NOTE: THIS STORY ISN'T BASED ON TWILIGHT AND WILL BE NOTHING LIKE THAT! VAMPIRES WON'T APPEAR IN HERE!

Hello people, did you all miss me?^^ To old readers I saw: Hello and good to see you back! To new readers: Welcome to my new story! I have been walking around with the idea for this story, and now I'm finished with writing the first chapter, I thought it was time to place it. Maybe not everything will be clear after reading the first chapter, but that will be explained...eventually;). Now, without further undo, sit back and let's us hear the beginning of a new story...Enjoy.

Ages:

Ikuto - 8

Utau - 6

~It's always darkest just before dawn. - English Proverb.~

Chapter 1: The Appearance

It was snowing outside. White, light ice crystals fell down from the sky, creating a world where everything was pure and clean. Where there were no mistakes, no problems, no bad things. Only pure and soft snow.

Would anyone who would see the snow, realize that it was all fake? That snow was just an illusion? That it was just frozen water, turned into ice because of the temperature in the sky? That, when it would melt, would turn that whole pure and innocent world into a mess, leaving only muddy puddles on the street?

As I stood before my window, watching the world covering himself in a fake white clock, I tried as hard as I could to block that one horrible thought out of my mind. That one painful thought, that was screaming in my head and cut his meaning in my heart. That one thought, that I couldn't put out of my mind, no matter how hard I tried to do so. Because, snow can maybe cover up our fake and cruel world, it can't cover up the truth, how painful it may be.

Dad is gone.

I don't know where he is, or why he has left us. All the other people were telling me was: "Ikuto, your father has left you."

I was in my room. Doors locked, no entry allowed for anyone. I had enough of all the other person downstairs. I didn't want to feel Utau's arms around me, feeling her tears fall on my shirt. I didn't want to hear people say "oh those poor children. All alone now in this world..." I just wanted to sit alone in my room, far away from all the noise. I wanted to look out of the window, with my head against the glass, the coldness soothing the pain inside my head. As I watched the window glass steam up by my breath, I closed my eyes and tried desperately to calm the thoughts in my head.

How did this happen...?

I know is that I came home today. There were a whole lot of people in our house, arguing, discussing and crying over things I didn't understood. I just stood in the door opening, wondering what was going on. When I came in Utau immediately run towards me and throw her into my arms. I wasn't really surprised by that because she clings to me all the time, but her eyes were red and new tears were forming in her eyes.

"Utua, what's wrong? What are all those people doing here?" I asked worried. I had never seen her so upset before.

"I-i-ikuto! They say that-that..."

I pulled away and shook her lightly. "What did they say Utau?" Emotions were bubbling inside my because of Utua's behavior. Where was she so worked up about that she acted this way?

She looked up at me, her violet eyes shimmering with fresh tears. "They said that daddy has left us!"

"Daddy has left us!"

Utua's voice echoed trough my head endlessly, like a yo-yo that always comes up because of the force you used when you pushed it away. It stayed in my head, then leaving it and returning again with much more speed and pain than before. I clenched my fists and stared at the floor, trying to stop the tears from coming out.

He can't be gone, I said to myself. Dad would never leave us. He loves mom, I'm sure of it. He always plays with Utau and never minds her irritating whining. He always listens to what I tell, no matter what it is. When we ask it, he plays the violin without complaining about us constantly asking for it. He didn't hate us, he loved us!

But why is he gone then?

My anger came out and I smashed my fist against the window. The force of my punch was returned by the icy glass. I fell to the ground clutching my throbbing hand, letting tears escape which I blamed to the pain in my hand. But why?! I thought desperately. Why would dad do something so cruel! Why would he leave mom and Utau and me behind? Did we do something wrong? Did we made him angry in some way, so angry that he never wanted to see us again? That he just walked away from home and...left us? Really left us?

"Tsukiyomi-san?" Somebody knocked on my door. "Please Tsukiyomi-san, we understand that you feel sad because of your father's lose, but can you please come out of your room? Some people here want to speak to you about-"

I stood up and turned my back to the door. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anybody, nor see anyone. I had enough of all the pitiful looks, the endless arguments and the tears on Utau her face. I was out of here.

I grabbed my dad's violin cage that lay on my bed (I took it into my room because I wanted nobody to take it: dad's violin was now mine and only mine to keep). The window creaking opened when I pulled the latch on it. In no time I was out of my room and away from my house, the violin case on my back and walking to god-knows-where.

As the snow continued to fall I walked trough a changing world, searching for nothing, letting my thoughts ponder in my head, screaming, whispering, turning into tantrums or pleads. I didn't even try to pay attention to them, only on the ground beneath my feet and hoping that they would bring my to some place without pain and tears.

After some time I hit my foot against something hard. A hollow sound echoed through the area, as a sign that I left the districted city behind me and was somewhere outside the city. I looked up and stared at the picture for me.

A huge piece of gray earth (which slowly turned white) stretched out before me. Old, bare trees were scattered in the horizon in an attempt to not make it look completely empty. And everywhere, as far as I could see, were gravestones. Some were old and their straight shapes were worn, some looked as if they were just placed. The whole place was (as far as I could see) surrounded by a high iron fence. Between the graves lay a gravel path, making clear that people actually could enter this graveyard.

Far away, in the middle of hundred different shaped gravestones, stood an old and torn down church. The stained glass windows were dusty and some of them were broken. Big wooden doors made sure nobody would enter the holey building. The church had been white in the earlier days, but as the time went by the white color had faded and had changed into a faint gray tint, like it wanted to fit with the scenery.

