Ghosts From The Past  

Although I knew it was the same city that I lived in, wandering around it in this new body felt more than a little peculiar. My heart pounded differently, much of which was the racing palpitations. Visiting places I knew was especially taxing since my body would tense up and make me struggle through cold spots all under the skin.

"This the place where it happened?" Mizuki asked as the both of us stood before my parent's house.

Flying up towards the upper floor, she peeked inside my room through the window before turning back. Looking down at me from above, she wore a wide grin, reflecting just how much she was enjoying my agony.

"Aren't you gonna head in?" She asked her lips parting as she began to heave.

Lowering my sight, I glanced over the yellow tape with stay-out messages plastered all around. Not only was the house a murder sight but it also now belonged to the banks. Thus, having no desire to get tangled in some kind of mess, I turned around to wander elsewhere.

"You still haven't answered anything I've asked," I asked, walking in the direction of a nearby park.

"I revived you in a new body because I needed you alive, cost me a fortune to custom make that skin you're flashing, but go ahead, complain…" Landing beside me, Mizuki joined me in walking.

"Custom make a body?" I asked, my eyes fixed on an older woman walking in the opposite direction on the street.

From what I've gathered by traveling with Mizuki, it seems that nobody other than myself can see or hear her. Which in turn only made me question even more if she was even real or just another hallucination of my mind.

"Mikato, I offered her nearly every point of Malice I had for your body," crossing her hand behind her head, she closed her eyes shut and kept walking beside me carelessly. "As for the rest of my point? I rented that apartment, paid a few months' fees for ya school, and bought us both some snazzy phones."

Reaching into her pocket, she took out a flip phone and threw it at me. Suddenly being thrown an expensive item without warning caught me off guard but I somehow managed to catch it. Once I had the phone gripped tight in my hand, she reached into her pocket once more and took out an even more fancy cell with a touchscreen and an obnoxiously large camera.

"Seems like the budget wasn't an even fifty-fifty," shaking my head, I bagged the phone in my pocket.

"Oi, don't complain you got it for free," she replied.

"Anyways, said you wanted me alive, why is that?" Right as I finished my sentence, Mizu placed a finger on her own lip and glanced at me sideways.

Pointing to her eyes with her fingers, she had me follow her vision to the other end of the traffic crossing. Following her vision, I saw a dainty girl with short brown hair glaring right at me for some reason. As our eyes met she began to smile and even waved at me from the other end. Feeling a strange grip of uncertainty, I looked away and instead focused on the traffic light to go green so we could walk away.

"Leather and skirt? She should throw herself off a building for that horrendous fashion sense alone," Mizu muttered right by my ears.

"Is that why you pointed her out to me? Her fashion sense?" I asked in a whisper so nobody else would hear us.

"You intend to cross paths with her on this crossroad?" Ignoring my question, Mizu posed her own.

"Why do you care about this girl so mu-What?!" Grabbing my hand, Mizu led me down the pathway instead of letting me cross the road.

"You'll know in time, given I'm not wrong about you and need replacement somehow," every time Mizu opened her mouth to say something, it was always morsels of information that I couldn't put together that well.

However, upon looking back from over my shoulder, I saw the brown-haired girl following us from a distance. Whatever her reason for doing so was, Mizu knew it already but still wasn't telling me exactly what it was.

"Shit!" I heard her yelp while my head was still turned looking at our stalker.

The next thing I knew I bumped into someone from the front and fell face forward on their body. Trying to get off of them, I felt myself holding onto something much softer than what I assumed to be their arm.

"Get off!" The girl screamed, slapping me across the face.

Realizing what I'd been holding onto I didn't let it get to me and simply crawled away from her backward. Finally getting somewhat more clear-headed, I took a glance at her face, but that turned out to be a dire mistake.

'Akane?' The familiar face of a friend grasped my heart like a soar memory. My head raced with thoughts and my lungs ached while expanding as they tried to sate my oxygen-hungry heart. Panting on my knees, I couldn't get my eyes off of her. 'She's real, r-right?' 

"Uhm…You okay?"

For once, since I'd woken up, I wished this wasn't a dream. Watching her get up, I tried to reach with my hands to make sure she was really standing before me. However, the moment inched closer, my heart ceased to beat.

"Ay! Ay! A-are you okay?!" I heard her cry as my consciousness slipped temporarily.

"Haaa…How many times are we gonna go through this?" Those were the words I woke up to next.

Opening my eyes, I found myself lying in yet another hospital bed with tubes of saline solution stuck into my veins. Looking around, I saw Mizuki seated on a chair with her legs crossed and her eyes fixed on her phone screen.

"What happened?" I asked.

"You had a panic attack, the girl brought you here but didn't stay long after," shooting me a sideways glance, she heaved a sigh before adding. "I wonder if choosing you was a waste after all."

"Shut the fuck up…" Propping myself upright on the bed, I could still feel a sharp electrifying feeling running through my veins. "I didn't ask to be revived, and you refuse to tell me what the hell you need me for."

Glaring at each other, both of us knew it was time to clear things up or part ways with each other. Willing to end things for myself once again, I wasn't afraid of death if it meant ending this goddamn nightmare.

"Don't you fucking dare think about it," as if she'd read my mind, Mizu rebutted with a sour expression on her face. "If you kill yourself again, your body won't just let your soul escape, I make that fucking prison for those suicidal tendencies of yours especially."

"What?" Her morsels of information had started to get on my nerves at this point.

"Even if you try to kill yourself, your body won't let your soul escape," putting her phone away, Mizuki started walking towards the hospital room's door. "Meaning, you'd forever be in pain while your body tries to repair itself. That is unless you keep your part of the contract we agreed on."

"What fucking contract?!" I asked, climbing out of the bed.

"The one I forced you into while you were still dying on the tarmac," with a smile creeping up her lips, she grabbed the door handle and twisted it open. "The blood on your fingers from the fall was all I needed to seal the deal."

"How the hell can you do this?!" Fuming in anger, I wanted to choke the life out of her.

"Cause I'm a demon, what else do you expect?" Pulling the door open for a visitor, she took my attention off of her.

"What the-" I heard someone by the door speak out in confusion.

'Who is it now?' I wondered, but the moment the girl walked in I wished I'd never found out. 'Sakura?! What the hell is she doing here?!'