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Afraid of the Light	By : Resting-Madness Category: Beyblade > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 193 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't make a profit from this story. I do not own any Beyblade character mentioned or used in it.

Chapter List
- 11
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- 13
His mother had one final earring to put on before she left the house. Ozuma sat on the bed watching her get ready, just as he always had when he was a little boy. But secretly, he was with her because she had the lamp on, and he didn't feel safe alone and he didn't feel safe with her being alone.
With a smile at her reflection, Tsugani turned to her son, spreading her arms out. "How do I look?"
"Pretty." He smiled.
"Just pretty? Well I should change then." She laughed.
Ozuma looked at the clock: 7:25. Another half hour and Max would be here to pick him up. "What time are you gonna be home?"
"I'm not sure, Judy called me around six and said something about One maybe Two o'clock in the morning." His mother walked over to the bed, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "I wish your father were here."
"Me too."
"I've never been to a party without him," She confessed her sadness. "You have fun at the sleep over, and lock the door when you leave tonight."
"I will."
Tsugani stood up from the bed, walking to the door. "Well, that's my ride." She was referring to the car horn that just honked a moment ago. "Be good, and if any one gives you trouble, they'll have to answer to me."
Ozuma didn't want to seem obvious, but he followed right on his mother's heels, turning out the lamp as he went.
The house became pitch black in the hallway.
"Ozuma," Tsugani looked around. "What happened to the night light in the hall?"
He shrugged. "I uhhh, took it out." He swallowed.
"...You took it out? Why? Did the bulb blow?"
"No..." He was silent. Think Ozuma. think! "I can lead you downstairs, come on. It's thirteen to the bottom." He grabbed at her hand.
"Ozuma, you're being silly."
The car horn honked again. Tsugani reached for the hall light, but Ozuma smacks her hand away from it.
"No!"
"What? What has gotten into you?" She was becoming concerned now.
It wasn't like her son to act this way, usually he would have search lights beamed at the house for good measure and now he was having a panic attack about turning them on? He really was losing his mind in this house.
Petting his red and gray strands of hair, she sighed. "I'm sorry sweetie, lead the way."
Ozuma smiled, taking his mother's hand. "It's right this way."
The two walk downstairs in the dark; Tsugani felt like she was going to miss a step the entire time, but she didn't want her son to be afraid of- whatever it was that was scaring him. And she would make sure to come home early and check on him.
"Here we are." Ozuma announced. "Have fun at the party."
Tsugani looked at her son carefully, a bit of moon light the only thing the kitchen has going for it. "Ozuma... I'll stay home if you need me to. You don't seem like yourself."
"I'm fine, really." He shrugged. "I'm just... trying to grow up and not be such a baby anymore."
"...Are you sure?"
"Yes," he nods.
"Okay, but keep a flash light with you incase you get scared." She walks down the main hall to the front door. "I'll call every hour I'm gone."
"Okay."
The car horn honked again.
"Better get going." Said her son, practically pushing her out of the house.
Giving him one last kiss and hug, Tsugani reluctantly left with Max's and, whom he could only assume, Tyson's parents.
Ozuma closed the door, waiting until he was sure the car was out of sight, then he dashed upstairs to get back into his clothes. He was wearing his pajamas so his mother wouldn't think he planned to flake out on the party. And she said it was perfectly fine to walk to Max's in them. But this was not proper clothing to go sit around a lake.
"Heeheeheeheeheehee!"
The woman was at it again. Ozuma didn't care, he wasn't going to be afraid anymore. He knew they couldn't touch him, not in the darkness, so let them talk themselves out. He didn't care. "Ignore the words, it's in your head. Ignore all the shadows under your bed," he spoke softly the words of his comfort song incase he lost his nerve. "Your mommy's here and your daddy too,"
A door slammed in the distance and the giggles continued.
"And all their love will protect you."
His bedroom, at last. Walking inside, he paused. The mask! It was no longer laying on his bed! Someone must have come into his room and taken it. No time for that now, he couldn't let Rei sit out there forever. Getting dressed, he tossed his night clothes in the corner of the bedroom where nothing sat. He didn't want to have to come any further into the room than necessary when he gets dressed for bed and sleeps in his parents' room.
Zipping then buttoning his jeans, Ozuma grabs a flash light for just incase. Hurrying out of his house. He remembered to lock the front door after him. Now to get to the lake. Going behind the house, he ran the distance from their house to the lake with no light to guide him except for the clouded moon.
x x x
"Rei...Rei!" He didn't wanna raise his voice too much, incase he had been followed out. Turning on the flashlight, he made a quick turn left, then right to make sure no one was lurking in the darkness. With a relieved sigh, he walked over to the lake.
"Ozuma," Rei came out of nowhere it seemed and he took a seat, indian style, in front of the black water. Ozuma joined him.
"So, what'd you wanna ask me about?"
His tone was so calm, so casual, that it almost frightened Ozuma to thinking that maybe Rei might be in cahoots with the couple.
"It's about the house, did you know the family that used to live there?" Ozuma was very blunt. "I need to know anything you know about them."
Rei was silent a moment, then he frowned. "Yeah, I'd known them. My family knew them... they were the Iwakawa family."
"Iwakawa?"
