So, here we go.  I started to write this last week and then threw what
I'd written away...it kinda sucked.  This is a direct sequal to In Darkness.  
If you haven't read that, its a sequal to Ice Age, and if you 
haven't read that . . . .
   http://bobcat.tamu-commerce.edu/~trotter/fic

I read The Crow again last night, and then I had this dream...and it goes 
something like this...

Matthew Trotter, It's not death if you reject it...
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Sunrise

Matthew Trotter
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Part 1: Out of Darkness

And I'll feel better in the morning
The pain will fade as time goes by
What was taken I won't miss or I'll replace
Nevermind me, well I'm all right
   -The Mighty Mighty BossTones
_______________________
   She walked up the beach toward the road.  The cool morning rays 
playing over the sand made it seem like a paradise.  A gentle breeze 
washed across her face, carrying with it the smells of the ocean in the 
morning.  She wished she could stay, but there were people waiting for 
her.  They needed  . ...her.. ..did they?  Who needed her?  . ... .  
Well, she needed to get going anyway, Ranma was coming for her.  She 
didn't want to keep him waiting.
   Time was like a joke.  While you wait, it wraps its tendrils around 
you, pulling you down into a tarry abyss, yet when you need it, is just 
when it runs out.  Kodachi looked up the road for the hundredth time, no 
one was there.  Just the perfect still of a pleasant coastal morning.  
WAS Ranma coming?  Maybe he was delayed?  Maybe it wasn't him at all.  
Maybe her mother was coming.
   The thought made her flinch involuntarily.  Mother.  It was a word 
with teeth.  She had ugly white scars on her heart from that word.  It 
lurked waiting for her.  She could almost hear it grinding those razor 
like teeth.  Why?  She could feel the weight of that question crawling up 
her back.  Maybe she was better off not remembering for now.  She glanced at 
the road again, there was something wrong.
   She wasn't sure what it was, it was just a feeling.  It wasn't the 
road, or the mountains in the background.  It wasn't the beach, or the 
breeze.  There was just something.  She wished someone would hurry and 
pick her up.  Surely Ranma would be missing her by now.  Surely he would 
be coming soon.  She looked at the sun.  It peeked at her from behind the 
mountain.  The mountain.  She wondered what it was named.  She should 
know . . . .it had to have a name.  That was where she was.  She was at 
the beach at...she balled up her fists, she couldn't remember.
   Tatewaki would know.  Father would know.  They could remember 
anything.  They would know where she was.  Father would. . . .father. ...
Father never came.  Not for Christmas, or graduation or her birthday.  
Father never came.  She realized her fist were still clenched.  Father.  
It seemed like a curse.  It was a red word.  She hated it.  It betrayed   
her, and gave her hope.  And it made her think of the word Daddy.  But 
Daddy's never ran away.  They never hurt you.  They were there for you, 
with your mother.   Maybe that was part of it.  Maybe Father was 
something caused by Mother?  Mother was still there lurking just out of 
sight... Father seemed to be there too.  Just beyond her ability to 
reason.  Father wasn't lurking, she didn't feel the menace that she did 
from Mother....it was as if Father was waiting.  But for what?
   The sun was still hiding behind what ever mountain was lurking in the 
distance.  It refused to budge.  Listlessly she wondered if even five 
minutes had passed.  She looked back toward the mountain.  Strange that 
she might choose the word lurk to describe the mountain.  There were 
certain unpleasant connotations associated with the word.  There was a 
noise from the left.
   There was a girl walking down the road toward her.  She had long black 
hair held in a pony tail.  A black leotard stitched with ...roses . ? .. ? 
Her eyes held a strange and distant light.  Kodachi watched the girl 
approach, she'd seen her before.  This was different.   This was not her 
room, nor was it a mirror.  She awaited her doppleganger nervously.
   The doppleganger stopped and smiled.
   "Because I could not stop for Death,
    He kindly stopped for me."
   She looked at the doppleganger, its eyes were unfocused.  As if seeing 
a different world entirely.  She knew the poem, but what was the 
significance to the doppleganger?
   "The carriage held but just ourselves,
    And Eternity."
   "You have no carriage, impostor, I can assume you are not Death, so who 
are you?"
   "I am your sister."
   "I have no sister, do TRY to be a bit more creative.  If you want to 
play mind games with me, you WILL need a mind to play with."
   "Ohhoho!  You only know one definition to hold sister, and would call 
me mindless?  You are a foolish girl."
   Kodachi realized she was blushing, which only made it worse.  Angrily 
she crossed her arms across her chest, "And how would you choose to define 
sister then?"
   "I am what you have lost."
   "Oh, really."
   "I know mother and father.  And I know why you don't."
   Kodachi frowned, this was going the wrong direction, "If you are what 
I have lost, why are you here?"
   "I know where here is, do you?"
   Kodachi wanted to scream, this doppleganger was beginning to wear thin.
   "I know who's coming for you."
   "TELL ME THEN!  Where are we?  Who's coming for me?  Why are you here!?"
   "We stand at the shores of the seas of sleep.  You have bathed there, 
yes?"
   "That is the stupidest thing..."
   "No one is coming, Kodachi Kuno.  You are alone.  You are lost, and I 
am found.  At the edge of Death's bed we sleep."
   The was a mewling, as if a cat were behind her.  The doppleganger's 
eyes focused and widened.
   "Even here, I am haunted by my failures..." it looked toward the 
mountain, as if seeing it for the first time, "...the irony, even in 
death she brings my end."
   The doppleganger exploded into a whirling wash of rose petals.  Black.  
Rose.  Petals.  Irony indeed.  The mewling continued.  Turning she saw a 
cat, sitting in the basket of a bicycle.  The bicycle was laying on it's 
side in the brush a few feet away.  Strange she hadn't noticed it 
before.  She wandered over to the bicycle, it looked familiar.  It 
certainly wasn't hers, she had never owned a bicycle.  It belonged to 
someone...someone she knew...just out of reach.
   "Well, kitten, it seems as if we have come here together, do you know 
the way home?"
   "Mew."
   Kodachi looked to the left, the way the doppleganger had approached 
from.  There was nothing to distinguish it from the right...
   "Meor?"
   "The lady or the tiger, isn't it?"
   "Meow?"
   There was something about the right hand road.  It almost called to 
her.  In an old familiar voice.  It reminded her of being tucked in to 
bed.  And of old stories that never wore out with age...
   She climbed on to the bike and pedaled toward home as the sun climbed 
around the mountain and on into the sky.