Dares opened his eyes, half-expecting to see that alabaster face, and instead seeing only the vivid night sky that was his ceiling. The smell of coffee was getting stronger. He looked to his nightstand, where the butterfly he expected to see was curled up on his lava lamp. He opened the back door and let it out. On a whim, he looked under his bed.

“Trivial things we’ve forgotten?”

…

“Wait, say that again.” Dares stood confounded.

“Well, it’s nothing special. Mom just wants to know if you want to make a little extra gardening for us every now and then.” Jun shifted.

A week ago, they had been on the worst of terms. Now, she was offering him a job. Another quirk of fate?

“Sure.” Dares surprised himself.

...

Maybe he had chalked it up to fate. It was subtle, but he could feel something was set in motion, something he couldn’t quite grasp, let alone describe, but everything in the past few weeks, possibly his entire life, had been building towards an ultimate destination. What that was, he knew not. He was now as a leaf carried on the wind, and so found himself again at Koizumi house.

“Back so soon?” her mother welcomed him.

The sun was warm in the sky, draping Dares in its soft silk. Jun’s mother was positively radiant in that same sun, despite her brace. Her spirits seemed lifted that Jun had found someone who could pass for an acquaintance.

The weekend had come like a blissful dream, and Dares had the feeling he’d enjoy the garden more thoroughly in the morning when he was still fresh than at the end of the day when he had time to realize what his life was about. Drifting among the flowers, he could let himself forget.

Until he heard sobbing.

Dares stepped out of the brush into a flat patch by the gateway, where he saw Jun standing over a rabbit, limp on the ground. Jun had fallen to her knees, and her tears pattered softly into the rabbit’s fur, making dark splotches where they landed. Dares felt a wave of mixed fright and bitter disappointment beyond Jun’s beacon of sorrow, and he looked in that direction to a fox that was sprinting down the road and out of sight.

“I see. So that’s what happened.” said Dares.

“It got the mother rabbit… she had babies and now they’re all alone… It’s not fair!” said Jun, cradling the creature in her arms now.

Dares' eyes trained on the blood-splattered corpse. Its eyes were glassy and locked onto his, as if pleading.

Dares felt his stomach drop as a far off memory was dislodged, just for an instant. In his head he heard,

You can't protect anything.

Searing pain stabbed into his brain, and Dares clutched his head and dropped to his knees, screaming savagely.

Jun recoiled in shock and fear, gripping that corpse closers to her like an obscene stuffed animal.

"Not again! Get out of my head!" Dares screamed, and didn't know what any of his words meant. He couldn't hear them through the drone.

You can't protect anything. You can't protect anything. You can't protect anything.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Dares pleaded.

Jun dropped the rabbit, mouth hanging open. Nimbly, she moved toward Dares.

"Are you...?"

"DON'T TOUCH ME!"

But it was too late. Jun’s hand fell on his shoulder.

A massive shockwave ripped out of Dares, blowing the fields down and Dares' vision went white.

When his vision returned, Dares saw Jun standing there, the whites of her eyes red with blood. Those eyes were twitching, and blood was trickling down from her ears as well.

Dares never knew why. His curse to inherit the memories and emotions of others was usually a one-way floodgate. But there were moments, moments like these, when that gate opened both ways.

And it had disastrous consequences.

Foaming at the mouth, Jun collapsed into a shaking heap.

He didn't know if she was alive or not. What should he do? What could he do?

The surge had passed.

"...I..." Dares murmured, trembling. What good was guilt? What could he say to the victim of his curse?

Jun lay next to the rabbit, her eyes taking on the same glassy look.

The fox trotted back into view and stared at Dares.

Dares returned the gaze.

"I didn't... I didn't mean to..."

the fox almost seemed to nod in reverence to this new super-predator.

Dares blanked out.

...

He must have run from the scene. When awareness of himself returned, he was standing in front of the lonely bridge out of town.

I can't stay here anymore. Dares heard somewhere in the back of his mind.

He walked numbly down the length of that bridge.

He stopped when he saw the golden outline of a tall figure blocking his path. It's body was wrapped in shining white silk, its head hooded, with an emblem of an eye, wreathed in fire like the sun, emblazoned upon it. They figure was rail-thin at the waist, with a bulky and rippling torso. Golden spikes jutted out of its shoulders, like pads buried under the silk.

“I guess you're the gatekeeper.” said Dares.

An image flashed through his mind, like a shrouded and distant dream that has suddenly been remembered. That time, the guardian’s hand had morphed into a radiant lance. Dares felt the wrath of the sun pierce his shoulder.

That burning pain was back now. Dares clutched his shoulder, gritting his teeth and feeling his hackles raise. He didn’t know how he knew what any of this was. The only thing that was left now was revenge.

“Bastard!” Dares roared, and charged the being. A flash of light, and he was pinned in place on the lance.

The thing tilted its bobble head down to examine its victim, almost curiously. Then, Dares was falling away from it, off of the lance and away from the bridge, impending downward into the black vortex.

Goodbye, Dares.

“Mother… not again…”

…

From the top of the first bridge lookout tower, a man in black stood, watching.

"And so, this scenario ended the same as the last."

He sighed.

"We will meet, cursed one, in another time, another world. You will relive your sorrows over and over and over again, until your dark soul matures for the harvest."

He turned on the whistling wind.

"Until then, farewell."

...