"The answer to a question is like a door, you won't know what is on the other side until you take initiative to open it."

-UNKNOWN TO US

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An hour had passed until Melissa had decided to stand up and leave the building, as it was nauseating to be cooped up inside any longer, much to the dismay of the others.

"You need to rest. We'll have your parents-" said the Doctor quickly.

"I don't care. I want to go." she immediately cut him off at the mention of her parents.

"But you seriously need-" There was a knock at the door.

Dr. McPhee sighed heavily as he went to open the door. He twisted the knob and the door swung open, revealing on the ground, two yellow slips of paper, Office Passes, and that was it. He picked up the passes. He read the contents of the said passes. "These are for you two." He handed them out to Yugo and Melissa. 

"What for?" Yugo asked.

"I don't know," the doctor scratched his head, "But all I know is that they  want you to go immediately."

"So I guess I do get to go." Melissa replied.

"No."

"But I just-"

"Let me finish. I'll let you go, but not let you walk there. You're still recovering from whatever happened, so I'll let you take the wheelchair."

As he had said this, Melissa just realized how much pain she was in. Her arms were like lead weights, her abdomen felt like fire, her head had a splitting pain, and a high pitch noise rang through her ears. Her eyes were heavy, her breathing was growing faster, heavier, and shakier. She noted the irregularity of this, and decided to lay back down. She sighed.

"I feel so-" she started.

"Tired? Weak?" Yugo interrupted. She nodded her head slowly, her eyes shut, "Yeah, that is normal at first." She turned her head in the direction of his voice. 

"Pretty much... I've just... I dunno anymore. I'm just so-" she received a flashback of the brown-haired man, and what he had said, "How do you know? Did yo-"

"Let's get the wheelchair, and  get to the office." Yugo cut her off. He looked at the doctor, who just nodded.

"Let's go get the chair," he said, "Come, Mr. Jayne, Mr. Smith, we have to get it." He motioned for the two boys to follow him.

Travis opened his mouth to protest, but said nothing due to Bryce's elbow hitting his ribs, and he reluctantly followed suit. 

They left the room, with Yugo going with them, leaving Melissa to her thoughts, in the room by herself. She laid there, chilling on the bed, and she looked at her blood-stained clothes, regarding them. 

She eventually propped herself upright, and grabbed the nearby post, despite her body's painful protests, she winced. She pulled herself from the bed.

"And we're ba- What are you doing?" said a voice. Melissa turned to see Bryce standing there, his arms crossed on his chest.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she replied hastily, taking a step forward, causing her to breathe through her teeth.

"Well, too bad. You need to rest." He approached her.

"What I need to do is t- Hey! What the Blazes do you think you are doing?!" He had put an arm on her and pushed her down rather harshly into a seated position. 

"I said," he began, "You need to rest." He kept his arm on her shoulder.

"Yeah, I'll don't give a-"

"What's going on in here?" said Travis, who walked in the room, followed by Dr. McPhee.

"She tried to leave without the chair." Bryce replied. She opened her mouth to speak, but Bryce just motioned to the chair. "Just get in." he stated, anger hinted in his tone, which just annoyed her. 'Boys', she thought.

He held out his hand, to which Melissa had reluctantly put one of her own in it. He smirked and Melissa just said "I'll get you for this Paco."

He laughed. "You probably will." he replied, pulling her up. He stared into her blue orbs, as if he was asking a question.

"What?" she asked.

"I need to lift you into the chair..."

"Why? Can't I just walk?"

"No. The chair can't go up steps, and the Doc doesn't want you to walk just yet, so I have to carry you." She could tell that he was nervous, so she contemplating on that statement.

She sighed angrily, "Fine," she said, putting her arms up defensively, "Go ahead, but try anything, and I'll-."

"I wouldn't dream of it." he answered immediately.

"Get stuffed."

He placed an arm around her lower abdomen. He lifted her, and the brunette gasped in surprise, as she expected him to have some difficulty. 

He easily brought her to the wheelchair and set her in it rather bit aggressively. "You could've set me down a bit easier you know!" she stated as she wiped the sweat off her forehead. Bryce ignored her and walked out.

