Theta

And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

It was a dreary smog that lingered in the air above Domino City, like a torrent of bittersweet emotion, beautiful yet vague and unsettling in its presence. A solitary breeze danced and swirled around the town square, passing by the head of the tycoon prodigy, Seto Kaiba, his lips moving, looping on an electronic billboard just large enough to house his self-importance. His voice spoke over the head of Domino City idles about whatever was important to Kaiba at the given time, but it was nothing but an ambient buzz in the ears of a young blonde, crossing the square to a car park nearby.

The flickering lamps painted a lonely scene of the small woman all alone in the large lot. The buildings around her cast large shadows over the cars in great contrast to the bright and cheerful square just beside the lot. It was almost eerily quiet, and had the young woman been easily scared, she would have shifted her pace from a brisk walk to a frantic jog.

A gold and violet striped gift bag swung at her side jovially as she approached a dark convertible forced smack in the middle of two expensive looking SUV's. Placing the gift bag in the passenger seat, she pulled out her phone, which had been silently vibrating in her purse for quite some time. She flipped it open and spat into the speaker, "For the last time , Joey, I'm not picking you up! So take a cab and leave me alone!"

"Mai?"

The blonde woman's face twitched. The voice that had come out of the aged flip phone was not as nagging nor as gruff as she had anticipated; it was rather soft and timid, and also a pleasant surprise, so with trepidation and a bit of mortification, she took a glance at the caller ID. It was Jounouchi -or at least his phone.

After a moment's recollection, she spoke again, "Shizuka, honey, is that you?"

There was a delicate inhalation on the other end of the phone and a cheerful yet slightly hesitant "Yes."

"How are you doing? It's been a while since I heard your adorable voice!" Mai's voice took a complete 180 turn, changing from her stern Jounouchi tone to her everyone else tone. Mai was especially fond of Shizuka Kawai, who she likened to her own baby sister.

The teenager giggled and replied, "I've been great. I aced my finals this year so mom let me come to Domino City."

Mai smiled gently. "Atta girl! I knew you'd do well. So you're staying with your brother now?"

"Yeah! Katsuya just picked me up from the airport. I wanna surprise Anzu today!"

"I'm sure she'll love it!"

" But... " But? "I'll need a ride to get there," she added.

Mai mused for a moment, biting her lip. She felt something moist on the bridge of her nose and put two slender fingers to the top of her hair. With a sigh she realized it was just about to start raining and she was standing alone in a parking lot wearing a tank top and a mini-skirt.

The wind rustled the woman's golden curls and roused goosebumps on her arms, and with it came the sound of thunder, though preoccupied with her phone call, she hadn't quite caught the lightning that preceded it. She really did have to get out of that rain…

It was a quarter to six, yet the view from Anzu's living room window looked like a giant monster had swallowed the world whole and left in its place a hypnotic black abyss, one that threatened to engulf her house. After travelling with the Pharaoh and helping him save the world from eternal darkness and misery, she couldn't quite say that she was afraid of the dark. Darkness was feeble and darkness was fragile, and Anzu had the power of light in her heart and the hearts of her friends.

However, as she stared on into the void through the glass, she saw black, and she saw the tightness in her brow and the frown on her face reflected before her. She drew the curtain over the window and headed towards her sofa, curling up into a ball and keeping her eyes fixed on her television screen.

The television was turned off, she could swear it was, but somewhere deep inside, where her human eyes could only just see, two small eyes stared back at her, and she couldn't bring herself to look away.

"Hey, Anzu…"

Yugi plopped down on the couch beside her. He had been helping Anzu prepare her farewell party and had been at her house from early that morning, though their friends would probably have a thing or two to say about what else those two could have been doing all alone in a house for eight hours, and their claims probably wouldn't have been too far from the truth.

They had begun dating just over a year ago, after they all bid the Pharaoh farewell, and nobody who knew them could say the didn't see this development coming. Thankfully for Anzu, the past couple of years had seen a growth spurt in Yugi, so she didn't feel so tall when she was around him, not that she had minded the height difference before. His current height was just a bit more comfortable for her; that was all.

Anzu grinned slightly and rested her head on her boyfriend's shoulder, her eyes not breaking contact with the crimson slits she saw across the room in her television screen.

"You okay?" Yugi asked, his hand moving gently to her face to push a strand of her chestnut hair out of her face. He felt like something was wrong with Anzu, but he didn't question it; after all, she was moving to America in a week, so a little melancholy wasn't too strange an emotion to have.

Just a year ago, they had all thought that they would be together forever, always by each others' sides, and when Yugi looked down at his hand, he could still see the markings Anzu had drawn so long ago, a mark of their everlasting friendship. Now, in their senior year, he realized that it was inevitable that they would separate and follow their own paths. How foolish of him to think otherwise, to think that they could carry on in life together when there were so many opportunities ripe for the taking. How selfish of him to think that, no matter what, wherever life took him, his friends would be right by his side. They all had dreams and ambitions, and he knew that holding them back would be like stabbing years of friendship in the back.

The last thing he expected, however, was for Anzu to be the first to leave him -his beautiful, radiant beacon of light, the warmth in his heart, his pillar of strength. Out of all the friendships he had formed, hers was the one that had lasted the longest, having been friends from childhood, before he knew what love was, before he knew the ecstasy of her name on his tongue and her delicate hands on his skin. She had stood by him the longest, supported him with everything she had, never doubting him, never faltering -and now it was his turn to return the favor by offering his support in this huge step she was taking.

The young girl let out a long sigh as she moved away from Yugi and reached out to the coffee table, retrieving a piece of paper cut into the shape of a person. She held it to her chest as she leaned back into the sofa again and into Yugi's arms. It was her last line of defense, her insurance that no matter how far away she was from Domino City, she would stay in her friends' hearts forever.

"I'm not okay, Yugi," she murmured, nuzzling her face into his shoulder. "I don't think…"

"Everything will be okay." The reply was short and so very contrived. He couldn't believe he was saying this. He couldn't believe he had so many things to say to her, to let her know, and all he could say was that. "God, I'll miss you so much…" he whispered, his lips making their way to the top of her head, trembling.

The reverie was broken by the sound of the doorbell. It was time for the festivities to start, but neither of them felt like celebrating after all…

"You're early, Mokuba."

The car door opened with a soft click, but that click was all it took to startle the young Kaiba out of his thoughts. It wasn't like they were important thoughts, really… With the success of Kaiba Land and the Kaiba brothers' faces on the front of every business magazine in print at the moment, there was little to be worried about. Each of the boys was busy with something and that's how it has been since the grand opening of the amusement park. Of course, the younger boy couldn't rely on his brother for everything; so just as Seto slaved day and night to become the man he was, it was Mokuba's turn. But this day was different -he was taking a break to say goodbye to a dear friend.

The voice that startled him belonged to an associate of his, namely, Rebecca Hopkins, a 15 year old girl who looked out of place in the Japanese backdrop, her all-American blonde hair soaked to the roots and her sapphire eyes glistening below dark lashes. She shuffled into the limousine, taking a seat opposite of the billionaire.

The raven haired teen grinned at the girl and leaned back against his seat nonchalantly. "Looks you were early, too," he replied, gesturing to her raccoon eyes and devastated mascara. "Need a tissue?"

"Nah, I've got my own…" she said, rummaging in her oversized purse and extracting a wad of hastily folded tissues.

"Well, you didn't have to walk all the way here from your hotel. I could have had my driver pick you up from there!"

"No, it's fine. I was getting Anzu something from a cute antique place around the corner from here." She patted her purse, which, fortunately for her and all the things stuffed inside of it, was made from plastic ( designer plastic, mind you! ). "Just didn't expect it to rain so hard…" She unfolded one tissue and slowly, methodically massaged under her eyes.

"Well, that's Domino City for ya!" Mokuba exclaimed with a chuckle.

Rebecca smirked, her eyes still staring at the ceiling of the limo as she wiped off her eyeliner. "They say you and your brother control the weather. Is that true?"

The boy let out a loud laugh and replied with a wide smile. "Maybe we do."

The car was silent for a moment, as the blonde held up a mirror and traced around her eyes with a black pen, applying again what the downpour had mercilessly undone. Her bubblegum lips parted slightly and her breathing shallow, as her friend watched on in fascination. Her eyes caught his entirely unsubtle stare, a blur beneath the frame of the canvas and her bubblegum lips move. "What?" she asks.

