She turned her head back stiffly and stared at the body on the bench. To Kieli’s surprise, the seminary student on the bench slowly raised his eyelids. He twisted his neck as he took in his surroundings, a groggy look on his face. Finally, he stood and turned toward a now very rigid Kieli. Eyes the same copper color as his hair met hers. “Eek!” Kieli let out an involuntary twitch of a scream. A second later, she started shrieking that a corpse had come to life in a voice that rang throughout the entire rotary in front of the station. The seminarian slipped off the bench, then, recovering from his daze, rushed to cover Kieli’s mouth. “I’m really very sorry, sir. She’s just a little weird.” Becca had no right to call her weird. Forced to stand next to Becca as she smoothed things over, acting as if she was the mature one, Kieli stared sullenly at the tips of her shoes. When Becca admonished, “Come on, Kieli, say you’re sorry,” she had no choice but to bow her head and say, “I’m very sorry.” Her head still down, she turned up her eyes to glance at the seminary student. Thrusting one hand in his coat pocket and ruffling his hair with the other, the seminary student spit out, “Well, it’s fine now,” with a sigh. After being roused abruptly by the screaming girl in front of the station, he’d been accosted by the station attendants who came running to her aid, treated him like a suspected criminal, and nearly arrested him. So, having suffered enough calamities for the day, his face still bore quite a scowl for somebody saying, “It’s fine.” Becca had introduced herself as Rebecca, the full name she used only when she had some ulterior motive, and had introduced Kieli as her roommate, almost as an afterthought. In exchange, they learned that the seminarian was named Harvey. Seminarians were candidates to be leaders in the capital, and to the girls at the boarding school, getting to know one was kind of a status symbol. A group of trainees once came from the university at the capital to participate in a worship service in Easterbury, and Kieli’s classmates ignored the service to whisper things like, “That tall one, second from the right! He’s gorgeous!” They even had a popularity vote. It goes without saying that they had to endure a lengthy lecture from Miss Hanni that afternoon in homeroom and that the whole class had to write essays reflecting on what they’d done. (Kieli, who hadn’t participated in the uproar, suffered with all the rest.) So of course Becca was in high spirits over this fortunate encounter and one-sidedly lamented in exaggerated tones the fact that she had to leave Easterbury. “Will you be in Easterbury until the Colonization Days are over? It would be nice if we could talk again after I get back.” “Oh, I’m leaving tomorrow. Going the opposite direction of Westerbury,” the seminarian said without the slightest hesitation, easily crushing Becca’s hopes. As other people bustled across the platform, Becca stood stock-still. “I see.” She hung her head in disappointment, and her actions reeked of those of the heroine of a romance novel who’d resolved to leave her lover behind to go to the city. Kieli got a bit uncomfortable standing there and let her eyes wander. As travelers heading toward Westerbury pushed their large bags onto the passenger car and boarded the train, they looked annoyed at Kieli, who blocked their way in front of the car as she talked to her companions. Busily making the rumbling, exhaust-spouting noises of fossil-fuel power, the train announced its departure. “Will you be boarding?” a railroad worker in a conductor’s uniform asked in a somewhat irritated tone, leaning half his body out of the last car. The seminary student answered with a “No,” adding a “Take care,” and the conductor turned next to Kieli. “And you, miss? Will you be boarding?” When Kieli shook her head, the conductor nodded and rang the bell to announce their departure. “Hey! Wait, wait! I’m boarding,” Becca cried in dismay. She lifted her Boston bag in both hands and hurried onto the passenger car steps. As the departure bell rang across the platform sounding much like an alarm clock, she turned reluctantly back to bid farewell to Kieli and the seminarian. “See you, Kieli. You’ll be okay without me, right?” Kieli’s answer of “I’ll be fine” was drowned out by the sound of the bell and the tumult on the platform. It didn’t even reach her own ears, so instead of repeating herself, Kieli simply nodded. Becca nodded back in understanding and turned next to face the seminary student. “Harvey, I pray we’ll meet again.” The seminarian said a few words in response, but Kieli couldn’t catch them. Apparently Becca did hear them, however. Kieli didn’t know what he’d said to her, but her beautiful face lost its expression abruptly as she looked down at them from the train. The bell suddenly stopped ringing. A strange moment of silence reigned over the platform, and then the train slowly started to slide away. Even after the train started moving, Becca remained there, floating in the place where she had first gone up the steps. The walls of the cars that ran by passed smoothly through Becca’s body one after another, like an illusion. To be more accurate, it was Becca’s body that was like an illusion. Her best red coat and her Boston bag, her plans to meet with her parents and brother, the new theater, the ice cream, the souvenir she was thinking of getting for Kieli — everything about Becca’s travel plans was nothing more than a game of pretend that she’d made up for her own amusement. Becca’s body for wearing coats and her hands for carrying luggage were actually already at the bottom of her grave, and Becca had forever lost the ability to spend holidays with her family and stuff her cheeks with ice cream. From his post in the last car, the conductor stared dubiously at Kieli and the seminary student standing there until, finally, he too passed through Becca’s body. “You’re stupid,” Becca said, her expression still blank. “I just wanted to pretend I was going on a trip. It’s not like you’re really a seminarian, either, stupid!” The abusive words she spat from her comely lips could only be considered a parting insult, and Becca floated down from where the train had been, then suddenly ran toward them. Kieli drew back automatically, but right before Becca crashed into her nose, her image vanished, and her formless presence blew through the ticket barrier with a gust of air. All that was left on the platform were Kieli, the seminarian, the moderate chatter of those who’d seen people off, and their footsteps as they headed home. “I never once said I was a seminarian.…” the man muttered to himself in annoyance. Then he noticed Kieli gazing at him as she stood beside him and glanced sideways at her. Kieli looked up at her tall companion and asked, “What did you say to Becca?” “All I did was ask how long I had to play along with this travesty,” the man answered with an exasperated sigh, picking up his own luggage — an unusually small backpack for a traveler and, for some reason, a small, old radio. “I don’t like to meddle in other people’s affairs too much, but…it’s better not to bother with spirits like that; just ignore them. If you don’t, they get carried away and never leave you alone.” “You should have told me that before this spring.” At Kieli’s response, the man sneered, “Don’t talk nonsense,” and started walking away, joining the thin stream of people leaving the station. Kieli trotted after him, her shoulder bag bouncing against her lower back. “You’re not surprised about Becca?” “To my mind, you’re more of a surprise. You have a strong spiritual sense?” Kieli nodded. “But my grandmother told me not to let too many people know. She’s dead now, though.” “Yeah. It’s less trouble that way.” “Hey, can you see other dead people? How do you know so much?” She naturally became more talkative than usual as she tried to keep up with the man’s athletic pace. This was the first time she’d met anyone other than herself who could see that world, and