xxx

"Rose, I'm telling you. We need to do something about this before...before something worse happens.""Rick, I understand just as much as you do how dangerous she is. But
she's our niece! She's family! You can't just...ship her off somewhere like she was some-"

"I'm not talking about shipping her off, I'm talking about...sending her away. We can send her somewhere, to some other city, some other relatives. Make her their problem."

"Rick!"

"What? She's a problem, you know that. Now, I say we send her back to that psychiatric hospital. She made progress while she was there. I really think it's the best-"

I don't want to hear anymore.

Tears leaking from my eyes, I silently close the door at the bottom of the stairs and slip back upstairs to my room.

Opening the door, I look up to see Tokahe standing there, his back to me as he gazes out the window. He's showing the real him this time. No disguise.

"I thought I told you not to come to me unless you had proof," I say shakily, wiping tears off my cheeks.

"What about today?"

"That was an exception. Now what do you want?"

"I have your proof."

Now, he turns around to face me. I watch his yellow eyes widen.

"Are you...crying?"

"Yeah. What about it?"

He stares at me.

"Why are you crying?"

"Because I just overheard my aunt and uncle talking about shipping me off to some psychiatric hospital. And my uncle said stuff that continues to increase my suspicion that he really doesn't like me."

"I'm sure your guardians are just doing what they think is best for you."

"Don't try to feed me that crap. So, where's your proof?"

"Find it."

"...What?"

"If you are the one we're looking for, you should be able to sense it."

"I'm not sensing any-"

"Have you tried to?"

"....No, considering I don't know how, no, I haven't tried."

"How do you summon your power?" I watch him, gazing steadily up at him as I walk into my room, shutting the door behind me. Without taking my eyes off him, I slowly walk over to my bed and sit.

"I...I sort of look, or reach, back into myself. Down inside. At the back-no, the bottom of my mind."

Something flashes across his face-surprise?- but it's gone before I can really recognize it.

"Then do the same thing, but reach outside of yourself instead of in."

I blink up at him, then look down at the floor.

"I'm not sure I can do that. I...I don't think I can."

I feel him moving closer, and I lift my head to gaze up at him.

"It's not hard. You can do it."

Surprised by his encouragement, I slowly nod.

"Okay," I mumble uncertainly. "I guess...I guess I could try."

"Trying is the first step to succeeding."

But I'm already gone, falling into myself.

Before I can reach outside of myself, I need to reach in, to know exactly how it feels so I know exactly what the opposite would be. I fall farther and farther into myself, until I know the feeling.
Then, I turn outside.

"...I can feel it," I murmur, my words slurred. "I mean...I'm outside now. And I can...feel a kind of buzz. Around you. Two. But one's...duller. Like it's not...living..."

"Reach toward it," he instructs me, his voice far away. And I reach. As my hand moves through the air, I can sense a warmth, and realize it's Tokahe's body heat. My senses must be heightened in this state, depending which sense I focus on.

My fingers brush against something solid. Then, as I follow the buzzing, my hand moves slowly to the right, and brushes against cloth material.

"That's it. Keep reaching for it."

I know I'm reaching inside his jacket now.

My fingers brush against where I know it is, but there's a thin layer of cloth between me and it. A pocket, it must be. So I reach up a little, then back down into the pocket.

"Take it."

My fingers wrap around an object-small, hard, rough-edged, cold, and buzzing with power. I pull it out and open my eyes, blinking down at it in surprise.

"It's...pretty," I murmur, gazing at the small jewel-like object. It's a sapphire blue, a shard of crystal. "What is this?"

"It is one of the many remnants of the great jewel, Maj Kanad."

"Maj Kah-nahd," I murmur, sounding it out. The "j" is pronounced like the "g" in "mirage". "What does that mean?"

"It means 'The World's Jewel'. It is...I suppose you could call it the life source of this planet. Many thousands of years ago, it was shattered, and our planet began to decay, along with the people and creatures who inhabit it. That is why no matter how hard your people try, they cannot repair Earth. Earth will never be as it was in The Beginning until every last shard, miniscule and enormous, has been reunited."

I look up at him.

"My people?"

Something flashes in his yellow eyes and he turns away, moving over to the window, gazing out as he crosses his arms.