"How can you do that?" the boy voices in awe, as his companion's fingers moved the pen back and forth slowly and rhythmically.

"Do what?"

"Draw eyeliner like that without messing up."

Without missing a beat, she said, "I sacrificed my soul to the devil in exchange for perfection"

Mokuba pursed his lips, holding in a laugh. "No, really."

"Yes, really. I mean how else do you think I became the youngest Duel Monsters prodigy and graduated from college before I even grew pair of boobs." The girl stuck her tongue out at the boy whose eyes were now anxiously trying not to glance at her bosom. Satisfied with her work, she closed the pen and put it back in her makeup bag, pulling out a mascara brush instead.

Deciding to let it go, Mokuba just smiled kindly at her. "Y'know, you don't need to do all this to look good. I think you look great already!"

She put down her brush for a moment to roll her eyes at the billionaire. "You're so naïve, Mokuba. I'm not trying to look great. I'm trying to look flawless , and it's not like I'm doing it for you anyway!"

"Well, whoever you're doing it for would probably be satisfied even if you went without makeup!" he claimed defensively, thinking bitterly of Yugi, who his friend had had a crush on for quite a while now, not that she would openly admit it now that the apple of her eye was very happily dating someone else.

Rebecca sighed and muttered. "I'm doing it for myself, and my standards are ridiculously high." She lifted her brush and gave her lashes a couple of quick strokes before sheathing it and placing it back in her bag.

Observing the glum expression on Mokuba's face, she let out an airy giggle. "Aww, Mokie. Don't get too upset. Thank you, for the compliment. I really do appreciate it." And with that, her friend's expression lightened quite a bit and a bashful redness made its way to his cheeks.

The young Kaiba was about to open his mouth in a reply when he felt the limo stop, followed by the sound of the dividing window unlatching and the driver's face appearing in its stead.

"Mr. Kaiba, we have arrived."

Mokuba looked over at Rebecca and said, "Well, this is it."

"Yes. Let's get going, Mr. Kaiba," she teased.

As the door was opened by the limousine driver, Mokuba replied, "Well, as long as you lead the way, because I've never actually been to Anzu's place."

"Sure," she reassured him, stepping under the man's umbrella and lending a hand to the boy, helping him out of the vehicle.

"Anzu!" The collective shout nearly deafened the poor girl, and the force with which she was attacked consequently nearly immobilized her, and her only crime was opening the door. Yugi smiled warmly at the people who were now piled on top of his girlfriend. The first to arrive to the party were Shizuka, Mai, and Jounouchi, with abundant grins, hugs, kisses and tears.

"You guys are early as always," he remarked, pulling Jou in for a hug. "I hope you didn't get soaked in that rain."

"Yeah," Anzu added as she pulled away from a tearful Shizuka. "I'm so sorry. If I had known the weather would be like this, I would have made my party another day."

Mai grinned widely and pinched her worried friend's cheeks with her two hands. "Aww, Sweets! Don't worry about it! Besides, it was just a little drizzle. Nothing to worry your cute little head about!"

As if to deny and defy, a sharp flash lit up the room, followed shortly by the low rumble of thunder and the formation of a slight crease between Anzu's eyebrows. "I hope everyone else makes it here okay…" she muttered.

As the words left her mouth, two figures appeared in the doorway behind her guests, where she had left the front door open. A damp Rebecca and a considerably drier Mokuba pushed through the crowd and presented themselves before the hostess.

"Hey, Anzu!" and "Can I use your bathroom!" were yelped simultaneously.

Yugi, feeling a bit left out of the greetings, but still content, let out a chuckle and grabbed the American girl by the shoulder gently, leading her towards the bathroom, leaving Anzu to fend for herself amongst their sorrowful friends and their bittersweet tears. The younger girl smiled graciously as she and her giant purse entered the washroom, leaving Yugi behind to wander absent-mindedly back to the living room.

The front door was now securely shut and Anzu was sitting on the couch, where she had been seated previously, surrounded by her friends. Her face was kind and smiling, but her eyes were hollow, staring squarely at the television screen, holding her thin, white doll against her heart, letting it feel her uneven heartbeat. Something was amiss, and she couldn't quite place her finger on it.

"So, I'll bet you were pretty surprised when my baby sis showed up on your doorstep! Eh? Eh?" Joey declared proudly, unconsciously placing his younger sister in a one-armed death grip. "She was so excited, sayin' 'Joey! Joey! Take me to see Anzu before she leaves!'" he said in a falsetto, letting go of Shizuka to make a pleading gesture with his hands. "'Course, me bein' the coolest brother in the world, I decided to grant her fragile little heart her wish."

"Wow, Joey, you're so amazing," Mai praised sarcastically. "Just don't forget who drove your ass here."

"Hey! Hey!" he snapped, shaking his fist. "I coulda come here on my own, y'know!"

"Without a license? I doubt it!" she told him, closing her eyes and shrugging.

"Joey, you don't have a license?" Mokuba piped up curiously.

The older boy groaned and sunk his head low. "Ya see what ya did, Mai. Now this kid ain't takin' me seriously anymore!" He then flashed a great, wide grin at the boy. "Y'see, Mokuba, I coulda gotten my license a long time ago, but I just haven't had the time!"

"More like no examiner in his right mind would give you a license!" Mai interjected, letting out a haughty laugh, much to the blonde boy's frustration.

"Say whatever you want, but I -"

However, he was forced to cut his statement short when his sister's voice cut through gently. "Hey, Anzu… You've been awfully quiet. Are you okay?" The younger Jounouchi sibling was seated right beside the brunette and placed a comforting hand on her forearm as she spoke.

"Yeah, Shizuka, I'm fine. I'm just kinda worried about Honda and Bakura… That storm is getting pretty bad…" she uttered softly, leaning into the younger girl slightly and offering her a small tilt in the corners of her lips, the beginnings of a smile.

Mokuba spoke this time, from his position on the loveseat to the right. "It's strange… The weather forecast predicted cloudy weather, but that's about it. Forecasts can be wrong though…"

"It's raining pretty early in the year though." Yugi made his presence known and sat beside Mai on the already cramped sofa; it was the closest he could get to Anzu. "Even for Domino City."

Everyone nodded and Joey spoke up. "Well, don't worry too much about them, Anzu. Those guys are pretty tough. They can take care of themselves. A little rain won't scare 'em!"

As he said this, Rebecca emerged from the bathroom, and sprinted over to them, holding out a small royal blue gift-wrapped box. "W-What's this?" the brunette asked, her gaze briefly leaving the abyss of the television screen to look at her young friend. "You didn't have to -"

"Are you kidding? How else will you remember me?" the younger girl asked, shoving the box into the dancer's lap. "It's from Otogi too since he's out of the country right now."

"Hey, Becky!" Joey called out, always switching the attention to himself. "You ain't the only one that got her something! Me and Shizuka got her something too!" Extracting a small green box from his sister's purse, in painful disregard to her privacy.

"Hey, me too!" Mokuba exclaimed, producing his own box. "It's from me and Seto, even though he couldn't be here today…"

"We all got you gifts, Sweetie," Mai said, gesturing to the gift bag, which once dangled on her wrist, now resting on the coffee table in front of them.

Several consecutive rings of the doorbell and a series of loud knocks interrupted the group and Yugi stood up and rushed to get the door. When he came back, it was with two familiar beaming faces.

"Hey, guys! I hope you didn't start the party without us!"

Many voices gasped in happiness and surprise, and a cacophony of "Ryou" and "Honda" rang out through the small living area. The final members of their gathering had finally arrived safely and everything was going without a hitch, so all cause for worry was gone. Anzu could breathe easily now that this small weight on her heart had been lifted. All nine were present and accounted for and she could finally do what she wanted to do with them.

She cleared her throat and stood up, breaking eye contact with the crimson glare that had had her ensnared the whole night."Um, guys… Can I say something?" she said weakly.

"Of course, Anzu. Speak your mind," Yugi replied, calmly rubbing her shoulder with one of his hands.

