Fanfiction: Through Her Eyes: Chapter 2
Here's Chapter 2!
Through Her Eyes: Table of Contents
Through Her Eyes: Chapter 2 (FF.net version)
Disclaimer: The only character I own so far is Shirataki Rika. I merely borrow and play with the ones you recognize.
Chapter 2: The Beginning of the End
It was a perfectly normal morning. The sun was shining as usual, the sky was just as blue as it was yesterday, and the birds were chirping away. Nothing suggested that this was the day my life was going to change forever.
Things were normal up until I walked out of the bakery with a cup of coffee in one hand and a doughnut in the other. Then I heard it; that loud, hair-raising roar followed by a girl’s piercing scream. Sounds that signaled the beginning of the end, I just didn’t know it then.
“Shirataki!” I turned around to see Kurosaki running towards me. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah… what do you think--"
The rest of my sentence was cut off as something seemed to explode from the alleyway in front of us and people started screaming. A girl, that spirit Kurosaki and I sometimes visited, came running out towards us from the dust, fear clearly written across her face. I looked around for the cause of her fear.
The doughnut fell from my nerveless hand and onto the ground.
Behind her was a huge, brown, mantis-like monster wearing a white mask with purple markings on it. When it swung around and fixed its evil little, slitted, green eyes on us, I saw that it had a hole in the middle of its body. Not only was the thing huge, it also had six legs, not including the two giant scythe-like front legs that I was sure was not there just for show.
“R-Run!”
We didn’t get very far before the girl tripped and fell. Kurosaki tried to help her up, but the monster was looming ever closer. My body decided to act without my permission and ran out into the street, away from Kurosaki and the girl.
“Oy! You mantis wanna-be! Look over here!” I yelled as I tossed my cup of coffee at it, surprised that my voice wasn't shaking. “Coffee delivery!”
The monster turned just as the hot coffee hit it in the face. With another deafening roar, it changed directions and started charging towards me. I froze, and as time seemed to slow down, my mind finally registered what was happening.
Good news, Kurosaki and the girl were safe. Bad news, I had just tossed my much needed caffeine at a huge monster of unknown origins, and said monster obviously did not appreciate perfectly good coffee since it seemed quite intent on having me for breakfast. My day was totally not starting out well, and from the looks of those huge glistening teeth, didn’t seem like it was going to end well. Through the cloud of fear engulfing my frantic mind, I vaguely wondered if I could interest it in a doughnut instead of me.
Just when I was about to close my eyes and pray for a quick painless death, a black and silver blur suddenly appeared between me and the monster. It was a girl, and with two quick slashes of her sword, the monster was dead and its body disappearing.
I blinked in surprise. “Uh…”
Brilliant, Rika, really brilliant… someone saves your life and all you can say is “Uh…”?
“Hey!” I heard Kurosaki shout from behind me as he ran up. I turned towards him.
“You alright?”
“Yeah, thanks to you and your coffee. How about you?”
“I’m fine. That girl saved me.” I replied as I turned to thank her, but she had disappeared. “Where’d she go..?”
“No clue. Any idea who she was?”
I shook my head.
As we looked around for the mysterious girl, people started to come out from their hiding places and gather around, asking each other what had just happened, wondering if it was an explosion. I looked at Kurosaki.
“Guess they couldn’t see it.”
“Guess not.” He glanced at his watch. “Oh no…we’re going to be late! Come on!”
By the time I reached my classroom, class had already started, and so I got treated to a lecture from Sensei about the importance of being on time.
My day didn’t improve from there. I was continuously distracted throughout all my classes by images flashing through my head from earlier that morning: evil green eyes glaring out of a white mask, rows of sharp teeth glistening with ill-intent, giant scythe-like legs poised to strike, and a huge brown body with a hole in the middle. What was it? Where had it come from? Why could it see the spirit? Why couldn’t other people see it? Who was the girl that saved me? These endless questions swam around in my head, perplexingly, mystifyingly, confusingly, bewilderingly, all unanswerable.