The silence, the graves, the broken down church, the gray color dominating the whole place...The sarcasm was just too much. This all couldn't be real. Someone must have heard my thoughts in some pain and decided to take pleasure in my pain, so he brought me here.

Minutes passed. The cold winter wind made a howling sound. The gravestones kept standing, kept waiting, kept pleading for someone, anyone, to enter the graveyard and walk along all those silent memories of persons who died long or short ago. Where did those corps plead for anyway? Why do they try to get people to visit them, if it isn't obvious that everybody has long forgotten them? And why do I find myself standing before the rusty fence, pushing against the clasping gate? Why do I find myself walking on the gravel stones, looking to those stone blocks, studying their form and age?

What is this place doing to me...?

It was surprisingly to see how many different graves there were. You had the normal crosses, some of them crooked, standing in the ground like they grew out of it like flowers. There were the gravestones, most of them a dull grey color, surrounded by weeds, destroying the massive blocks of stone from the inside with their long branches. The wind surly had helped with that work, given the worn edges of the stones.

And then there were the statues. That was the thing that scared me the most. I thought having an statue on your grave instead of a stone was something out of the eighteenth century (but looking to the state of this graveyard, who knows how long this place existed?), for rich nobles who wanted to impression others even with their death. But the most scariest thing of the statues, was what they all represented.

Angels.

It was clear that it were angels and not human statues. Even thought none wore haloes, all of them had wings, spread out wide as if they were going to fly away any minute. Only their feet of stone, chiseled down in their bases, indicated that these creatures already stood here for a long time.

The angels also weren't unaffected by the test of time. Some of them were lying on the ground in pieces, their strong figures broken and their faces smashed, scattered like the pebbles on the path. Other still stood on their pedestals but missed body parts. Arms, legs, hands, feet, wings, you name it. But even if they missed some parts, they didn't lose their aura. Standing straight and proud, their arms stretched out to the earth or to heaven. Looking forward to the horizon to see any approaching visitors, sadly looking down to the grave, eyes cast upwards towards the sky. They gave the graveyard an atmosphere that you could only call: majestic.

Me standing here surrounded by all those graves. All those last signs of people wanting to leave a last message to the world. To let others know that they had lived on this planted, had breathed, laughed, cried, just like any normal person would do. They all tried with their last wish, their last sign on this earth: their grave symbol, to let the world know that they had lived and if they please were not going to be forgotten. But look at this place…

So forgotten. So empty. Nobody seems to remember all those people lying here. Nobody has taking care of the graves in all those years. Nobody cares about all the hundreds, no, maybe thousand persons waiting for somebody to look after them, to visit their graves sometime and to let them please not be forgotten. All those corps here with their last hopes and dreams: buried in the cold earth, far away from the real world and the living so that people's perfect lives wouldn't be haunted with wishes from the dead.

I fought my upcoming tears. Realizing all this suddenly made me think of my father. Would he be walking around on this moment, regretting the decision he made? Had he also had a last wish, some last words that he wanted to say to us before he left for God-knows-what reason? Was he thinking of us right know, about mom, about Utau? About me?

The cold crept into my bones as I kneeled down on the snowy ground, opening the violin case and taking out the only left memory of my dad. He was gone and alone, and because of that mom and Utau and I were alone, and all those people here had been alone for maybe hundreds of years, and we were all alone and sad and nobody would ever be there to care about that and…

My body moved without thinking: placing the violin under my chin and my hand grabbed the bow. Slowly I began playing, the melody of my father's violin filled the grey sky, coming over the graveyard. With my song, I tried to let the corpses know that there was somebody who knew how they felt, because he lost somebody important to him too and he may never see him again...

"What do you think you're doing?!"

I almost dropped the violin from my hands and my heart began beating like crazy. Had a corps came out of his grave? Was there a zombie standing behind me, wanting to finish me off?! Preparing for the worst, I slowly turned around.

In front of me stood a little girl. Her pink hair was in a ponytail and she wore a long black dress that was too long for her, because the sleeves were hanging over her hands and the dress came up to her feet. Her honey colored eyes were blazing with fire and if looks could kill, I would have been dead 10 seconds ago.

"Didn't you hear me? I said: what do you think you're doing?!" She putted her hands on her hips and glared at me. I woke up from my daze and said the first thing that came up:

"Where are you talking about?"

"Where am I talking about?! About you being here! Nobody enters this graveyard without my permission!!"

I stared at her wide eyed and with a dropped jaw: this was the last thing I expected to meet. Where is the zombie? Where is the angry corps? Where is this girl talking about? AND WHAT IS SHE DOING HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?

I regained my posture a bit and raised my brow.

"And who do you think you are?" I replied coolly.

The little girl snorted and pointed at me. "I'm the angel of the dead and protector of this graveyard. And since you are disturbing the peace of the people here, I command you to leave before I let you feel their wrath."

Disclaimer: I do not own Shugo Chara or the characters: My bunny can eat me if I do. ("Norg: dinner!")

A/N: Spotted any grammar mistakes? Feel free to say and I will fix it ASAP. How was that as the first chapter? Poor Ikuto: so alone, so confused, so sad...and that suddenly this girl appears! What in the world is she doing here, and is she really an angel? If you want to know, leave your review and I will update the next chapter as soon as I can! Hope you all enjoyed the first chapter, bye!

~ Artemis