"Uh huh, they were nice people. Very kind, and helpful too. That's how my family met them, they came over when we first moved here and helped us set up..." He trailed off. "Soon after that, they came over a lot. We loved having them... Then, one day my parents had to leave town and they let the Iwakawa's look after me."
"Did they do something bad to you?" Ozuma cocked his head to try reading Rei's expressions in the dim black of the night, but he got nothing from the boy, except a face that read mild interest, until he smiled.
"No, they were great... only thing was it was so dark in that house... Nothing but candle light lit it."
"So they were having the same troubles as me?! That means it couldn't be them then," Ozuma seemed worried by that.
"No, let me finish." Rei said. "The reason that it was so dark in there is because the family had a kid, a moon child."
"Moon child?" Ozuma let the word sink in. "What's that?"
"They're normal people but with a bad skin condition, they can't be in certain types of light. Lamps, sun- mostly sun- nothing brighter than candle. I never knew that though until they told me."
"Oh."
"She was a nice girl, looked just like her mother; same age as you are- maybe a year younger. And she was glad to have a friend. But we couldn't be friends for too long because my parents told me I couldn't stay out so late..."
"...But, what are you saying?"
"I didn't see the family for a while, I had met Kai and was moving on with my life. So the Iwakawa family remained in their home playing with their kid." Rei frowned again. "That's when it happened... two years ago... the parents snapped. I only heard this on the news, but it scared me so bad to think about it. People that my family knew just going crazy like that... it was awful. I kept thinking if only there was something I could have done."
Ozuma touched Rei's shoulder, giving him a sympathetic smile. "I don't think you could have done anything. You were young, right?"
"But you don't understand, it was the weird way that they lost their minds that made me feel badly for them,"
"What happened?" Ozuma was growing scared of the way Rei was talking. He couldn't imagine what happened to them to freak someone out this much.
"The news report said that, the Iwakawa family had woken up one morning and drowned themselves in this lake."
Ozuma's eyes went wide with horror. Flashes of the couples gray skin and dirty bodies played through his thoughts. Their cold wet hands touching him in his dreams and in the pantry. They had drowned.
"Yeah," Rei said out of nowhere, as if he were reading his thoughts. "That's why I come here, it... takes some of the guilt away."
"But it isn't your..." He swallowed, he still had nervous and frightened lumps in his stomach. "it's not your fault Rei."
"That's not the worst part... The reason the family had gone insane is because they were in the dark so long. They had no sleep because they were awake all night with their daughter, trying to live the life of night owls. Whenever you saw the family during the day, they wore sunglasses to protect their eyes because they had become so sensative to the light that they were loosing their vision."
Ozuma blinked, his words were gone. So far as he knew, the family had gone insane and drowned themselves... But what about their-...! "Rei, the couple- the Iwakawa family... I saw them in the house! I see them, whenever the lights are on!"
"I can imagine..." His voice remained calm. "That night, right before they drowned... Mr. Iwakawa saw his wife standing over the bed... She was-... she was so moon crazy, she didn't know what she was doing and... She attacked him."
"Whaaat!?"
"They had a bad struggle, Mr. Iwakawa ran around the house trying to turn on all the lights, he no longer cared about his daughter's skin or life, he just wanted to be normal again. But Mrs. Iwakawa loved her daughter more than anything and she saw to it that he wouldn't turn the lights on again."
"What'd she do?"
"She ran through the house with a wrench, she broke every light in the house... The shards from the bulbs shattered left and right... it cut their eyes so badly they were blinded." Rei sighed. "And it's weird, because the police report said that all this happened then they found their way to the lake. Their vision couldn't have been that bad if they managed to find the lake at night." He shrugged.
It all made sense now, the couples insanity, the giggling. They had lost their minds. The man wanted to be normal, so he comes to the light, his giggling wife wants the lights off so that their daughter- He gasped sharply. The daughter! "Rei," He grabbed the boy's shirt. "What happened to their daughter? Did she drown too?"
The Chinese boy shook his head. "That's the weird part... No one found her."
"What do you mean?"
He shrugged. "She wasn't in the house... They searched the home and the forest- nothing came up. As far as they knew she ran away... But she couldn't have gotten far, not in the daylight, so there's a chance she died somewhere and no one has found her yet."
Ozuma was silent.
"Did I... answer all your questions?" The chinese boy looked at him.
"Sort of... I'm wondering... Why? Why does the family come to the light?"
"To be normal. To have their normal lives again."
"In the darkness, I hear them talking but I can't feel them... but in the light. It's almost as if they're really there."
"Spirits, I guess... I don't know much about ghost, but if I were you, I'd consider moving, or leaving all your lights off."
"That was the plan... hopefully, when my Dad comes back I can convince him to let us move." Ozuma stood, brushing dirt from his pants.
"That's too bad, I would have liked to get to know you better." Rei stood as well.
"Me too."
They were silent again.
"Ozuma?"
"Yeah,"
"...You could stay at my house, if you want?"
The mixed child shook his head. "I can't, I have to protect my mom."
"I can wait with you."
"No, I have to do this alone. But thanks... for everything."
"No problem." He started away.
"Rei wait!"
"Yeah?"
"The daughter... what was her name?"
He seemed to think a moment, then he answered with a shrug. "Dawn, Dawn Iwakawa."
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Afraid of the Light