She smiled and let out a deep breath. "Well, as you know, I'm… I'm going to America soon, and we might not see each other for a long time. And all of us… We've been through so much together. We've been at each other's sides, supporting each other, helping each other, for years, through thick and thin, and you guys don't know how happy each and every one of you makes me. Your happiness and friendship got me through so much these past years and I don't know what I'd do without you… or what I'm going to do without you… when I leave…" She felt her breath get caught in her throat and shuddered slightly, placing one of her hands to her throat. "I don't know what I'm going to do, guys…" Her voice broke going through that last sentence, but she persevered and continued speaking, trying to swallow back her weakness and speak with clarity. "I just wanted to try something… something to keep us together forever, so that, even when I'm thousands of kilometers away, you'll still be there for me, like you always have." She looked down and tried to wipe her tears with the back of her hand, holding on to the proxy doll with her other hand.

Shizuka stepped towards Anzu and embraced her warmly. "Don't worry, we'll always be there for you. And you don't need to do anything to make that fact any more true than it already is."

The older girl buried her head in the redhead's shoulder and let herself be embraced. "Thank you, Shizuka."

"Aww! You're making me tear up!" Hiroto proclaimed loudly.

"Well, look who's getting in touch with his feminine side!" Joey announced, earning a heavy smack to the ear courtesy of Mai Kujaku. "Yeesh, sorry," he murmured then said, "Well, anyway, my sister's right. We won't ever abandon you. You can count on that!" He extended his arm, holding his thumb up and smiling, and in spite of his mockery of Honda, his eyes glistened when he talked. "So what is it that you wanted to try?" he asked.

"It's a ritual I found on an occult website…It's kinda silly, but I thought we could do it to -"

Ryou interrupted Anzu's speech with a firm statement. "Anzu, rituals are dangerous. Are you sure it's safe?"

"Come on, Bakura!" Honda said. "Don't tell me you actually believe in rituals?"

The silver-haired boy frowned and said, "Well, it's not that I believe in them… I'm just superstitious to a reasonable extent. I mean, aren't any of you?"

"There wasn't really anything negative in the article I read. And as long as we don't make any mistakes, then we don't have anything to worry about!" Anzu declared cheerfully, though Ryou's words sent a nasty twinge of fear and hesitation into her resolve.

When no one else would speak, Yugi did, trying to sound as calm and content as he could. "Tell us the instructions then, Anzu."

She grinned and held up the proxy doll, a white paper figure, shaped like a stick man. "It's called 'Sachiko Ever After' and it's supposed to keep everyone who does it together forever -like everlasting friendship. And even though I know we'll be friends forever, this is just a small guarantee." She paused for a moment to survey all the gently smiling faces in front of her, affirming in her mind that she indeed wished to look upon these faces forever. "Okay, so first of all, each of us holds on real tight to a part of the doll. Second, we all have to say 'Sachiko, we beg of you' once for each one of us -that means nine times -but don't say it out loud, say it in your heart. And the last thing we do is we pull on the doll until it rips and we each keep the piece that rips off. And as long as we have that piece of paper, we'll be friends forever."

"That sounds easy enough," Mokuba commented.

Anzu nodded. "Yeah, but make sure you say the chant exactly nine times. Even if you mess up, don't repeat it or it counts as one time."

"Yeah, yeah! I got it! Let's do this!" Joey exclaimed enthusiastically.

"Alright, Joey! Come here…" Anzu held out the doll with one hand and waited as each of her friends gripped their own part of the doll.

Sachiko, we beg of you.

Sachiko, we beg of you.

Sachiko, we beg of you.

Sachiko, we beg of you.

Sachiko, we beg of you.

Sachiko, we beg of you.

Sachiko, we beg of you.

Sachiko, we beg of you.

Sachiko, we beg of you.

RIP

…

" Hey, wh-why's the floor shaking!"

" Hang on, everyone!"

" Help, I'm falling!"

" What's going on!"

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The muffled sounds of thunder and the creaking of distant floorboards were the only sounds to be heard in the room, as a young blonde was beginning to regain her consciousness slowly. Her violet eyes could hardly see a thing, only a blurry ceiling and an impregnable darkness. Her hands made their way to her face to rub her eyes, only to have her rub something wet and sticky into the delicate organs.

"Ah!" Mai yelped, bringing her hands away from her face. Whatever it was that she had rubbed into her eyes was stinging severely, and she blinked furiously, trying to alleviate the pain. She wiped her hands down on her tank top and then brought her cleaner hands back to her eyes and slowly rubbed away the ache. Her tears had made the pain caused by the unidentified substance significantly softer, but still, a throbbing echo remained.

Once she had blinked away all the tears and could see clearly (or as clearly as one could in a pitch black room), she pushed up from the floor in order to stand up. Unexpectedly, her hands slid forward, causing her to fall back onto the ground. What the hell am I laying in?

Her hands frantically searched for a dry spot on the ground to push off from and when she had found one, she pushed herself to her feet and began looking around the room from her new vantage point. She could see a lone lit candle flickering around 2 meters away from her, but she couldn't quite tell the dimensions of the room with the amount of visibility the candle allowed. With a sigh, she began to make her way over to the candle, maneuvering around what seemed to be desks and chairs. Was this a classroom?

Her heart almost dropped to the pit of her stomach when one of her heels sunk into the floorboards. It looked like the floor was broken here… What a dump, she thought as she struggled to pull her foot out of the hole in the floor. She grunted, tugging her ankle with all her might, but to no avail. Maybe if she took it off of her foot slowly, she would be able to pull it out of the hole more easily.

With a sigh, Mai put her nimble finger in the back strap of her sandal and delicately took her foot out of the hole. She slowly and carefully moved her shoe, twisting it and turning it to make it easier, however, she was met with an unforeseen force of resistance on the shoe's part and it slipped right out of her fingertips and through the hole. "No! Wait!" she cried out into the blackness, as though her shoe would hear her call and soar back up to her. Sure, she could simply go to the lower level and find it, but getting around an unfamiliar place with only one shoe was sure to be difficult. Unfortunately, when your only shoe was a single sandal with a three-inch heel, walking around with one shoe wasn't so easy, so with a fair bit of reluctance, she slipped out of her second shoe, hanging it by the strap on her wrist, and opted for walking around with no shoes at all.

The candle was sitting at the teacher's pedestal in the classroom, illuminating a chalkboard that looked like it had seen better days. "How did I get here?" she murmured as she slowly gripped the small candlestick. She carried her newfound light source over to a window. Maybe if she got a good look at her surroundings, she could figure out where exactly she was. She must have been in some sort of school, and judging by the dismal state the whole room was in, it was probably out of business.

Her examination of the window proved to be fruitless, as there was nothing to be seen outside; it was too dark. It did tell her something, though, and that was the fact that she was very far from civilization. Were she near a town, she would have at least seen a far off streetlamp in the distance, or other buildings, perhaps, that were not so abandoned.

There was a door to her right, but it seemed to be blocked off by a desk. She made her way over to it, setting the candle down on the pedestal on her way, and began to pull as hard as she could, but it wouldn't budge, creaking and moaning in protest at her actions. It was almost as though the desk was nailed to the ground in that spot intentionally.

She took the candle again and looked towards the end of the classroom. There had to be another way out of this room. After all, how had she gotten in here to begin with?

Once again, as she trekked across the classroom, she held her candle low, watching out for any more gaps in the floor. Her feet didn't appreciate the rough surface of the damaged wood below her, but there was nothing she could do until she got her second shoe from the room below. Eventually, she made it back to the spot that in which she had started, only to finally identify the substance that she had rubbed all over her face earlier.

Blood .

Fresh crimson, viscous and sticky… She was currently covered in it, but Mai knew for a fact that it wasn't her own blood because she was not injured in any way. Much to her dismay, she didn't need to look far to find the source of the blood, and it was all she could do to keep a firm grip on the candlestick in her hand.

There, on the ground in front of her, not even a meter away from where she had woken up, was a young girl, who looked no older than 15, with her whole torso hollowed out. She looked like someone had neatly cut out her chest and gut with a finely sharpened knife (perhaps a saw), the way one would cut the crust off of a piece of bread. It was obvious that the girl was dead -and what was worse was the fact that she appeared to have only just been killed. She didn't look like she had been dead for even a mere couple of hours. What if whoever did that was still here?

The older woman felt sick looking down at the dead girl below her, setting down her candle and clutching her stomach in pain. She hadn't eaten before going to Anzu's house, so there wasn't much in her stomach, but she still felt the need to empty it out all over the ground where she had been laying. She turned her head away, not wanting to see her vomit mix in with the blood on the ground.

