I stare down at my reflection, waiting for them to answer, but nothing happens.

"You need to fuck off." I say, "I don't want headaches and I don't give two shits who you are or if you are trying to help me I need you and your little ghost friend to leave me alone. I don't care wh-"

Still no response, just a pain in my head.

I hiss, scowling deeply, "try me bitch, I will literally snap my own neck."

No response comes from this. My eyes flicker back to lilac and my mood drops even more. Okay so at least I know this guy isn't being nice, he isn't trying to 'help me' like the ghost man thinks he is. My guess is that these two are in cahoots.

How or why I don't know but they are most prominent when I am alone. The walk to the moon dorm, the shower, alone in the woods. The ghost will stick around if people keep hanging around but whoever is up in my head disappears whenever I have the chance of showing someone. I wonder what would happen if I just told someone.

I stand up and a sharp pain goes through my head making me stubble to the side a little and lean up against a tree for support. Okay, so I'm not going to tell anyone. Happy? Wow I'm really pathetic, aren't I? So as this point all I have to do if figure out to get you out of my fucking head yeah?

One day left of the holidays and nothing to do seems like a sufficient way to spend my time. I walk my way back slowly, taking my time in retracing my steps so I can remember the way here without having to bounce around like a lunatic.

"So, shit-head, what makes you think you can just wander up and take over my mind?" I jump up and snap a branch off a tree, playing with the leaves in my hands. "I don't even know you, or is that why you chose me? Because you are too much of a pussy to go after someone who knows you?"

I get no reply but I don't stop, I want to get everything I can out of this situation. I need information, and I want it now.

"What is the purpose of this? Do you have a reason behind it all? Or do you just feel like making my life hard?" I whip the branch around, sending it flying into the distance, "I'm going to name you ass-hat, is that okay with you?"

Once again there is no reply and no pain to my head, making me question whether this person has left already and are just leaving me to become insane with myself.

"Are you after me because I'm weak at the moment? Because my family is dying? Ah, wait, I've been getting headaches for weeks. Did you chose me because the creepy Ichio dude, I wouldn't be surprised if it was him." A harsh pierce goes through my head, making me wince slightly.

So the pain comes when he is angry is my guess, not when he wants to speak to me. How annoying. Haha, looked just whoever you are, because I am really annoying and my head is the worst place to be at the moment. I have spent weeks with no contact with my family and have severe anxiety at the moment because I keep convincing myself they have all died.

You will not win this fight.

Another sharp pain goes through my head and I roll my eyes, already done with this man. I wander out of the tree line and into the clearing. I spot Zero picking vegetables with Kaien and Yuki. Kaien turns first.

"Ah, Niko! Come garden with us!" He waves from his little squat position.

He is wearing a little apron with a cat on it, making me internally chuckle at him and his antics.

"Yeah sure." I squat down beside him and look into the garden bed, "What are we picking?"

"Everything!" Kaien yells, throwing his hands in the air to show me an array of vegetables held in his hands.

I nod to him and start to pick carrots out of the ground for him, placing them in his little basket neatly for him. Zero flicks dirt off his turnip and it lands on me as I reach for the basket. I look up and make eye contact with him, both of us staring blankly at each other.

"Do you want to die?"

"No."

"Good."

I go back to digging up vegetables, faintly feeling a headache coming on but I ignore it. Whoever is up there can wait until I have picked all my vegetables and placed them in Uncle Kaien's little basket. Or I will slit their throat. The pain dulls for a second as if the person isn't as angry as before coming back tenfold.

I gasp slightly, grabbing my head and clutching a carrot tightening in my right hand, screwing my eyes shut.

'You are lucky,'

Suddenly all the pain goes away and pressure under my eyes disappears. What the hell.

"Niko?" Kaien asks, looking over to me.

I turn to him, "It's okay, I just flicked some dirt into my eye."

"Wah! Let's go wash it out, we don't want to get an infection!" He grabs me and pulls me along and into the building, making me laugh lightly.

c.r.o.s.s.e.d.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. I'm pretty sure Zero is still awake, but I'm not going to look over the pillow wall to see. Did they leave? Did they just get up and leave or are they just pretending so I let my guard down?

