Modern- to Meji Era

01. 1890: Wake Up

01. 1890: Wake Up

Ghost – Mary on the Cross

***

🎼 Your never,

ever me, Mary on a,

Mary on a cross 🎼

Being a single mother wasn't easy at all, it made me tired of work as a voice actor and a singer. But what could I do, manga were being animated and fans waited for new songs, it was the only way to gain money in this kind of era.

The swollen belly was covered by a beautiful dress that was the pink color of my mother. She said: "pink suits you," her smile was toxic, making me smile with her. Her dark eyes glimmered with joy and some tint of anxiety.

"Why do you look nervous, the child is healthy." I used a finger to push away a string of hair on my face that fell from the messy bun that I did lazily.

She bit her bottom lip, and just shook her head, "be careful when the due date comes, I will be there for you okay?"

The father of my child was married to me for a year, and he was in utter joy, fantasizing of how the child would look and names, but sadly he passed away when he got caught in between a shooting where he was voice acting a few months ago, so now I was a single mother.

The ring on my finger never was taken off to remember him. I always sat before his shrine to remember him. I spoke to him telling him how the baby was doing and left a tray of bento and some sake.

He loved my food, it was what I used to start trying to pull the string of his stubborn heart.

He had a pair of beautiful eyes, mixture of so many colors, blue, green around his iris, hazel was like pecs and around his pupil raven and brown.

"I know you will be a mother," I said before reading my lines for the last recording of Kotoha, my character I had to act for the next day, "this is so sad." I spoke as my eyes scanned the paper in my hand.

My mother tilled her head over my shoulder to read, "ah, that girl, I still question why you choose this job, I know that Shogo dropped out of school to start at a young age due to lack of finance to go to college. But you. . ."

I rolled my eyes at her words, "love this job, it's calm and I'm financially stable, people love my voice, I will not let you discourage me after being ten years doing this." I spoke calmly not wishing to irk her, she had a short temper just like my father.

She gave a heavy sigh and walked away to sleep.

I looked at the photo of Shogo and felt a wave of sadness cover me, while I remembered our time together as friends to lovers, into our wedding and marriage. I really needed to calm down for the child.

My hand patted the bulge on my belly with a humming tone that came from my throat, a sweet humming from a soft song with a rhythm. My eyes kept scanning over the lines. As my eyes then moved to the opened manga where Kotoha's lines were, her face covered with tears and despair.

I could imagine how it should be done. So i started my rehearsal for her next lines that I knew would take a while to record since the season wasn't even airing for now.

An alarm startled me, making a shiver run down my spine, my eyes moved from my manga to my phone.

Appointment in an hour.

I immediately grabbed my stuff and headed to the door, car keys dangling in my hand.

"I'm heading to the gynecologist mom!" before I let her answer the door shut behind me. Like that I skipped down the halls to the parking lot where I started the car and drove into thmain streetsts of Suginami.

The traffic wasn't as bad as thought, or so I thought.

Being too much in a hurry and aloof for a second in my own train of thoughts and a reckless driver on the other side of the road — my end came.

I wasn't sure how it went but I stopped at the red light for sure. But the next thing I knew the back of my car was up and my head slammed on the steering wheel.

Everything became a blur, my body swung side to side and everything darkened from there.

***

Everything was silent, "where am I?"

Everything was silent and dark, I wasn't sure if my eyes were opened or closed. nor how long I was in that darkness. But then . . .

My eyes finally opened and . . . where in the name of Buddha am I?

This isn't home, where am i?

I spun around and saw that I was surrounded by several Minka and tall bamboos.

"Kotoha come inside!" someone called.

I looked around me cause it felt like whoever called, it was meant for me. an unfamiliar woman came into view, wearing a beautiful kimono. That woman approached me. Her beautiful knee length hair glistened in the sunlight.

"Kotoha you cannot stay outside, you will get sunburn, that's not good for you,"

"I'm not Kotoha," I wanted to say but for some reason I couldn't say that, my throat tightened, am I dreaming?

Am I dead?!