Aimenh should've died then. He really should've. But he didn't, and because of that, he gained a Work.
Oookay, I know you're probably going what on earth does that mean, and that's understandable. So here's a sum-up of what happened.
Twelve-year-old Aimenh was walking home from school on May 6. He'd stayed later than usual doing club activities, so the sun was setting. And as a habit, he was listening to music with the big black headphones he always wore. It can hardly be called a surprise that he didn't notice the car come veering in as he crossed the street. Kids, let this be a lesson to you to always look both ways before you cross a street, especially when the sun's just on the horizon. But anyways.
A Spirit happened to be passing by at the time. He was just wandering along when he saw Aimenh about to be totalled, and instinctively reached out and pushed him into the sidewalk. This here is the surprising part. Spirits generally can't touch things, so it shouldn't've been impossible for Aimenh to have survived. But he did, and as the car zoomed past behind him and screeched to a stop, Aimenh saw a ghost for the first time in his life. Which is the second surprising thing.
"Hey! Are you alright!?" the driver called, rolling down the window.
"Y-yeah..." Aimenh replied. If a little dizzy and possibly hallucinating.
"Are you sure? Alright then. Sorry about that. I'll be taking my leave now..."
The headlights faded in the distance, and the last ray of sun disappeared. There was only the halo of colors at the edge of the mountains then. The Spirit started floating away, and Aimenh shook himself to wakefulness.
"Uh--hello?"
The Spirit didn't take notice.
"Hey! You with the...weird...? With the hat!"
Now I should probably describe what this Spirit, and indeed all Spirits, look like. If they "stood" straight, they'd be shaped like an elongated upside-down teardrop. And Spirits don't stand, they float--or, more precisely, they swim in air. You could say they look like white, transparent, baby tadpoles, except their heads aren't so clearly defined. They're obviously much bigger, too--the head's about as big as a normal human head. And they have two eyes and a mouth [chibi style], and their features vary [as in some wear scarves, some have hair, basically little trademarks so we can tell who's who]. Everything's white, features are just traced with black, and no, they don't glow. This particular Spirit had on a hat and a sort of bracelet mid-way, wide and too big to fit on Aimenh's wrist.
The Spirit finally turned in surprise, as if only half-believing someone was talking to him. "You can see me?"
"Huh? Uh, yeah...wait, are you just my imagination? Then I'd just be talking to myself..."
Someone walked by him and gave him an odd stare. Aimenh's stomach turned in embarassment. Hurriedly he started home again.
"Ah--hold on! Excuse me?" the Spirit called.
"Huh?" Aimenh turned. "I need to go home first," he explained, and immediately regretted it. People everywhere were looking at him funny. He blushed. "Aagghh, forget this!"
Luckily the Spirit seemed to understand and followed in silence. Aimenh reached his house and stormed upstairs.
"Aimenh!?" his mom called. "Something wrong?"
"Nothing!" he called back and slammed his room door shut, panting. He pivoted and faced the Spirit. "Are you real!?"
"I hope so."
"Argh! Please no ambiguous answers here!'
"Sorry."
"Can you prove I'm not going crazy!?"
"I-"
The door opened and Aimenh's mom stood in the doorway, obviously worried. "Aimenh? What were you doing just now?"
"Uh--I was--um--practicing for the, school...play...?"
She blinked. "There was a school play?"
"Oh, yeah--no, I mean, not a school play--it's for the club."
"Oh, I see. The gymnastics club has a play?"
"Um, yeah. Well, sort of--it's a--not very important."
"Uhuh..."
She closed the door. Aimenh let out his breath, then sucked it in again with a start when the door opened again.
"Are you sure there isn't anything else wrong?" his mom asked.
"Uhuh, yeah, sure. Yeah. Perfectly fine. Why d'you ask?"
"No real reason..." His mom hesitated before closing the door again. Only when he heard the sounds of cooking in the kitchen did he relax.
"That wasn't so bad," the Spirit observed coolly. But maybe it only looked emotionless because of its simplified face.
"Ahh, just answer my question for a moment, okay!!??" He flinched, and lowered his voice. "How do I know you're real?"
"I have no idea. I'm surprised we're having a conversation in the first place."
"So for all I know, the car back there actually hit me and I'm lying on my deathbed, dreaming."
"...But...you know about Spirits, don't you?"
"Um. Yeah. Like, floating white things that go through walls and haunt people? You?"
"...Okay, yeah. But Spirits can't touch things."
"I know."
"But I pushed you just now."
"Huh?"
"I moved you for a moment so the car wouldn't hit you. I don't know how I did it...I feel like...my hand became your hand for a moment. And I moved it."
"Look, Mr...Spirit-guy..."
"Pike."
"Pike, you don't even have hands. And I didn't notice anything...though it might've just been me..." Aimenh sighed and plopped into his swivel chair. "Wait...isn't that like possessing, though?"
Pike's face clearly showed he'd never thought of that before. "Can I do it again?"
"Eh-"
"I promise I won't do anything. Well, if I can. Promise?"
"What's with the 'if I can'?" But still Aimenh grudgingly accepted. It'd prove his sanity, after all.
Pike floated towards him, paused right before him, then dove headfirst at top speed into his chest. The nausious feeling that then came over Aimenh is rather difficult to describe, and none of you (obviously) have ever experienced it. But let's settle with a fairly good comparison. He felt like he was being punched in the solar plexis [i have no idea how to spell it, but mokona might know, she punched me--we punched each other in it a couple times before], dumped ice-cold water on, and was eating butterflies all at the same time. And of course, his natural impulse was to stop Pike from continuing with his experimental possession. He grabbed the tail still wriggling from his chest and yanked. Out came Pike's Spirit-head with a sort of sucking/popping sound, and the nausious feeling disappeared.
Aimenh stood like a victorious Trojan warrior, dangling Pike upside-down and panting. Pike himself looked completely unconscious, whether from the strain of trying to possess someone and then being pulled out in the middle or the shock of someone grabbing his tail for the first time since he became a Spirit. The adrenaline pumping through Aimenh soon slowed down, though, and suddenly his legs buckled under him and he collapsed onto the floor, his hands passing through Pike. He lay where he fell, tired like only someone whose strength has been sucked out of every fiber of his body can be. Pike woke up and shivered.
"What--a Work!?" Pike saw the body sprawled beneath him and started.
"Looks like you're real," Aimenh muttered. It took him a bit to process Pike's words. "What's a Work?"
"...I guess I don't have a choice but to explain. A Work is kind of like a super power. Except you only get one type, and only under certain circumstances."
"...Circumstances...?"
"Something 'abnormal' has to have happened to you, and according to your surroundings and personality, you get a Work."
"Do I have one?"
"...I'd say yes. Probably a Spiritwork..."
"...Nmh..."
The Spirit looked at the boy for a moment. "Say, what's your name?"
When he didn't respond, the Spirit though he was asleep. But as he was slipping out the window, he heard behind him, "Aimenh Asakura."
I wanted to let the story explain for itself what a Work is, but here I've gotta butt in again. There's one thing Pike decided to hide from Aimenh's knowledge, since he's really a very kind Spirit. Everyone who is "abnormal"--or in other words, has a Work--will become a Spirit when they die, forced to wander through the Earth for eternity, unseen, unnoticed. There's a great deal of pain involved in the long run when you've got a Work. Which is why Pike was so glad to be able to talk to someone, and why, as you will later see, he decided to stay with Aimenh.