CHAPTER ONE: Skill of Soul: Frost Monarch
3:23 a.m.
Jun sat upright in his bed, sweating and panting heavily, staring at the open palm of his hand. There, in the very center, was a small ice crystal forming. It was floating and twirling about in the darkness gracefully. Jun would've been delighted by its presence -- had it been anywhere other than on his body.
'How did this get here?' he thought to himself quietly, as if his thoughts could be heard aloud. 'What the hell is this?'
He exhaled, slowly reaching for his lamp switch, not trying to move too much all while keeping a close look on the ice crystal. As his finger neared the switch, he had a strong and sudden urge to sneeze -- and as he did, the ice crystal in his hand quickly expanded into a large blade and shot upwards, smashing a hole in his room's ceiling.
His blue eyes widening in fear, Jun panicked and dashed out of his bed, screaming and tripping over the sheets in the process. He swung his door open and flew out of his room, tumbling down the stairs in the darkness of the house. Landing in the middle of the living room floor, he scurried onto the long sofa and huddled into a shuddering ball.
He heard his parent's voices seconds later, and then the light clicked on. They were still groggy, having been woken up by Jun's frantic outburst.
"Jun? Sweetie, what's wrong?" his mother asked, rushing over to him. "Nightmare?"
Jun replied with a blank stare, his eyes struck with fear.
"Did you wet your bed?" his father asked jokingly. "That'd be a nightmare. Eighteen years old and still wetting the bed!"
His mother turned around and gave him a stern look -- one that silenced his snickering right away. "Toshio, go back to bed. Now."
Jun's father headed back upstairs, still chuckling at his joke.
"Jun, listen to me," she said, stroking her son's tousled brown hair, "it's all okay. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was just a nightmare. If it makes you feel better, why don't you sleep in Kazuaki's room with him?"
Jun's spell of fear broke at the thought of sharing a room with his eleven year old brother because of a bad dream. "Never! He'd make fun of me for the rest of my life!"
His mother laughed. "Come on. Let's get you back to bed."
As she helped him up, fussing over his messy hair, his father called them from upstairs. From the worried tone he used, Jun knew it couldn't be good. He and his mother both rushed upstairs to find Toshio standing in front of Jun's open doorway.
"Jun?" he asked in a low voice, slowly pointing into his room. "What. Is. That?"
Jun fearfully peered into his room. His father was pointing to the large ice crystal blade that had smashed into his ceiling. It was stuck, reflecting the soft white moonlight through its crystallized body.
"My goodness!" his mother exclaimed. "Jun, did you do that? What is that? How did it get there? What is that?"
"I don't know," Jun answered, whispering, as if it would hear him. "I don't know anything about that ... thing. It just ... formed randomly and woke me up."
His father turned to him with a skeptical look on his face. He seemed to open his mouth to say something but opted not to. The crystal, or whatever it was, just seemed so unearthly that he had no possible explanation for it. "Is it snowing outside?"
"It's the middle of March!" his mother exclaimed. "There's no way a chunk of ice would fall and get stuck in our roof!"
All three of them were quiet as they continued to stare at whatever it was.
"Maybe you should sleep on the sofa downstairs," his mother said finally. "I have a bad feeling about that thing. We'll discuss this more tomorrow, okay? Toshio, shut that door!"
Without a word, his father shut the door and locked it, as if it would keep the crystal away from them.
Jun made his way back downstairs, pulled out the sofa bed and plopped down. He tried to shut his eyes and go back to sleep, but no matter how tired he was, he couldn't.
'That came from me! I did that,' he thought, tossing and turning around. 'I made that crystal. I made it shoot up. My god, what the hell is happening to me?' Hours later, Jun finally managed to doze off into a light sleep.
In his dream, he found himself running. Running away from something. Someone. A strange old man, ominously standing behind him with a crooked grin. His face was shadowed, though Jun could still feel the menacing, piercing gaze of his eyes. For some odd reason, it hurt him. Pain tingled through his body, as if it were real, instead of a nightmarish encounter.
He awoke in just a few hours later covered in sweat to loud, heavy pounding on his front door. Creaking his tired eyes open, he was blinded by the shining sunlight pouring through in the blinds.
"Police! Open up!"
Jun shot up from the couch, staggering. 'Police? Why?'
He turned to run up the stairs to get his parents, before being stopped by the most horrific sight of his life. The ice crystal - whatever it was - had expanded even more, destroying the entire house and created crystal walls in its place. His house had now become a crystallized castle. His mouth hung open as he stared at his reflection on the walls in disbelief.