"Let's just go there now." she said, ignoring what had just happened. 

Yugo looked at her in shock, "Don't you want to talk to him? I mean, he is your-"

"Whenever he is like this, I've noted that it is much better to leave him at it." she cut him off. Yugo sighed, and didn't say anything else, and frankly, Melissa was glad, because she was too exhausted to say much more. She'd have to deal with Bryce's moodiness at a later date.

She sighed heavily. She couldn't quite remember what exactly was happening at this point, and in all honesty, she didn't care one bit, and to her, that was okay.

Her eyes began to grow weary, as if someone had attached weights to them. She did her best to keep them open, alas the grasp of sleep had reached her, and she could not resist it. 

She regretfully allowed herself to drift off into sleep with one long thought:

'Just who was that man, and how did Yugo know what she had spoken about?'

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Sakura was indeed confused. She had known about the main synopsis of The Burnings, and how important they were, but she too knew only a little amount. Sure, she knew that she may have a connection to The Burnings, but that too insufficient due to the fact she had to deal with a major concussion, caused from when the explosion first took place.

She reminisced on this and slowly dragged her thumb over the snow-white, slightly-dyed hair, right where her hair had originated from. 

Her concussion didn't allow her to remember much, save for the severe head-splitting pain that had shot through her skull, numbing every nerve. She had become deaf and had terrible blurry vision in the process for hours after.

She couldn't tell anything at all, and that scared her ten year-old self that day.

That day had shook her reality, forcing her to loose her own father and step-mother, whom of which she had loved unconditionally. And yet, here she was, sitting in an office, in a basement under the cafeteria, during school hours. She was worried in a sense. She sat silently as the door creaked open, slowly, but then was suddenly shut, which caused Sakura to jump a bit.

Silence yet again struck the room for a few minutes. She breathed out a heavy sigh, and began to twiddle her thumbs.

The door was suddenly slammed open, to which the poor girl reacted so fast that she fell backwards from her chair that she had sat in. 

"Holy crap!" she shouted as she fell. She fell on her back, which absorbed most of the shock. The man who walked in was largely built, yet a bit short, pulled a chair opposite of her back and sat in it.

"Do you know why you were asked in today?" he inquired. She shook her head. "Strange," he commented, "It's about The Burnings."

"What about them? I was concussed that day, and even if I wasn't, that still doesn't explain one bit."

""You know, you and the others were really difficult to find."

"What do you mean?" her voice shook as she lied about his question.

"You have got to be kidding me..." The man leaned back in his chair, arms set behind his head, "Do you know how many albinos with heterochromia are there in San Fran?"

She shrugged. "Five," he said, "One of which is presumed dead in The Burnings. If she were alive, she'd be about... Your age."

"What if I moved in recently?"

"We keep track of that, from 2053's registration Bill. We keep track of who's alive and who has died, and all their records automatically update. And you've been here a while. Besides, there is no other one your age that has been registered. Ever. So I will ask you again," he slammed the table, "What.. Do you know... About... The Burnings?"

This man obviously knew what he was doing. How could they have forgotten about the Registration Bill?! 

"I... Uhh..." she began. This man truly annoyed her, pressing her with facts, but he still lacked the obvious fact that she was concussed that day. She was indeed this way so badly, that she had to get a piggyback ride from Conner, the loyal friend of the group.  But she couldn't try to lie her way out of this, he'd probably catch her in the lie, or even reminding him that she was concussed would probably result in him getting mad, and do something terrible. Or... There was a third option.

But this'd risk herself, and she had for a long time promised that she'd never try to use it, as she could never seem to face the consequences. 

The last time she had that idea  was three years ago. Life was a joke. It was dark and that was something she had known for a long time.

She was unfortunate enough to be born with heterochromia and albinism. She was forever cursed to hide her skin, as it was sensitive to sunlight, lest she wanted to be burned badly. She'd frequently patch her eye, for the fear of conversation would happen, and she'd be stuck frozen in middle of it.

Six years prior, she felt she had made the most risky decision in her life: She had "Disappeared" from most records to live with a bunch of strangers, seventeen of them to be exact... Reason? That was still up for the jury, though she had a feeling of kinship with these also unfortunate children, all of which had uncertainly surprising stories to share.