based on what her grandmother said, there weren’t that many of them, so she felt something of a kinship with this Harvey person. Harvey, on the other hand, must’ve felt differently because he stopped momentarily and let out a sigh of very obvious annoyance. “…Hey. Well, I can’t say I don’t know how you feel, but I’m sorry. I have no intention of getting mixed up with a spirit-sensitive little girl. Now go home, do your sixth-grade homework, and have a nice holiday. Good-bye,” he declared without a shred of the sincerity expected of one who “knew how she felt.” Kieli had stopped in spite of herself; he left her there and resumed his long stride. Without looking back once, he disappeared through the station’s gaping, square exit into the white outside. “Ah…” This brought her high spirits to a surprisingly sudden and crashing demise, and she stood there, alone under the station’s domed ceiling. After standing in a daze for a while, she slowly began seething with anger. He didn’t have to say it like that. He really is nothing like a seminary student. Seminary students are friendlier and more gentlemanly. And who is he calling a sixth-grader? I know I have the build of a sixth-grader, but still. Kieli’d heard rumors that after they measured her height last spring, Miss Hanni doubted whether or not she was really fourteen years old and checked her citizenship form. If that was true, it would be extremely rude, and even if it wasn’t true, it would be rude for a rumor like that to be going around as if it was. Kieli gradually lost track of what she was angry about, and, feeling downhearted, she set off toward home. Becca didn’t come back (she was often quick to take offense and disappear, but she would usually be grinning close behind Kieli again in no time) as Kieli walked back to the boarding school alone. Kieli realized that she hadn’t walked around town completely alone like this since Becca’s spirit started haunting her last spring. In the corner of her mind, she thought about how unexpectedly lonely and boring it was not to hear Becca’s voice chattering away next to her. Kieli hadn’t had any pleasant memories of the Colonization Days holidays since her grandmother’s death six years ago, but this year had gotten off to the worst possible start, as if foreshadowing an even more awful holiday than former years. She had Miss Hanni lecturing her first thing in the morning, she had the uncomfortable experience of wearing a different uniform than everyone else, Becca was still in a bad mood and wouldn’t show herself, and to top it all off, sitting across from her at dinner was freckle-faced Zilla and her little minion of a roommate, the two girls Kieli hated most of all the girls at the boarding school (there was no doubt the feeling was mutual). Normally, she was careful to sit away from them, but during the long holiday, ninety percent of the students went back home to their families, and the remaining ten percent gathered at one table in a corner of the empty cafeteria, whispering to each other as they ate dinner. The students that didn’t go home to their families were generally students with no families to go home to. They were children with no relatives, who were allowed to attend the boarding school with financial assistance from the Church. And as far as Kieli knew, children with no relatives were generally the rebellious type. Instead of rallying together with others under similar circumstances, they would rather drag someone down by the ankles just so they could say that they were at least better off than that girl. That being the case, no matter how hard anyone tried, there was no way a gathering of students like that would enjoy a meal in peaceful harmony, and after managing to endure the tense atmosphere of mealtime, Kieli escaped the cafeteria. The other students were still sluggishly cleaning up their trays as they insulted the students who weren’t there. She quickly returned to her room, and when she opened the door, Becca was lounging on the top of the bunk beds that occupied half of the small dormitory. “Welcome back!” she said in her usual cheerful voice, as if nothing had happened that afternoon. Kieli, after standing and gaping in the doorway for a second, complained insincerely, “…Aww, here it was so nice and quiet,” and closed the door. She hated to admit it, but she had been a little worried about Becca after she vanished at the station, and for some reason she felt a bit disappointed. Becca floated through the top bunk’s mattress and sat on the bottom bunk. The bottom bunk was Kieli’s bed, and Kieli, who wasn’t especially messy or especially neat, had made the bed, arranging its modest bedding with about seventy percent thoroughness (when she had extra time, she could do ninety percent; when she slept in, about fifty). The top bunk was empty, and a thin layer of dust lay on its yellowed mattress. When she advanced to ninth grade and this room had been assigned to her, her roommate hadn’t even lasted a week before crying to the teachers and begging for a different one. Her reason was that she could hear a strange girl’s voice in the middle of the night. But no matter how thoroughly the teachers investigated, they couldn’t hear any suspicious voices. Unable to get them to listen, the roommate ended up transferring to a school in a different town. Since then, to an outsider it would seem that Kieli had become the only student in the boarding school with the luxury of having a double room all to herself. Kieli learned a little later that a female student two years her senior had died in a train accident the year before last, and there was no one on the top bunk of the room for a year until she and her roommate moved in. That’s when Kieli finally understood who the beautiful blond girl was who looked so becoming in the black school uniform — this girl who was already staying in the room, doing something like living in it and acting as if she owned it, when Kieli got there. And of course it was Becca who scared away Kieli’s roommate, who had obtained the top bunk through a game of rock-paper-scissors, all for the truly simple (and if you asked her, legitimate) reason that the bed was hers. After that, she was so happy that Kieli could see her that she went ahead and treated her like a roommate, and followed her to class, to worship services, and on outings. Kieli’s lack of a roommate to give her messages from the assemblies, and the reason her classmates avoided the creepy girl who had no problem living in a room with ghost voices — thinking about it, it was all because of Becca’s self-centered personality. If someone were to ask if Kieli had lots of friends until eighth grade, the answer would be a resounding no, but in ninth grade Kieli became a true lone wolf. Though, ironically, thanks to the presence of Becca (the cause of it all) Kieli didn’t feel all that lonely. “What happened after I left, Kieli? Did you talk about anything with that rude jerk?” Becca asked, rolling onto her side, resting her head in her hands over Kieli’s pillow and acting sulky. Of course it was just a pose, and there were no actual indents on the pillow. “Not really. He went off somewhere,” Kieli answered vaguely, pulling out the chair at her study desk and sitting on it. It was just a steel chair, difficult to describe as suited for studying, but she maintained some comfort from it by fastening a worn-out cushion to the seat. The traveler, “Harvey,” or whatever his name was, who was so rude to Becca, had also been pretty rude to Kieli, so she didn’t want to think about him anymore. He said he was going in the opposite direction of Westerbury tomorrow, so he would probably be getting on a train heading east that afternoon. Just get lost already. “Seriously, it was just a little game. Why couldn’t he have played along? And he couldn’t have been too upset about getting a taste of what it’s like to be pampered like a seminarian.” Becca continued to complain huffily from the bed, but Kieli wouldn’t talk about it anymore. She turned to her