“Ikāru.”

My name, mispronounced, pulls me from depths of a fathomless sleep.

“Ikāru.” Through the murk, I see the blurred outline of a huge man looking in at me.

“Shou, Jiddo?” I mumble. What is it, grandpa?

“Ikāru!”

The fog lifts. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, the man whose voice has woken me comes into focus: it’s that guard, Bear.

What’s he of all people calling me Icare for? Only my grandfather ever called me by my middle name.

“Rokuban . . .” he says now that I’m awake.

“What?”

“You’re not supposed to be sleeping now.”

“Huh? Is it three already?”

I push myself up off the floor and make a listless chopping motion with my right hand before my nose, gesturing that I am sorry.

The first posting/chapter in this series can be found here.

Rokuban: Too Close to the Sun and other works are available in e-book form and paperback at Amazon.