Chp.3

It follow her to school one day

Sora walks through an empty school hallway alone. She can hear a geometry lecture buzzing form the class room behind her, but she keeps walking the opposite way, wanting to get away form the noise and find peace and quite. I mean who wouldn't want to get away from a geometry lecture. She slows her pace down when she barely hears the murmur.

A soft breeze comes in to the hall and gently dances all around her. Calmness overtakes Sora and she relaxes, letting her problems float away in the soft wind. For some reason she wants to stay this way, here in the gentle breeze. Slowly the wind grows stronger and even more slowly, the gentleness leaves it. Suddenly it struck her that there was a strong wind in the school.

As soon as the thought struck, the wind grew in to a hurricane. Wind is everywhere now, attacking her from all around, pulling her somewhere, and yet not going anywhere, and she couldn't escape. The wind surrounds her like her confusion. She closes her eyes as the wind grows stronger, wrapping it self around the delicate girl. Then the wind dies down and the secure jacket it had on her disappears. She opens her eyes to find her self in a different hallway. No wait, forget hallway, a different place.

Big clay bricks walls replace the schools white walls and windows, and a dirt floor replaces the school floor. This hallway unlike the one at school seems to have no end in it. Sora dazes in shock, 'Okay, how'd I get here?' she looks around the narrower passage having déjà vu feeling, 'I feel like I'd been here before. It feels like I'm in a movie,' before she could ponder it anymore, a small sound reaches her ear from further ahead. Sora runs towards the sound for absolutely no reason, except to find it.

She runs and meets ends to one way and next to it a new way. It was like a maze except each hall she turns on looks exactly the same, and there was no sun or sky or land marks to help her. She could be going in circles for all she knew. Sora knew she didn't know where she was going but now she realizes she has no idea how to get back to where she started.

She hears soft sounds and tries to follow them. Sounds like a whisper "Hello?" She calls out. A soft footstep 'There has to be someone here,' a quiet beep 'Is that Tais watch?!' "Tai is that you?"

Then she reaches a complete dead end. A giggle escapes from the wall. "Mimi, if that's you this is not funny" Silence answers her. "Kagura?" Sora asks after realizing that Mimi was still in America, but no one is there. Sora looks up but finds a dirt ceiling. Then Sora feels that something is wrong. She looks down to see that the ground had disappeared. It is replaced with never stopping fall of darkness. For a mini-second Sora thought she was going to fall but realized that the ground only disappeared in front of her. Just as she is about to take a step back, she feels a hand on her back, and then she feels the hand push her in to the hole.

Sora screams as she starts to fall in to the darkness. The dirt ceiling and hall becomes a shrinking square in her view above her. She falls in the endless fall in till she lands on to a cold metal slab. She gasps for breath and tries to calm down when the next worse thing happens. Strips of cold metal bounds her risks and ankles to the slab. Sora did not even bother to look around because she starts to struggle, trying to get free. There was physically nothing she could do to escape.

"Will you please come back to earth" she hears a distant voice. She looks around her to see the source of the voice. She begins to feel different. She feels part of her mind that had been dormant start to become aware. "sora-chan," she hears a voice that is closer than the last one. Sora suddenly wonders that if she can not leave physically maybe she can mentally. Maybe this place isn't even real.

She closes her eyes and wills herself to leave this place. Her wish granted, her mind takes over becoming even more aware and awake. She could feel this place, this nightmare, start to melt away. She fells a slight force on her shoulder and then "Will You Please Wake Up! Takanouci-son!"

"Sora!" Sora finally opens her eyes to her classroom. She lifts her head off her desk, and looks around the classroom she never left. Her classmates are staring at her. So is her teacher with an unhappy look. She turns around to see Izzy's hands on her shoulders and realize he was the one who had shaken her and called her name to wake her up from another nightmare. They seemed to have followed her to school today.

Somewhere, in a place you do not know about, is a dark room with computer screens that are the only source of light in here. (A/N: You know, like a control base with the big monitors.) The light form the computer shows that there are two people in the room, one sitting in a chair the other standing near by, both looking at the screen. At this view point, they do not look like real people but like 3-d shadows. A soft, cold, male voice is heard, "You have to be more careful; she might figure it out." Another voice is heard but this one is female, "She's too tired." Now the sound of typing is heard. "The less sleep she gets, the easier it becomes."

