JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Thin Air

Chapter Twenty-Six: What Once Was (Part IV)

During the same duration that Josuke was in the dream world for the first time, Shizuka, too was re-living the same 24 hours that included their father's death, except that it was nighttime in New York City.

She'd found herself lying in a corner in an apartment in Staten Island, and deduced that she had passed out after drinking, and had just woken up. Terrified, she felt her body to make sure no one did anything to her, and thankfully, she was okay. She then remembered exactly where she was, and what happened to her prior to waking up.

"I... that plumber... that was no damn plumber," she said to herself in the empty room. She could hear loud music from outside it. "He was coming for me. He's one of Nicholson's guys. I should've been more careful, fuck!"

She noticed that one of her thumbs felt warm and wet. She looked at it and found it covered in drying blood.

"That motherfucker cut my thumb. I don't know why he did it but... why am I here? Why the fuck am I at this party?" 

She knew exactly where she was. She wasn't aware that she was in a dream, yet she knew she was somewhere she shouldn't have been.

"Why am I here..? I'm... not supposed to be here." she said, as the horror of realizing where, or rather, when she was slowly crept up on her.

She heaved herself up onto her feet and staggered out of the room in heels, out to the party that was going on in the living room.

"Ah, look who woke up!" a girl amongst the dancing crowd of people said, setting her sights on Shizuka, wearing a pink dress.

"How long was I out for, what the hell?" Shizuka asked.

"Not hella long. Like, three hours. You woke up pretty quickly for the amount of liquor you downed."

Even before Joseph had died, Shizuka was known to drink a lot. It wasn't for any particular reason for it. She just did, even though she was obviously underage.

Shizuka looked the girl dead in the eye, and then saw the faces of the other young men and women in the room. They were all the children and grandchildren of New York City socialites. Shizuka wasn't fond of any of them. She'd only gone to the party to attempt to make friends with people in her hometown. She already had a number of acquaintances at her school in Liverpool, so why not get along with her peers in NYC?

"Something wrong, Joestar?" the girl she walked up to asked.

"Where's... where's Nick?" Shizuka asked, trying to confirm if she indeed had somehow gone into the past.

"Nick who? There's tons of guys named Nick here. Nicholas, Nikola, Nikolai, hell, there's even a Nicodemus here!"

"Nikola Cardin. Where is he?" Shizuka asked in an ill-tempered tone.

"Oh, that Nick. He... might be in the bathroom? I mean, no one's left the party since you blacked out, and-

"Out of my way, out of my way!" she said, pushing the girl from her view and making a beeline for the bathroom.

"Damn, that girl's got some nerve," the girl Shizuka had talked to said to another as she helped her up. "Wonder what her deal is."

"You'd think someone who was raised by old people would be nicer, huh?" the companion said.

Shizuka stormed into a hallway that was void of people, containing the door to the bathroom. She grabbed the door handle, throwing it open so forcefully it felt that it would come off its hinges. Expensive clothing was strewn around the room. The bathroom was a mess, but what was in the bathtub was something entirely different.