<span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><strong><em>Inside Out</em></strong><br/><br/>Kagami folded her arms over her chest, all-too aware of the almost vehement looks she received in reply from the mysterious boy, who's name was revealed to be Drake. <br/><br/>He spoke of Discordia, the in-between world they were inhabiting at present, where monsters were a regular commodity and blood stained the sidewalks like some kind of vicious crime had occurred. <br/><br/>It made no sense, yet somewhere in the back of her mind, it did. Kagami was prone to sleepwalking, and when it happened, woke up feeling exhausted like she had overcome some sort of travesty in her slumber. She had once thought that the nightmarish memories stemming from the times she sleptwalk were subconscious and abstract, nothing more. Faced with the shocking reality of Discordia, Kagami had no choice but to accept Drake's words, and her nightmares, as the bizarre truth. <br/><br/><em>'Shift of time and space...'</em> She mused quietly, trying not to jump as the door burst open and what appeared to be another student--Taijo?-- joined them in the living room of...wherever they were. Her father, who had been an astro engineer, designed a lot of German and Russian space flight vehicles that had seen the stars. He dabbled in astrophysics as well, and she recalled a memory of him from when she was younger; Her father, talking to a fellow scientist about something called string theory, the idea that electrons and smaller subatomic particles existed as strings within an atom. Kagami remembered listening to the conversation without really understanding a word of what was spoken, and felt similarly now, at this talk of Discordia. <br/><br/><em>'Just because I accept that the universe is a quantifiable place, doesn't mean I know everything about it, or understand how it works...'</em><br/><br/>When Kagami came back from her thoughts, the boy who saved her was speaking to Drake, posing the question everyone probably wanted to hear. The young-looking girl, timid and soft spoken introduced herself (<em>'Aryn. Miki. Well, at least I'm learning names...'</em>) and posed another question for the boy. As she gestured around at the room, she noticed for the first time that as the outside was blood-spattered and coffin-laden, the inside too seemed...off. She thought at first the building must be a dorm of some sorts which is why the other students seemed to know each other--they must be dormmates--but the interior was warped in a understated way. <br/><br/>Always polite, even when faced with realities different from her own, Kagami waited for Drake's reply before posing an additional inquiry.<br/><br/>"This may seem like an obvious question..." She trailed off, looking at Drake wholly, as if she might peer into his mind for answers. "You said fight to stay alive. Accepting the fact that this place, Discordia, is in a dimension apart from our own, how do you expect us to do that?" Kagami thought back to when Drake had fought off the monster using a doppleganger that fought alongside him. Was there a doppleganger inside each of them, too?<br/><br/>"And also, where are all the people? I followed you here from Gekkoukan High School, and even though it's late at night, I didn't see anyone, no police, no drunk <em>sarariiman</em> on their way home, no one."<br/><br/>She shivered at the memory.<br/></span></span>