Where the Fish Swim

Where the Fish Swim





Chapter 2





As the first luminescent light peeks over the horizon, several cocks break into a sporadic chorus of welcome to the new day. The cows wake from their standing sleep and one by one begin to munch on the grasses. The occasional moo can be heard as the cows sound off as if to see that their group was still with them. The dull roar of the waterfall which feeds the river can be heard coming from the woods. The cicadas start to buzz and chirrup as a reminder that it was mid summer and that today will be another humid one. The village residents are already preparing for the long day ahead. The world has awoken, all except one teenage boy.





“Kiro!!!” my mother bellows up the stairs. “Hurry up and get dressed! Mr. Hino won’t be too happy with you if you arrive late to his class again!”





Still within the clutches of slumber, I let out an illegible grunt and turn over in my moss-green sleeping mat. Staying in my warm mat is more appealing than stepping groggily out into the cold world only to sit through another day of useless education. My quick mental dispute settled, I snuggle into my mat and begin to again enter the fantastic realm of dreams. I then awake several seconds later to the rapid patter of feet up the stairs into my room. I know only too well what is coming.





“Wake up sleepy head!! We don’t want to be late to school, now do we?” chirrups a voice merrily.





“Oh yes, what a horrible thing” I reply groggily with sarcasm dripping thickly from my words”





“Come on! Get up” she replies with a bit of the chipper in her voice lost.





I can feel her breath on the side of my face, so I turn away from her in a futile effort to get back to sleep. I know that she won’t take no for an answer, but I still try every morning. This has been my daily routine for years. She has been coming over to wake me ever since we were little.





Her name is Hikari Murro. She is a fairly attractive girl with a nice slim build that is topped off with her set of shoulder length brown hair and green eyes. We have been best friends for as long as I can recall. Her parents happen to be the other fishing family in the village so we naturally met as babies and had been close ever since. She is normally perky and takes traditions without a second thought. She also happens to be one of the top pupils in our school. This was a factor which she frequently mentioned as my bad grades came in. I couldn’t care less about school though. It is a big waste of time in my eyes.





With a huff of indignation, she grasps the end of my sleeping mat and pulls. As I tumble out onto the cold wood floor, I let out a growl from my throat. As I look up at her towering figure smiling at me, I stare daggers at her.





“Well, I did tell you to get up” she explains while waving away my glance of anger.





“Fine, I’m up!!!” I say angrily. “Now get out so I can get dressed”





“Get dressed?” Kari questions with a smirk. “What’s wrong with what you have on now?” She glances at my boxer-clad body.





“Out!!!” I shout as I toss a pillow at her. She giggles and scurries a hasty retreat out of my room. As the pillow hits the door frames I start to get up while silently cursing the enjoyment Kari receives from tormenting me.





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Five minutes later I rush down the stairs. Waiting for me is Kari whom is standing by the door and my mom at kneeling at the table, sipping tea.





“Hurry, you mustn’t be late!” my mother routinely choruses.





“It’s about time” Kari adds.





“Thank you for coming to wake him every morning. He would never wake up if you weren’t to wake him” mom says with a smile.





“My pleasure Ms. N!” Kari chirrups with a big smile.





“I’m sure” I add. “You just like to torture me”





“Hurry up! We’ll be sent into the hall if we’re late!” she quickly patches in to change the subject.





Knowing that it is pointless to argue, I throw on my sandals at the door and wave farewell to my mother.







Five minutes later we are standing right in front of the small school. Kari pulls me towards the bamboo doors as she thwarts my plan of moving so slow that even time itself would forget me. With my plan of escape thwarted I reluctantly comply and follow her down the short passage and into the room in the back right corner of the school, which was just big enough to accommodate the final year class of seven students. As we walk, I let out a sigh of relief. Apparently Mr. Hino hadn’t arrived yet himself. As I release a smugly triumphant grin I am promptly smacked in the back of my head.





