Bura-sama
Friday.  July. 12. 2002
Friday.  July. 12. 2002

Future Dreams

2

        Nausea had settled into the form of a cold grip on my stomach by the time the vehicle lurched to a stop.  The bile was rising in the back of my throat, and dread made perspiration roll down my forehead and toward my eyes.  I hastily wiped it away and knotted the plain fabric of my skirt between my two sweaty hands.

        I was just outside of Goten's house.  It had taken Tenshinhan a week to track the boy down, get an address, and actually find a way to get to his house.  I'd driven around in circles the day before trying to find his place, before breaking down and asking Ten for help.  I looked over to the bald man in the driver's seat and my heart warmed a bit.  He truly was my best friend.

        Hoping that my hands weren't shaking too badly, I reached for he door handle.  Chaozu's small hand stopped me.  I looked at him, waiting for him to say something.

        "Bra, be careful."  He was worried;  I could see it in his eyes.

        My heart warmed again.  Where would I be without them?

        "I know you feel that you have to do this."  He continued, "If it's important to you, than it's important to me."

        I smiled and reached for the door again.  This time, Ten lightly touched my shoulder.

        "I don't know much about your gift, Bra.  I never have."  He wasn't looking at me, just staring ahead to the house.  "They're not going to believe you -- you know that.  But just know that I believe in you.  If you say that he's in danger, then he's in danger."  His eyes shifted over to look at me, and he took the keys out of the ignition.  "Like Chiatzu said, be careful.  You don't know how they're going to react about you hunting them down and telling the kid that he's going to die."

        My smile faltered, "Don't worry.  I'll scream if I need help."  I was only half-joking.

        I opened the car door and shut it behind me.  Taking a deep breath, I started to the door.  The house looked rather quiet.  There was laundry hanging to one side, and a lovely little garden separating the next house.  I took another deep breath and wiped my sweaty hands on my skirt.  It was a bad habit I took up from my mother.  Before I realized I was there, I knocked on the door.  And waited.  And waited.

        Realizing that no one was home, the breath that I didn't know I was holding whooshed out of my lungs.  I looked back to the banged-up jeep where Ten and Chaozu were waiting, and started back.  I almost made it when the sound of laughter drifted my way.  Turning around, I strained my ears to figure out where it was coming from, and my feet started walking that way.

        I found the laughter soon enough.  The girl from last week was making out with a boy on the bank of a shimmering lake.  I cleared my throat loudly, and they immediately stopped.  The girl threw herself off the guy and started ... bowing.. in front of me.

        "Daddy, this isn't what it looks like, I swear!  I'm sorry!  It was nothing serious--"  I remembered her name as 'Pan.'

        "I think you've mistaken me for someone else."

        The girl immediately stopped and looked at me with a huge blush all over her face.  "Heh.  Sorry 'bout that."  She then actually looked at me, "Who are you?"

        I stammered.  Who was I?

        My name is Bra.  I've come to see Goten.

        I cringed at the voice, but repeated anyway.  "I'm Bra.  I came to see Goten!"  I don't know why I was practically shouting it out.

        Pan looked relieved, "Oh.  Goten doesn't usually take his girlfriends home.  You must really be special."

        I grimaced, started to correct her --

        Oh, just let her believe it.  It makes more sense than why you're really here.

        I closed my mouth.

        The girl was giving me a strange look,  "Have I seen you before?"

        Last week, girl.  I read your fortune then predicted your uncle's doom.

        "Last--"  Catching myself, I just shrugged my shoulders.

        Thanks a lot, Trunks!

        Hey, she deserved it!  With a memory like that, I'm surprised she can even remember his own name.

        "So... is Goten home?"  I asked, hoping that I hadn't missed anything while mentally conversing with my dead brother.

        The girl pointed back to the house.  "He's here.  Probably asleep.  The door's unlocked, so just go on up."

        I thanked her, and walked back to the smaller house.  Ten was still keeping watch in the jeep.

        The door was open, as she had said, and I started for the stairs.  There were three rooms, and all of the doors were shut.  I did NOT want to open the wrong one.  I started for the one closest to me, the stopped before my hand got to the handle.  Gritting my teeth, and trying to be as quiet as possible, I muttered under my breath, "Trunks, a little help, please."

        Just a sec.

        I was just standing at the top of the stairs, waiting.  My hands had started sweating again.

        It's the one on the end.

        Muttering a sigh of thanks, I headed to the last door and started to pull it open.

        The door flew back and smacked me in the face.  I went down like a rock.  Glaring, I looked up to see Goten staring down at me, confused.

        "Oh, I'm so sorry!  I didn't see you there!"  He reached down and picked me up like I was a piece of paper.  "Let's get that cleaned up."

