Innocent Soul [Quest]

[Airen]

Innocent Soul

In my dream, I was underwater.

Deep inside of an endless sea. There's no air here, when I try to breathe my body doesn't respond, my lungs don't pull in or blow out, I simply float, slowly sinking, away from a distant light to a distant darkness.

It's very warm, and I don't really try to struggle against it. Not just because it's pointless, this numb body certainly couldn't swim up to the surface, but simply because I'm not feeling very motivated... There's no real sense of urgency.

I'm sure a part of me knows that it is a dream, and perhaps this, more than anything else, is what keeps me floating there lifelessly, staring up at the light piercing the water, the sun that grows evermore distant as I plunge down, faster now, spinning, caught in a whirlpool of thoughts that drags me further and further into the depths of this stunningly warm water, and then...

"Guh-!"

With a crash, I slam into the wooden floor of my bedroom, having seemingly fallen from my bed during some sort of nightmare. It doesn't hurt, it's not the first time I've fallen out of bed for no reason, but as I lay, grumbling on the floor, still trying to throw off my early morning fatigue, my cell phone, a new Nokia, manages to vibrate it's way off of my nightstand.

Naturally, the brick-like object plummeting towards my face finally convinces my body it needs to move.

It's the worst possible morning, but as I jerk out of the path of the phone, already dreading the day that awaited me, I drag the phone across the floor, bringing it to my eyes, the caller seemingly giving up just as I drag the glowing screen before my eyes.

Three voice mails, and one new text.

"Ah... Emi..."

Naturally, the one assaulting my phone with data is my best friend, Saginuma Emi. Star of the High School Soccer team, and an athlete that had somehow managed to befriend a non-athlete like me, Matsumoto Shizuka. It's only five in the morning, and with the sun not even in the sky, my first response is an irritated one... Even though she's the type of person that can just get up at four to go for a three mile run, there are more sane people, like myself, that don't like to move before the sun is even over the horizon.

Especially not when my first action in the new day is to plummet face first into the floor.

Not the best of signs.

"Geez..."

Rising to my feet, and dragging my blanket after me, I climb back into bed without a second thought, ready to get a few more hours rest, start the day over right, but...

1.) Before that, might as well see what Emi wants. Three messages is the usual amount... But still...
2.) It's too early for this... Back to sleep we go.
3.) ...Try to remember what day it is. Feels like I'm forgetting something.

Spoiler:

Name: Matsumoto Shizuka
Gender: Female
Age: 17

Stats

Strength: ??
Vitality: ??
Resistance:??
Agility: ??
Dexterity: F (8)
Spirit: ??

----


(Something I'm writing to stretch my writing mind back out a bit. No set update schedule, just an easier thing to write for so I can get myself back in the swing of things.)

[Rafflesiac]

3

[SeiKeo]

1

[Vritra]

3)

[Janx]

2!

[RacingeR]

1

[Airen]

It's annoying, but now that I'm thinking about things, it's rather difficult to just go back to sleep.

November... 13th, year 2000. For some reason it's a bit hard for me to reach that date, I can't tell if it's because I'm still half-asleep, or because of some other bizarre reason, but it doesn't really click in my thoughts until I thumb my way to Emi's text, wanting to get this over with as fast as possible so that I don't wake up too much, but...

Hey Shizuka~

I'm waiting at the coffee shop, you know the one right, at the station?

Wake up, my sleeping beauty, or we'll miss the 6 o'clock train~

Eh?

Blinking...

"Ah!"

I throw myself out of bed again, this time on purpose, the fog that had been covering my thoughts finally vanishing after I stopped to actually think about things for awhile, leaving me to scramble for my clothes. November 13th... That was the day Emi and I had set to go into Tokyo on a ghost hunt... Or rather, that was the day that Emi had decided upon, and one that I just hadn't struggled too hard against, since it had been such a long time since we had done anything together.

While I wasn't very physically inclined, I was the head of the Occult Club. We had just enough members to scrape by... In terms of popularity, we were definitely the weakest Club at our school, really, the only reason we were still going was because Emi had jumped in to join when we were about to get shut down by the principal. She was just that type of girl, because it was something I cared about, she went out of her way to save it for me...

Although, since she had done that for some of the other stragglers too, perhaps I shouldn't feel too special about it.

Really, if anything, I should probably be more ashamed about the fact she got more excited about looking for ghosts than I did.

There was a reason for that, but... Well, we'll talk about that later.

"Alright!"

There I am, Matsumoto Shizuka. Not particularly outgoing or strong, I guess you could say that I'm a pretty average girl? The usual day is just go to school, study, hang out with Emi and the Club for a bit afterwards, then come home, play with my little sis for a bit, study some more, then go back to sleep. I'm not particularly popular, and my best trait is probably that I retain information well... Although, since I seem to have forgotten the plans for today, I'm starting to wonder if I even have that...

Starting down the stairs from my room, and making my way to the front entrance, then out the door into the cool morning air, I start off at a run, cursing myself for not setting an alarm.

Really, everything about me is more or less average... There is one thing I have that others don't, but, it's not really the sort of thing you really want... You see...

...I can see ghosts.

"...!"