Whoever did this… they must have still been there… That was the only thing Mai could think about at that moment, and her main fear was the idea that she may have been next. And if Mai was here, then what if the rest of her friends were here, too? What if one of them had already ended up like that unfortunate middle school girl? She didn't even want to think about it.

Thankfully, the classroom had a second door near the back, and since there didn't seem to be anything else in this room that she needed to make a note of, she took her candle and made her way out of the room. She silently thanked God that the door was unlocked as she shut it on her way out, leaving that classroom and the horribly mutilated girl behind.

A notable change in the scenery of the corridor, compared to the classroom, was the fact that it was much brighter than the classroom. Sure, it wasn't bright enough to see things clearly, but somehow, the windows did a better job of illuminating the hall than they did illuminating that classroom, and every time lightning struck, she could see more of the deserted and run down hallway.

The silence around her was unnerving, and she felt so lonely and confused. The rain was louder in the hall, echoing loudly against the broken wooden walls, and the stench of something foul was overpowering. Judging by what she had just seen in the room before, she could safely assume that the stench in question was probably death. She didn't want to breathe it in -it felt wrong, but she didn't have the luxury of choice when it came to the air she was able to inhale at the moment.

"Mai, is that you?"

Her head turned swiftly at the sound of her own name on the tongue of someone familiar. She wasn't completely alone.

"Yugi!" she cried out and rushed over to him, cautious not to step in any holes.

Yugi was with her. Her luck was unbelievable! She had found one of her friends so quickly and now she needed to find the other seven. She could imagine that Shizuka was scared out of her wits and hoped with all her heart that the young girl found someone familiar -perhaps even Joey.

"I'm so glad I found you!" she exclaimed, clinging to the boy's hoodie like her life depended on it. "I just woke up in that room over there" -she gestured to the door behind her- "covered in some girl's blood. There's a monster here, Yugi."

Yugi frowned, maintaining his silence for a few moments after Mai had stopped speaking before replying to her. "I… I woke up in there, too, but I didn't see you. Are you sure you were in there?"

"Y-Yes…" Mai told him, slightly taken aback by the way he was speaking. "You must have thought I was the dead girl. And it was pretty dark in there…"

"Yeah, that must be it," he said, smiling insincerely to reassure his friend, though it wasn't like anyone could smile sincerely in a place like this. "I'm just a bit on edge. I mean that earthquake at Anzu's house came out of nowhere… and now we're here."

"We need to find a way out of here," the blonde stated, releasing her grip on Yugi's jacket and looking around the hall. "I took this from that room we woke up in," she said, holding up the candle. "I don't know how long it'll keep burning, but hopefully it'll last until we find our friends and the exit."

He nodded in agreement and added, "Yeah, I mean how big can this place be. It's just an elementary school."

"Right…" Mai agreed, looking behind her at the room that the two were about to abandon. She began to wonder… why hadn't Yugi acknowledged the body inside? Didn't it faze him? Or was it too horrific to talk about? Sure, she didn't quite like the idea of discussing a corpse either, but she needed to say something to someone. Maybe she would tell Joey when she found him…

"I think I saw a staircase this way," Yugi said, as he began moving to the right of their starting point. Mai briskly walked with him, partly since she was a light source now, and partly because she was too afraid to be so much as one step behind her friend.

Sure enough, there was a staircase exactly where Yugi had said. It seems he had looked around a bit while Mai was still unconscious, and if Yugi had wandered around alone for a couple of minutes unharmed, then maybe the threat of a monster lurking somewhere in the school wasn't as great as she had imagined.

The stairwell was more eerie than the hallway itself, making the duo feel like almost anything could be lurking around the corner -perhaps even the bloodthirsty menace that Mai's weary eyes were constantly seeking. What they found, however, was much stranger, causing the young woman to drop to her knees promptly, set her belongings down and hug her own shoulders. It was another corpse, laying against the aged wall, and this one came in the form of frail-looking bones, bleached with age. Judging by the build and the uniform, she guessed that these remains must have once belonged to a middle school girl.

"Yugi…" she called out, her voice shaking. "How long do you think has this person been dead?" The uniform the girl was wearing looked surprisingly out-dated, making Mai feel a bit uneasy.

She noticed her candle being held by someone else and instinctively turned her head towards Yugi to see him carrying it and crouching down beside the body. His hand reached out slowly to something small and rectangular pinned to the front of the girl's brown jacket, which Mai assumed must have been white at some point since the coloring was inconsistent.

"What are you doing?" she asked her friend, watching as he pulled out a dirty card from the rectangular casing.

"I'm taking her student ID card," he muttered, his eyes scanning the card briefly before placing it inside of his own wallet.

"Why?" she inquired, picking up the shoe she had dropped.

Yugi sighed and sat down against the wall. "I took the name tag of the dead girl in the classroom we were in, too. I'm going to find their parents as soon as I get out of this place. They deserve to know that their kids aren't ever coming back."

The older woman's eyes widened slowly, stinging a bit, but from tears and not from blood this time. However she couldn't find any words to say in reply, thoughts swimming in her mind rapidly, images of the two dead girls, and images of their parents finding out that their babies won't ever come back to them. It saddened her to think about it, but she knew that the parents of the young girl beside her must have dismissed her as dead long ago.

"It's strange, though…" he continued when he saw that Mai wasn't about to speak anytime soon. He brought his knees closer to his body and rested his forearm on one of them. "It's 2006, right?" Mai nodded but didn't say a word. "This girl's ID says that she's from the Blossoming Future Academy for Girls…"

"And…"

"My mother went to that school," Yugi interjected firmly. "She told me that they closed it down in the late 80's…"

"B-But that's…" 26 years ago, which meant that the girl beside them had been dead for at least 30 years! "But surely… she must just be wearing her mother's uniform with her student name tag! And she happened to get kidnapped in it."

"Perhaps, but…" Setting the candle on the ground, he rose to his feet, walking towards the girl and crouching down right in front of her. Slowly, he moved his hand towards the bones and pushed against the girl's rib cage lightly and quickly. Though Mai hadn't expected anything to happen, she found that the bones reacted immediately to the boy's soft touch, crumbling like brittle stones and collapsing onto themselves until the girl was nothing but a pile of bones with a broken skull laying on top. "It looks like she's been dead for at least a few decades."

Taken aback, Mai immediately asked, "And how would you know about stuff like that?" She was still reeling from what her friend had just done to the girl's body, and didn't even trying to dilute the hostility in her tone

He raised an eyebrow at his friend as if to say "Shouldn't it be obvious?" However, it seemed like Mai wasn't thinking clearly at the moment. "My grandpa's an archaeologist. He knows all about decomposition and things like that. He used to tell me stories about his adventures all the time and I guess I picked up a thing or two." He sighed deeply getting to his feet again. "I didn't think that I'd ever have to use that knowledge though…"

The blonde's voice wouldn't come though and the stairwell was silent again for a few moments before Yugi spoke again. "Come on, Mai. We need to find Anzu, Jounouchi and the others."

The candle, still on the ground where Yugi left it was flickering, giving the small space of the stairwell an ominous feel, and the corpse in the corner wasn't exactly helping. Reaching out for the candlestick, Mai stood up and looked down at the lower level.

"Hey, Mai," the boy asked before they began to descend the stairs. "Why aren't you wearing your shoes?"

She became aware of the shoe strap that was digging into her wrist. "Ah, I accidentally dropped the other one in one of those holes in the floor. I was planning on looking for it once I got down to the bottom level."

He nodded slowly then said, "But even if you find them, it'll be pretty hard walking around in heels. Maybe you should…" He paused for a moment, contemplating his next words carefully, almost unsure if he even wanted to say them. "You could take some shoes off of one of the dead girls if they have the same size as you"

The woman was silent in shock for what felt like minutes, the duo frozen at the top of the stairs looking down. "A-Are you serious?"

Since he had already gone and said something taboo, he continued without hesitation. "They won't need them anymore. I'm sure they'd be happy to help someone else make it out of here alive." He tried to smile reassuringly at her, letting her know that it was okay, but in reality, he was the one who needed the reassuring smile, because the look that Mai was giving him was anything but friendly. She looked like she was questioning his sanity at the mere notion of looting the dead -even if it was for necessity.

"I think I'll pass," she affirmed, sending a stern glare in his direction. "Besides, we're not gonna be here that long."

Trying not to let the glare bother him, he tried again to convince her. "There's a monster in here, Mai. Do you really wanna run around barefoot in a place like this?"