"I, uh..." she repeated.

"That's enough Sargent." said a new voice. The said Sargent shut his mouth immediately. The man sighed heavily and stood up.

He moved over to the left and stood there. "Do you Sir..." he questioned.

"Yes," the blonde figure said, "Please leave us be."

The dark-haired Sargent winced, nodded his head, and turned to leave. Sakura sat in place, her head down, eyes half-gazing at the table in front of her. "It took a while, but we found them all..."

'All?' she thought. She stopped twiddling her thumbs as she looked at the new man. "What do yo-"

"Don't play dumb Sakura," he started, taking a seat, "We both know that your Pendant ain't fooling nobody. The world has never quite seen necklaces such as the ones that your group has."

"What if i do admit it..." Sakura inquired, relaxing her shoulders, "What's it to you? These "Pendants" are heirlooms... One I got when I was ten, in which I barely remember that day... Why are you interested in them?" She ranted on, almost saying about their families, how they had all died that day. She brought her heterochromiac eyes to stare into the man's green ones. 

The man let out a chuckle, before stating, "There is one thing why all of a sudden we're interested in old jewelry: it's for their History." He stood up and began to pace around the table.

"History?" she tried to follow him with her gaze.

"'Not too many know about 'Good 'ol Jean's Secret'', but those who do know, a majority believe that they actually exist."

"I don't get what you mean."

"I don't expect you to understand it quite yet, but we have a strong belief that you and the others' necklaces, are indeed that "Secret" that everyone oh so keeps on blabbing about. Don't you even know what that means?"

Sakura shook her head. She truly couldn't remember due to the blunt-force trauma to her head.

But Sakura wasn't dumb. So she put two and two together, "No," she sternly said, staning up as she said so, "You'll never take these from us, they're all we have left of our families."

"And that is what makes this extremely saddening."

"And you'll have to take it from our dead bodies." She surprised him, and to be frank, herself as well.

"I may just have to go through with that." He walked towards the door, and opened it. He pressed his ear, and said something quietly into it before shutting the door with a loud bang.

'This is bad,' Sakura panicked, 'I have to leave before th-'. She never finished her thought, as a figure had broken the door, causing the albino to jump in pure surprise.

The figure was draped in black, and wore shiny, silver googles that made him look like a hippie, if he wasn't wearing such dark clothes. Her breathing began to hitch, and it grew shallow. 

What was this feeling? It was... New...In the six years she'd been trying to feel all emotions, she hadn't felt this one. It was like she didn't like or hate it, but she wanted to get away, as far as her legs would take her. 

The man approached her close enough so that they could touch her. On instinct though, her arm flew up and intercepted the figure's outstretched hand. And they began to push on the other arm.

There was a huge struggle, but the figure was eventually able to clasp their fingers around the small cube of a pendant. They left their fingers on, until the smell of burning flesh could be sniffed, and the figure retracted their hand and let out a bloodcurdling scream. They struggled to reach in their pocket and flip the flap. They reached in and pulled out what seemed to be, a five-inch serrated dagger. 

The figure brought the dagger to their now clear-like hand, and began to move it in a sawing motion. After a few moments, their hand was sawed off, causing him to scream. Sakura's eyes widened as his scream echoed in the dimly-lit room, and blood spilled from the wound. He slowly brought the dagger arm down to his side, the blade dripping a scarlet red. "Please..." he begged.

Sakura snapped. Her instincts took over yet again. This time, she focused her energy into creating a sinkhole underneath the blood-soaked figure, now distinguished as a man. There was silence for a moment. Then, out of the blue, a violent shaking, and the ground cracked underneath  the now withering, clear husk of a human. Tentacles were growing from the jaw and bottom of his skull, his fingers replaced with electric blue claws. The clothes seemed to slip off, revealing the clear-like substance had spread, with nothing but a brain and twigs for a skeleton.

She had a good look at the man's eyes as they disappeared- they were full of pain and sorrow.

And the man fell into the chasm that Sakura had created as she ran out the door, and into the outside, tears on her face, and cluelessness in her eyes as she ran towards Yugo's car.