Thomas Randall - The Waking

She only sees the blood as she begins to slip, and then she falls, scrambling along the floor of the corridor in a long puddle of blood that smears her hands and face, mats her hair, and stains her clothes. When at last she stops sliding, trying to get up, knees and hands slipping in the sticky blood, nose full of the terrible stench, she raises her head and finds that she is right outside Sakura and Miho’s room.

The door hangs wide open.

Sakura lays on the floor on bloodstained rice mats, a thousand tiny claw marks slashed into her face and chest, arms and legs and throat. She stares at Kara with a single, blind, dead eye. The other is missing, leaving a dark crater behind, claw marks around the edges.

Sitting atop Sakura’s corpse is a cat with copper and red fur.

It purrs happily.

Kara woke with a scream, then lay in the dark, heart pounding, waiting for the sounds of her father rising. But the house remained quiet, and after a few moments she rose and went out into the hall, opened his door, and peeked inside. He lay in his bed, sound asleep. She tried to tell herself that her scream had been short and not as loud as she’d imagined. Or that it had been part of her dream, and she’d not screamed at all upon waking.

The alternative, that he’d slept right through her terror, was too awful to consider.

I t rained all morning that Monday.

Kara tried her best to shake off the trauma of the weekend, but the whole school remained haunted by Jiro’s death. In the breaks between classes, students talked in low tones. A couple of girls in Kara’s class even cried after Japanese History. But when there were teachers in the room, no one had an opportunity to ruminate on death. Maybe the teachers worked them extra hard on purpose that day, or maybe it was simply that, now that the first full week of school had arrived, it would always be like this. The teachers were merciless.

Kara had to work hard to keep focused. As grim as the day was, nobody could help Jiro now. The rain let up for about half an hour, and she thought the sun might actually make an appearance. Then it began to pour harder than ever, the rain pelting down with such force that the noise of it hitting windows and walls and the roof of the school made Yuasa-sensei raise his voice. The sensei asked Ume to turn on the lights in the classroom. Outside it had grown dark as night.

At lunch, Kara opened her bento box and discovered a small, folded piece of paper, stained with the juice of the shredded steak and peppers her father had packed for her. She unfolded it to discover a short note in his messy scrawl. Have a good day, it read. Love, Dad.

Six simple words, and yet they made her feel so good. And less alone. Smiling, she folded the note and slipped it into her jacket pocket.

The one thing she couldn’t shake, though, was her concern for Sakura. Ume had gone a little nuts yesterday, which could probably be forgiven, since Jiro had apparently been her ex. But clearly something simmered underneath all of this that no one had bothered to share with Kara. She didn’t understand the dynamics. Ordinarily she wouldn’t mind, but she had found a friend in Sakura and she wanted to be helpful and supportive, which was difficult without knowing the whole story.

On the other hand, she also knew it was none of her business, and she’d have to live with that.

After lunch, the principal called an assembly in the gymnasium and spoke to the students, discussing Jiro’s death in only the most peripheral ways, as if he had passed away in his sleep or something equally innocuous. A counselor spoke next, announcing that appointments would be available to anyone who wished to come in to discuss their feelings about the tragedy.

When the assembly ended, the principal announced that all afternoon classes were canceled. After o-soji, the day students would be allowed to go home and the boarders back to their dorm. But he also noted that most club meetings scheduled for the afternoon and evening would still take place, so Kara thought the gesture of canceling classes seemed pretty pointless.

Mr. Matsui, her homeroom teacher, approached her in the corridor after the assembly.

“Today is your turn to help with the girls’ bathroom on this floor,” he said, smiling oddly.

Kara caught herself before she could make a sarcastic remark, but the expression of dismay on her face must have been clear, for the teacher chuckled softly.

“Don’t worry. I have given you a reprieve until next week. You can sweep classrooms today.”

She bowed in gratitude, relieved but also curious.

“Sensei, I am thankful, but why would you do this?”

Mr. Matsui glanced around. Students were moving busily through the halls, preparing to perform their tasks for o-soji. No one was paying them any attention. His brown eyes narrowed behind his glasses, his square head inclining toward her.

“You may be used to working hard in school, but I thought you might need time to adjust to cleaning toilets.”

Kara smiled. “You’re very kind. Honestly, I would prefer never to clean a toilet. I suspect everyone feels that way. But I don’t want to be treated differently just because I’m not Japanese.”

He studied her, smile slipping away. Serious as his expression became, she felt his approval.

Mr. Matsui bowed. “An admirable choice.” He arched a graying eyebrow. “Report to the girls’ bathroom, then.”

She returned his bow and hurried to her duties. For the first four or five steps, she felt proud of herself and grateful to Mr. Matsui. By the sixth step, all she could think about was cleaning toilets, and she began to wish she was the kind of person who would have accepted Mr. Matsui’s gesture. He had done it out of kindness, but if she didn’t like people being cruel or ignorant toward her because she was different, she didn’t think people should treat her better because of it, either.

The door to the girls’ bathroom swung open as Kara approached, and Miho came out lugging two bags of trash.

“Hi,” Miho said, stopping in the hallway. She made a face. “Listen, I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for running off yesterday. I didn’t want to leave Sakura on her own-”

“It’s okay,” Kara interrupted. “I understand. Or, I guess I do. As much as I can, since obviously there’s a lot going on around here that I don’t know, with Sakura and Ume and all of that.”

Miho started to reply, probably to apologize, but Kara held up a hand.

“No, no. It’s just an observation. I’m not upset about it. I’m new, and we don’t know each other that well yet. It’s okay.”

Miho looked unsure. “Really?”

Kara smiled. “Really.”

“So, what are you doing for o-soji? I’ve already got the trash, so

… oh, no. Don’t tell me you have toilet duty?”

Kara executed a deep, theatrical bow.

Miho laughed and shook her head at the same time. “Well, the good news is that after today, you won’t have to do toilets again for months.”

“The worst part is that I sort of volunteered for it.”

“What?”

“A long story,” Kara said. “I’ll explain later.”

She opened the bathroom door. Miho started down the hall with her garbage bags. The door had started to swing shut when Miho called back to her, and Kara propped it open with her hand.

“Yeah?”

“You only have a week left to decide what club you’re going to be in,” Miho said. “Miss Aritomo will be doing a presentation for new members at Noh Club today. You should come.”

Kara thought about it. She’d done some research online over the weekend about Noh theater, mainly because Miho had already suggested she join the club. Some of it seemed really interesting, though it sounded like a ton of work.