Lost and Found - Book 1

Chapter 4

"Did you see any light? Or the color blue, for that matter?" Kyoya asked, his head in the book he was writing in. After dinner Kyoya and Alm had buckled down in Kyoya's room to put together all they knew of the strange phenomena they were experiencing. In the search for clarity all they did was maximize their confusion. On the bed sheets between their folded legs lay scattered notes, like a handful of discarded shapes that didn't belong to any one puzzle.

"No, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing," Alm said. Although she'd just woken up from a nap, her enthusiasm for their investigation was laden with fatigue.

Kyoya took notes even when he didn't get the answers he wanted. "Do you think you were... dead? For a moment, at least?"

Alm snorted. "No. Let's not make my existential crisis any worse than it has to be."

"Very well," Kyoya nodded, quite seriously. "Let's take a look at what we've got already."

Kyoya arranged the notes into an estimated timeline. There was a straight line of them from one side of his mattress to the other, aside from the gap in the middle that represented memories that didn't exist. He started with the first one.

"This all began when your two friends, Rex and Mik, came over. Correct?"

"Yes."

"Some time through the day, they wanted to play a game. Mik insisted on one about anime." Kyoya again looked to Alm. She nodded. "She found a site on the final webpage that contained the game you would all play." Alm nodded him along once more. "Then the computer shut down, or rebooted, and when it started back up, the webpage was still there. What next?"

"The webpage was there, but it was blank."

"Completely blank?" Kyoya asked.

"Yes. No URL, no page title, not even an error display. Just a web page with no information."

"There has to be more," Kyoya sighed, looking over the notes again, as if they were both missing some detail that would show itself to them in his notes, awarding them for their efforts.

"You think I don't know that?" Alm asked. The anger and the fear and the grief inside her fought each other to be expressed, but none were dominant over the physical pain she felt manifesting at the crown of her skull. She groaned. By now Kyoya had gathered that the very attempt at remembering hurt her.

"It's okay; we'll come back to that." Kyoya breathed in deep, exhaled. He hid his concern for her. "Let's rewind and see if we're missing anything."

"We're not." Alm said, rubbing her temples. They weren't missing anything she could remember, at least.

"We must be," Kyoya pressed. He picked up his book and pen. "Why specifically anime?"

Alm gasped. "What do you mean?"

"For the topic of the game. Do you think it has any significance?" Kyoya asked. He looked to her genuinely for answers.

"No." Alm stared at him blankly. Her fingers fumbled absently. He noticed.

Blackness came for her then. The same blackness she experienced before she woke up in Kyoya's bed. No thoughts existed here. She didn't feel fear and she didn't miss anything that came before the blackness. If it really was death as Kyoya had suggested, then it was terrifying.

Alm's first encounter with the blackness had haunted her. In every gap of her thoughts she remembered it, and with every space of dreamless sleep she compared its familiarity.