the foot of the stairs, gazing up at her with a lazy expression. According to Sota, Buyo was a rare find in the world of felines. Due to a genetic anomaly, calico cats were almost exclusively female. The odds of one being born male were around one in three thousand. The fame had obviously gone to Buyo's head because he strutted about the house like he owned the place. Octavia was more of a dog person, but she had even less patience for the arrogant little furball that seemed hellbent on sending her to the emergency room.

"Does this look like a bedroom to you?" she grumbled before resuming her dash to the front door.

The cat yawned and went back to sleep.

It was too early for visitors, so the shrine was empty. Octavia sprinted over to the shed. She opened the wooden doors and stepped inside. The old man shrieked as she passed over the threshold, startling her. He was standing beside some kind of wooden box.

The old man shouted something in Japanese and picked up a large rock.

"Wait!" she yelled, holding up her hands. "It's me, Octavia! Octavia Petridis? I'm Reiko's granddaughter. You must be Akane's father-in-law."

"Granddaughter, eh?" he said in English, lowering the rock. "Let me get a closer look at you."

"I'm sorry I scared you. I saw you from the window and wondered what you were doing."

"There's no need to apologise. My name is Higurashi Jirou. I wasn't feeling very well yesterday, otherwise I would have introduced myself sooner."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, anyway. I'm glad you're feeling better."

He grinned, flashing his few remaining teeth. "When Akane first told me about you, I'll admit I was dubious, but you have a look of Reiko about you, girl. It's the eyes, I think. Apart from the colour, they're virtually identical."

"You think so?"

"Without a shadow of a doubt. I wonder why she chose to live in Greece, though. The divorce came out of nowhere, but she'd always been the secretive type, mind you. I always wondered if there was another man in the picture." He lowered his voice and muttered, "Say, do you know how she met your grandfather?"

Octavia shook her head. "I didn't even know who she was until your daughter-in-law told me about her. I'm guessing she filled you in on my family situation?"

"Ah, yes. Very sad. No child should have to grow up feeling abandoned and alone. Had your existence been known to us at the time . . . Well, you're here now, aren't you?"

Eager for a distraction, she peered over his shoulder at the box at the centre of the room. "What's that?"

"Oh, n-nothing! Just an old dry well. Now, let's get out of here, shall we?"

"Why's it all boarded up?"

"It's, erm, pretty deep. We keep it like that so Buyo doesn't fall in and hurt himself."

"Can I see?"

"Maybe later. We should head inside for breakfast. Akane's tamagoyaki is the best in the world!"

Octavia followed Jirou out of the well-house. She waited until he was several paces ahead before sneaking back inside. She placed her hands on the wooden lid and felt around for a handle to prise it open.

The well was empty. However, there was an echo drifting up from the bottom. Her heart hammered in her chest as she cupped a hand around her ear.

Come . . . Come . . .

It sounded like there might be another word, but she couldn't make out what it was.

"What do you think you're doing!"

She whirled around to face Jirou, who looked mortified. "Sorry. I thought I heard something."

"I can't imagine what. There's nothing down there but dirt."

She followed him to the house and tried not to think about the echo.

It didn't work.

After breakfast, she ventured into the city and bought a pack of paintbrushes, some oil paints, a mixing palette, a bottle of white spirit, and a huge canvas that was almost too big to carry. She laid the latter on the ground in front of the giant cedar tree and got to work.

She began by sketching out a bird's eye view of the old dry well, then filled the background in with black and brown paint. There wasn't a strong light source in the well-house, so there were lots of shadows. The inside of the well ought to be the darkest part of the painting, but it ended up being the opposite. Octavia wasn't sure why she felt the urge to fill it with blue, but she did. She mixed in a dab of yellow to create swatches of green amongst the blue and used the end of her paintbrush to fill the space with stars. The Higurashis were flabbergasted.

"How did you . . ." Sota whispered when he saw the finished product, but his sentence got away from him.

Akane shared a terse, peculiar look with Jirou.

"Is something wrong?" Octavia asked them.

"No, dear," answered Akane. "It's beautiful."

Octavia left the painting on the porch to dry.

She was plagued by strange dreams that night. In one, she walked into the canvas and found herself in an unfamiliar world. In another, she was fluent in Japanese. All the while, the echo bounced through her dreams, luring her in. Come . . . Come . . . Come . . .

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It was 3 AM when Octavia was awoken by a loud popping sound. She scrubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked out of the window.

A light was on in the well-house.

She frowned. Who would be up at this hour? Unable to let it go, she snuck downstairs to check. Sliding her arms into her blue and orange bomber jacket, she unlocked the door and closed it behind her. The night air was cool and refreshing. She crossed the yard and lingered in front of the well-house. The light inside flickered as she reached for the doors, then went out the moment she pushed them open.

Shadows lined the walls inside the well-house. She couldn't see a lightbulb anywhere, and it had been too bright for candlelight. Had she imagined it?

Her feet carried her to the well. She was positive that Jirou had returned the lid to its original position yesterday, yet it was on the ground again, as if something had struck it from below and sent it flying.

Nope, Octavia thought, heading for the exit, when she heard the echo from before.

Come . . .

She tiptoed towards the well. Placing her hands on the rim, she peered into the pit, half expecting to see a ghost, but all she saw was darkness. However, this was a different kind of darkness.

Something shifted at the bottom. Octavia's skin tingled as the echo grew louder. Come . . . Come . . .

"What are you?" she whispered, hypnotised by the swirling black.

The inside of the well expanded. Eyes wide, she shifted closer, leaning over the edge. Light surged from the bottom, taking her by surprise, and she fell.

She never hit the bottom.

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