I roll over to face away from the pillow wall, trying to get comfortable so I can stop thinking and just go to sleep. But as I snuggle into my pillow I open my eyes and jump back, alerting Zero to something. His head pops up over our pillow fort to look at me but I am too busy staring at the man sitting in front of my face.

Why does he always have to appear so close? I don't particularly want them to be around at all but this is way to close.

"What do you want?" I ask, clenching my doona tightly.

Zero glances from me to in front of me, guessing where the man is. He reaches over the wall and grabs my hand, pulling me back towards him. The man smiles slightly as he does, scaring me slightly.

"What do you want?" I repeat, wanting him to answer my question belief he leaves again.

"He left. You are safe. Your cousin is not." He says before completely disappearing, his presence leaving the area completely.

I look at Zero to see if he heard that. He nods lightly.

"Is he still here?" He asks, looking in front of the bed.

I shake my head, "But I think I should go tell Kaien, you stay here, I'll do it quickly." I slip out of bed, flicking my doona backwards so it doesn't fall off the bed.

I move quickly, moving towards his office at a high rate, anxiety building in me. I open the door quickly, making sure not to slam the door or make any noise that would attract attention to the two of us.

Kaien, who is reading a cooking book at his desk looking over the top of his book at me. I think this man is done with me and antics at this point.

"The man came, he said 'he left, you are safe.'" I say, sitting down in the chair in front of him.

Kaine nods, "I feel like there is more to this story."

"He said 'Your cousin is not.'" At this point, Kaien's eyes go as wide as mine.

"The fact that he knows you have a cousin means he must be someone close to you or your parents, this is clear now. Now the answer is, is it the cousin you know, or is it a cousin possibly from your father's side?" Kaien places his cooking book to the side and goes into complete detective mode.

"I don't think my father had any siblings. An only child, which means the only person left is . . . " I trail off, knowing Kaien knows who I mean.

He nods to me, "But another thing, he said 'he left.' Who left?"

I shrug, not knowing whether I should tell him about the headaches and the eye colours. I decided not to and just shake my head.

"We should be worrying about the fact that he is in trouble now," I say, not wanting to say the name of the person in case someone is listening in on our conversation.

Many people in this school are very nosey and it annoys the hell out of me. My leg starts to jump as I rest my chin on my hand.

"Actually, my father may have never said anything about a sibling but he never said he didn't have one. So there is a possibility." I say, making sure that I'm not closing off paths and cutting people, "But it would also mean that I have no idea who this 'cousin' is if my father did have a sibling because I never met them. I don't even know my father's last name."

Kaien nods, "Your father was a very private man, wouldn't tell anyone anything about his past. Apart from your mother, of course, she assured me she knew everything. I have some theories of who your father is. But it doesn't help the situation." He leans onto the desk and knits his fingers together. "I only know about your mother. We may need to continue the memory search for different reasons after the holidays."

I nod to him, willing to go it again if it helps someone. If the ghost man is telling the truth that is, but if I am completely and utterly honest with you I trust the ghost man a hell of a lot more than whoever was up in my head and causing me pain. So if ghost man is against them like me then points to him, I shall stop insulting him and his creepy ways of contacting me and scaring the absolute hell out of me every time I see him.

Okay, I said I would stop.

"I should get to bed, people come back tomorrow and I told Zero I would be quick," I say to kain, standing from the chair.

He nods to me and smiles lightly, "I am happy that you have gotten close to him. I think you two will both benefit from being friends."

I offer a smile back to him and wave goodbye as I head out of his office, closing the door in much less of a rush to when I opened it. I walk down the hall quietly and head into Zero's room, actually happy that I have to sleep in his room because, to be honest, the whole sleeping alone on campus freaked me out a little bit.

Reminds me of my times in the CCG. I didn't have a place live so they accommodate places, they are pretty empty buildings with maybe one or two people living in them. But it was okay back then because I could drag bodies around and not get caught, but now I don't need to be careful about that.

I just need to avoid being killed, which means I shouldn't be sleeping across campus on my own. Big brain time with Niko. Its called big brain time with Niko because everyone else would see it as rational and would find it a normal thought but to me it is intelligent, so it is only my big brain time.

Big brain time with Niko.

c.r.o.s.s.e.d.

question of the chapter:

who is her cousin?

omg i'm guessing yomo

~shadows

–@ZylikaZ

They have the silver hair in common so it would make sense omg