SHATTERED

Chap:14:When the balls start rolling

['Sora's POV

Standing before the house, staring at the 'Satoshi' name plaque I can't help but think what a despicable person I am. Never having known my own mother or felt the warmth of an actual home...the temptation was too great to refuse. I hang my head in shame as I enter. All the while reasoning it was a part of work , a perfect chance to get the investigation started.

I stand at the mouth of a long , dimly lit corridor. Mrs. Satoshi had already gone in. She thinks I'm one of her son's long distance pen pals who had come to visit when the tragedy stroke. She said I looked like her son. If she only knew, I wonder what she would do. My eyes flicker to the walls.

There were frames hanging from them like the displays in art galleries. Only they featured one face and one face only. He had wavy brown hair like me except his eyes were blue and he loved to smile. If this boy had never entered that alley that night , never crossed paths with me then maybe he would still be smiling just like this.

I walk faster trying to escape but each step only brought me closer to one picture after another. The more I saw the dizzier I became with guilt and self-loathing that rose up like bile in my throat.

Pictures of dead loved ones are bittersweet things. They are the little tidbits that death let's you have while he takes the real thing away.

Even as I come to a stop in front of a sad table of four , the pictures continue to haunt me. Like a cycle they begin at his 3rd birthday as an elfish boy blows out the candles smiling at the camera with a missing front tooth. Miagi stares at me while holding a quiz champion trophy over his head, stares at me while taking his junior high diploma , stares at me clutching his 1st prize science project , the gold medal bouncing off his chest as he remains frozen mid-jump in air . Grins at me while licking his 15th birthday cake off his fingers as his face gets splashed with cream in a cake fight.

The nightmare ends at 16. An empty frame hangs with a tag saying high school graduation.

Staggering I sit in a chair and massage my temples,suppressing the urge to vomit. I wanted to bolt out the door but I steel myself . I can do this, I can do this , I tell myself.

The clock was loud in the silence , each strike almost deafening . Or was it just me ? I had always loved the silence , a luxury that I seldom got to enjoy due to my power. Power ha ! I'm at the mercy of a thousand voices that plague me every minute of every day , I don't feel powerful at all. How wonderful it is to be able to read minds!

A coffee cup comes into view. The steam curls upwards. My cold fingers immediately starts to wrap themselves around the cup , but I pull back.

"Go ahead. " Mrs. Satoshi 's voice almost makes me flinch. She shoves a plate of delicious cookies across the table as well as she takes the seat opposite from me.

She was looking at me like she was trying to piece something together or knew I was hiding something. Was it because my fabricated story was too coincidental to be believable or was it purely a mother's intuition? Out of the corner of my eye , a movement catches my attention as I bend to take a sip of the coffee. The woman was hiding something in the folds of her skirt. A gun ? A knife?

Instantly I send a mental probe and I'm met with the tendrils of a magnetic field. Ah.....I see. So she isn't as naive as she had led me to believe.

"You have my son's hair " , she says making small-talk.

'' It's such a tragic thing don't you think? You were such good friends and just when you were supposed to meet my son dies. " she probes.

"Please ma'am I may have lost an important friend but no pain can compare to the pain of a mother losing her son. " I reply , surprised at the normalcy in my voice.