desk and pulled her Church history notebook out of a drawer. She looked at the printout pressed between the pages and sighed. Talking about that man reminded her she had homework. It was true she had an assignment to do over the Colonization Days break, but it was ten times more of a pain than anything a sixth-grader would have to do. The assignment was to use the vacation time to write a report about a place in Church history other than Easterbury. The students who were leaving town to go on vacation or go home could just attend a service at a church in the places they were visiting and write up their thoughts, but to Kieli, who had no plans to leave Easterbury, the assignment was as good as a personal insult. Insult or not, it wouldn’t do her any good not to work on it. She looked up from the printout and pulled an old Church history textbook from the books lined up across her desk. A student who graduated a long time ago had left it there, and it had some detail on parts of history that had been erased from current textbooks. She couldn’t expect much, but she started flipping through the pages, thinking there might be something of use. Just then, “Hey, he makes me so mad. Let’s play a little joke on him.” Becca’s face appeared in front of her, poking through the textbook from under the desk. “A joke?” Kieli asked, jumping back a little at the sudden appearance, her hand stopping mid-page-turn. Becca pulled herself out of the desk and knelt in front of Kieli (on top of the desk, of course). “You saw the radio he had, right? The old beat-up one. It’s possessed by something — an evil spirit radio. It’s weird for someone to keep something like that so close,” Becca said, putting the details of her own existence aside, and confidently proceeded to reveal her brilliant plan. “We’ll take it away from him and lure him to the school. When he follows us here, we’ll drop a rock or something on him from the roof and squash him flat. That’ll show him.” “…Wait a second, Becca. Look.” Kieli sighed and held up a hand to interrupt her friend’s monologue. Becca closed her mouth, but the expression on her face showed that she hadn’t the slightest doubt that Kieli would agree to her plan. Kieli felt a prickling pain in her temples. It was fundamentally wrong in every possible way. First of all, Kieli didn’t really want to do this to begin with, and certain parts of how to carry this plan out, like how and where they would get such a rock and who would drop it, had been flung to the other side of the stars. Besides, however you thought about it, this was not a “little joke”–level prank. “If we do that, he’ll die.” She felt she would get very tired explaining everything, so for now, she just pointed out the last problem. It should have been an extremely reasonable opinion. But Becca looked at her blankly and replied, as if it was obvious, that, “He wouldn’t die from a little thing like that.” “Unbelievable. Look. A real, live person…” Kieli added to her explanation, thinking that perhaps Becca didn’t understand because she was already dead. But when she did, Becca beat her to the punch and added, “I mean, he’s an Undying.” This struck Kieli speechless, and she stared back at Becca’s determined blue eyes as she gazed directly at her. “…Undying…?” was all she could finally say. Becca nodded, very seriously, and said, “You didn’t know? I thought if anyone would figure it out, you would, Kieli. I mean, he doesn’t have a soul; it’s just a rock moving a corpse around.…Hey, are you listening, Kieli? Why the scary face?” “Oh, uh…” Kieli had started to think about something else for a second in the corner of her consciousness, but when Becca peered dubiously at her face, she cut off that line of thought. “I’m sorry. It’s nothing,” she murmured vaguely. Becca tilted her head and blinked. “Kieli, could it be that you don’t know about the Undying? Didn’t they tell you when you were little, ‘Church Soldiers will gouge your heart out’?” “I know about them; I heard that all the time. But there’s no way he could be an Undying.…” Kieli responded immediately, but the last part trailed off. If, for the sake of argument, the man from that afternoon really was an Undying, that would explain why she mistook him for a corpse when she saw him in front of the station. Everyone on this planet, child or adult, knew that the Undying, otherwise known as “Demons of War,” were monsters. Her grandmother wouldn’t talk to her about those things very much, but a long time ago, a young aspiring author who lived in her apartment complex, among others, would make her listen to those stories until she got fed up with them. Walking corpses, with perpetually moving power sources instead of hearts. It was said that at the end of the War, when the fighting had turned into such a quagmire that there was no hope of salvation and mankind was beginning to lose its humanity, the Undying were mass-produced, recycling the bodies of dead soldiers. They would never die or grow old, and no matter how many times they were killed, they would get up and slaughter until there was nothing left; she had even heard that they ate the tainted meat of those they killed and made it their own flesh. (Anyway, she heard all this from the aspiring author, so she didn’t know how much was true and how much he had embellished.) It was eighty years ago that the War finally came to a natural end after causing mass destruction across the entire planet. After that, the church conducted a large-scale Undying Hunt, and it was said that this brought about their extinction. “Even if there were any left, they wouldn’t be wandering around like normal in a place like this. I mean, they’re moving corpses. You know, demons of war?” Kieli declared, in a firm tone this time, trying to convince herself more than Becca. But as a result, she ended up ruthlessly denying Becca’s point, and as expected, Becca pouted, her feelings hurt. “So we’ll test him to see if he’ll die or not. If he’s an Undying, he won’t die no matter what we do.” “What if he’s a normal human?” “If he dies, we’ll know he was normal.” “……” Kieli furrowed her brow, feeling that their answers weren’t meshing somehow. After thinking for a moment about how they weren’t meshing, she let out an earnest sigh. She looked into Becca’s eyes, through which she could faintly see the opposite wall, and said admonishingly, “Hey, do you understand what you’re saying? That’s not the way a living person would think.” “You think so?” Because she said it in such a carefree way, it was hard to tell if she was playing dumb or if she really didn’t understand. Kieli unintentionally took on a harsher tone and said, “Cut it out, Becca. You really are dead. A living human being would never think of anything so scary.” “What? You’re not like normal girls either, Kieli. You can’t even make living friends. I’m your only friend, Kieli.” “Don’t just decide we’re friends. You decided to haunt me on your own, Becca. To me, you’re just a nuisance.” She thought she might have gone too far after she said it, but Becca was a little mean herself, saying she couldn’t make any living friends. Sometimes they had fights like this. Usually, they would both go too far, and it would be declared a draw due to injury on both sides. But this time, an expression something like despair appeared unexpectedly on Becca’s face. “I never thought I’d hear you say something like that, Kieli…” Matching her fading voice, Becca’s form disappeared from sight. “Bec…” Her heart stopped for a second, but it wasn’t as if Becca’s presence had left the room. She was probably just sulking as usual. Kieli was sure she would pop up again soon enough. Breathing another small sigh, Kieli looked back down to her textbook. As she turned the pages without really looking at them, she started thinking about something different again — an experience from when she was little that she had pushed to the bottom of her memory. It was a lie that the Undying had been wiped out — at least it was seven years ago. She had a feeling the man who