"I am...different than you in many ways." My eyes narrow.

"Like being part of the Romiraien?"

He stiffens, and I think I've struck a nerve. I feel a little guilty about it, oddly enough.

"I bear their mark and bleed their blood, but I am not of them."

Now this catches my attention.

"And what does that mean?"

"It means...my business is my own. You have one week to make your necessary preparations. At the end of this time you will meet us at the water tower at 4:45."

He lifts open my window and crouches on the ledge. Totally ninja, that. Sure, why not? He looks (mostly) ninja, why not be ninja?

"Us?"

"Don't be late."

And then he's gone, the only trace of him to show he was ever here the billowing curtains and the gem in my hand. I gaze down at it, taken in by the simplicity and the way it glitters without needing light. I can feel a sort of great power buzzing deep within it.

"This gem has many stories to tell," I muse to myself thoughtfully as I slip it under my pillow for safe keeping.

This gem and an open window aren't the only things Tokahe left behind, I realize as four hours later I'm lying wide awake in bed at around eleven-thirty.

Maybe the gem was the only real thing he was planning to leave behind, but now he's also created questions in my mind that whirl around in an endless circle, refusing to let me sleep.

How is he so different, like he said? What does he mean, he bleeds their blood and carries the mark of Romiraien, that mysterious clan rumoured to dabble with the dead, but he is not of them? Why is he so dark, so withdrawn? Did something bad happen to him a long time ago? What exactly is the organization? And who left the sink in the upstairs bathroom next door on to continuously drip, drip, drip all night long again?!

While the last question is currently the one of greatest importance, I already have an answer-Uncle Rick. Always is, always will be.

So now that that's taken care of, I still have lots of other questions to answer.

It's going to be a loooooooong night...

xxx

The elevator doors whoosh open as we stop on floor B-12. The twelfth floor-underground.

"Alright, let's go," mutters the guard behind me and prods me in the back with his zapstick. "I get home late again and I get another earful from my wife."

As we long along the metal mesh walkway, with nothing but flimsy railings to either side preventing a fall down to the last floor, B-58, I turn my head slightly to the left and mutter over my shoulder,

"I think you would deserve it."

The guard laughs.

"Still a little sour about me slapping restraints on you every night, Corsharahn?"

"You should know by now you don't need them. I'm not going to kill you. If I was, these restraints couldn't stop me."

"TFTC requirements, kid. Shall I read the rule to you again?"

"It's not like anything short of killing you would prevent you."

"Rule number one for all guards: All inhabitants of the lower levels must have restraints on them at all times except on missions or guardian duty, or you have a specific remark from one of the Head saying otherwise."

"Shut up, Covvan."

"So we're that familiar, eh?"

"You know, these restraints really aren't enough to hold me," I say coldly, stopping and turning half to him. For good measure, I pull slightly against them, stretching them as they bind my wrists behind my back. They're made of arinthium, and according to the laws of physics, that kind of metal shouldn't be stretchable.

Any friendliness Covvan was showing me vanishes, and he brandishes the zapstick.

"Don't make me use this on you, kid."

I pause just long enough to make him uncomfortable, then turn and slowly continue down the walkway.

xxx

"'Night, kid," Covvan says as the restraints give a click as they release and slide off my wrists into his hands. I bring my hands back around to the front of me, rubbing my wrists.

"In you go," he adds, tapping me on the shoulder with the stick. I stalk into the room and the safety-glass doors whoosh shut behind me.

With a silent sigh, I turn and glance in my mirror. Everyone down here-everyone who's something of a person anyway-gets a mirror in their room.

A sixteen year-old boy with grey hair and dead yellow eyes stares listlessly back at me.

Walking over to my bed, I sit down and kick off my boots, removing my trench coat and the black T-shirt underneath it.

I gaze dully out of the thick glass room across the walkway into the containment room opposite. There's no one, or nothing, in it. There're no inhabitants on this floor at all, except for the last four on either side at either end. And I'm in the middle.

That's for in case I lose control, they'll have time to get those inhabitants out, and there won't be any needless deaths.

I transfer my gaze to the mark on the back of my hand.

I curl my lip, glaring at it. This thing is responsible for my life being h---.

Actually, that would be my parents. But since they're not around, it's nice to have something nearby to blame.

