I'm so sorry guys. It's not been the best of times for me. Those of you who have liked my facebook page, you probably already know that I've had an abscess, but what you won't know is that one of my friends was killed not too long ago.

And I feel really bad about it. Can you guess why I feel as bad as I do? It is to do with how he was killed.

Anyway, this chapter is kind of for him.

Aaron Britt 1995-2011

Chapter 9

"Haemolacria. A very rare condition where the patient cries tears of blood. Because it is so rare, there is little known about it. It has been suggested that people develop haemolacria after they have experienced extreme trauma or who have recently had a serious head injury." The ten doctors looked at the scan of the girl's brain. "But this is no ordinary case of haemolacria. When she cries, her eyes open and roll so we cannot see her pupils or irises. She also arches and opens her mouth as if she is screaming in pain." The man talking pushed his glasses up and the glare of the sun hid his eyes from view. "You are the ten most experienced doctors in this hospital. You have all seen so many scans, you can tell what is wrong with first glance. So tell me, what is wrong with this girl's brain?" There was a small murmur from the doctors then as they scrutinised the pictures in front of them. Eventually a woman spoke.

"I'm sorry Ootori-sama, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with her." The glare from the sun flashed across the man's glasses again.

"I see. It is what I thought." He turned and walked from the room without another word.

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Fulfilling this present where I can't hear voices of pleasure
This method of compensation and the pain of living was taken away
If it is a world where I am merely surviving
I don't need to ambivalently wound or love other people

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Two weeks had passed and Hitomi's 'fits', as the doctors had dubbed them, seemed to be slowly stopping. She was having less of them now. Her parents and a friend of Hitomi's visited her everyday. She was showing signs of being conscious at times; gripping the hand of whoever was holding hers and sometimes, her head would turn ever so slightly to whoever was speaking. It wasn't until 4 weeks after the accident did she wake up properly.

It was one of the night shift doctors that heard the panicked scream. He ran towards the sound and found himself entering the room of a girl ripping the IV drip out of her arm and trying to disentangle herself from the bed sheets.

"Where am I? What did you do to them?" The girl was yelling, almost shrieking. The doctor recognised this girl as the 'mystery'.

"Suzuki-san! Calm down. You're in the hospital." His attempts at calming worked only slightly. Hitomi turned to face the man, now free from the bed sheets. It didn't seem she was entirely awake, however, as there was a mad look in her eyes and tears were flowing freely down her face.

"Why did you kill them?"

Voices. So many voices. They yelled at me. They whispered to me. There was singing, people talking to one another. Conversations. They called out, not only to me, but to four others. Begging to be released...

And then someone sobbed and all the other voices faded into background noise.

"They killed them." The voice was childish. Maybe only 8 years old. I heard a squealing of car brakes. "Why did they kill them?" The sound of metal crunching filled my ears and faded again. The sobbing was so pathetic, so helpless, that my heart went out to the child. And then I noticed I was crying too.

It was getting harder to breathe. Things clawed at me and I felt heavy. I screamed and tried pulling whatever it was off of me, so that I could breathe. The sobbing faded and then voices, male, started laughing cruelly.

"Good job gentlemen. That car 'accident' was pulled off perfectly."

"Where am I?" I yelled at them.

"Here is your pay."

"Half a million?" He spoke with a thick American accent.

"Of course." Then there was a gun shot.

"What did you do to them?" I yelled again at the men, but they didn't seem to hear me. Something pulled at me. There was something in my arm. I pulled at it, whilst trying to get rid of whatever it was smothering at me.

"Suzuki-san! Calm down. You're in the hospital." That name, Suzuki, it sounded familiar. I stood there, in the dark, crying, now able to breathe. I turned towards the voice. Why did Suzuki sound so familiar? It was something I knew well.

In a distant part of my mind, I knew I was asking the same question that the sobbing girl wanted to ask.

"Why did you kill them?"

And then I knew nothing.

~(*)~

My head hurt. It pounded with each pulse my heart made. I groaned at sat up, covers falling away from me. I was immediately pushed back down again.