died in front of her when she was seven was an Undying. Armored Church Soldiers chased him and killed him. His stone heart rolled out. But after the incident, no matter how many times she asked her grandmother about it, she could never get her to say if she was right or wrong. She only told her that those things didn’t exist anymore, and the topic naturally became one that was not to be touched on, inside her home or out of it. Her grandmother died the next spring, and Kieli, having no living relatives, was sent to the boarding school. And yet there were so many more things she would have wanted to ask her grandmother if she were still alive. She didn’t really question it when she was little, but why could she see the spirits of the dead? Did the father and mother she didn’t remember have the same ability, or could it be that they abandoned her because of this creepy power? The one thing she did know, without even asking directly, was that her grandmother wasn’t her real grandmother. The landlady of their apartment, a plump woman who loved gossip, spread it throughout the neighborhood. “This doesn’t leave this room, but the old woman on the third floor took that girl in off the streets.” Everyone in the apartment knew it pretty well for it not having left that room. “…Ugh, I can do it tomorrow.” In the end, she lost the will to study and plopped her forehead down onto her textbook. A small photograph on the open page caught her eye. It was a picture of an abandoned mine from before the War, and the Church history textbook treated it as a historic War ruin. A large number of ancient battlefields from the end of the War remained in the wilderness in the eastern region of Easterbury. He said he was going east, she thought vaguely, remembering the man she had met that afternoon. The first person she had met other than herself who could see dead people. It’s possible that he would give Kieli some of the answers she sought. He didn’t know how long it had been since the last time he had come to this town. At the time, the old station was new, but the town was just as bustling with the comings and goings of travelers as it was today. No, that was when they had finally reconstructed Easterbury after it was completely wasted as the final battlefield in the War, so maybe the people’s faces were a few degrees livelier and more full of hope for the future back then. The old building wasn’t an elaborate thing like the tasteless new station they had now — just a crude building of concrete and iron — but apparently it was out of proportion with the meaningless pomp of the day’s architecture and the energy of the people using it. As he leaned against the fence that went along the railroad track and lit a cigarette, he cast his gaze toward the square roof of the old station looming in the darkness, and old memories came flooding back. “Herbie.” A staticky voice mixed with a slight prewar accent addressed him from near his feet. “Harvey,” he corrected for the hundredth time, and glared down at the small radio that he had left on the ground with his backpack. The guy possessing the radio no doubt died never having pronounced the “harv” sound in his lifetime, and as a result, he would skillfully pronounce it “herb,” to the point where Harvey wondered if he was actually getting it wrong on purpose. “Hey. There’s a little thing called ‘tact.’” “What are we talking about now?” “Listen to me, damn it. This afternoon. That girl you left behind — you saw her face, didn’t you? Looking like her parents had abandoned her. You didn’t have to be so harsh.” Oh, that, Harvey thought, blowing smoke into the blue-gray night sky. “But it’s such a pain dealing with living people,” he muttered, half to himself. “No one’s asking if it’s a pain for you or not. Damn it, man, it’s like you left the words ‘patience’ and ‘consideration’ behind somewhere in your lifetime.” “Well, I have lived a long time.” “If you’ve lived such a long time, you should have polished up your damn humanity.” A small, unpleasant, booming sound resonated from the speaker when the radio spat the words, and Harvey ducked his head and averted his eyes, as if looking to run away. Why should he have to be lectured on humanity by a radio? As his eyes wandered, he noticed someone’s shadow and lightly kicked the radio with his toe to shut it up. On the other side of the street, under a dull yellow streetlight that flickered nervously, sat an old woman, so thin and frail that he couldn’t distinguish her from the rags she was wearing. It was already deep into the night, and even if it hadn’t been, there wouldn’t be many people who would have had business on the rusty old streets along the train track. She was probably a vagrant who had taken up residence in the area. The old woman scrutinized him with her small, olive-brown eyes and slightly opened lips that were almost one with her wrinkles. Her voice was so completely withered that he couldn’t make it out right away, but after a second, he understood that she had called to him, “You’re an Undying, aren’t you?” The call startled him for just a moment, but he immediately relaxed his guard and let out a sigh mixed with a wry laugh. “I hate that old people can figure it out so easily. I guess weird senses get sharper when you don’t have much time left.” “Have you come to take this old senile crone away? The nights are getting harder and harder; I would be happier if I passed on before the winter came.” “I’m not a grim reaper, you know.” “Oh yes. I know…” the old woman laughed in a dry voice; her fingers, falling listlessly at her side like dried twigs, convulsed slightly. Raising those fingers just a little, as if even that simple task took tremendous effort, she said, “Take my hand…” Harvey hesitated, but the radio quietly urged him, “Go to her,” so he reluctantly left his things and walked toward the old woman. He knelt down, took the aged, shrunken hand, and held it lightly. It was a parched and small hand and seemed as if it would crumble into cinders if he held it any tighter. “My hands have turned altogether ugly and useless over these eighty years, but your hands don’t change, do they? Such beautiful hands…” The old woman closed her eyes as if to make sure of the feeling in her hand and exhaled contentedly. “I was just a small child back then, but I still remember it clearly. Watching the video transmission of the dashing parade in honor of your troops’ triumphant return, people waving flags in praise as they greeted you. Back then, people were still calling you the saviors of war.” “That was a long time ago. I didn’t think there was anyone left that remembered.” “Yes, our generation has just about died out. Now you are the only ones who can tell the world how foolish that War was…” The old woman stopped there, and the silence strangely amplified the creaking of the rusty fence isolating the railroad tracks as it caught the wind. After a little while, Harvey realized that those were the old woman’s last words. The small, emaciated body had become a dried-out husk, no more than skin and bones. “…Hey, don’t go making it my job to hand down history.” His voice would most likely no longer reach the old woman’s ears, but he felt like griping anyway and cursed at her quietly. He had met too many people who would say whatever the hell they wanted, force their dying will onto him, and then go off and die. You may be all satisfied that it’s over for you, but try thinking about how I feel, having every damn thing forced on me. Still grumbling inwardly, he took the old woman’s other drooping hand as carefully as he could and laid both hands on her knees, one on top of the other. “Don’t you come haunting me,” he ordered, before closing his eyes and offering a silent prayer. Just then, “Herbie!” the radio shouted, with the crunching of heavy static. “ — !” His face snapped up, and, as a reflex, he turned around, getting ready to defend himself — but the next moment, he froze, still only half standing. There was a small girl standing beside the backpack