Ghost Story

Chapter 5

After he disappeared, Kari forced herself to take a deep breath and pull herself together. What he had said made perfect sense, she only wished she had listened to all of Izzy's rantings more closely.

Izzy! She realized, she remembered him, she remembered everyone, Izzy and Joe and Mimi and Sora and Tai! Her brother Tai! Her name wasn't Kari Miko. Miko was her cat. Her name was Kari Kamiya and she was a digi-destined.

The force of all her memories flooding back to her hit her like a brick, knocking the air out of her lungs.

She threw herself out of bed and scrambled to grab a sweatshirt, not even bothering to change out of the loose fitting sweat pants she had been sleeping in. It seemed as if she couldn't move fast enough as she struggled to find her keys and sandals. Then the elevator couldn't move fast enough as she hurried out the door and into the bright light of the early Sunday morning air.

She ran up to the phone booth on the corner and began furiously flipping through the pages. Takaishi, Takaishi, Takaishi, she murmured while she scanned the listings.

There were no Takaishis listed.

Maybe he was going by his father's name now, she wondered, proud of herself that she knew what that was: Ishida, like his brother Matt.

There were no Ishidas listed.

With a sinking feeling in her heart she flipped to the Ks.

There were no Kamiya's listed.

There were no Takenouchis, no Ishiros, no Tachikawas, no Kidos, no Motomiyas, no Inuoes, no Hidas, and not even a single Ichijouji.

Feeling like she'd been hit with a sack of bricks again, she stumbled out of the phone booth. She looked around her at the familiar city of Odaiba, where she had lived her whole life. Where had everyone gone?

Feeling slightly nauseous, she bent over, stabilizing herself by gripping her knees. Something wasn't right. She had remembered everything, her life, her love, her family, and still everything was all wrong. She could remember all of them and the wonderful life she had spent with her family and friends and T.K., but she still didn't understand why she was here and they weren't.

A dark cloud moved to cover the sun and she was pulled back to reality. Lightning flashed in the distance, making her think of the day she saw Gatomon in the park.

That's it! She thought. If there were some serious glitches happening in the digital world and here on Earth then T.K. must be lost somewhere in another world, she just had to get to him. But to do that, she'd need another portal.

She crossed the street into the park. There was a storm coming, but Kari kept wandering further into it, looking for something like the window she'd seen before.

Kari remembered the day that she had been kidnapped by Scubamon and taken to the Dark Ocean. That was the day T.K. had told her he cared about her when he and Gatomon had rescued her. He said he had been wandering the beach trying to figure out a way to follow her there when a way had simply appeared before him. Maybe if she focused hard enough, a way to him would open for her. It seemed like a long shot but she had to try!

Heavy raindrops began to fall, splattering the sidewalk and the top of her head. Kari shivered and pressed on, moving faster through the park. Ahead of her loomed the large fountain in the center. She walked around it and on the other side she found what she had been searching for.

The portal itself was the same two-dimensional window she had crossed through several days earlier but that was where the similarities ended. Instead of peering into a dark jungle, Kari found herself face to face with a long dimly lit corridor. She didn't recognize the building but she took a chance and stepped inside it anyway.

The second she left the park behind her, she heard a loud DING! An elevator door slid open at the far end of the hallway. Her heart pounded when out stepped none other than T.K. himself, clad in a sleek black raincoat, with Patamon flapping behind him.

"T.K.!" Kari cried as she began running down the hallway.

Neither of them responded, looked up, or even acknowledged that she was there.

"T.K.! Patamon!" she cred again, but they still didn't react. He turned and opened a door on the right side of the hallway. Kari ran after him and slid inside just before it closed.

"T.K., what's going on? Answer me!" she said, louder this time, but he still ignored her as he turned into another room. Kari paused for only a second to look around her before following him. They were in an apartment she didn't recognize. There were pictures hung on the walls of the entryway so Kari glanced at them while she followed the way T.K. had gone. She saw a picture of Matt and T.K. with their arms around each other in front of the harbor. There was a picture of Matt's dad and a picture of T.K.'s mother, then a picture of a band performing at a rock concert. She recognized the skinny blond haired frame of the lead singer as Matt. This must be Matt's new apartment, she deduced. The sound of people arguing in the next room urged her forward.