It isn't a real Romiraien symbol. There's something missing. Something subtle, something people rarely notice anyway and don't usually think it matters, but it's not on mine. And people of the true Romiraien notice. And they know it matters. It matters a lot. It matters enough for everyone one of the Romraien clan-my clan-to shun me. Look down on me.

Outcast me.

I was never meant to be born. I'm a mistake. The result of the lust of a man no one knew who was there one night with my mother and gone the next.

I curl my marked hand into a fist, clenching it so tightly I feel my claw-like nails break through the bandaging and pierce skin that is not yet entirely healed from that little excursion three nights ago, in that alley with the girl. And I clench harder, attempting to distract myself from the shame and anger that's rising in me.
As the red liquid squeezes out between my fingers and trickles down my hand, staining the bandage with fresh blood, dripping onto the floor, I focus entirely on controlling my emotion. If I lose it, innocent people will die. It's my responsibility to control myself. I can't afford not to.

The emotions fade, and I stand, walking over into the small bathroom I am provided with.

Carefully, I unwrap the bandaging, draping it over the sink edge. I just changed it this morning, and my hand hasn't since then bled as nearly as much as last night, so I can re-use it, despite the four small slits my fingernails just made. They don't skimp on bandaging or anything down here, I just prefer recycling things.

Placing my hand under the faucet, I turn the water on and stiffen as the freezing liquid runs over my pierced flesh, washing the blood away. I watch the blood and water swirl together in the bottom of the sink and drain away through the rusted metal mesh.

I stare into the bottom of the white porcelain sink a moment, letting my mind drift away. I can sometimes do this. It's like I'm...detaching myself and sort of floating away. Somewhere in between everything, where I don't have to feel anything.

But this time it's different. This time, I feel like I'm completely free of my body. And, it feels like someone else is there too. Someone beside me, feeling like I do- not really living, imprisoned, misjudged, misunderstood...alone.

Shuddering, I jerk myself out of the feeling, gripping the edges of the sink tightly. The room spins a moment and I feel myself swaying, but I grit my teeth and force the rising darkness back. I will not pass out. I will not. I am not weak.

For two moments, just two moments of my life, right before I pulled my mind back into me, I felt...different. Several things at once-safe, cared about, understood.

But that's not possible. No one understands me.

After I've dried my hand off, I take up the bandage and walk back into my room, sitting on my bed.

Slowly, I begin to bandage my hand, pinching one end of it between my thumb and the side of my hand and wrapping it around my hand with my other.

"What are you doing?"
She blinks innocently.
"Watching you."
"Why?"
"I've never seen anyone bandage their hand before. I want to learn."

I shake my head to clear it of the memory and scowl. Why can't I stop thinking about that kid? She's just some brat with a few mental abilities.

But I keep remembering how she's always watching my every move with her warm black eyes that are full of life, fascinated, like I'm someone great that wisdom could be learned from every time I blink.

I stiffen and shake my head again, trying to get her face out of my head. She's no one. She's nothing. Not to me. The organization can do whatever they want with her after she's here. I'll probably never even talk to her again. Which is good. That's what I want. She made me feel the other day. No one's been able to do that in a long time.

"A...Are you going t...to kill m-me too?"
"Are you Kogurae Roshen?"

"Get out of my head," I snarl under my breath as I tie the knot to secure the bandage. Why can't I just forget her?

"...They'd send me back to that psychiatric hospital. And dude, that place sucked. Bad."

"Are you...crying?"
"Yeah. What about it?"
"Why are you crying?"

"Why did I even ask that question?" I snap, angry with myself. Anger. Oh s---. Not good.

Quickly, I quell the emotion. But I don't really have to worry, because when I'm angry with myself my power doesn't get out of control. Just when I'm mad at other people, for some reason. But still. I shouldn't relax in any case.

Giving a growl of frustration, I lie back on my bed and reach over to the night table, clicking the lamp off. Then, I roll over, jerking the covers over my body.

"I'm drawn to places like this. Quiet places, dark, and alone. I like to get away from people. They tend to irritate me."

"Shut up!" I snarl, grabbing the pillow and burying my head under it, like covering my ears will help drown out her voice that is almost always underlined in laughter.

xxx