he had left by the fence. With her wide-collared black bolero jacket and her black skirt, her all-black figure melted like a shadow into the darkness, but that only served to emphasize how out of place a girl like her was in a place like this at this time of night. She was the girl from the boarding school that he had met at the new station on the other side of town that afternoon, the girl who could see spirits. In the instant before he could think how to react, the girl bent down and very casually picked up the radio by its string. “Don’t touch me!” Hearing the radio’s overblown objection, he understood, too late, the meaning behind her action. The girl turned and started to run, the radio hanging from one hand. “Wait!!” After a second, Harvey hurried after the girl. She was close enough that if he tried, he could catch her without any problem, but she took advantage of her small physique to slip through a narrow break in the fence and escape to the railroad side. “Hey, what are you thinking!?” he yelled at the girl’s back, forcing his body to squeeze through the opening. It looked like it was made for a cat or something; of course there was no way a big man like him could fit through. Running along the railroad track, the girl glanced back at him. When he saw her face, Harvey started and froze in spite of himself. Overlapping the form of the black-haired girl, he could see the face of a different, blond girl. It was the ghost that had been haunting the black-haired girl. He wouldn’t call her dangerous, but there was something decidedly different about her than when he had seen her that afternoon: her gruesome appearance, with a half-sunken head through which he could see her shattered skull. The two overlapping girls snickered together. It was a strange, twisted smile. With a faint vibration, two round lights appeared far down the tracks. Only a freight train would be running at this time of night. The girl’s black uniform cut a clear silhouette against the center of the light, like a shadow sewn onto a white wall. The girl stopped and, holding the radio up with both hands, shouted in a voice loud enough to be heard over the oncoming train. “Hey, the Undying don’t die, right? Even if they’re hit by a train?” She was using the black-haired girl’s voice, but most likely it was the ghost who was talking. “I died. Did you know that? I was hit by a train and died!” Like hell I’d know that, Harvey swore inwardly, and spitting, “Damn it, get out of the way!” to the innocent fence, he forced his body out of the opening in the wire mesh. A piece of wire that was poking out in an inconvenient direction stabbed the palm of his hand, but this wasn’t the time to let that bother him. The headlights and thunderous roar of the train were approaching. The girl raised the radio above her head and waved it toward the train tracks. Just then, a human shadow rose out like smoke from the radio that she was about to throw and grabbed the ghost girl’s arm, as if trying to take her down with him. “Kyaa, what is this!?” the ghost girl screamed, struggling. The moment she did, the radio slipped out of her hand and hit the rail with a clang. Following suit, the tangible girl fell over and landed on the tracks. “Argh, what are you doing, Corporal?” Harvey chided, finally free of the fence, and ran to them at full speed. First he picked up the girl’s body and tossed her, far from gently, to the side of the track. He immediately turned back and went for the radio. His foot got caught in the ballast but, after nearly falling over, he somehow managed to grab hold of the radio’s cord in one hand, and then — Hoooonk! The horn pierced his eardrums with a shrill noise resembling an explosion, and the two headlights, rushing forward as if to relieve some stress, filled his vision. The white lights brought with them a shock wave that gave him the sensation that they had run his body through. Before he could make out which of the girls screamed, his sense of hearing flew off somewhere. What did I do? Kieli wore a sullen expression as she puzzled it over, restlessly moving her breakfast of soggy cereal to her mouth. It was true that she had her stupid moments, but she wanted to think that it wasn’t so terminal that she would get into bed having mistaken her uniform for sleepwear. She had gone to bed sulking last night, and when she opened her eyes, she was in bed wearing her uniform. Of course it had gotten all wrinkled, and when she went to change clothes, her day already off to a gloomy start, she discovered that, while it didn’t stand out because the fabric was black, the uniform was covered in dirt, and it was even soaked through with blackish stains that looked like blood. Startled, she lifted her skirt to see that both her knees were scraped, and the instant she noticed they started to sting — but those were no more than scratches, and it would seem that the stains were not of her own blood. Becca still hadn’t appeared since vanishing the night before. What did I do? She unconsciously let out a small groan and tilted her head. When she did, she hit the back of it on the corner of someone’s tray as they passed behind her. “Ow…” It happened so suddenly she was more dazed than angry as she turned around to see freckle-faced Zilla put down her tray to sit a little ways off and start chatting with her roommate. There was no way she could not have noticed bumping into Kieli, but whatever; it would have been creepy if she’d apologized anyway. Kieli stayed quiet and focused on finishing her own breakfast. She had no interest in Zilla and her roommate’s boring conversation, but their voices reached one ear despite her lack of attention. The first thing they got worked up about was something so incredibly trivial as how many different pairs of glasses Miss Hanni had. Next they brought up the subject of a railroad accident that happened at the old station very early that morning. It was the first time Kieli learned that anything like that had taken place. “Apparently an animal jumped out in front of a freight train and got hit. They’re saying it was a cat.” “What do you mean ‘they’re saying’?” Zilla raised her nose at her roommate’s naive question, as if to emphasize that she had all the answers. “They couldn’t find the body of the animal that got hit, and in the end, the railway department settled it by saying it was a cat and started the trains running again. But don’t you think it’s weird? That there wouldn’t be a body anywhere.” When she got to that point, she suddenly lowered her voice and brought her nose right up to her roommate. “Like maybe someone picked up the dead cat and took it home to use in a demonic ritual.” Kieli felt the cruel glances they sent in her direction, but she ignored them, letting them brush past her cheeks. Based on something she’d happened to overhear recently, apparently there was gossip going around that Becca’s voice, the one that had chased out her roommate last spring, was Kieli chanting demonic incantations. She ate her bland cereal quickly, without tasting it, and left her seat. Zilla and her roommate were still laughing behind her, but she didn’t turn around once as she cleaned up her dishes and left the cafeteria. Outside, she took a deep breath, then abruptly broke into a full run down the hall. After a sequence of actions consisting of running to her room, opening the door, going inside, and closing it, she yelled, “Becca!” as loud as she could without having it leak into the hall. Becca didn’t show herself right away, but when Kieli’s firm voice demanded again, “I know you’re here,” she gradually appeared on her top bunk, as usual. Kieli turned a sharp gaze on her from where she stood in front of the door. “Were you at the railroad track last night? What were you doing? Did that blood come from a cat?” It was obvious that Becca had used Kieli’s body without asking while she was asleep, so she didn’t bother asking that. “A cat?” Becca asked, looking blank. From her attitude, it seemed that she really had no recollection of