When lunchtime came around, I had to deal with questions from the girls. Why was I late? Someone said that they had seen me arriving with Kurosaki, was it true? Why did I arrive with him? Was something going on between us? Gasp! Were we doing the hanky-panky?? That was the last question my caffeine-deprived nerves could stand. I stood up and left without a word, fearing that if I opened my mouth, I would snap at them to keep their noses out of my business and to stop looking for gossip where there was none.
Tatsuki and Orihime eventually found me on the roof where I was leaning against the fence, trying to let the wind blow away my sense of foreboding and calm the feverish whirl of questions in my mind. Tatsuki tossed a can of coffee at me.
I caught and drained it in 8 seconds flat. Almost immediately, I could feel the caffeine entering my system, batting away the approaching headache.
“How’d you know I was up here and to bring coffee?”
Orihime smiled. “You like to stand in the wind whenever you’re upset, and it blows strongest up here.”
“Besides, you’re always tense and easy to upset when you haven’t had your morning coffee.” added Tatsuki.
I could only smirk and shake my head, marveling at the fact that even though they’d only known me for a year, they knew me pretty well.
Orihime tilted her head and looked me in the eye. “What’s bothering you Rika-chan?”
“Aside from the lack of caffeine, of course…” quipped Tatsuki, as she leaned against the fence next to me. “You usually don’t get bothered when Michiru and Mahana ask those questions of theirs. Though I have to admit, they did go a bit far this time… hanky-panky… Sheesh!”
I opened my mouth to tell them, but shut it again. They wouldn’t believe me, and to tell the truth, who would? Who would believe that I was almost eaten by a giant, mantis-like monster that no one else could see? Even I was having a hard time believing that it wasn’t just some surreal dream or weird hallucination, but the fact that Ichigo saw it too was proof enough that it wasn’t.
I lied. “Didn’t sleep too well last night due to a bad dream. Then this morning, when I was buying breakfast, there was an unexplained explosion in town. Kurosaki was there too, that’s why the two of us arrived together.”
“Oh! I also had a bad dream last night! I dreamt that different flavored ice-creams were chasing me and then--” started Orihime.
“That’s probably because of all those weird toppings you put on them.” Tatsuki teased her.
“But it tastes good that way! You guys should try it sometime.”
Tatsuki and I shared a look. “That’s okay… we’ll just take your word for it.”
“But-“
“No buts! How you can eat all those weird sweet things is beyond me…” said Tatsuki as she shook her head at Orihime.
As I listened to my two best friends debate the healthiness of eating sweets all the time, I couldn’t help but smile, causing a little bit of the tension within to melt away.
When I finally got home after school, Teison was waiting by the door. "You're late."
“Yeah... sorry about that, I went to get ice-cream with Tatsuki and Orihime. Want some?”
“Yes! Did you get strawberry again?"
“Duh…it is my favorite fruit after all…”
“Wanted to ask anyways. Oh! Mom said to tell you that she and dad won’t be home until late tonight. Dad surprised her and is taking her out for their anniversary dinner.”
I looked at Teison and grinned. “You know what that means right?”
“Dinner out and then the arcade!”
“Yep! We’ll head out after finishing our homework. Remember, the earlier you finish, the mre free time you’ll have…” I laughed as Teison ran off to get his homework and within a few hours we were heading out.
It was late by the time we left the arcade, laughing at all the silly pictures we took. I had almost put the events from the morning out of my mind, and as we turned onto our street, was about to dismiss the monster as a one-time event.
Then I heard it again, that blood-curdling roar. A sound that had hunted me for most of the day. A sound that I had desperately wanted to forget; forget that I ever heard it, forget what it belonged to. I hadn’t ever wanted to hear that roar again, hadn’t ever wanted to see what that roar came from.
Fate obviously had other plans for me.
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I had some problems with this (aka writer's block). When I first started writing it, it felt sooo awkward and stilted and I was just like "ARGH! THIS ISN'T WHAT I WANTED!!!" Then a couple nights ago, I sat down and basically threw what I had written away and started from pure scratch. Wow, did that feel good when it just flowed out. In fact, it flowed out so much that chapter 2 turned into chapter 2 and 3. After some tweaking, I'm quite satisfied with it. Chapter 3 will be out soon.
Tell me what you guys think!