“The crystal ball foresees much trouble
in your futures,” the fortune teller told us.
Choko, a dark haired gypsy-like woman in her
late thirties, she was eccentric, yet enticing.
She was to become our guide, our future,
past, and present. Sitting in her parlor that
morning two hours before noon, musty
smells seeping from the walls, we never
would have guessed. Sometimes I think she
planned for it to occur, sometimes I don’t
know. Could one dabble in another’s
destiny?...

“What kind of trouble?” Nene asked, her
golden hair and blue eyes shining through her
distraught expression.

“Something very grave, something that
will alter your lives forever,” Choko turned her
gaze on each of us. Her hands fluttered
above the crystal ball as she eyed us.

Reika, who looked back at her with
fierce contempt mixed with little strife, brown
hair and hazel eyes stiff as her body.

Kana, whose expression illustrated all of
her weaknesses. If we had looked at her
then, her red hair and faltering green eyes, we
would have known of her later betrayal.

Then me, Yume. I tried to imitate
Reika’s look of disdain, but unsuccessfully. I
always tried to model Reika, usually with far
from great results. This time was no different.
My dark black hair stood on end on the back
of my neck. My deep aquamarine eyes
squinted and released, horribly. I wished just
for an instant, that I could possess the poise
and restraint that Reika was known for.

And finally back to Nene, whose watery
blue eyes still shone through the mist. I think
we all cried that night, and Nene was the
worst. She was very brave, but definately the
mother figure of our group, so worried for all
of our safety.

Choko fiddled with her elaborate beaded
bracelets after she was done staring us down.
Kana sighed, and one hot tear slid down
Nene’s cheek.

It was Reika who broke the long silence.
“What danger?” she demanded, “I'll bet Yume
sees no such danger for us, do you, Yume?”
she turned to me.

I thought for a moment. While I never
had referred to myself as a great medium, I
did have strange powers of my own. From
early on in my life, I’d had a keen sense of
telepathy. I'd get an intuitional sense of
warning every now and then, before bad
things would happen. I didn’t connect the
mental warning I percieved to the
misfortunate events that would take place
after, thinking it merely coincidence, but about
the third time it happened, I caught on.

Caution alarms in my head even for
small things, and what I had been picking up
through telepathy recently I had discarded as
being of minor threat. Visions that had no real
meaning. Until now. When I realized it was
something far greater, something dangerous, I
had decided not to alert my friends of these
premonitions. But my decision had to be
waved in light of the new dangers Choko had
vaguely mentioned .

For years Reika would ask me why I
didn’t tell her and our group sooner about my
visions. My answer was the same every
time. It was too depressing to bring up,
besides, we were all kids, I couldn’t bear to
shatter our innocent escapades.

“Reika, I am so sorry I didn’t tell you all
before now,” I began, and Nene let loose her
floodgates, the tears poured. “I’ve had a
disturbing vision. It showed all four of us as
adults, in the future. We were all troubled by
some recurring dream. Only it wasn’t really a
dream,” I licked my lips, “It was reality. From
our past. From now, Reika.”

“What else did the vision tell you?” Kana
asked.

“No details beyond what I’ve already
told. It was so strange,” I answered, my
voice wavering.

“Choko,” Reika called our attention back
to the fortune teller, “Maybe you are right.
Here,” Reika placed a ten dollar bill on the
table, “Come on everyone, let’s go.”

Four wooden chairs scraped against
linoleum floor as we rose to leave. Choko
pocketed the money, rose after us, and
spoke.

“If any of you ever need anything, please
come back. Free of charge, understand?”
We nodded, and she said something else,
quietly and to herself, “You will come back, it
is your destiny.” I was the only one who
heard.

And as we exited the run down,
old-fashioned, Victorian style house, with the
overgrown shrubs and ivy framing it, I told
Reika what Choko had said.

Turning to me, she said, “Yume, I think
that gypsy is right." Reika motioned for me to
look down the street a few blocks, "You do
realize where we're going, don't you?"

I thought for a moment and discovered
the only logical place we could be going was
to Nene's house. No-one else lived this far
down the block, and the road would dead
end in less than a quarter mile.

I thought about Nene's house. It was
always so fun to play over there as children,
Nene's family was quite well to do, and their
house was packed with heirlooms, and very
old artifacts that should have probably been in
museums. Her parents didn't seem to care
when we riffled through decades old scrap
books, or pawed through dresser drawers full
of old junk. I believed Reika thought we
would find something with meaning to our
dilemma at Nene's house. It was while I was
pondering this, that Reika whispered four
words to me.

“History often repeats itself,” with that,
she smiled and ran ahead, catching up with
Nene and Kana. I did the same.

Our destiny awaited.

On to Part 1