a cat, so Kieli pressed, “Then where did the blood come from?” For a moment, the look on Becca’s face seemed to say, “Oops!” and then she suddenly answered, in all seriousness, “That’s right. It was a cat.” Kieli glared fixedly back at her and repeated, “Where did the blood come from?” “……” Becca stayed silent for a while, but, resigning herself to her undaunted roommate’s threatening attitude, she finally confessed slowly, “I was testing him. To see if he wouldn’t die. Because you wouldn’t believe me, Kieli.” It wasn’t as though Kieli hadn’t anticipated that, but when she heard it, her vision went black for a second. Then it wasn’t a cat that was hit by that cargo train; it was something much bigger — a grown man? “Then what…what happened after that? Did he live?” “I don’t know.” “You don’t know? You didn’t check?” “I was scared, so I came home. I mean, when the train ran into him…there was a ‘splat’…A ‘splat’ sound. It really sounded like that.” “Of course it did!” Her tone intensified as she got more irritated. Becca recoiled on top of the bed and said, “Well…well, I didn’t know it would be so scary. Did that happen to me, too? Was I squashed like that, too? Is that what I looked like? What do I look like to you, Kieli?” As Kieli watched, the beautiful face, hanging down like it was about to cry, began to dissolve. She could see the skin melt away, exposing the flesh and bone. “Becca…” Kieli couldn’t scold her anymore. It was like the girl who had been hit by a train and killed two years ago had finally learned exactly how terrible her death was after seeing the same thing happen to someone else. “It’s okay. I understand. You wait here and stay out of trouble. I’ll go look for him,” Kieli said over her shoulder. Still, that didn’t excuse Becca’s actions, and on top of it all, depending on how things went, Kieli could be accused of murder. Kieli gave up on Becca and ran out of the room. The railroad tracks formed a half-circle around the southern edge of town, and went on through to the wilderness that spread to the east and west. The new station stood on the western side of town, and the closed-down old station stood on the eastern side. Before the switch to the new station, the east side flourished as the town’s center, but now no evidence of that remained, and the area had become a deserted ghost town. The railroad’s accident investigation team had already cleared out, but it was easy to find where the incident had taken place. Part of the tall fence that followed the railroad track was broken, and she could see that extreme emergency measures had been taken by the wires that were a different color in that one spot. No one was there from the railroad, but instead, the Church’s corpse disposal team was on the scene. The corpse disposal unit was the lowest rank of priests in the Church, and the two men wearing the team’s gray robes did not appear to take any pride in their work as they expressionlessly carried a body on a sheet of galvanized steel. Kieli’s heart pounded as she pretended to walk casually by and stole a look at the body’s face. It was someone else — the dried husk of an old woman. Feeling some relief that it was not the person she was looking for, she passed by the body, then stopped and looked back. Probably a vagrant who couldn’t make it through the night. It was cold last night. Closing her eyes just a little, she offered a prayer for the old woman and watched as they took her body away. The corpse disposal team’s pace didn’t change at all as they walked away, heading west along the tracks. Kieli didn’t know how long it had been there, but the spirit of the old woman was kneeling above her remains and looking in her direction. It wasn’t as if anyone was watching, but Kieli kept her hand at her side as she gave a small wave good-bye. The old woman raised her hand slowly, too. Kieli thought she was going to wave back, but instead, she extended a bony index finger and pointed. She followed the direction indicated with her eyes and saw, at the end of the tracks, on the easternmost end of town where the ruined buildings stopped, the square roof of the old station. When she returned her gaze to ask what it meant, the old woman’s spirit had disappeared. Entrance into the station was prohibited, but Kieli snuck in through a chink in the iron fence. Four gray concrete walls formed the inside of the building, which was gloomy and cold, despite it being midmorning. As she looked around, Kieli shivered and regretted having forgotten her coat. It had been abandoned for years, but there was a surprising amount of luggage strewn around the building. Kieli had the impression that it just been left there like that because it cost too much to dispose of old things. The ticket barrier leading to the platform stood directly across from her. Broken benches and pieces of iron lay piled in the waiting area to her left, and to her right was the now glassless window to the station attendants’ room, its “Employees Only” sign hanging at a slant. The stagnant air and silence drifted through the atmosphere as if time had stopped there many years ago. Faint voices escaped from inside the waiting area. She found herself holding her breath as she headed in that direction. A few rows of rusty iron benches that apparently had been used on the platform formed an unnatural pile in front of the waiting area. She could hear the voices from the other side of the unstable iron wall. When she stuck her face between a space in the benches to see the other side, the first thing she saw was the back of a copper-colored head. “There’s no need to hurry. How long are you gonna whine over staying one extra day? You’re pretty old yourself. Get yourself some more composure.” Even before she heard the way he easily let such biting remarks leave his mouth, she could tell the back belonged to the traveler who called himself Harvey. He leaned back on one of the three-person benches used for the waiting area and rested his crossed legs on the bench across from him. Oh. He’s fine… Kieli almost fell down on the spot as the worries that had built up inside her came crumbling down. Becca’s testimony had been a lie all along, and it must have really been a cat that got hit. But she did feel bad for the cat. “Shut up!! I shouldn’t have to deal with you treating me like an old man.” A man’s voice jumped abruptly from the radio that had been placed on the bench by his feet. She gaped for a second and then remembered that Becca had said that a ghost possessed the radio. “Damn it, if things had gone the way they were supposed to, we’d be there in three days! But now we can’t move until you stop looking like you came straight out of a ghost story.” “Oh, shut up. Like it’s my fault. If you don’t stop complaining, I’ll cut your power.” “You’re not gonna throw me away somewhere and run off while my power’s off, are you?” “I wouldn’t do that. I promised I’d take you to the mine, didn’t I? Am I that untrustworthy?” “Trust is something you build up through your daily actions.” Every time the voice came from the speaker, particles like blackish static spat out around it, forming a blurry human face, and then dispersing when the voice stopped. Kieli couldn’t help staring at the static particles as they gathered and ran away like microbes. She had never seen a spirit like that before. The static clustered together and formed the human face again. The face, composed of strange greenish-black particles, was dark, like a shadow had fallen over it, so she couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed to be the face of a man with sunken cheeks. When the outlines of the face were almost complete, green particles would go on to form eyeball-like spheres in the hollow eye sockets. And those eyes suddenly turned and glared in her direction. Kieli stiffened at the sudden movement, and before she could react, Harvey demanded, “Who’s there?” He sprang from the bench and turned around; behind him, the staticky face opened its mouth angrily. “Little girl, don’t you ever learn!?” it yelled, at the same time emitting a mass of sound from the speakers that transformed into a shock wave and attacked her. Knocked back by the lump of invisible air, Kieli fell on her rear. Immediately, the already unstable wall of piled benches gave a sudden lurch. She didn’t scream because she forgot to use her voice, and while she was at it, she also failed to remember to run away. Still on the ground, she looked up above her. The iron benches came clattering down.