Sunshine

A step through time

The first few day's I was back, my mind was dazed. I felt sick and had a fever. Maybe it was from not being alive for so long before... but I wasn't sure. I faded in and out.

"Awe, Mori...." Someone's soft, loving voice reached my ears, a wet, damp cloth wiped at my face. It felt amazing.

"urh." I tried to talk but I still couldn't. My skin was on fire, as if someone had let me in a room in the middle of summer with no doors or windows. It was suffocating.

"Honey, let her rest; you keep waking her up." An older male voice came through now; he sounded tired. It made me wonder if it was late.

Oh right! Who was I? Mori... I was Mori still. My mind shifted through my memories. My recent memories are still fresh as if it were yesterday, but there were new memories, frayed at the edges... grayed out. Perhaps the ones from what that man had said all the other years?

I could think of those later, first... this moment. I wanted to get up to see where I was. She said we went back; was that real? Or was I just at the hospital in the leaf village, just sick?

+++

My eye's popped open, finally! I rolled out of bed and fell immediately on my face. I shoved up from the floor, seeing my own tiny pudgy kid hands. I got to my feet and frowned at my height. I was about just a head taller than the bed. Hmph, I had thought I was short before. This was going to be a problem.

"Mori, are you okay?! I heard you fall!" The woman's voice came from behind me.

I turned, looking up at her. Who was she? I stepped back from her, unsure. But I nodded at her.

She smiled, "I am so glad your feeling better, sweetheart!" She said it cheerfully and scooped me up into her arms. Her hug was warm and heartfelt. "I was afraid we would have to postpone our move; lucky for you, then you get to enjoy the trip!" She said it, kissing my cheek before placing me on my feet again.

I stared at her. She had long pale blonde hair and warm brown eyes. Her body was slender and her face... I had seen it before. But where? It took my mind a moment to search through the seemingly endless file's of memories. My mind compared the two. The original memory was faded, grayed, and blurry. Seen through a child's eyes. This had happened before; this exact moment, this was my mother.

Her face shifted to worry. "Mori? Honey?" She crouched down, taking my tiny face and looked at me. Was she able to tell? Maybe I seemed possessed.

I reached out and hugged her. I sank my face into her hair; she smelled like lavender and paper. While I had not seen this woman in over 300 year's and could barely remember her. Deep in my chest, I felt a pit. My mother, my sweet mother. She rubbed my back as I tried not to cry. It had been a long time since I had experienced a mother's love, and my father—where had he gone? I withdrew, and when I looked into her eyes, I saw a tiny little girl. Hmmm, this was sad indeed. I could not possibly behave like a four-year-old. And moving meant we would be heading out shortly? They would perish. 

She sighed and patted my head. "Maybe you still are not fully together yet; come, let's go eat." She took my hand and pulled me along.

I allowed her to pull me along from the room. My desire was to savor the present and spend time with my parents. There wasn't going to be much time left like this.

"Ah, she is finally awake!" An older, deeper voice called from down the hall, pulling me from my thought's. A man that was definitely older than my mother stood down the long hall, wiping sweat from his brow. He had black hair tied up into a bun and a long black beard that reached his chest. His eye's golden and warm. I had seen those eye's many times in my own face. He was older but he had a good build to him, his age only present in his voice.