Letters from Gaea

Chapter One: The First Letter

It was a peaceful moonlit night. The stars hid behind thick dark clouds that filled the Tokyo sky. Below, the city was still bustling with activity in the late hours of the evening.

Neon signs hung from almost every building. Industrial lights shone through the arched windows of multileveled corporate buildings.

Motor vehicles of all shapes, colors and sizes raced through Tokyo with their headlights flashing. The familiar sounds of people talking, merchants yelling, and cars zooming by filled the crisp October air.

A young woman with shoulder length blond hair and green eyes looked out her window onto the busy city below, holding a small ring close to her heart.

The ring was made of solid white gold and had five words engraved on the inside of its thin band.

The engraving read, “For the one I love.”

The girl sighed as she remembered the day she had received her small trinket those many years ago.

It was on a warm spring morning. The sound of birds chirping had filled the emerald valley where the young woman with then short blond hair had stood facing the one she loved.

The lilacs had just come into bloom when she had stared lovingly into the soft brown eyes of a tall, dark-skinned young man with short, messy black hair. The two had gazed into each other’s eyes for a moment, no words parting from either of their lips.

Suddenly the young man had pulled her close.

As he held her tightly in his arms he had said in almost a whisper, “I love you, Hitomi.”

The girl had wrapped her arms around the young boy and whispered softly in his ear, “I love you too, Van.”

Somehow the girl knew that she would never get to see the one she loved again so she had given him a small token of her affection before returning home.

“I want you to have the pendant my grandmother gave to me when I was young. Keep it safe and always think of me.”

The young man had smiled weakly as he gently placed his hand on her cheek and pulled a small object out of his right pocket with his other. Unable to fight back his tears any longer, the young man had pulled away from the girl long enough to dry them and then had turned back with the small trinket raised above his face.

“And I want you take my mother’s ring. I had something engraved on the inside for you but don’t look at it until you go back to the Mystic moon. Promise me you won’t, ok?”

The girl nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I promise, Van.”

The boy had placed the small ring in her palm and then held her close once more. The love they shared had taken the form of angels that swirled around them joyously. Relatives from the past had stood around them watching in marvel. It had truly been a match made in heaven.

The young woman had felt her heart break as they refrained from embracing and had then counted the moments until she would return home. When the morning sun rose to its highest point in the northern sky it was time to go.

The two had stared at each other in silence for a few moments and then the boy lifted a pink crystal above his head. The crystal had flashed a dozen shades of red and then proceeded to carry the girl home in a great spiral of wind and light.

As she rose into the sky she had yelled, “I’ll never forget you, even when I am old!” as the pillar of light had carried her up towards the heavens and back to her family’s small apartment back in Tokyo.

A month passed, and the young woman had seen an image of the boy sitting on a rock in the city harbor smiling gently as if to say everything would be alright.

After that day, the image of the young man would visit her every so often in that same spot.

However, some time passed and the boy did not come as frequently as he used to.

Then one day at the end of her senior year of high school…on the day of her graduation when she had wanted to see him the most…he did not return at all.

Now Hitomi was a twenty years old and attending one of the most prestigious universities in Japan. The days of high school had long since passed and her trip to Gaea had faded into time and memory.

It had been so long since she had seen any of her companions from the faraway realm that sometimes she could not even make out their faces in her mind. The only person she remembered with some detail was her love Van and even his appearance wasn’t always clear.

The young woman was afraid she was going to lose all of her memories so after placing the small ring on the night stand next to her sleeping matt she took out a few pieces of notebook paper and a blue pen from her brown backpack. She stared at the small stack of paper blankly for a few moments before sighing and laying it down beside her. She frowned and returned her gaze to her dorm window where she sat watching the people below her dorm building hustle by without sparing it a single glance.

“It’s been too long. I can’t remember a thing. What can I write when I don’t remember what happened before Van and I parted?”

A sudden gust of air made its way through Hitomi’s open window and knocked over the white fortune cat statue that her mother had bought her as a good luck token before going off to school.

Underneath the cat statue were the words, “Write me as often as you can!”

Hitomi sighed and rose from her bamboo sleeping matt. She walked across the room and picked the small trinket up off the floor before closing her bedroom window. She held the porcelain figure in her hands and chuckled when she saw the goofy expression painted on its face. She remembered the day her mother had written those words on the bottom of the good-luck charm those many months ago. They had been written to remind her to call home and send e-mails to her family as often as she could.

“I would write Van too if my words could reach him. I have so much to tell him.”

Hitomi sighed and placed the Cat statue gently back on her nightstand. She walked toward the window and shut it for the night. It was there that an idea swept over her and rung loud in her mind.

“Maybe I could write a letter to Van. I know that he will probably never see it…but it will be a good way to remember things! That’s what I will do then; I will write a letter!”

Hitomi rushed back to her sleeping matt and picked up the pieces of notebook paper and her blue pen. After taking a deep breath she began writing her letter to Van. Through writing it, her memories slowly unfolded on the paper and she could see her friend’s faces more clearly in her mind.

Two hours later her letter was complete and she smiled, admiring her work. It was the first time in years that she had been able to remember her trip to Gaea without straining to see the past.

Before going to bed, she folded the letter neatly and placed it in a green box with gold trim that her grandmother had given her to put her pendant in when she was a little girl.

She placed the ring on her finger like she did every night before going to sleep, and then turned in for the night.

Through the night, Hitomi had strange dreams. At one point she could see Van sitting in a throne room beside a lady with brown hair. At another she could see Allen fencing with a blonde haired woman in a courtyard.

In part of the dream, Merle was sitting a lavish garden eating a strange fruit with long red spines and orange and white spots. In another Dryden was sitting at a writing desk reading an old book with a mermaid looking on in fascination.

All at once the images faded and were replaced by her pendant swinging back an fourth.

In its place rose her grandmother. She was wearing a blue and yellow kimono with white floral patterns. Her white hair was braided on either side of her face. She didn’t speak any words but pointed toward her heart.

Hitomi’s dream came to an abrupt end with the buzzing of her alarm clock.

She moaned as she rose from her sleeping matt and stretched her arms. She still had a few hours before she had to go to her Ethics class so she decided to read her letter over once more before heading downstairs to take a shower in the public bath of her dorm.

She journeyed over to her nightstand and turned pale when she saw that her keepsake box was missing.

“How can this be? It was just here last night! Where did it go?”

Hitomi looked all over her dorm room but could not her keepsake box or the letter she wrote anywhere.

Feeling distraught and tired, Hitomi silently journeyed down to take a bath and after getting dressed in a sweatshirt and pair of embroidered jeans, walked solemnly to her first class of the day.