… There was a dull thunk! sound. Someone’s arm had caught the bench, getting between it and her in the nick of time, and thanks to the arm, Kieli’s head went unsmashed. “Tsk…” Harvey clicked his tongue and pushed the thick, heavy iron bench away with his right elbow, clearly irked. Glancing at Kieli’s face as she sat there dumbstruck, he turned around and shouted back to the radio, “Calm down, Corporal. It wasn’t her. There’s no one inside her now!” When she saw the side of his face, Kieli’s breath stopped. The skin on the left half of his face had been torn off from his temple to his cheek, and crushed blood vessels and muscle tissue showed through in a mottled reddish-black pattern. On the arm opposite the one that caught the bench, his coat sleeve was torn to shreds, and his lower arm barely hung on to the upper half by naked muscle fibers. “Nooooo!” This time, Kieli screamed. “Oh, just shut up. This is partially your fault, you know,” Harvey spat at Kieli, twisting the unharmed half of his face in annoyance as she screamed in his ear. “Corporal, listen!” he yelled again at the radio. The spirit in the radio spun a whirlwind of static as it now formed not only a face, but an entire body, in midair. He was still a fuzzy gathering of particles, but Kieli could tell that he was wearing a brimmed hat over his eyes and a military uniform. The lower half of one of his legs disappeared at the knee, as if melting into the air. The static soldier moved his gaze sluggishly to the left and right, and his green eyeballs glinted in her direction — he’d finally found her. Maybe he was trying to shout something; his jaw dropped to a normally impossible angle. He tried to take a step toward her with his lost foot, but, as there was no foot there, he stumbled and almost fell — the kind of thing, Kieli thought, that shouldn’t have affected a ghost. Kieli felt sick, not because his form was so terrifying, but because of his bizarre behavior. When the soldier opened wide his pitch-dark mouth, a low groaning sound came from the speaker and shook the air. The scattered benches convulsed noisily across the floor, and a few of them rose into the air like marionettes. “Corp — damn it, it’s no use, he can’t hear me,” Harvey spat with a click of his tongue, and immediately afterward one of the benches found its target and came at them. “We’re getting out of here!” With his good right arm (though there must have been at least a crack in it after the bench fell on it), Harvey took Kieli’s hand and ran outside of the waiting area. “Why do you have to have such bad timing!? He almost killed me with that temper once, you know!” “I didn’t know — but…but how are you still alive?” Kieli moved her feet forward almost as if they were falling as he dragged her along. She couldn’t understand even half of what was going on. No matter how she looked at it, someone in Harvey’s condition would be dead, or at least, they wouldn’t be able to move around normally with those injuries. A bench flew past, grazing by the two as they ran from the waiting area, and Kieli’s feet became tangled as she drew back in surprise. “Wah!” She dragged Harvey down with her, and they both tumbled and rolled along the cold station floor. “You’re in the way! Get outside! Why do I always —” Thrust violently aside, Kieli had scrambled on all fours to a few steps away when she heard the dull thunk sound of something getting hit behind her; and Harvey’s caustic words were abruptly cut off. “……?” As a reflex, she stopped moving and nervously looked back. A flying bench had crashed into the “Employees Only” sign, causing the door to cave in — Harvey was between the bench and the door. The seat of the iron bench had run deeply into his throat, like the blade of a guillotine. His copper-colored eyes open wide, Harvey, pinned to the door, had stopped moving completely. Only half-standing and twisting her neck in an unnatural angle, Kieli stared blankly at the dead, pinned body. Her thought processes had short-circuited, and she couldn’t react immediately to the voice she suddenly heard in her head saying, “Kieli, look out!” Immediately her body started moving on its own, like it was being pulled by strings, and made a very nice dive out of the way. The bench that had come at her hit the ground where she had just been and was smashed into a grotesque shape. Thrown to the ground, for just a second, she could see another pair of legs overlapping her own, and a blond girl slid out of her. “I’m sorry, Kieli. I’m sorry.” Kneeling like a scolded child, Becca floated in front of Kieli, repeating her apology over and over. “I didn’t think it would turn into this. I’m sorry, Kieli.” “Becca, I —” She was about to say, “I’m fine, but Harvey-san…” as a beastly roar thundered from inside the waiting area. “You!” the one-legged soldier shouted upon seeing Becca, and a shock wave shot out of the speaker, accompanied by a grating dissonance. “Kyaaaa!” Becca took a direct hit and disappeared with a scream. “No, Becca!” Kieli automatically reached out in an effort to grab hold of Becca. But her hands only grabbed empty space, and the force of the shock wave sent her head over heels into the wall. Just before she hit it, Harvey, still pinned to the door, thrust his arm to the side and worked as a cushion. “Har —” Kieli looked beside her in surprise, when the radio’s speaker strummed out a still more terrible, grating noise. She impulsively drew her head back and returned her gaze to the waiting area. The soldier’s figure wavered for an instant and then disappeared suddenly, like when a video signal turns off. A wisp of black smoke rose from the radio. Apparently it had shorted out. Save for the small pattering sound of the dust settling back to the floor, silence returned to the station. “Are you satisfied, Corporal?” Harvey grumbled beside a dazed Kieli, pulling the bench out of his throat. The bench fell to the ground with a clang, and Harvey kicked it with the bottom of his shoe, as if yelling at it to go away. Kieli gaped at the effortlessness of his actions, but panic set in after a while, and she cried, “Are, er, are you okay? We need a doctor!” Unsure whether it would be better to take him with her or bring someone to him, she looked desperately back and forth from Harvey to the exit. But he ignored her frenzy and casually said, “It’s fine. Leave it alone; it’ll close up,” as if nothing was wrong (although he used a scratchy voice that made her wonder if the bench had torn his vocal cords, and coughed violently a few times as if he was in some pain). “You’re…okay…?” She sat down next to him and took a long, hard look at the wound. What she saw was a thick black liquid resembling coal tar oozing out of his blood and wrapping around the severed tissue like a living thing. She leaned forward to see what it was, but Harvey covered his throat with one hand. “Um, are you really an Undying…?” she asked, looking at his face with upturned eyes. Harvey, for his part, blinked in surprise. “Huh? I thought you already knew. Didn’t your buddy tell you?” “Oh yeah, Becca!” His question reminded Kieli of Becca, and she passed her gaze hastily over her surroundings. “Becca, are you okay? Where are you?” Her “buddy” didn’t answer. “Becca…?” When the terrifying thought hit her that Becca might actually have been completely erased, she heard a muttered, “That scared me.