“What? What the hell was that for?” I whisper furiously at Kari as we take to kneeling around the central round table alone with the other five already present students.





“Don’t look so pleased with yourself” she quips back. “You just got lucky. Don’t count on being this lucky every time. And look at that! According to the placement of the sun, we are definitely substantially late!” she ads in while frantically gesturing towards the window.





I grumble slightly knowing that she is quite right. This is unusually lucky. In the past, I have gotten penalized for being only a few seconds late and here I show up today and my sempai isn’t even here yet! Now that I think about it, this is very odd. Sempai has never been late before, not even when he had been run over by one of Mrs. Wist’s spooked cows.





I look up still contemplating the oddity of the situation when I see the expression on Kari’s face. Almost as if she had read my mind, her face wears a scowl of concern.





“It’s probably nothing” Kari voices, breaking the silence to answer the silent question on everyone’s mind.





As if this has satisfied everyone’s concern, the group resumes staring at their legs. Time slowly passed as we wait for our mentor to come and blather on about useless history. The more we wait and wonder, the more my curiosity flourishes within my head. As I gaze out the window, I realize that it has been quite a while since my arrival. The sun is quite a bit higher. With the rise of the sun, the room also begins to heat up and my school kimono isn’t exactly that great at letting out your body heat. The kimonos do the exact opposite of this. They retain you heat as to reduce the amount of wood needed for heat in the winter. This would be great except for one detail. This is most definitely not winter!





I can take this heat no longer. I slowly stand up to go open the window. Kari gives me a glare due to the face that students aren’t allowed to open the window, but does little more to stop me. She is as hot as I am. I walk across the room and heave the window open to let the breeze cool the room. As the cool air hits me, it is tinged with an odor. I crinkle my nose in offence to its unpleasantness. It is foreign and yet smells oddly familiar. Not wanting to have my nostril passages invaded by the offensive fragrance, I walk in retreat to my spot. As I kneel down and relax, I realize that the fragrance is still lingering. Next to me I hear Kari emit a sniff and turn towards me. In a matter of seconds a small squeak is heard being emitted by her. Recognizing that squeak as her sound of panicky terror, I turn towards her to tell her that the smell wasn’t that bad. As I open my mouth to speak I stop at the look of pure terror on her face.





“What’s wrong?” I ask with concern in my voice. I notice that she is staring in front of me at the table. As I turn to get a look at what it might be that frightens her so when my eyes fix upon the table in front of me. Upon the table my hands sit folded, but there was a dark red stain upon my palms. My breath catches in my chest and every muscle in my body freezes. After staring at if for what seemed like hours, I slowly touched my left palm with my finger tips. My fearful suspicion is confirmed as I feel the cold sticky feeling of blood.





By now, Kari had taken action and brings out a piece of cloth and attempts to clean my hand.





“How did you cut yourself this badly opening a window?” she manages to squeak out.





“I don’t know” I responded feeling as if I was in a bad dream. “Actually I don’t think it’s mine. I don’t recall feeling pain and the blood is cold.” I add in matter-of-factly.





Wiping away the blood, Kari overcomes her initial shock and begins to take on a look of utter confusion.





“You’re right” she says in amazement. “It you didn’t get injured, then how are your hands covered in blood?





As I contemplate this, all my conclusions involve one suspect. The window. Standing up unsteadily, I regain my composure and slowly walk towards the window. It seemed like walking a mile. For each step I took, my goal still seemed just as far away. Upon arriving, I look down at the windowsill and my mouth opens in a silent scream paralyzed with fear. The windowsill was glazed in a dark red. The dark red blood had oozed down the wall in small trickles of death. This isn’t what has scared me into a statue-like figure. What has gotten to me is that, hanging from a loose nail on the window bottom was half of a tattered human ear, still dripping with it’s owner’s blood.





END OF CHAPTER





Created by Ben Schoedel

That was chapter 2. I hope you liked it. Suspense rises!!!

Love it? Hate it? Contact me at benschoedel@hotmail.com