Part 10: The unknown world.

When I opened up my eyes, I'm in this garden. The same garden I've been going to over and over again. I looked around and the day seem so cold. A web of clouds, back-lit by the failing sun, mist billowed through the trees and over the fields and hung low in the air, masking the camp in a ghostly gray.

"Aoi-chan.." I whisper, walking around the garden. I walked passed the big tree, heading to the lake.

"Where are you?" I whisper again. Then I saw her walking up from another garden. I ran towards her and help her.

"We're here.." I say.

"Now, we only need something to mark."

"Mark? for what?" Aoi-chan approach the big tree and tied a small piece of white cloth to the branches.

"In this world, our trace will disappear if we don't leave any mark and as for now, this garden is our safe place. It's your ground. To get back safely, we need to remember our path." explain Aoi-chan. It makes sense cause whenever I wanted to turn back here, I seem to forget the path, and I had never been in this garden again.

"Now lead the way." says, Aoi-chan.

"This way." We walked passed some bushes and eventually we were in the school's backyard. Again Aoi-chan does what she must. Leaving a trace. We walked passed the school and headed to the front gate.

"Why school?" Aoi-chan asked me.

"I don't know, somehow this school felt familiar to me. It's been here forever."

I walked out the gate and suddenly we loop inside the school back again. I was confused.

"What? I thought we can walk out from here." I looked at Aoi-chan, she seem to know something.

"That's because the gate is not the front gate. It must be somewhere in this building." Aoi-chan looked around the school building and observe it. Suddenly a few students walk out of the room.

"There are people in there." I pointed it out to Aoi-chan, and she nod and I start following those students. The student must be in their senior year. I couldn't hear a thing they saying. We walked close to them and eventually join the group. They seem friendly until one of them start calling out my name.

"Hikari! Did you finish the maths homework?" said one of the students. I looked at Aoi-chan, I don't know what to do. But Aoi-chan seems so relaxed.

"You know Hikari has always been busy with her game," says Aoi-chan, she's pretending like she's a part of the group.

"Yeah... I haven't finished it, maybe you could borrow me your answer. Like always." I tried to play along.

"Geez... You're unbelievable." says the unknown student. We walked into a classroom, the classroom seem to be my old school. The surrounding felt so normal and I almost believe I'm actually in my world. Aoi-chan holds my hands.

"This is not our world. Be careful, don't feel normal with it." Aoi-chan warned me. Then I take my seat at one of the tables, suddenly a girl enters the classroom. She stand in the center of the class, everyone started to gather around her.

"I have money and I'm rich as hell if you don't trust me. I can show you all." The girl started to walk out of the class, a few of the students following her.

"Should we?" I asked.

"Yes, let's see where she leads us." We walked down and headed to the gym room. Then I saw Hanabi and her friends following another girl. They end up going to the gym as well, I wanted to reach out to Hanabi, but Aoi-chan stopped me.

"Don't do anything. If something seems off, they will notice us." She whispers. I nodded. We enter the gym hall and the other batch enter the equipment room, I saw Hanabi enter the equipment room as well. Then when everyone enter it, I looked at Aoi-chan.

"Follow me." I walked in front of her and enter the equipment room, like normal nothing in the room. The room is so dark and suddenly I feel like I'm entering a door, I stop. I looked at my back and see Aoi-chan.

"It's a portal." says, Aoi-chan.

"Is it safe?" I asked. I have my doubt[, not knowing what's waiting for me on the other side.

"Be careful." I nodded and enter the portal. When I step into the portal, I was in storage, a disgusting place. The smell is awful. Aoi-chan enters after me and when she steps out from the portal, I hold her hand. Suddenly, she screams but I quickly shut her mouth. The room was so dark, I couldn't see anything but Aoi-chan saw something in the dark room.

"Hikari.. Look over there." She pointed to the storage room door, a strange man standing there, naked.

"My god.." I move back a few steps, as I watch the man change himself into something. It turns him into an unbelievably long, oily, black creature crawling to the ground. Then it moves aside and begins changing itself into a man again. With his skinny body and yellow eyes staring at us.

"You're a human." He said, pointing his finger at us and moving in such a scary gesture.

"What do you mean?" I asked, Aoi-chan try to stop me from making conversation with the creature.

"Your smell is different. You cannot leave this room, it's dangerous on the outside." He tried to warn us.

"No, I can't stay in here. I need to save my sister."

"Human, you need to listen. It's dangerous. They will smell you and know you're not one of them." says the creature.

"They won't. I need to find my sister's soul and bring her back. Who are you anyway?" Aoi-chan pulled my hand.

"Hikari.. you must never ask their name or made any kind of connection. We don't know for sure if we can trust this creature." Aoi whispers to my ears.

"I can hear you little saint." says the creature.

"It doesn't matter. I just want to finish what we started." I say.

"Human, I was once a human like you. But I've been cursed and now I'm just a gatekeeper, to guide and save the lost soul. Human souls have often been taken away into this evil world, and I tend to save them and lead them into safety. For your safety, I cannot let you leave this storage." says the creature, it tried to block the door.

"I wasn't asking for our permission. I'm not scared of you or them. I know myself and I know I can save my little sister." I speak with confidence. The strange creature looked at me with its yellow eyes.

"Fine Human. If you intensely wanted to save your sister's soul, I wouldn't stop you. But I did remind you it's dangerous." The creature move away from the door and I walked slowly to the door. Before my hand reach out to the doorknob, the creature touches my hand. With a bare, cold hand he lent me a lamp.

"Use this to cover up your scent, the oil is made by my skin. It will at least help you." I hold the lamp in my hand and the creature it hands away from me.

"You're warm, I've forgotten how warm a human soul is. Now quickly before they walked away." I nodded and reach my hand out to Aoi-chan. We hold hands and open the door together.