…” Becca floated into view in front of Kieli with a somewhat pale expression. “A little more and that would have killed me…” “You’re already dead,” Kieli shot back, in shock. Then, feeling the situation was somehow funny, she let out a small laugh. Becca said, “Oh yeah. I am dead, aren’t I?” and laughed bashfully, and the two put their faces together and giggled. “…You two seem to be enjoying yourselves. I feel like you’ve caused nothing but trouble for me, though.” She didn’t really know why herself, but when Harvey leaned against the collapsed door and let out a sigh of complete exhaustion, her eyes filled with tears, perhaps from relief, and before she knew it she was crying and laughing at the same time. A bell rang noisily, announcing the departure of the eastbound train. “Kieli, Kieli, we’re leaving!” Becca announced excitedly, kneeling on her seat with her face against the window like a small child. “I know. Wait a minute.” Kieli was reaching up and pushing her shoulder bag onto the overhead shelf. It only contained a few days’ worth of clothes and a reference book, but that reference book was insanely heavy. She shouldn’t have brought it. She somehow managed to stow her luggage and, holding the coat she’d taken off, sat down next to Becca. After agonizing over which of her personal wardrobe — which wasn’t very large to begin with — to wear, in the end she wore the black school-designated coat and her uniform. She got a stern look from Becca, who appeared in her favorite red coat, asking, “What is with that drab outfit?” But ostensibly she was on a trip for a school assignment, so she felt like wearing her uniform was the right thing to do. I’m going on a train trip to write my Church history report. I’ll be back before the Colonization holidays are over. She wrote her notice of leave, and, taking advantage of Miss Hanni, the teacher on duty, being away from her office, she left it on her desk without a word. Her grandmother had left her a little bit of money, and she planned to use that to pay for her trip. There was never a pressing need for it in her dull daily life at the boarding school, so this was the first time she ever wanted to use the money. Her destination was the abandoned mines in eastern Easterbury, one of the War ruins. A full day had passed since the commotion at the old station yesterday, and it was already the third day of the Colonization Days break, but she should be able to make the round-trip within the remaining week. The fact that the history of the War was part of Church history and therefore within the parameters of the assignment was just an excuse (of course, she did plan on writing the report, too), but the biggest factor in her decision was that she had heard that they were heading for the abandoned mines. Sitting in the boxed seat opposite her was the young man with copper-colored hair. He was sitting cross-legged on the seat with his shoes still on and had been fiddling with parts of the broken radio, but when he noticed Kieli’s gaze, he looked up and frowned in obvious annoyance. “Hey, would you stop following me?” “We just happen to be going to the same place,” Kieli answered plainly. “Jinx…” Harvey cursed to himself, returning his gaze to the radio. Surprisingly, the wounds on the left side of his body that were so terrible yesterday had already healed to the point where, today, they were no more than inflamed scars on his skin. His neck apparently hadn’t recovered yet; he hid his wound by zipping his thick parka closed all the way to his chin. The coat he was wearing yesterday had been torn to shreds, and the parka was a spare he had stuffed in his backpack. Sometimes he stuck his fingers in his collar like it was bothering him. Harvey was a legendary Undying — the first person Kieli had met who could see the spirits of the dead like she could. She wanted to follow him and talk to him a little more, even if it was only during the holidays. It was that thought that caused her to set out on a weeklong train trip — a very bold move considering her normal life. It was kind of funny to think that she, the weirdest girl at the boarding school, was the most normal one in this group. Her ability to come up with such opinions was probably evidence that she wasn’t normal, but Kieli somehow felt comfortable in these circumstances. With these people, Kieli didn’t need to hide her weird power like she did at school. The departure bell stopped. After a moment of silence and a slight jolt, the train started to move. “Wow, it’s moving!” Kieli squealed automatically, leaning toward the window next to Becca. The scene on the platform, the white palms of people waving good-bye to family and lovers, slid quietly past. “Having fun, Kieli?” Becca asked suddenly, gazing outside with her face lined up next to Kieli’s. “Yes.” Kieli nodded half-consciously, still staring at the platform as it flowed away. “Oh good, then I feel better,” Becca murmured, in a somehow resolved tone. “Um, you know? The truth is, I think I’ve known since the accident the day before yesterday. I died like that a long, long time ago. I stopped existing here before I even met you, Kieli. So I can’t stay here and play forever, you know? I might go crazy like that soldier’s spirit and hurt you one day.” “What is this all of a sudden?” Kieli asked, pulling her gaze away from the platform, her eyes wide. Becca ignored her question and turned her ever-mischievous smile to Harvey in the opposite seat. “Harvey, I’m leaving Kieli to you. Take responsibility and make sure to look after her. She’s very shy, and she’s never followed anyone on her own initiative like this before. I followed her around because she would have been hopeless without me. But only because she needed me! And I guess I should apologize. Sorry for causing you so much trouble.” Harvey looked up in some surprise, and mumbled, “Oh, it was nothing.” He looked at Becca, and a complex expression showed on his face for a split second, but in the end, he turned back to the radio on his lap without a word. “Becca, what are you saying…?” Kieli cut in, panicking at having suddenly been entrusted to someone else, but “…Becca?” Suddenly, sparkling white lights were surrounding Becca. “You’ll be fine without me now, Kieli,” she said, smiling brightly. Her face turned into particles of soft light and gradually began to fade. Her gentle voice rang deep in Kieli’s ears. “Thank you. It was fun being with you. I want you to have lots more fun after this. Because you still have a long future ahead of you, Kieli.…” The specks of light slowly melted into the air and disappeared; by the time the train left the platform, Becca was no longer on board. Kieli stared blankly at the now-empty seat next to her for a long time. Her heart was empty, and she didn’t know what kind of face she should make. Her gaze slowly wandered to the opposite seat, and her eyes met with Harvey’s; he had stopped fixing the radio and was looking her way. “Why…?” The instant she spoke, tears came to her eyes, and she couldn’t say any more. “She came to terms with it. People who have died disappear. It’s only natural,” the legendary Undying told Kieli in a calm, quiet voice, his copper-colored eyes fixed in cold inexpression. Then he went right back to his work, but, perhaps feeling a need to say more, he added haltingly, “Why not see her off without crying? She said she had fun, didn’t she?” Kieli looked wordlessly back out the car window, and pressed her lips firmly together, holding back her tears. If that was the path Becca had decided was best, the least Kieli could do as a farewell gift was to see her off without crying. Becca was selfish and annoying, but she was the best roommate Kieli had ever had, and her first good friend. It wasn’t true that she hadn’t existed anymore after her death. At the very least, to Kieli, Becca was more sure to be by her side than any classmate Kieli had ever had. Under the sand-colored sky, the scenery outside the window changed to the streets of Easterbury and passed on by as if nothing had happened. A single tear slid down her cheek. She wiped it away with the palm of her hand, as she stared fixedly, almost in a glare, at the passing streets.
Chapter 3
59 min read