"I said I'm fine, Yugi. Let's just get away from this body…" She straightened her back, tightened her grip on the candle, and began to march down the stairs without looking back to see if her companion was following her -not that she needed to look behind her to know that Yugi was following, because who would want to be alone in a place like this.

The stairs led them to a short corridor, leading them up to a three-way fork. Should they choose to go straight, it would lead them to a blank wall and what they assumed to be another staircase, and should they turn left, they would be met with an even longer hallway which seemed to be littered in dead bodies. To their right, was a large impassible gap in the floor, and at the end of that hall was a large door.

"Do you think that's the entrance?" she asked Yugi with a slight hint of dread in her voice. If they couldn't get across that hole, then how would they leave?

"I hope not," he replied, his voice sounding weak, his head tilted slightly to the right, staring longingly at what was obviously the entrance. They were, after all, on the first floor, and logic said that any door that was much larger than the rest probably lead to the outside. He snapped the resolve back into his voice painfully and added, "If it is, then we'll definitely find another way out, because if there's a way in, there must be a way out."

Mai nodded and proceeded. Naturally, she went for the more inviting (and more available) direction -straight ahead. As she made to go forward, an unnatural force pushed her back against Yugi, causing him to stagger slightly, narrowly avoiding the great fall to his right, and gripping his friend's shoulders to steady the both of them. Before the woman could open her mouth to speak, a dull blue light illuminated the corridor and Mai's candle was blown out.

Standing and facing the duo was what appeared to be a young girl -or at least what was left of a young girl. She was wearing a high school uniform and was staring off into space as though she was looking right through Mai and Yugi, but that wasn't the most notable thing about her. In addition to her blank expression, she was missing an arm and glowing an unusual blue -she almost looked… transparent. Judging by the uneven stump at her shoulder, her amputation must not have been very pleasant.

You must not go through here.

"Who are you?" Mai asked, trying her hardest not to gawk at the girl's right arm, or lack thereof for that matter.

You must not go through here.

Mai's heart was thudding against her chest so hard that she could feel her skin tingling and her ribs hurting. Something in her already knew what she was encountering, but the dominant part of her being wanted to deny the truth completely.

"What do you mean?" the older woman tried again, trying to sound strong, but just like before, her attempt yielded no results.

You must not go through here.

It was as though those were the only words this wraith knew, and repeating them on a loop was the only way for her to exist, so she continued to do so. Her voice sounded human enough, but had just enough of a supernatural tone to send shivers down the pair's spines. It didn't seem like she was going anywhere anytime soon.

"Why?" Yugi asked. "Why can't we go through?"

Remarkably, it was Yugi's question that reached the girl's ears. She finally made eye contact with the people in front of her, making Mai feel like the alternative was much more comfortable after all. The speed at which the girl turned her head to look at the spiky-haired teen in front of her gave the older blonde whiplash. The emotionless eyes were fixed completely on Yugi's confused face, and for a moment, a tiny blink of emotion could be seen in them - dread .

It's already too late for you.

With that, the girl departed in a manner that could only be described as receding -or perhaps even ceasing to exist, leaving the two companions to stare at each other in wonder and contemplate just how real that young amputee was.

"Did that… just happen?" Yugi asked, his eyes fixed on the spot where the girl once stood, his mind still circulating her last words and trying to discern them. For some reason, he sensed that these words were meant only for him.

Yet Mai's mind was still trying to fathom the existence of a ghost, even after it had appeared before her. She had seen it, but she couldn't understand how something like that could be possible. "I saw it too…" she offered, releasing her arms from Yugi's grasp as he was too stunned to realize that he was still holding her.

Stepping away from his friend, he voiced his concerns out loud. "What does she mean by ' It's already too late '?"

The woman cocked her head to the side slightly and racked her mind for any coherent explanation for the ghost's words. "What if she means that the monster is that way?"

Yugi swallowed the lump that grew in his throat at the mention of a monster, because there was only one explanation for the girl's words if she was talking about the one who was murdering the lost students in this school. "That means… the monster is already here."

"N-No!" Mai protested quickly, as if her protest alone could save her from the monster lurking nearby, as if her protest alone could send all of these strange occurrences back to the world of fiction where they belonged. "But where could a monster like that hide? How could it be here right now if it was just in the stairwell. Wouldn't we have seen it pass us by?"

Yugi sighed and began to speak. "Well, we just saw a ghost, Mai. So it's very likely that it-"

"How do you know it was a ghost?" she countered, cutting off his thought. "Maybe it was dark and we couldn't see well because the candle wasn't lit."

"And how exactly did the candle turn off -"

"The wind !" she all but yelled.

"Where would that wind even come from if all the windows that lead to the outside don't even open!" Yugi argued, his voice becoming louder steadily along with Mai's.

"How do you know that!" she cried in exasperation.

"Because I tried them! None of them open, Mai! None of them! Not the ones in the classroom, or the ones in the hallway!" at this point, he was shouting. His right arm was violently extended, his hand pointing towards the inaccessible entrance-way. "And I can bet you that if I try to open that front door, it won't open." Now that he had finally said it, the corridor was quiet again. For a moment, one could say that even the rain and thunder had been put on mute, but it was only a matter of time before one earsplitting clap of thunder startled the pair out of their glaring competition.

There was a long sigh from Mai before she shut her eyes and dropped her belongings -the single shoe and the candlestick. They both dropped with a thud and a clang, startling her companion for a moment. "I guess I won't be needing these anymore."

"Are you sure?" Yugi asked, his eyes following the candlestick as it rolled across the floor and down into the wide hole between them and the entrance. He waited for the second clang that meant it had hit the floor, but it never came. His eyes twitched in irritation at the thought of their light source being lost. They could have simply found a match and relit it, but it seemed Mai had decided to be entirely too theatrical about disposing of her things.

With a nod and a pained smile, she replied, "Yeah…besides, I looked through those windows across from the staircase back when we first got to this floor. The space under the classroom we started out in is not on this floor for sure… And I don't think my shoe is worth a trip to the basement of this creepy place."

"I… see," the boy replied quietly.

"I'm not taking anyone else's shoes either, though. I don't think I could…"

"So should we go forward or -"

The building shuddered all at once. Mai's face was pale, panic and fear clouding over her eyes, her arms searching blindly for something to cling to. It was like the school was fighting something and shaking furiously, flinging Mai against one wall and Yugi against another. Cautiously yet desperately, she reached along the floor for Yugi's hand, crying out to him in a voice she couldn't even recognize as her own, barely audible and as cracked and broken as the floor. "Y-u-g-i! G-r-a-b... m-y... h-a-n-d! H-u-r-r-y!"

She could see Yugi's frightened lavender irises contracting, making the darkness of his pupils the only color visible. His hand was shaking, moving towards hers slowly, as though he were hesitant to take it. Why wasn't he taking her hand?

"P-l-e-a-s-e!" she screamed over the sound of the shifting floorboards. All around them, the floor was breaking and mending itself, turning the area where they were currently struggling into a completely different space. Gradually, even the floor between the two of them was ceasing to exist, and she wondered why, in this place of all places, and in this time of all times, Yugi was hesitating.

Soon the earthquake began to ease and the floor between Mai and Yugi had disintegrated completely, leaving Mai on one side of the intersection, where the ghost had manifested and where the lengthy corpse-filled hallway was, while Yugi was on the side with the entrance-way and the staircase they had originally come from. Both of them were panting heavily and clinging to the walls and the floor, relieved to have survived.

While Mai was happy to have made it, she was also disappointed that Yugi failed to grab her hand when she had told him to. Still on the ground, she made to scold the boy, but she could still see the same expression on his face as before, unchanged, like in his mind, the quake hadn't really ended.

Yugi, on the other hand, had his mind elsewhere. He couldn't even spare a glance at the older woman, nor could he say a single word to her. All he could see was something small, a girl, standing behind his companion, emitting a pale blue light, just like the ghost from before, only somehow more malevolent. She was wearing a red dress, and her hair, like tendrils of darkness, was strewn wildly across her face. She had been standing behind Mai throughout the duration of the earthquake with a small smirk on her lips, wagging her sickly finger at the teen, her vacant eyes almost daring him to make a move.

"Yugi?" the blonde asked, a spark of worry lit her eyes.

