"Ashiya Mio!" The woman called out. She was wearing a nurse's uniform. "Ashiya Mio!"

   "I'm here," said a young girl's voice dully.

   The nurse opened the door and saw a girl sitting on an unmade bed, staring at her black wall, in total darkness. "Why didn't you turn the lights on?" She demanded, flicking on the switch herself. The girl called Ashiya Mio blinked and squinted her eyes at the sudden light.

   "Please turn it off, I don't like the brightness," she begged. The nurse sighed and did as she was told, but lit a candle and placed it on the dresser. "Honestly, Mio, get out of your room. I'm tired of having to send you meals every day! I nearly fell down the stairs last week! Why did you pick such a small room on the fourth floor, I wonder....."

   Everyone else, even the orphanage nurses and teachers, slept on the second or third floors. Mio was the only one who slept on the fourth floor, in the attic. She said she liked the space, although it was quite small. She had painted the walls and sloped ceiling pitch-black, along with a black bed and dresser. Her clothes were all black or dark coloured.

   "It's here." Mio suddenly whispered fearfully.

   "What's here, dear?" The nurse asked warily.

   "Can't you see? It's a Sin! Right there beside you! On the wall!" She huddled on her bed, frightened.

   The nurse turned to look, but didn't see anything. She never did.

   "Oh, Mio..."

   "You don't believe me!" Mio sobbed. "No one does! I see all these horrible, frightening, disgusting monsters every day, and no one else can see them! I dream of plague and death and disease every night, and no one believes me! I dreamed of a humongous earthquake destroying buildings and killing countless lives, and the Haiti earthquake happened within 48 hours! It can't be a coincidence!"

   "Mio, you need to stop having these strange dreams." The nurse said sternly. "You are probably experiencing a case of hysteria! Just don't believe in them and they don't exist! More importantly, you need to leave your room and go back to college!"

   "I don't want to go." She whispered.

   "You dropped out after just two years, Mio! You can't stay in this orphanage forever!"

   "Yes I can! I'll live up here in the attic until I'm an old woman and I'll never bother you! I'll even work here when I'm older!"

   The nurse shook her head at her stubborness but said nothing. Ever since she appeared, like a ghost, when she was four years old, she's been different. She insists she sees things called Sins, horrific monsters, every day. She dreams of death. She was beautiful as a geisha, with her pale skin and long silky black hair, and cherry-red lips, but she never went outside. She barely ate. She was fragile, as though she would break if she fell. She never truly slept at night, mostly sleeping during daytime. She awoke at even the quietest of noises, and she could see so well in the dark she was practically like a cat.

   The truth was, Ashiya Mio really did see these Sins. They were in different shapes and sizes. Some were gooey green, and dripping with slime and rolling yellow eyes. Some were a swirling, pulsing black mass with wide, perfectly circular bright white eyes. Some walked in circles, some paced, some just stood and stared.

   And her dreams were real too. She dreamed of airplanes crashing into incredibly tall buildings, and people dying. The next day, the orphanage TV announced that in New York, airplanes had been hijacked by terrorists and crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, whatever that was. It was September 11. She dreamed of the Haiti earthquake and the hurricane Katrina. She dreamed of droughts in Africa, floods in Mississipi, ice caps melting in the Arctic.

  

   One night, as she was lying half-asleep and half-awake, afraid that if she drifted off into slumber she'll foretell another disaster she couldn't do anything about, she heard a sound. The sound of her attic window slowly opening.

   She held her breath. The window was old and squeaked and couldn't even open halfway when Mio tried. But to those magic hands, it opened fully, swiftly and silently. Only the fact she saw it moving made her acknowledge what was going on.

   She didn't move, but forced herself to relax her muscles and breathe regular measures. Just try to make whoever was coming inside her room--burglars, rapists, murderers, whatever--think that she's asleep. Then, when she was certain who or what it was, she could scream and attack it or run away or something.

   So quick she couldn't quite catch it, five blurred shapes darted in to her room. She didn't know why, but in the moonlight, she caught a glimpse of something floating onto her windowsill. It was a feather, pitch-black, blacker than the night sky.

   "She's asleep." Someone whispered, so quiet it might have been a mouse speaking. Mio's eyes and ears were stronger than normal human's though, and she picked up the barest breath of voice speaking.

   "She's very beautiful. Like a Japanese geisha." Another observed.

   "I've heard stories about the beautiful girl who lives up in Seoul orphanage's attic. Thinks she sees monsters and dreams up catastrophes. Always scared and frightened, her heart is pained with grief at her visions, angry at everyone for not believing her, hating them.....she has so many negative emotions, it's getting me excited."

   Mio had no idea what these people were talking about. Her heart thudded when she realized, through half-closed eyelids, they were all young men around her age. And they all had what looked like pitch-black wings protruding from their backs.

   It's just a dream, she told herself, it's just a dream.

   "This will be a feast," one said, in a very sweet and young voice. It's just a dream.

   "I get to go first." One whispered, very obviously its lips in the dark. It's just a dream.

   Mio saw the shadow moving closer to her. She quickly shut her eyes. It's just a dream.

   Her eyes opened instantly when she felt someone's ice-cold, electric-tingling lips press against hers.