"Hitomi! You have to lie down!" The voice was my mother's. It was tinged with relief and happiness, as well as weariness.

"Mother." I sighed gently. I didn't know why, but her voice calmed me and my headache eased a little. I moved slightly and heard a rustle of papery material. I could feel it on my skin. A hospital gown? I was in hospital? "Why am I in hospital?" I asked, almost on the verge of panicking. "Is something wrong?" There was a small gap of silence before she answered me.

"You were in an accident, sweetie. Don't you remember?" Of course. The car accident. I remembered. Of course I did. The horn blaring and the brakes screeching at me to get out of the way. How could I not remember? I stayed silent and nodded. My mother sobbed and threw her arms around me. "Oh sweetie! I was so worried about you. The doctors didn't – I'm glad you're awake. When you started – well, I'm just so glad you're awake." Her hesitation didn't go unnoticed.

"When I started what?" She didn't answer, just carried on hugging me. "Mum, when I started what?" She paused for only a second.

"Honey, the doctors don't know anything. You just started… crying… and shaking. The doctors say its haemolacria. But they don't know why… they don't know anything about it. There was just – you were crying blood Hitomi." She was rambling at me. She stopped for a minute. "Your father will be here in an hour. Do you want me to call him?" I was about to answer when I heard a commotion. I heard a low curse before doors burst open and I could recognise the voices.

"HITOMI-HIME! YOU'RE AWAKE!"

"Tono, don't hurt the poor girl anymore."

…I groaned. I had thought I would get a break from the Host Club. Obviously not. A crushing force wrapped itself around me and my shoulder got mysteriously wet as someone sobbed on me. Three guesses as to who.

"Senpai! She's just recovered from an accident. Get off of her."

"Yes, I agree with Haruhi. You should leave Suzuki-san to get some rest. I dare say she needs it."

"Ah." Said a very familiar voice. The sobbing continued in my shoulder.

"There's no point in trying to reason with him when he's like this." Two voices chorused.

"Tama-chan! You're hurting her!" That's right, you guessed it. Tamaki. I gently tried to ease him off of me.

"Tamaki-senpai, I can't breathe." I was immediately released and my ribcage groaned in protest of being crushed. I asked everyone questions, my mother being strangely quiet. I'm not sure how much time passed in this manner, as questions and answers were exchanged, but I didn't notice the doors opening and closing again until my father spoke.

"Hitomi?" It was barely more than a whisper, but I heard it. I turned to face the direction the voice came from and I smiled. "Hitomi, thank God you're awake." Gentle arms wrapped around my body and I hugged my father back. I felt the vibrations in his throat as he spoke. "The doctors want to keep you in for a while to do some more tests, but we can take you home if you want." I suddenly felt tired, despite just waking up. I nodded.

"Take me home." I was vaguely aware of my mother shooing out the 7 boys. I felt my father nod against my head.

"Come on then. Let's get you out of this horrible hospital gown. I'll wait outside for you.

~(*)~

It didn't take long before I was wheeling myself along the corridors of the hospital, in my normal clothes, in a wheelchair, with my mother. Technically speaking, I shouldn't be wheeling myself, but the corridors were relatively straight and empty. It was only when we got to a corner that my mum would take over. The sounds and smells of this place were overwhelming. Sterile and clean and almost hateful. But this place had kept me alive from what my mum had told me. My mum was talking about little things. Stuff that had happened while I was in the coma. I was hearing the words she was saying, but I wasn't listening. I was too engrossed in my own thoughts.

I didn't notice the light until I was right next to it. I should have noticed it. I really should have, because I had never seen anything in my dark world. And this light was definitely something. I stopped the chair and looked at it. All sounds faded, except for a noise I knew. The whistling noise of the beeping machine when the heart wasn't beating. The continuous whistle and sobbing. The light moved and I saw a head. It must have been a head. There were eyes and a nose and a mouth.

And it was beautiful.

