Prologue*
FOUR YEARS AGO
"RUN!"
"I told you coming here was a terrible idea,"
"It's off limits for a reason! I am killing all of you if we die here!"
Their legs burned as they dodged the flying shards of boulders. Lungs gasping for air as they sprinted towards a rusted metal door, flinging it open to scramble and push inside. With the door heaved closed, bodies shoved up against it they heard a loud crack against the metal. A musty stench invaded their senses, as the four student dropped to the ground in exhaustion. They could hardly breathe as no sighs of relief were emitted, just sharp intakes through clenched teeth. The walls of a cave turned makeshift base sat around them, metal strapped to rock with an icy feeling wafting through.
"I fucking hate you guys," the only boy of the group, Kai, spat out.
"My heart is pounding... dare I say that was fun?" Kasumi laughed aloud.
"Shut. Up, Kas."
The four sat there, barely moving, barely making a noise as they waited for the banging outside to stop. A thrilling screech would sound out, piercing their ears even through the thick walls before it came to an end. But even still, they sat there and waited. No, they wouldn't go back out just yet. They'd wait holed up in whatever room they'd stumbled across.
"There's some pretty weird things in here," a strawberry blonde by the name Hana murmured.
"This much be an old research center..." There were tables strewn throughout the disarrayed lab, books thrusted all about. There were machines with missing pieces. Alchemy tables with rotting ingredients. It looked as if there had been an explosion the way black char painted onto the floor and ceiling, in the center.
"So professor Aoi really was doing something down here." Kai sighed, "really hoping you weren't right Chichan?,"
His gaze fell upon Chihiro's, her black hair tangled in a bun with her bangs frizzed across her forehead. She was staring off into space, chest barely rising and falling to show she was breathing.
"Chihiro?"
Something was calling to her, she could feel it. It smelled like crisp salty air, fresh cut grass. It danced up into her nostrils, seeping into her brain as she hardly noticed the dingy state of their surroundings.
"She's probably just shaken up," Kasumi said with reassurance, "she'll snap out of it."
Time felt at a standstill. Had it been minutes? Hours? Surely someone at the academy was missing them? Curiosity always took over. Their wandering eyes began to fall upon book left open on tables, marked up with papers lining the walls. So they set out to investigate, walking along the hastily abandoned work.
"What is that?" Hana asked, "it looks like some sort of contraption,"
"Don't touch anything if we don't know what it is!" Kasumi shouted as she shifted through books, "I'm going to start writing stuff down."
The three students began trying to grasp what was in front of them, using it to forget their current predicament. They were so distracted they weren't watching out for one another- missing their friend's new captivation.
Chihiro's eyes were dark as her feet guided her towards the center console where a soft light emitted from a dented crystal. With outstretched fingers, she felt the light overtake her as she closed in on it. It was cold to the touch, numbing her senses. For a split second the young girl felt nothing, an overload as her eyes rolled back, and her body collapsed on the floor like a forgotten rag doll with a thump.
"Chihiro!"
-
It was then that a boy with lavender eyes at the age of sixteen felt a painful lurch within him, a painful longing that would keep him up at night, keep his stomach twisted in knots. Until the day he could be in her presence. Until then, he'd take all her pain from her he could muster.