Everyone in Niikawa knew of the house perched on top of
the hill overlooking the city. Everyone on the city knew to stay well away from
that house, for within its walls lived the two "cursed children",
whose horrific prophecies had brought death to hundreds of Niikawa's residents
over their short lifetimes. Nobody had seen either of the children in the ten
years since they had fled to that house, but their custodian, who was rather
more welcome than they, was a regular visitor to the city, buying groceries and
other essentials for the three of them. Thus, the townspeople knew the cursed
children to still be alive, and so the house remained off-limits to those in
the city.
However, on that particular morning, the lone figure of a
teenage girl could be seen making its way slowly up the hill, her back to the
rising sun. On her back was a large backpack, filled with everything the girl
owned save for her bicycle, pink with a small basket on the front, which she
wheeled alongside her as she progressed up the small winding path. The girl
paused for a moment, wiping the sweat from her brow, then continued onwards
towards the forbidden house.
The girl with the bicycle was not making this journey of
her own accord. She, too, had been discovered to be a cursed child, and had
been cast out of the city just as the other two had. Like the other two, she
had received an invitation from the man living on the house upon the hill,
inviting her to stay with him, and so she was making her way there in order to
begin her self-imposed exile.
As she finally reached the house, the tired girl let out
a sigh of relief, looking forward to getting inside and resting after the long
walk up the hill. Resting her bike carefully against the wall of the house, she
adjusted her pack and then knocked on the front door. A moment later, it
opened, and a kindly-looking middle-aged man stood in the doorway. This was
Max, an American expatriate who had opened his door to the two other cursed
children, and now to this girl as well.
"Ah, you must be Lani," he said, his accent
flawless. "Please, come inside." He stepped aside to let her in.
"Thank you," said Lani, and she stepped across
the threshold into her new life. She slipped off her shoes, and set her
backpack down by the door, which Max promptly closed behind them.
Inside, Lani found herself in a large, well-decorated
living room. She could tell that Max was American, as the décor was very much
western in fashion. Her attention was mainly drawn, however, to the two
teenagers, about the same age as her, stood nearby. These, surely, were the two
cursed children that everyone in Niikawa lived in fear of. They didn't seem all
that scary in person, although Lani hadn't been that scared of them to begin
with. Indeed, they seemed to be more wary of her than she was of them; they
were eyeing her cautiously, as though she were some kind of unfamiliar
creature, or an interloper encroaching on their territory.
Max swiftly got started on the introductions.
"Lani," he said, addressing the newcomer, "this is Akita Maeda
and Daisuke Kimura. Akita, Daisuke," he said, addressing the teenagers,
"remember I said there'd be someone new living with us from now on? Well,
this is her. Her name is Lani Yoshida; she's the same age as you, and like you,
she can predict people's deaths. I hope the three of you will all get along
well."
Lani bowed respectfully towards the two. "It's nice
to meet you," she said.
Akita and Daisuke remained still for a moment, seemingly
unsure how to respond to what was a perfectly ordinary greeting. Eventually,
Akita spoke up. "Uhh… thank you," she said quietly.
No comments:
Post a Comment