Can you guess what'll happen next?

Here's the next installment of Ankoku no Ki for your entertainment.

Remember to said any questions or comments regarding me or my writing to brinque@msn.com

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Birth

1.

            The metallic sound of the front door sliding open fled into the living room as Rachel stepped back into the apartment. A defeated feeling filled her mind to match the depressed expression she wore upon her face. Past failures occupied her mind and drew her focus away from reality. Letting her mind flee reality was not about to help her though, especially since the lack of focus caused her to walk right into Justin who was fully dressed and about to walk outside.

            Both of them recoiled in a daze, shaking their heads to try to shake off the dull pain of colliding with another human being. Justin was the first to come back to the situation at hand. With a sincere expression he looked at her with wild concern.

            “Are you okay?” he asked hurriedly.

            “Yeah, I’m fine,” she responded meekly. “I didn’t run into you all that hard…”

            “I heard you scream outside and smelled smoke. I almost thought it was Angela lighting another fire, but then I realized that she was still asleep next to me—”

            “What’d you say?!” Rachel’s eyes went wide, causing Justin to jump back slightly in surprise.

            “Angela was lying next to me…” His uncertainty about what Rachel’s jealousy would make her do was evident in the expression upon his face.

            “What are you guys yelling about…?” asked Angela, sleepily walking into the living room from the hallway, wearing nothing but a large, plain black shirt that hung low below her shoulders and her waistline, and a pair of red panties. Rachel flashed a glare at Justin who raised his hands defensively and attempted to put distance between the angered woman and himself.

            “You’re telling me that she was still lying next to you while I was outside, screaming my head off, and being attacked by a bleeding spirit?!” her accent seeped into her words even more so as her emotions filled her voice.

            “Rachel, calm down…you know that you can’t control yourself when you get emotional…” Rachel rolled her eyes defiantly.

            “You don’t understand! Someone that looked like your….” She stopped herself from finishing her thought. “Someone that looked like Angela killed the spirit right before it was about to run me through.”

            “Someone…that looked like…me?” Angela asked in a sweet voice before yawning cutely.

            “Yes!”

            “Wait a second…why was the spirit about to run you through?” Justin asked curiously. “Haven’t I seen you slaughter beasts ten times your size just by looking at them?”

            “That’s not the point!!!” Rachel yelled, becoming overly frustrated with the entire situation.

            Suddenly, a loud, horrific scream, that was unmistakably male, sliced through the air from the hallway behind Angela, who jumped at the sound and almost fell over.

            “What was that??” Angela asked, still slightly delirious from sleep. “And, why do I smell smoke?” Both Rachel and Justin stood still in shock, staring at each other, without any clue of what to do.

            “What’s going on out there?” Huey yelled from inside his room. “Can’t a brother get some sleep?!” Then came a second scream, this time female, from the same directionality.

            “Guys!” screamed Melanie. “Come quickly! Something’s happened to the doctor!” Rachel’s heart sank into her stomach as her legs shattered her shock and carried her in a frenzied sprint to the doorway at the end of the hallway, Dr. Hartmann’s room, where Melanie stood gazing into the bleak room.

“Out of my way!” she yelled as she forcefully pushed Melanie aside to get into the room. Not far into the room, her legs stopped shakily as her eyes gazed down at the blackened sheets on the futon at the room’s center. Her knees collided with the hard floor below with a heavy thud and tears began to flow from her crystal colored eyes. Friedrick Hartmann’s body was burnt—scorched—severely from the neck down. The murderer had left the doctor’s head in tact as if to allow its open eyes to keep watching the world that it would never again traverse.

Rachel stared at the corpse, remembering everything that it had been and denying everything that it was.

2.

            “What are we going to do now, Friedrick? It’s not like we can go back to OSU…” Rachel asked the good doctor sitting across from her as both of them and Justin sat in a scarcely occupied car of a train taking them away from Ohio and their place of imprisonment for the past couple of months. A sense of depression had visibly come over her and Justin held her, trying to calm her nerves. “We’re fugitives! Where can fugitives go??” Small tears fell from her eyes.

            “Rachel,” spoke Dr. Hartmann in a soothing tone, “look at me.” Still crying, she complied with the doctor’s request. “Everything is going to be alright.” He smiled sweetly. “Just think happy thoughts, mein liebe. Happy thoughts will make the darkness go away.”

3.

            “Happy thoughts…” Rachel whispered as she stared sadly at the scorched body of her once savior. “Think happy thoughts…?” Anger had slipped into her voice. “You told me to think happy thoughts, and you go ahead and give me one more reason to despise this bloody world.” Her hair drooped below her face as she slouched were she kneeled, letting her tears cascade to the ground like a waterfall made of sorrow. “What happy thoughts are there left for me to think?”

            “Rachel!” yelled Justin from directly behind her. “C’mon, you shouldn’t be here?”

            “Then where should I be?” she mumbled.

            “Let’s go get some breakfast,” he continued, ignoring her words. With a calming hand, her reached out and rubbed her back softly.

            “Don’t touch me,” she stated harshly before dozens of small thorns appeared from beneath the skin on her back. Justin removed his hand quickly, but not before several of the thorns had pierced the flesh on his hand. Oblivious to the pain, he tried to approach her again.

            “Rachel, c’mon. We’ll get through this together. Let’s just get you out of here—”

            “Get the hell away from me!” she yelled before each thorn turned into the end of a long vine and sped outward towards Justin and the three other young adults who stood in the doorway, watching the sullen child who had just lost a parent-figure. He reeled back quickly, pushing everyone away from the doorway harshly and slamming it closed with extreme force. All of the vines collided with the door and continued forward.

            “RUN!!!” he yelled to the others who followed his lead and sprinted out of the apartment before the vines could catch any of them. They stopped running after fleeing down the steps in front of the building. Each of them inhaled and exhaled harshly as they each attempted to catch their breaths.

            “What’s happenin’ guys?” All of them turned their heads to look simultaneously at the voice’s source—a young asian man with straight, dark blue hair, wearing a plain black shirt resembling the one Angela wore, and a pair of faded blue jeans. Together, they laughed at the sight of the youngest of their group, Yoshiro Yami. Partly, they laughed at the innocence of his look in such a frantic situation, but mostly they laughed at the fortune of his appearance. There was no doubt amongst them that Yoshiro was the only one of them who rivaled Rachel strength.

Fate drives me.

~Alex