Cautiously she peered around the corner. T.K. had gone to the living room, where he was sitting on the couch. Both Gatomon and Patamon were sitting beside him. In one corner, Izzy was sitting at a computer desk, his fingers scrambling across the keyboard as usual. Across from T.K., Matt and Tai were both standing and looking very upset.

"Will you guys just tell me what this is about?" T.K. demanded, and he did not sound very happy either.

"T.K.?" Kari asked, announcing her presence in the room. "Tai? Matt? What's going on?"

None of them acknowledged her.

"Can you guys even hear me?" She asked. "HELLO?" she yelled, but to no avail. None of them even glanced at the doorway she was standing in.

"T.K., don't get upset," Tai said, "we're just worried about you, is all."

"Why? What did I do this time?" T.K. sounded thoroughly annoyed.

Tai and Matt exchanged looks. They both seemed to be lost for words for a bit until Matt said, "Just…maybe it's time you started moving on with your life…"

She was right about T.K.: he was extremely annoyed. "What?" he practically yelled. "How can you think I can just move on with my life without her?" He picked up his raincoat and turned toward the door where Kari was standing.

When he turned around Kari got her first good look at his face and was shocked by what she saw. This was not the T.K. she had known. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes lined by dark circles, and his chin stubbly where he hadn't shaven in days. Even his normally thin body was even thinner.

"You of all people should understand, Tai," he muttered.

Tai looked hurt. "That's not he meant, T.K. I've accepted that she's gone and you need to do the same."

Kari felt like her heart was breaking as tears began brimming in her eyes. "I'm not gone," she stammered, "I'm right here. Why can't you see?"

She watched T.K.'s face as tears began to glisten in his eyes as well. "I can't, Tai. I can't when I know that some part of her is still out there somewhere." He turned back around to their brothers. "I saw her."

Tai's mouth dropped open an inch, Matt's frown deepened, and Izzy stopped his mad typing to swivel his desk chair around to face them.

"I saw her with my eyes, and I felt her with my hands. She's alive, and real, and out there somewhere," he went on.

Matt looked to Izzy, but Izzy only shook his head. "T.K., that's not possible."

"I saw her too!" Gatomon added and they all turned to stare at her. T.K. sat back down on the couch, though Kari was slightly concerned that it was more of a collapse.

"The other day," Gatomon began, "I was out chasing rabbits in the digital world and I saw her, plain as day in front of me. I talked to her."

Tai looked like he was going to collapse too.

"What did she say?" Patamon asked, hesitantly.

"She didn't understand what had happened to her," Gatomon said. "And she asked about T.K."

Kari felt nauseous again.

Matt turned to Izzy again. "Izzy, there has to be some explanation for this."

"Uhh…I…umm…" Izzy mumbled, "well, there have been a lot of glitches lately in the digital world. I guess the only explanation is that T.K.'s right. It's very possible that there is some part of her existing somewhere in another world. And with all the glitches going on there might be some crossover between our world and that one…although…"

"Although what?" Tai asked impatiently.

"Paranormal studies aren't my specialty," Izzy continued, "although many people have been able to provide factual evidence on the existence of paranormal beings, which makes me suspect that there is another world where they reside and that it does often cross paths with ours."

"What's a paranormal being?" Patamon asked.

"You think Kari's a ghost?" asked Matt.

"In other words, yes," Izzy responded.

This time Kari really was sick. She doubled over to vomit but nothing came up. "T.K.," she cried. "This can't be happening. I'm not a ghost, I'm right here. Tai!" She ran to them and in front of them. She waved her hands in front of their faces but none of them even blinked. Then she went to T.K. She sat down on the couch in between him and Gatomon and put her hand over the top of his, but she sort of slid through it, just like when Gatomon had flickered in front of her when she crossed through the portal in the park to the digital world.

Meanwhile, Izzy continued with his logistics. "On the other hand, despite lack of paranormal evidence, the abundant lack of evidence suggests that ghosts are very rare so therefore I must conclude that not all people become ghosts. That means those people must pass directly into Heaven, Hell, or wherever you choose to believe. I personally suspect there's another world that lies far away from this one."