I saw the rest of the body through the light and it obliterated the darkness. The hair came to just above the ears. The clothes were baggy and looked as though they were torn.

I didn't know how, but I could tell that this was a boy. It was like I had seen a person before, and only now was I remembering. The boy turned his head and the mouth lifted at the corners into what I knew was a smile. He raised his hand and waved at me, before looking back in the direction of whoever was sobbing. Still smiling, he reached out, stroked something still invisible to me and faded. The darkness came back and engulfed me once more. Something wet was sliding down my face. I reached up and found myself crying.

Noise came back so suddenly that it was deafening.

"Hitomi! Are you okay? Hitomi! Are you listening?" My mother started shaking me by the shoulders. "Hitomi!"

"Mum?" I felt dazed and a little light-headed. She was panicking. I could tell.

"Oh God! Maybe we should just let you stay here. You're obviously not alright!"

"No! I'm fine, really." I looked around, hoping to see some more light, but there was none. "I just – I just want to go home."

"But you're not alright! You're crying blood again, Hitomi!" She was almost screeching. I interrupted her before she could carry on.

"Did someone just die in that room there?" I gestured to the place I saw the boy and my mum paused. She obviously wondered what was going through my mind, but nevertheless I heard her walk towards the door. There was a moment of quiet between us before she came back towards me.

"Yes. A boy about your age. I think he was involved in the same accident you were. He can't have been much older than you. I'm glad I'm not his parents." I was dumbstruck. The hands of fate were fickle fellows. They had allowed me to live, but had killed this boy. The boy who smiled at me. That boy must have been the ghost.

And then it struck me. As ironic and as stupid as I sounded, even to myself, I still thought it. Just for a second.

I, who could not see, had been given the gift of sight.

But I had probably imagined it. I had heard the stupid machine and I had imagined a human was right there. A ghost.

But if that was true, then how did I know it was a boy? I couldn't imagine anything that beautiful anyway. Not in any circumstance.

The thought plagued me all the way home, and all through that night. I argued to myself in my head, until I finally convinced myself that what I had seen had just been a dream and nothing more. A figment of my imagination. A remnant of my coma.

I do remember being hugged by most of the staff and congratulated by all on my recovery. I do remember Jacque telling me how much work I had missed and that I would need to catch up. I knew he was only joking. Well, I hoped he was anyway. He sounded as though he was.

And I remember saying, for some unknown reason, that I wanted a pet.

That confused me, because I've never been too bothered about a pet animal before. And I certainly hadn't thought about it, so I had no idea why I said it.

And then I remembered the boy smiling and I was drained. I needed sleep. I lay back in bed. I pulled the covers up to my chin and I fell asleep almost immediately.

My last thought before I slept was, maybe it will make more sense in the morning.

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Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders,
These twists & turns of fate.
Time falls away,
But these small hours,
These small hours still remain…

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Yeeeaaah….

So, review replies:

Scizzors: Its not that bad is it? To make you cry? xD Thank you! Mori seems to be the most popular answer so far so, that's what it may come too. So thankies for the vote! :)

Snickers12: Really? Chapter 8 was your favourite? I didn't think I had written it very well. But you make me happy :D

Melikecake: sorry but you can only vote once :p Sorry to see that you wasted your time writing 72 Hikaru's xD but it made my day

AbbyinUnderland: Yeah, I'm not tooo clever with this stuff xD Ignore me if I don't make sense. Everyone else usually does :)

Myviolaismylife: I made you cry in public! I'm so sorry D: Please forgive meee! Dx

Escape to Ouran: I leave hints? I suppose I do…. Yeaah, that's exactly what I do… (forget I ever said anything)

Thanks to Bored411, Tono Radish, Kitty13492, Beau Mercury and everyone above for reviewing! You all get cookies and all that shiz! And now I should upload this seeing as I need to get up for early tomorrow. I'm terrible for time-keeping :/

(btw, I feel really bad because he was hit by a car and put into a coma before dying. And how did Hitomi get put into a coma? Exactly)