        It was then I realized that my nose and top lip were bleeding all over my skirt.  "Oh, great."

        He set me down on the kitchen table and disappeared momentarily.  He came back a few seconds later with a damp washcloth in one hand and a shirt in his other.  "This is an old one of Pan's, she shouldn't care if you wear it."  He started to doctor me and wipe up the blood all over my chest.

        His finger caught on my bra, and I shivered all over.

        Realizing what he was doing, he blushed and handed me the cloth.  I cleaned up the mess, as best I could, and waited until he turned around so that I could change shirts.  It was way too tight on me.  He turned around after I finished, and merely gaped at me.

        Immediately self-conscious, my hands went up to cover my chest, and he blushed.  "I wasn't--"  He started over.  "You're the girl from the carnival!"

        I nodded.  "I came to see you about my vision."

        His expression immediately darkened.  "Oh."

        "I know you don't believe me.  I don't blame you."  I let my hands drop to my sides, and continued.  "If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't believe me, either."  He started to say something, but I cut him off.  "I just want you to hear me out.  Please."

        He sat down, and I smiled gratefully.  He didn't return the smile.

        "As you may remember, my name is Bra.  I work -- well, worked until last week -- at the carnival you and your family went to."  I exhaled loudly, then started over.  "That isn't the way to begin.  I was born with a talent, I guess you could call it.  From the time I was a baby, I could empathize with other people -- pick up on their emotions, occasionally their thoughts, simple stuff like that.  As I grew older, I could read people clearly.  It was as if..."  I paused, unsure of how to phrase it.

        "As if?"  He prompted.

        "... As if I was that person -- only for a second.  I could see their innermost secrets, their hopes and dreams, their worst nightmares.  I could see everything that had ever happened to them with even the slightest touch.  It was fun at first, but then it became overwhelming."  My smile turned into a frown.  Goten leaned closer.  "The energy just built up, I guess.  I wouldn't touch anyone.  My teachers thought that I had abusive problems at home, though my family knew what was going on.  My mom bought me a pair of gloves, and that helped a lot.  But there were times..."

        He leaned closer, and I sat down in the seat across from him.  I hadn't really realized that I was sitting on the table.  My mother would have scolded me unmercifully.

        "The energy just built up.  Accidental touches had me believing that I was the person for hours.  Naturally, I recoiled even more.  People thought that I was a leper."  It brought a little smirk to my face.  "Anyway, when I was ten, I had my first foresight, premonition, whatever you want to call it.  It was with a girl in class -- a bully -- who pushed me down.  I saw her getting hit by a car."  I could never forget that day.  My father had always told me to stand up for myself;  I carried that close to heart after he died.  "I didn't tell anyone about the dream.  Three months later, she was struck crossing the street."  He must have read the guilt on my face, for he looked so sympathetic.  "I told my brother, then.  He didn't judge me.  It happened a few times over the next two years.  I never said anything, 'cause I didn't feel it was my place to mess up what was supposed to happen."

        Tears formed in my eyes, and he reached forward to wipe them away.  I caught his hand and pushed it back to the table.  "It gets worse."

        "How so?"  His eyes looked so sympathetic, so believing.

        "When I was twelve, my mother died."  

        He looked stricken.  "God, I'm so sorry."

        I shook my head sadly, "It gets worse."  I stood up from the table.  "It was an engineering accident.  The machine crashed down and crushed her."  A teardrop fell from my eye.  "After Mama's funeral, my brother asked me if I had known it was going to happen.  I didn't.  I hadn't made skin contact with our mother in years.  He touched me then, when I told him I didn't.  I saw him killing himself."

        Goten gasped and looked alarmed.

        I trudged on, "I told him what I saw.  Later that week, he slit his wrists."

        Goten's hand found my shoulder.  There were tears in his eyes.  "I'm so sorry for--"

        "Don't bother.  It's over and done with."  I wiped my tears away.  "I had nothing then.  My entire family was dead.  I had no money, and everything my mom had was divided up in corporate stock.  Then I met my only two friends in the whole wide world.  They're outside.  They took me in to work at the carnival, but I had to ditch the gloves."  I looked down to my bare hands.  "It didn't work anymore.  Emotional release or something, but I couldn't pick up anything on anyone.  Not even an impression or a feeling."

        "Then how did you read us last week?"

        I smiled sadly again, "My brother.  He felt guilty for leaving me by myself.  So he came back as a ghost, or something like that.  I'm not entirely sure how it works, but he just tells me surface thoughts on the people I'm around.  It's what landed me the job at the carnival."  I looked at him squarely and didn't back down, "I haven't had any type of psychic connection with anyone in six years."

        He looked at me sadly, "Until last week."

        I nodded numbly, "Until last week."

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still some more to go :)