But, waking up to a crystallized house is not as shocking as waking up to a dead family. There, nailed high above to the crystal ceiling, was his two parents and younger brother, all dead. A red chain wrapped around their crucified posed bodies, tying them to each other and dangling loose on the ends. Jun was stunned. And scared. Deathly scared.
"Oh my fucking god!" he cried out, dashing up the stairs, ignoring the pounding policemen and flashing sirens outside. "Mom! Dad! Kazu!" Their blood splattered out of their bodies on the ceiling, as if someone had tried to paint eerie blood red wings.
'This can't be real!' Jun thought as he frantically tried to reach up to his family's cold, lifeless bodies. 'It can't be! I'm dreaming. This is a nightmare. I'm so fucking dreaming! God, this can't be real!' The more he continued to fuss over it, the more the reality began to sink in.
If you have ever lost someone dear to you, then you know the unbearable pain and despair that you gain in place of them. And for those who haven't, you can't even begin to imagine it. Jun slid to his knees, staring with an open mouth, at the horrific sight before him. His voice was stuck in his dry throat, coming out in squeaks and other incomprehensible noises.
He tuned everything out, every bit of his surroundings. He didn't care about the shouting angry policemen outside his door. He didn't care when they broke down the door with a battering ram. He didn't care when they rushed upstairs, loudly interrogating him about what happened. He was silent when they picked him up and carried him outside.
By now, Jun had come back to reality a bit, getting a glimpse of what was going on. News cameras everywhere, as well as photographers and reporters with their cameras flashing taking pictures of the house, of him, and of the large crystal that jutted out from the roof. Along with them were multiple police cars and cops, ambulances, fire trucks and nosy bystanders - all chattering loudly. The police sat Jun down on the back of an ambulance.
"What happened kid?" they asked in a loud booming voice. "What is that? Where did it come from? Did you do it? Why is your family dead? What the hell is going on in there?"
Jun merely replied with a blank stare, still in shock. 'This is reality. This hell is now reality. This is real life.'
"Answer us kid!" the policeman demanded. His patience was wearing thin. He turned to his partners and shook his head. "Forget it. Kid's not talking. We'll have to go to the eyewitnesses. Don't let him out of your sight!"
Jun looked around at the busy scene before him, reporters and policemen scurrying back and forth the street. Blinding and flashing lights filled the sky as well as deafening sirens and blares of horns. Jun felt his head spin, and it wasn't long before he fainted, falling back into the ambulance.
He awoke hours later in a white hospital bed. His head was wrapped in a tight bandage and a needle was stuck to his finger. He groggily got up, his head still in pain and throbbing, and tried to look around.
A nearby nurse noticed him and quickly sent word to the doctors. Within seconds, his empty room was filled with white clad doctors and nurses fussing over him, with hoards of reporters and cameras piling outside his door.
"Where am I?" he asked. It came out stifled and scratchy. His throat was dry and hoarse, almost painful to talk.
"The hospital," a nurse answered with a friendly smile. "You passed out after the murder, so they took you here."
Jun looked down. "Oh." Then it hit him. "Wait! Murder?!"
His sudden outburst of energy surprised the doctor. "Y-yes," the doctor said, removing the needle stuck in his finger. "Your family, looks like they were killed and then crucified to the ceiling. Looks like the work of some psychopathic murderer."
'Who did it?' Jun thought, 'And why did they spare me? Why did they do it? Why us? Why me? And the red chain ... what the hell is going on?!'
The doctor smiled warmly and made sure all wires were disconnected from the injured Jun. "Yep. They're charging you with the murder," he said calmly as he snapped a thick pair of metal handcuffs around Jun's slender wrists.
Jun's heart dropped. Silence rang in his ears. He stared back at the doctor, as if he had grown two heads instead of telling him horrible news, then down at the cold pair of cuffs on his wrists. "Wha ..."
No sooner had the doctor delivered his horrifying news that a tall and skinny man entered the room. He looked about thirty, in his white pinstripe suit and slicked back hair. Behind his glasses, his grey eyes were shiny and had a sneaky glint to them, constantly darting around the room. He approached the dumbfounded Jun, pushing the nurses and doctor aside.
"Hello there, young man," he said in a bright peppy voice. "Jun Kimura? Hello, hello! Do you know who I am?"
Jun slowly shook his head, his brown eyes still empty, torn, and confused.