He couldn't respond to her, though, as a loud, repetitive incremental crescendo of pounding resonated through the hall just behind Mai. Her head whipped back to seek the source of the noise. The child was gone, but something else had taken her place, a man bounding towards her with heavy steps, an enormous sledgehammer slung over his shoulder. She could feel her eyes popping out of her head as he approached. She glanced back at Yugi pleadingly, reaching out towards him over the large gap, but she knew he wouldn't be able to help her now.

"Yugi, help me!"

Yugi shut his eyes tightly and the pounding stopped, but he knew that it wasn't over yet. He inched his body further away, towards the wall, covering his ears. However, nothing could block out the sickening CRACK that followed, nor did it stop him from hearing the sound of something large being dragged away through the hallway.

By the time Yugi opened his eyes, he was alone.

The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.

Napoléon Bonaparte

Are you okay?

     You look a little pale.

          Is it my fault?

                It is, isn't it.

                    I'm sorry.

                         Anzu.

A lifeless girl stirred to life, her body sore and her dormant face coated by dust. She felt like she had been out for a while; her limbs ached like they had been unused for years. It smelled like rotting meat and manure in the dark room, and the scent lingered around her face like a rancid scarf.

Holding out her hands for guidance, Anzu got to her knees and rotated her head slowly, like a camera scanning the area around her, allowing her drowsy eyes to adjust to the darkness. It was eerily dark, however; something about it seemed very surreal. It was like someone had sucked all of the light out of the atmosphere. If she didn't know any better, she would think she had gone blind.

She stared into the abyss and the abyss looked back into her with beady crimson eyes, microscopic ruby shards, shimmering by some ethereal light.

After a couple of fruitless minutes of trying to detect objects in the solid darkness around her, she decided to look around using her hands rather than her eyes. She tried as hard as she could to push the goosebumps and the fear trickling out of every pore on her body to the back of her mind. She wasn't very fond of the dark...

Her hands danced around the darkness, invisible and quick, searching frantically for something real to cling to. It didn't take long for skin to find wood and her hands rested hesitantly on a rough plane elevated less than a meter above the ground. A chair? Her fingers glided over it, while she made mental notes of the object's dimensions. No, a table... a very small one though.

A soft rustling, amplified tenfold, told Anzu that the room was not too big and closed. It was hard to say where the door was, or whether or not there were windows. She figured there must not have been any windows at all because it was so dark, and it sent tiny impulses to the hairs on her neck and arms. Tremors rumbled from the cores of her bones to her paper white skin.

The desire to leave beat rhythmically against her chest, the only sound in the dead silence. She didn't want to say a word and shatter the iron curtain that had settled over the room. Any rash actions could very well endanger her, so it would be best if she adopted a quiet approach.

Clinging to the table for support, she crouched down to the ground, deducing that if she walked in a straight line along the cracks in the wood, she would eventually reach a wall, and if she was lucky, a door. When her hands met the floor, she felt something sticky rub off on her fingers, residue of something foul smelling and rotten. Tentatively, she put her finger on the crack and pushed away from the table, inching slowly away from it until the sticky substance was no longer beneath her.

There was more shuffling and a distant knock, which rattled the girl and froze her legs. Those sounds were likely made by her captors, she thought as she extended her arm in front of her to realize that she had finally reached the wall she had been seeking. It felt worn and almost… moist. As a matter of fact, the whole room was humid and putrid. She felt like she was in the middle of a garbage dump full of rotten food.

She felt up along the wall as she rose to her feet. At a height of around one meter, the rotten wood became damaged glass, and although she could tell there was something on the other side, she wouldn't dare put her hand through one of the gaps, and however hard she tried, she couldn't see through it either. It must have been very dark outside of the room as well. Why on earth would they keep it so dark in this place?

Edging along the wall, Anzu finally found what she was looking for: a door handle protruding from the wall. It was an old sliding door, and she hoped that it hadn't rusted shut with all the humidity in the room. She tugged the handle with all her might, using her body's weight to help. As she feared, it seemed to have rusted quite a bit, judging by the metallic creaking it gave when she tried to open it. However, it did show signs that it was movable, so she tried once more, wiggling it a bit in its track and hoping to shake off some of the rust that had gathered. After a bit more effort, she had finally gotten the old wheels to turn and the door to slide open ever so slightly.

She moved towards the crack to glance outside, finding it considerably brighter. It was still dark, but she could see a dull overhead light flickering on and off, casting shadows all around. She could also see that the floor was damaged on the other side of the door, filled with gaps and cracks. It certainly didn't look safe, so she would have to be careful once she got out.

Her hands were now back on the handle, dragging the door open, which was much easier than it had been before, but it still sent trails of perspiration down her forehead.

She had wanted to be quiet earlier, but the loud screech of the door was making it harder than she anticipated. Still, she had no choice. If she wanted to get out, she was going to have to open the door and deal with the consequences later.

As soon as the screeching came to a halt, Anzu heard a soft moaning. "Mmh…Who's there?"

The girl turned around, scanning the room that she had been with the little light she had finally shed, and still, she couldn't see the source of the voice. Her heart was caught in her throat, making it difficult to breathe, let alone speak. Whoever spoke was obviously still in the dark parts of the room, and whoever it was had certainly been there the whole time she was struggling to find a way out. It terrified her that she had been in that darkness for so long without knowing what lurked within it.

"A-Anzu… is that you?"

Her name.

"Anzu, please help me. My leg is stuck…"

Wait… And through the tightness in her chest, her voice leaked out, weakly and shakily. "Shizuka?"

"Yeah…" This voice just may have been weaker than her own, but Anzu could say with approximate certainty -or at least enough approximate certainty to send her back into the realm of darkness that was before her -that this voice belonged to her friend. "I'm stuck. Please come quickly. I can't see anything."

Though Anzu wasn't too keen on going back inside, the light from outside made it a bit easier to gather the courage for Shizuka's sake. She moved cautiously, her eyes straining to locate holes and obstacles that the light shone on. She realized, as she navigated a path towards the sound of her friend's voice, that she was lucky she hadn't fallen victim to one of those holes in the dark while she had been searching for the door.

"S-Stay calm, Shizuka. I'm coming." Her approach was slower than she would have liked, but then again, she could neither see Shizuka nor the ground. She stopped for a moment and decided to speak to Shizuka. "Can you see me right now?" she asked. Of course, it was pitch black in the room and Shizuka had already said that she couldn't see anything, but she could still tell that the other person in the room was Anzu in spite of that, so perhaps the redhead could see silhouettes. It would certainly help if she could; perhaps she could lead Anzu in the right direction.

After faltering for a short period of time, Shizuka finally replied, "I can… but only a little bit. It was easier to see you when you were by the door."

"I can imagine," Anzu replied airily. "Don't worry, sweetie. I'll get out out of here. Just let me know if I'm going the right way because I can't make heads or tails of this darkness."

"Alright," the younger girl said, her voice accented by distant knocks and thuds. Something strange was going on in this place, and Anzu didn't like the idea of sticking around this room any longer if she could avoid it.

Anzu's short party dress was clinging to her legs as she eased her way closer to her friend, listening closely to her guidance. There were more small tables like the ones she had touched earlier, and as she made her way past them, she realized that they weren't tables, but desks , with tiny chairs scattered around. This must have been some sort of elementary school.

"You're almost there, Anzu. Just a few more steps…"

Before the older girl could take her final steps, she felt her right foot drop on something slightly elevated. Tentatively, she moved her foot on the object, trying to identify it. It wasn't a chair, because whatever it was seemed to be cushioned by something. However, she was unable to match the feel of the object with something she knew based only on touch. She couldn't see what it was, because at that moment, the only thing she actually could see was the door that she had left open; yet she could tell that whatever was on the ground there was letting out an awful stench.

"Is something wrong?"

"I don't know… There's something on the ground here."

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

Each of the overhead lights turned on with a sound that started the two girls into an inanimate state. The blood in their arteries was frozen solid and their eyes fixed on one particular object in the newly, but dimly, lit room.

Lying in a pool of pure crimson was something entirely unrecognizable. It was a red and white mass of something meaty and covered in maggots. They squirmed around trying to get their fill, poking in and out of small holes and crevices, like sack of rice splitting at the seams.

