Vivid Black by Tiffany N. (rocket ebook reader .txt) 📕

"Okay..."

Yuu stumbled along the 'packed' asle towards a lone empty seat in the very back of the bus. Since when has there been so many ghosts in one place? They were appearing like rabbits. The same appeared to be true on the trip to the forest. Out in the rual patty fields, he could see pail, transparent figures wadding through the mud, some wearing warm winter clothing, unfazed by the glaring heat of the sun.

The bus dropped them off at an old dirt trail leading into the forest. There was a group of high schoolers their own age waiting there as well. One of them looked up.

"Hey Jenifer! Finally you showed up! Who do you have with you?" He asked. "Don't think I invited him."

Jenifer put her hands to her hips. "He's a friend of mine. And if he's not comming, I'm not comming either."

The boy thought for a moment. "Alright, he can come. What's your name?"

"His name is-"

Jenifer was cut off by Yuu. "Whoa there. They don't need to know." He whispered to her.

"Why not?" She pouted.

Yuu sighed. "It's for your own sake, Jen. If they find out your hanging out with someone like me, you can say goodbye to your rep."

Jenifer and Yuu both knew that practically everyone though Yuu was a freak. Even Jenifer, who was a bit weird herself, never showed that side of her to the public.

"Look, I know that you're trying to be nice and everything, but how are you going to make friends like this?"

"I'm not." Yuu said bluntly.

The boy and his group were starting to get inpatient. "Hey, you going to answer the question or not?"

Before Jenifer could open her mouth, Yuu answered for himself. "Ken. I'm Ken. I don't go to your school."

The boy extended his hand and Yuu shook it. "I'm Paris. Sorry Ken, but we might be waiting a while longer for everyone to get here."

"They just chickened out! Come on, Paris, let's just leave 'em." One person from the group said to him.

"Oh shut up will you? If you'd only watch the news once in a while, you would know why everyone didn't show up. If Paris didn't ask me to come, I would still be at home too." Another answered.

Jenifer walked up to her friends, leaving behind Yuu in the shade of the trees, over hearing the conversation. "The news? Did something happen?"

"Yeah, just this morning. Five guys from our school were at a reunion party like ours at school. But they just went missing overnight. No witnesses."

"The police are trying to keep things under wraps, but the whole school is buzzing."

"Can't keep a teen's mouth shut for more than ten seconds." The group snickered.

Five missing students... now that Yuu thought about it, he might have heard something about it this morning, but had not paid any attention to it. Yuu stared off in the distance at the patty fields now that the group had started to move into a less interesting topic of movies coming out this month. Sickly white men were wadding through the mud. Yuu pulled out his phone and took a picture. There were no people in the photo.

"They're everywhere, aren't they...?” Yuu muttered.

...

Shun was dragging little Yuu through a maze of trees. The undergrowth cut his bare legs in several places and his feet were sore from walking. "Hey... uh, Shun. Shouldn't we stay on the road?"

"This is a faster way to town." he answered. "There! You see? We're already here."

Following Shun’s gaze, Yuu looked ahead to a small town down a steep grassy slope. It was like what you would see in a samurai movie or something. Most of the houses were wooden and there were narrow paths between the fields of crop. The farmers there wore straw hats to shield themselves from the sun. Farther in the town, you could see that there were a few modern houses. Yuu guessed that he should get the medicine from one of those houses.

“Hey, Shun, I was wondering if you know where this lady lives…” Yuu stops as he turns around, but Shun had already disappeared. “Where could that idiot have gone…”

Yuu looked down at the town and slid down the slope, tumbling midway and tripped, rolling over his head the rest of the way. He sat there for a moment to shake the spots out of his eyes.

"You're so slow, Yuu, keep up!" Yuu glanced up to see Shun all the way into the middle of the field. The boy sure could run. Yuu didn't even notice him.

Text: Animefan123
Images: Animefan123
Publication Date: 03-07-2013

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