Like this one who just decided to appear in front of me, and who is reaching out to me now even as I keep my sprint going, not stopping even as our bodies crash together.

She's not one I've seen before... She looks way more... Noble? Old fashioned? Than the usual ghosts you see in the city, but...

She's still reaching out for me, as if she wants me to come back.

Still...

1.) No time for untrained exorcisms today, I'm already late.
2.) Stop and see what she wants. Ghosts are always kinda clingy, ignore her now and she might wind up stalking me.

[Janx]

2.

[Bobin]

2

[Rafflesiac]

1

[Vritra]

2

[Airen]

Ugh...

It's a little annoying, but I guess if I don't take care of this now, it'll come back to literally haunt me later...

Sighing, I turn on my heels, acknowledging that I was already late, and thus being even more so wouldn't really hurt, I start back towards the spirit at a lighter jog than before, an apologetic smile on my face.

"Hey... Sorry about running through you, didn't see you till the last second... Can I help you with something?"

If anyone happened to look outside their window into the street, it would definitely look like I was talking to no one... At times, even I wondered if I was just hallucinating the spirits wandering around the streets, but then you see a group of em flip a car, and a bunch of people freak out about it, and then you realize you're just one of those people that got invited into the afterlife club while still being alive. I'm no expert on the matter, it's just something I've had to deal with ever since I was kid, but they normally weren't that violent, some were just confused... Could normally pacify them with words, explain to them that they were dead, maybe console em a bit, and they would move on...

The violent ones normally didn't look like people.

If I tried hard enough I could even touch them... But that was a last resort "punch them away," sort of thing if they got too touchy.

This one didn't seem hostile, so it probably wouldn't come down to that.

"..."

However, instead of the expected regal voice, the ghost says nothing...

"Hello?"

Slowly, as if finally hearing my question from the other end of a lagging connection, the woman simply mouths the word "Beginning," her voice nonexistent... I'm only able to make it out because her mouth is moving so slowly.

'Beginning'

...To be honest, even when she mouths it again, it doesn't make much sense, and I'm the sort of person who's had to talk spirits out of the "after car crash" panic episode.

'Beginning'

Really, she's starting to sound like a broken record...



1.) Apologize for being unable to help, and leave. This case already seems a bit beyond me.
2.) Stick around to see if she'll say anything else.
3.) Try touching her to get a different reaction.

[Janx]

3

[Rafflesiac]

1

[Vritra]

3 grope to solve all problems.

[Daiki]

1. If something's gonna happen, probably better to reach your friend.

[Bobin]

3

the poke dead thing with stick action

[Airen]

I started this detour myself, might as well try to make something out of it, do my good deed for the day by helping someone only I can help.

Reaching out, slowly so as to not startle her into attacking me, I let my hand rest on her shoulder, trying as hard as I could to touch her rather than simply pass through her body... It was unclear if she could actually see me, her eyes were rather vacant, as if she was looking through me, so I figured maybe she was just in shock, that sort of thing can happen to ghosts too, but-

The instant I touch her, hand brushing against temperature less fabric, I-

Start to feel a bit strange.

Like a television set to a station that didn't exist, the world gets hazy, lines of static appearing across my thoughts and layering themselves over the world my senses perceived. The woman is warm, she should not be, ghosts do not have warmth, if anything they are cold, but that warmth, an invasive warmth, travels up my arm even as I think to pull away, fail to pull away, my body refusing to respond to what I tell it to do, lagging behind as if the nerve signals were getting scrambled before they reached their destination.

She's looking at me now, directly at me now.

Her eyes are sad rather than malicious, and as a hand reaches out to cup my face, she mouths something else, something different from what she had been saying before, something like:

"Please don't forget."

Unfortunately, that's a promise I can't seem to keep.

----

Matsumoto Shizuka
Coffee Shop
Early Morning, Before 6

Without interruption, I had managed to sprint all the way from my house to here. It's not a testament to any sort of real physical ability, to be honest, I was fifteen minutes later than I usually was when I ran...

It's odd, it shouldn't have taken me that long, even if I was walking, but maybe I'm just in worse shape than I thought?

That thought doesn't feel quite right, but really, I can't think of much else.

Unless I just blanked out somewhere.

But that's worrying in a different way...

Still, I had made it in time to not miss the train! I guess that's a form of accomplishment, as sad as it is.

It was a pretty generic coffee shop, but Emi had always liked it. It was the usual type of spotlessly clean, along with the usual twenty or so different methods of sating your caffeine addiction. I wasn't a big coffee drinker myself, but still reeling from the fact that the sun hadn't even risen yet, and I had just finished a jog of a few miles, the temptation to get something for myself to help keep my eyes open is pretty great...

Before I can decide however...

I spot Emi, headphones over her ears, and not paying attention to much around her, messing around with one of the arcade cabinets on the side of the store...

Pretty rare...

1.) Surprise her. She likes to jump out of nowhere and mess with me, might as well see what it feels like to be on the other side.
2.) Get a drink for both of us. Even if she had one already, she's never been the type to turn down a free coffee. Preemptive apology drink for being late!
3.) Just watch for a bit.

[R.Lock]

2.

[Janx]

2