Anzu soon came to the realization that she still had her foot firmly on the object, placed squarely in the center of the fleshy mass, surrounded by a swirling vortex of crawling insects. She could feel something inside her loafers, tickling her ankle and calf -tens of maggots climbing her pale dirt-stained leg. She felt her leg go numb, as though the presence of maggots on the limb caused her whole body to disown the offending appendage. She felt frozen, unable to move away, in spite of her body absolutely pleading to her. Eventually, she lost her balance and dropped onto her bottom.

"Anzu!" Shizuka cried out, her doe eyes wide and frightened. She wanted to get up and assist her friend, but in her situation, it was impossible for her to stand up.

The older girl edged away from the ruby red, glistening mass, feeling her dress snag against the damaged floorboards. She lifted her right leg as much as she could before slamming it down on the hard ground, trying to expel the bugs that were making their ascent. It hit the ground with a loud, unsettling THUD.

The first time, several of them dropped to the ground. Inching away from the maggots, she let out a dropped her foot once more upon the ground and subsequently, she shook the leg, trying to get them all off of her. As soon as she determined that the maggots were all gone, she shakily got to her feet, watching the creatures scurry around her.

Scratch, scratch, scratch...

With the panic of the maggots alleviated, the girls could finally hear the noise. It was a mix between chalk tapping furiously against a chalkboard and fingernails on wood, and it didn't take them long to find the source -a chalkboard on the other side of the room. It looked like someone that they couldn't see was furiously writing on the board in bright red. Could it be blood?

You betrayed us.

You betrayed us.

You betrayed us.

You betrayed us.

You betrayed us.

The writing was erratic and not always clear, but the girls knew for sure that the same sentence was being written repeatedly on the chalkboard like some kind of twisted punishment in an after-school detention session. Whatever was being used to write was sliding down the chalkboard in messy trails, and they could tell that the writer was obviously unstable and possibly dangerous.

They had to get out of that room quickly. Anzu just knew it. Her head was throbbing, and she didn't know whether it was the heavy and suffocating atmosphere or whether it was the tapping on the chalkboard, which was so loud that she was surprised the board was still in one piece. Trying to ignore the pain, she made her way over to Shizuka, avoiding the unidentifiable bloody mass on the floor to get to her destination.

The younger girl was trapped in the corner of the room, sitting in an extremely uncomfortable looking position with one leg extended in front of her and the other completely out of sight. Her hands were placed firmly on the ground on either side of her, supporting the awkward position. "Anzu, please -" the girl started to speak, but Anzu put a finger to her lips sternly, her eyes flitting to the furious ghost writer at the front of the room.

When Anzu was finally crouching beside her friend, she discovered the reason behind the girl's inability to move. It was not that her second leg was out of sight; rather, the whole leg up to the thigh was stuck inside one of the many holes scattered around the room. She seemed to be in pain with the edges of the boards digging into her pale skin. The brunette let out an anxious sigh. This sure was a difficult position.

First, she gestured quietly for Shizuka to wrap her arms around the elder's neck, which the girl obeyed without question. After that, Anzu gripped the girl's waist tightly, lifting the young teenager up, only to hear a quiet whimper. It seems the wood was digging into her skin too deeply to simply pull her out. Anzu had the fleeting thought that they were running out of time. She didn't know how she could tell, but she had a feeling that as soon as the ghost writer's space ran out, she and Shizuka wouldn't be safe anymore. The scratching was making her feel nauseous. She had to hurry.

Slowly, she sat the younger girl back down and worked on breaking the weathered wood below. It didn't seem like it would put up much of a fight so, mustering up all of her physical strength, she wrapped her fingers around the thinnest of the jagged edges piercing her friend. She started to tug, hearing the satisfying creak of wood and hoping that her strength was enough to break it off. Fortunately, it only took about a minute for the piece to break off with a loud snap.

Her head turned quickly to see if the noise had at all affected the ghost writer, but they seemed to be unaware of anything in the room other than the mysterious person who had betrayed them. This caused Anzu to let out a sigh of relief, but it was only slight, because the writer was nearly finished with the chalkboard.

"C'mon," Anzu mouthed to Shizuka, and the girl immediately grabbed her friend's neck. Anzu began to carry Shizuka up again. She could feel resistance, but the other girl remained silent, which the older girl took as permission to continue to pull.

You bETRAYED US.

YOU BETRAYED US.

YOU BETRAYED US.

YOU BETRAYED US.

YOU BETRAYED US.

The writing seemed to be more agitated as the phantom went lower on the blackboard. However, neither of the corporeal girls wanted to see the room on the chalkboard run out. The phantom was standing next to the door that Anzu had previously opened, but to their great fortune, this room had a second door that was much closer to the girls as well as much farther from the ghost.

The two girls rushed over to the door, Shizuka still holding onto Anzu in a panic. The older girl grabbed the handle to the door, watching as it slid open with more ease than the other door. And as the redhead was making her way through the door, she was distracted by the sound of nails on a chalkboard. A quick glance showed her what seemed to be an invisible nail carving into the board and the blood rearranging itself and filling in the scratches caused by the invisible nail.

I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU, CHIE.

Shizuka felt herself being tugged out of the room by her arm and promptly exited the room. She made to shut the door, but with a loud SLAM , the door slid shut of its own accord, leaving the two girls in a dimly lit hallway with the floorboards to their right completely decimated, while the ones to their left looked dangerous, but considerably more passable.

Before taking another step, the girls decided to take the opportunity to speak to each other. The first to open her mouth was Anzu. "What was that?" She was still panting in fear and exertion. Her hand was still aching from when she broke the wood, and she could feel a splinter in her palm that she didn't want to remove for fear that she would push it deeper into her skin as it was hard to see clearly in the light that this hall provided.

"I don't know…" Shizuka murmured, her eyes still on the door. Was any of what they saw in there real? Could it possibly be real? They both saw the same thing, though, so how could it be a hallucination?

"Well," Anzu said, glancing to the left and to the right. There wasn't much of a choice in where to go from that point, so, taking a step to the left, she told her friend, "I guess we'd better get going. We need to find our friends."

The younger girl looked down at the ground, her eyes trying to find courage in the floorboards, but the only thing to be found was despair. She wasn't keen on leaving that spot as there was no telling what could be lurking around this place. Her eyes wandered to the door they had just emerged from. "I don't think I could stay near this door any longer… What if… whatever's in there comes out?"

Anzu nodded, her mahogany bob swaying lightly with her head. "So let's go!"

The hallway was brittle and broken, giving off an air of dread and hopelessness. As the girls walked, they could feel their spirits tugged down into the ground by some unseen force, like the heaviness in the atmosphere could really drain away their hope. The walls reeked of death and decay, and the girls didn't even have the heart to question it.

It didn't take them much longer to come to the conclusion that they were wandering in an old school, but from what they could see, it was more like a graveyard -a hell of some sort. It didn't take them long to find another dead body, and another, and another… like gaudy decorations at an amusement park, and Anzu could tell that her companion was losing heart and mind with each face, no matter how deformed. Each name tag brought out a whimper or a shudder, and as much as Shizuka tried to hide it, there was no doubting the dread and fear she felt.

It was the body of a middle-schooler by the name of "Makoto Sato" that caused her weak knees to finally give out beneath her. Shizuka's small body quaked in the lonely hallway; her eyes wide open, but seeing only blurs of dull colors. There was no difference anymore between the brown of the dirty bones, the brown of the dry blood and the brown of the filthy rotting wood. However, she wasn't crying, because to cry was to accept that she was truly and undeniably trekking through a school of corpses, and judging by the way she walked through the school like a fairy tiptoeing on air, she still believed that she was having an endlessly long and taxing nightmare.

Anzu, whose gentle blue eyes had witnessed many things -none this horrific, but just as many - put a shaking hand on her friend's shoulder. She couldn't say anything to her because there were simply no words for what they were going through. "W-We… we need to find the exit, Shizuka…"

Hearing those words seemed to jump start something in the younger girl's body and it jerked abruptly. She set her hands down on the ground and began to stand up, dusting herself off and running a nervous hand through her hair. "I'm fine," she said. "I'm fine…" Her voice cracked slightly, her words were laced with annoyance, but it seemed more at herself than at Anzu.

The older girl suspected that those words were untrue, but as long as Shizuka could continue on this demonic place, even for just a few more minutes, Anzu had to let her. Shizuka, for as long as Anzu could remember, greatly valued being more of a help than an inconvenience, and as long as that was still true about her, it meant that she was still normal and that the maddening sights hadn't stolen away her mind.