Maybe it was the years he spent in the digital world that he could easily sense trouble, maybe he and Izzy were telepathic, or maybe Tai knew where to show up when he is the most annoyance. All Sora knew was that when the bell rung Tai was some how already in their classroom, walking towards her and Izzy as the rest of the class left. He has the look on his face. It was creepy. Like he knew something had happen. "What happen?" Tai asks in a determined yet worried voice. 'Okay, he's psychic, and he's either couldn't get the whole story while communicating telepathically with Izzy, or he wants me to tell him,' Sora half reasons with herself. "What did what happen?" Sora asks hoping to look innocent but Tai didn't buy it. He was giving her another one of his looks. 'Yep, he just wants me to admit it.' With a sigh Sora starts to explain "Nothing, I just fell asleep in class," Sora tells him avoiding his prying eyes.

Tai looks over to Izzy who confirms it with a small nod. "Look, I didn't wake up screaming. I just dozed off, Geo is boring." "So you weren't having any nightmare?" Tai asks. "No," Sora answers dryly. "But her REM shows that she did" Izzy says looking a Tai. His responses were two blank faces with a question mark over their head. "REM means rapid eye movement. Sora eye might have been close but they were moving confirming dreaming. And based on expression on the face and uneasy breathing on can conclude she had a nightmare," Tai looks at Sora but Sora was still in wonder of how fast Izzy went from her caring friend with a soft voice to a traitorous, computer, know it all. She likes the Izzy with the more caring voice cause he seemed wouldn't betray her that easily.

"Sora…?" Tai says in a determined/questioning voice that reminded Sora of her parents. She faced him finally looking in his eyes. Then after a moment, she leaves the room with out a sound, but with the presence of determination to get to her next class with out any more harassment. She steps in to the hall but this time it was surrounded with her classmates making short talk while walking. 'It's going to be a long day,' Sora thinks as she looks at the clock in the hall. 7 minutes in till 3rd period starts. Sora and Tai both have Literature next with Kagura and…Yamato.

Yamato is with two of his band members in the bathroom, trying to avoid some fan girls. A/N: How can you write a Sorato story without the fangirls?! They were just talking and laughing when the fourth member shows up. "Takashi-kun, how was geo?" Yutaka asks the guy who just came in." "It's so not fair!" Takaishi exclaims while leaning against a wall. "He gives me detention for not paying attention in class last week," "No!" Akira interrupts, "How dare he give you detention for playing video games instead of paying attention!" Akira says with sarcasm growing with each word. Everyone laughs except Takaishi. "Yeah, well…what's unfair is that someone falls asleep in class and all she got is a stern look!" Takashi finishes with a huff. "Sounds like Mr. Minrow is just easy on girls," Yamato remarks in a light voice. Yamato walks up to the bathroom sink to wash his hands with the only water the school gives him, ice cold.

"Was this girl drooling?" Akira asks with hopeful voice. "Nah, Sora looked like she was really tired, I think I saw her getting scared but facing Mr. Minrow would be scary… Hey what with the faces?" Takashi says looking startled at the shock faces of Akira and Yutaka. Both their eyes were popping and the mouth wide open. Akira recovers enough to say in a shaky voice. "You…you never told us it was Sora-son who fell asleep!" Akira finishes strong. "I didn't?" Takashi asks puzzled.

None of them had notice that Yamato froze at the mention of Sora, his clean hands still in the sink. He no longer notices how cold it is. "I can't believe Sora-son fell asleep in class," Akira says when Yutaka interrupts. "Man, No wonder why he (Mr. Minrow) went easy on her. She could have all the men here, student and staff, around her finger if she wanted to." "Too bad she doesn't know it," Takashi says rolling his eyes. "Even if she did, Sora probably wouldn't do it except maybe an emergency. Any way Sora still has plenty of guys following her with out her encouragement" Akira says reasonably. Yutaka starts to laugh, "Yamato, one day you're going to be in danger of some serious competition." The others start to laugh but stop as they realized Yamato was not laughing and had stop talking some time ago and he wasn't moving. Silence murders the room taking the heat with it. Tension, as you could have figured out, was thick. Yamato seems to have turned to stone. His friends watch him, wondering about how much Yamato listened to the conversation. "Yamato?" Yutaka finally speaks. But Yamato kept staring at his hands.