• Blue, sky blue eyes starred out the closed double-hung window. It was dusty. Powerful gusts of wind rubbed debris on it. The small room didn’t need any more of it. But it slipped through the cracks of the window anyways. The night still sat with no signs of daylight yet. But the fire from other buildings made it seem that the sun was coming up from the horizon. So it seems from where Inuko was sitting.
    Thoughts raced through the girl’s mind. She constantly picked at the whole torn through the sheets of the old bed with rickety springs, she sat on.
    An image of an old lady came into her mind. White, light hair sat on her head but her scalp was visible. Wrinkles haunted around her eyes and her cheeks sagged. She stood hunched over, she remembered, as Inuko sat down at the kitchen table down stairs.
    “This place is too dangerous for a young fifteen-year-old like you.” said the old lady. “No doubt the Akane villagers would come knocking on our door and kill us both.”
    Inuko looked down at her hands gripping her warm khaki shorts and finally spoke almost in a mumble “And what about Roy?”
    “They probably take him to a lab.” She said rising her voice slightly. Inuko dropped her shoulders to a slouch. Her apple orange hair fell from behind her ears. “I don’t want you to stay here, Inuko.” She walked over to a counter and pick up a small photo. Inuko sat up straight and extended her neck to see it. “This is my good friend, Arisu. We used to travel together. I want you to go and live with her. Don’t start asking anybody where she lives until you’re far away from the village.”
    Inuko nodded in understanding and took the picture. The image had long grayish black hair coming down to her waist. She wore a navy blue shawl. Her skin was paler then her grandmother’s who stood next to her in the picture with her arm looped around her neck, wearing the same shawl. Her eyes were sky blue. She looked at how young her grandmother looked in the picture. She became trance into the picture until she noticed the white fingerless glove on her right hand and came back to earth.
    She looked up at her grandmother. “What’s going happen to you?”
    The old lady sighed and shook her head looking down at the wooden flooring. “I’m gonna stay here.”
    Inuko uttered over her words until they finally came together. “But what about them-”
    “Ah-I lived too long anyways.” She said frizzing her hands sternly and walked away.
    Inuko stood. “But…-then I’ll stay…here.”
    “No you won’t.” She snapped turning around. “If an old person complains they are living a long life, then let them wallow in their sorrows and die.”
    “Could you at least come with me?”