No, Kari thought, this can't be happening. She tried to block out Izzy's words, drown them with her pleas to T.K. and Tai to hear her, please just hear her. "I'm not a ghost!" she cried, "I'm right here! I'm right here in front of you!" She reached up to stroke T.K.'s face, but her hand slid through him again.

"Kari."

The voice behind her made her jump. Joanie was the last person she'd expected to see here, but there she was, standing calmly in the doorway.

"Do you remember what happened now?" she asked in a very calm and soothing voice.

Kari shook her head no, tears streaming down her face, but that was a lie. She remembered everything.

It was summer. The trees were all covered with thick green leaves, the sun was shining, and a warm breeze was pouring through the car's open windows. They were in the country, driving to visit his grandmother…so that they could tell her they were getting married. She looked up at him from the passenger seat, studying his profile, thinking about how happy she was. He sensed her looking and turned his head to smile at her. That one split second he took his eyes off the road was all it had taken.

Kari saw everything after that as if she was standing on the side of the road, watching the accident take place. The driver of the semi-truck going the other way had fallen asleep at the wheel and swerved just at the exact right moment to crash head long into them.

She watched as her body flew forward, her head smashing against and through the windshield. She saw T.K.'s body jerk back as the airbag deployed in his face.

The driver of the truck was unhurt as he climbed down out of the truck's cab, and called an ambulance from his mobile phone. He merely glanced helplessly at Kari's lifeless body before assisting T.K. in untangling himself from the mass of crushed metal.

"No!" T.K. cried as he rushed around the car to where she was lying on the hood. He was limping badly on what was probably a broken leg, and a cut on his forehead was gushing blood down his face, but he didn't stop until he was holding her in his arms.

"No, Kari. No," he gasped in between sobs as he rocked her back and forth. "I love you. Don't leave me."

Kari stood up from the couch. Her head was spinning and her stomach reeling. It couldn't be real. She glanced back at T.K. where he was still listening to Izzy, Matt, and Tai debate the existence of ghosts. He brushed back a lock of blond hair that had fallen into his eyes and Kari saw a thick white scar just above his left eyebrow.

"It happened, Kari," Joanie said again. "There's nothing you can do about it now besides accept it. It's time to move on now."

"No!" Kari shouted, moving closer to T.K. "I won't leave him. You can't make me."

"No, I can't," Joanie said. "But are you sure that's the right decision? Just look at him. Look at what clinging to you has done to him."

She looked again at his wearied face. He looked up at the older boys bickering and straight into Kari's eyes.

"He knows you're here," Joanie said. "He can feel you. He doesn't want to let you go either, but you have to give him a chance. Give him a chance at happiness without you."

Kari was sobbing freely now as she absorbed the importance of Joanie's words. She took another long look at T.K.'s tired face and empty eyes. Joanie was right. For her love for him, she would let him go. She leaned over and placed a whispery kiss on his cheek. "I love you, T.K., and I always will." Then she reached up and grasped Joanie's outstretched hand.

When they touched, the room and everything around them disappeared and they were back in the park, in the world Kari had known for the past year.

"Will I ever see him again?"

"Yes," Joanie said, "but hopefully not for a long, long time."

Kari nodded, understanding. She followed Joanie back through the park to the busy streets beyond.

"What is this place, then?" Kari asked, gesturing to the city around them.

"An in between place, for those who aren't ready to leave. Are you ready now, Kari?"

Kari nodded and they stopped, just in front of Don's office building. Joanie smiled at her. "If you're ready then you'll know what to do now."

She started to walk away, but Kari stopped her. "Wait, aren't you coming with me?"

"No," Joanie said, "my job is to stay here and help others like you find their way."

Kari glanced back at the building Joanie had taken her to, confused about what to do next, but when she glanced back at Joanie for help, she was gone, lost in the crowd of people hurrying down the sidewalk.

Taking a deep breath, Kari stepped inside the building. She spun in a circle, looking around. Everything about the room was exactly the same as it had been every day that Kari had crossed through these halls.

DING! The elevator door in front of her opened unbidden, so Kari stepped inside. Her fingers instinctively found the button labeled twenty-three, but she stopped, hesitating. She knew what was on that floor. Today, she noticed another button she had never seen before. There was one floor above twenty-three. She smiled to herself, ready to face the unknown. The elevator doors closed in front of her as she pushed the button marked twenty-four.

The End