InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ To Hope Again ❯ Just a Dream ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: As painful as it is for me to admit this, the lawyers demand it. I don't own InuYasha, its characters, rights, etcetera en etcetera. They belong to the illustrious Rumiko Takahashi. I'm sure that they'll be mine as soon as she accepts my generous offer of… *checks pockets* …two pennies, a paper clip, and some pocket lint. For now, however, I just use InuYasha & Co. for my own shameless gratification and don't make a dime from my efforts.

 

Full Summary: There is another world, not unlike our own, where youkai exist and humans are relegated to mere myth. One day, a very-human Kagome Higurashi awakens in such a world. Is she a portent of doom, or will she bring redemption to this dying land? Not all is as it seems but, whatever her fate, their world and hers will never be the same.

 

Pairing(s): Inuyasha/Kagome

 

Rating: Y - No one under 17. Why? `Cause it's going to be a sad story with death, some violence, and possibly some citrus. Maybe. Depends on how the story develops. So, just to be safe, it'll be `Y.'

 

 

.o0O0.o.0O0o.

 

 

To Hope Again

By RamblingMuse

 

Chapter 1 - Just a Dream

--------------------

 

 

She was swimming in a sea of darkness, her limbs weak and limp; actually, it was more like floating. `Where am I? Mom? Souta? Where are you! I can't see you anymore! How do I…' Ahead was a light, dim and throbbing in the muffled sea. `What is this light?' She reached out towards it. `It's moving? I can hear it!' The pallid light throbbed in time with a gentle beating cadence. `It sounds like a heart beating…mine? Is it my heart?' She reached down, placing a hand over her bare skin to feel her heart beat in the same rhythm. `What does this mean? Why would I dream this? This is so…weird.'

 

She saw it, then - a golden thread arcing out from the light. It stretched up into the air, far above the glow, until its own luminescence faded into the inky nothingness. The thread seemed to hum with its own life. She drifted closer to it and the light, and the heart beat - her own, she was sure by now - rose in volume until it vibrated the void around her frame.

 

She smiled gently as a feeling of peace and contentment washed over her. `What's this?' She leaned forward, taking a moment to study the activity before her. Tiny glowing flecks, too small to have been seen from a distance, cascaded back and forth along the strand; some entered the larger orb of light, and some traveled upward to disappear along with the golden thread. Others simply vanished. There were many flecks of many different hues, but the majority were white and luminous, just like the larger, thrumming orb. One type caught her attention in particular; they were red, and these caused her feelings of distress. She was glad that they were extinguished. They would weave menacingly, floating outward or downward or upward, until one of the white flecks would devour it.

 

She was starting to feel rather bored. `Well, this has been fun, but I'm ready to wake up now.' She felt consciousness start to take hold, but at the point where she would normally awaken, she remained. Frowning, she looked around. `Stupid dream, doesn't it know I'm trying to wake up? Hey! Body! Let's kick things into gear here! …Hello? HellooOOoo…' She bit her `lip' in worry. She heard the buzz of her alarm clock, but it was faint.

 

`Why can't I wake up? Okay, I'm really, really ready for this dream to be over with. Oh, God, what's that?' She froze as a sense of icy terror washed over her. She looked around desperately, feeling the ominous form coming closer `…coming for…what? God, I want out! Someone get me out of here! Please!' She felt tears form but refuse to fall and she shuddered. Despair. Hate. Death. She felt it surrounding her, trying to tear at her from the void. Then she heard it, high above her head and she craned her neck back in an attempt to see. A part of her wished she hadn't.

 

It came with a screeching wail, writhing and twisting. Tendrils of black light, massive and undulating, - in terror driven shock, she giddily wondered how light could be black - were traveling down the golden thread. No, not merely traveling… `it's…devouring it!' Her eyes widened at this realization. This massive and evil form, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was well and truly evil, was coming after something. `Me…!' A tendril of darkness reached out unchallenged towards the globe of light below, and this action further drove the horror in her soul.

 

She broke her gaze free and looked around wildly at the small glowing flecks. `Y-you stupid things! Do s-something! Stop it! Can't you see it's going to devour the light?' The tiny orbs paused at her shaky outburst, as though they'd heard her. She watched with budding hope as they drifted upwards to meet the menace. They seemed to multiply and surround the body of darkness, glowing so brightly from their numbers that they almost outshone the light. She cheered silently. `Yeah! Take that you nasty, vile, putri-!'

 

She gasped in shock as the dark being swept away the glowing flecks, devouring them without pause. It seemed to chuckle, and began whispering unintelligible dark promises of disaster as it drew nearer. She huddled beneath it, between it and the light. 'They couldn't stop it…what'll I do?' She shrank away in disgust, huddling atop of the orb of light as one of the tendrils tried to caress her cheek. `Dear God, I'm going to die! I don't want to…NO, I don't want to, I want to live!' She was aghast as it eagerly reached for her again. `No, no, NO! Get away! Don't. You. TOUCH ME!' Enraged, she screamed and reached out her hand to push it away…and the amazing happened.

 

It drove back, and howled in agony as blinding light burst forth from her hand and her body was awash in a lavender glow. Its tendrils crumbled to nothingness before her and the massive form of darkness drew further back. It continued to recede as she drifted towards it, her light banishing it. She stared in awed silence at the light she was emitting. `I'm beating it! I'm actually beating it! Don't know how, but I am! I can do this!'

 

She followed the golden thread further and further up, a wide grin plastered on her face as the dark form shrunk away. Above her and the dark form was a yellow orb of light, much like the white one below. `They're both connected to each other through the thread?' She shuddered at the sight. `This darkness…this thing…it's coming from the yellow light?' She stared at it, puzzled and nervous. The dark mass had embedded itself in the yellow light, its tendrils lacing through the orb. `It looks like that thing is…corrupting it?'

 

Where the white orb's beat was strong and true, the yellow light could only flutter unevenly. The tendrils tightened around the sickened orb as the darkness' form shrunk away from her. `I think this thing is getting smaller…maybe I could drive it out?' She reached closer towards the writhing shadows and it began to shrink, its mass deteriorating until it was a small fleck of darkness.

 

<<YOU SHALL NOT OVERCOME ME!>>

 

`That voice! Is it that thing?'

 

<<YOU SHALL DIE, NINGEN! YOU SHALL BE MINE!!>>

 

`No, I won't be; but I'll make sure you are the one to die!'

 

Her face set with grim determination, she reached forward one final time. `Once I touch it…it'll be over with. I'll have won.'

 

As her hand drew near, her world jolted. `Wh-what!?' Her vision grew blurry and she heard a distant voice. “...wake up…be late…school…” The void around her quivered again and she felt herself drifting away. `NO!' she thought, horrified. `Not yet! I'm so close!'

 

She felt herself growing detached from the world around her. Struggling in vain, she made one more attempt to reach the shadowed being, before her arm fell limply to her side. As she drifted away, she heard it chuckle, then laugh, then roar triumphantly.

 

<<I HAVE WON! YOU FOOLISH NINGEN, YOU WHO WERE ONCE SO SURE OF VICTORY HAVE LOST! I SHALL DEVOUR YOU, AND YOU SHALL BE MINE!>>

 

`N-no…no!'

 

“NO!” she cried, flinging the blankets from her sweat-drenched body as she woke with a start.

 

“Kagome! What on earth has gotten into you?” Her mother stared down in surprise as her daughter pressed her hands to her eyes, her shoulders shaking.

 

Kagome looked up into the concerned face of her mother. “I was so close,” she said in a quiet and broken voice, “if only I hadn't woken up…”

 

“Kagome, it was only a bad dream,” her mother insisted. “Now hurry up, or you'll be late for school. It's the first day, remember?”

 

“Y-yeah…” she replied, numb. She barely registered her mother's exit. `A dream…it was just a dream. Right? There's no such thing as floating orbs of light and golden thread…or evil shadows that want to eat you…Yeah. It was a dream. Just a dream.'

 

 

.o0O0.o.0O0o.

 

 

Glossary

Ningen: Human (Individual)

 

 

A Rambling Muse: Okay, first chapter is finished. I hope you enjoyed it; I'm still really new to the whole writing and fan fiction thing. I do ask that you please keep in mind that I'm a full-time college student with a hectic job and a family that, can you believe it, actually expects me to spend time with them. So I ask your forgiveness if it takes me some time to update. However, I will do my utmost to keep the chapters coming! I'm also working on a few other projects, but I'll probably wait a while before I start posting them. I look forward to reading everyone's feedback and reviews. Until the next chapter, adieu!