As they encountered locked door after locked door, Anzu had taken to reading the notes on the floor, keeping their words to herself. Shizuka, however, only had eyes for the notes on the walls. Each were maddening in a way, and each girl had already chosen which madness they wanted to afflict their souls.

"' Whoever keeps stealing shoes from the entranceway will be found and punished severely… '" Shizuka mumbled to herself. Standing before the entranceway, surrounded by tiny shoes, she couldn't help but feel like the guilt in that note was enveloping her. It was almost as though she were the shoe thief… She suddenly felt very anxious to get out of that place and took a step in the opposite direction of the entrance, towards a long hallway.

"Shizuka, that's the entrance…" Anzu informed her. "We can finally get out of here!"

However, the red haired girl simply shook her head fiercely. "N-No... I have a bad feeling about it…"

"What kind of bad feeling?" Anzu asked, trying to shake off the tremors that Shizuka's statement had invoked. "I know none of the doors we found actually opened, but what's the harm in trying this one?"

"That's the thing, Anzu!" Shizuka cried out in a voice so soft and hesitant that, were it not for the dead silence and the unnerving echoes, Anzu wouldn't have heard her. "I think this door might actually open."

"I-I-I… I don't understand," the brunette replied. Shizuka's terror was emanating from her like an aura and its reach enshrouded Anzu, seeping into her skin and knocking on her heart, an uninvited visitor. "It's fine!" Proving a point more to herself than to her companion, she started with heavy steps towards the double doors of the entranceway.

"P-Please! Anzu, don't!" This pleading voice went unheard by Anzu, her mind electing to remain positive contrary to all reason… No, wasn't it reason that told them that all doors needed to be checked, in spite of an ominous hunch?

Anzu's hands clutched the worn wood of the door and began to pull it to the side, putting all of her weight into opening it. It was almost rusted shut, however, unlike the other doors they had encountered, this one showed promise and the prospect of actually opening.

With a noisy screech, the door was finally open. Anzu stood just before the railing, with her hand on the doorway like an explorer staring down into the unknown. She twisted herself to look at Shizuka, who was maintaining a safe distance from the door and shivering. "Well? Come on."

With a shaky nod, the young girl obeyed and scurried over to her friend. Of course, in a place like this, she wasn't too keen on getting separated from a familiar face. "Please, Anzu…" She tried once again to beg her friend. "Let's just go... I don't like this…"

This time, Anzu didn't reply, dismissing her friend with a small smile. She let go of the doorway and took a step inside. The air felt different in that room, but she paid it no mind as her eyes had spotted the front door of the school. She could see the night sky through the window. She could see trees in the distance with a bright full moon above them. She dashed towards it, Shizuka's wide eyes following her from the doorway.

"I hope this opens…" she said under her breath as she gripped the door, struggling to get it open. Maybe it was just difficult like the previous door… "Come on, Shizuka! Help me with this!"

Reluctantly, Shizuka began to close the distance between herself and the door. However, she didn't expect her path to close and her friend to disappear.

The door snapped shut aggressively, causing the walls around it to shake slightly and the young girl before it to let out a yelp which echoed all around the hall. She leapt to the door, pulling on it desperately, but in the short time it had closed, it seemed like it became nothing more than a decoration. She shook it with all her might. Perhaps if she broke it, she could reach her friend, but the wood was terribly strong, and at that moment, Shizuka felt terribly weak.

"Anzu!" she screamed at the door. "Anzu are you okay?"

Muffled and anxious, but otherwise unstrained, a voice yelled back at her. "I'm fine! But I can't open the door!"

"Wh-What about the front door?" she asked her friend, a slight sense of relief lighting a candle in a heart otherwise blackened with worry. "Did that open?"

"N-No… It's just like this one! It might as well be a wall because nobody is going through it anytime soon…"

"B-But there's nothing in there? Nothing like… what was in that classroom?"

"No," Anzu reassured her. "But you need to find a way to open this door, okay?"

"I-I can't! It's just like the other doors we found!"

The older girl was silent for a moment, and Shizuka almost thought she had truly lost her, but her voice piped up once again. "It opened before, right? There has to be a way!" There she was… with that unyielding optimism that made Shizuka want to scream. How did she manage to keep things from getting to her? "Shizuka, I hate to make you walk around this school on your own, but it seems like I have no choice. Can you try looking around? Maybe there's a key or some other way to get this door open. I'll look around here and try to find something to get out."

"But I'm scared…" Shizuka replied.

"I believe in you," her friend reassured her. However, those words sounded hollow and empty to the younger girl. Her mind couldn't accept that Anzu believed in her because her heart was so full of doubts she thought it could overflow.

"O-Okay…" The word was brought out of her by force because she didn't want to keep complaining, especially when her friend was trapped. So, in spite of her doubts, Shizuka resolved to soldier on.

I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.

Virginia Woolf

The space before the entrance was massive and illuminated dimly by the flickering fluorescent overhead lights. There were less shadows dancing around and every piece of the grit and grime that decorated the building was relatively visible, but Shizuka couldn't quite tell if this made this area more or less terrifying than the darker corridors that she and Anzu had navigated together earlier.

Her heart painfully throbbed in her chest like an open wound as she took her first steps away from Anzu. There were three options before her: she could have gone back to where they had started (though, there was no point really, seeing as there was something sinister there); she could have gone straight ahead and into a long corridor, which she could tell by sight had one or two skeletons lying around; or she could have gone to her right, which seemingly gave her two more paths to take.

She reluctantly made her way to the right first, instinctively choosing the more well lit path, her shoes making a soft pitter patter as they collided with the ground. With the illumination, it was considerably easier to navigate without dropping into one of the many craters that were scattered all over the floor.

The first place she investigated was the closest pathway on the right; it almost mirrored the staircase that she and Anzu had come from originally. From what she could gather, it was once also a flight of stairs, but the wood looked like it was smashed repeatedly with a hammer and it was no longer climbable -not that Shizuka would have gone to the next floor if she could; she preferred to remain nearby if she could.

Shizuka next made her way for the door at the far end of the hallway, tensing up and becoming increasingly aware of the horrible silence. The door's distance from the entrance hall and the lack of symmetry its presence established made her all the more wary of the uncanny sense of foreboding that emanated from it. She reached out for the door handle and almost closed her eyes as she turned it. Fortunately for her nerves, the door seemed to be locked, but openable, as the door handle did , in fact, turn, if slightly. In spite of that, Shizuka had no desire to discover what was behind it.

When she entered the long corridor across from the entrance-way, she was dragging her feet along the floor, her shoulders tense and her head rotating right and left like a machine. She whisked her head back to check behind her several times. Something was watching her. Something was following her.

Her foot bumped into something as she walked, and she almost screamed when she saw a bleached skeleton in a male junior-high uniform. The aged cloth hung pathetically over his frame and seemed to imply that there had been quite a lot of meat on those bones before the maggots got to it. Shakily, she kneeled down to take his student ID, reading: "Junpei Houjou" from Shinsoku Academy for boys.

Sucking in a sharp breath, she reached for a crumpled and bloodstained piece of paper stuffed in one of his pockets. With a masochistic curiosity, she began to read the words scrawled on it. They handwriting was barely legible and it was almost as though he had been writing it on the verge of death.

I CAN'T GET AWAY FROM IT. IT's FOLLOW- - - - - - MAKE IT - IF ANYONE -NDS THIS, - LOOK BEHIND YOU. WHATEVER YOU DO - - - BEHIND -

The rest of the note was completely illegible and covered in dry blood. The boy had died an incredibly grizzly death and Shizuka could almost sense an echo of his pain and suffering lingering in the stale air around her. How many people was she inhaling as she sat there trying to get her heart to still? Her neck was stiff, staring at the ground. She didn't want to turn it and risk losing her life the same way this boy had.

Folding the letter gently and placing it back on the ground beside the boy, she rose to her feet. She could see another corpse sprawled on its stomach with its legs bent unnaturally at the knee and dangling over the edge of one of the large holes. She couldn't see a uniform on it, just a casual t-shirt and jeans, which meant that whoever this had been, probably wouldn't have a student nametag. Although they certainly had another note to read.

This note was written on several sheets of paper and was significantly more neat than the previous one. It was also surprisingly clean save for a few droplets of blood and something that seemed to be yellow in color, though she wasn't too keen on knowing what it was. The handwriting was neat and elegant -not at all frantic and scared, which struck Shizuka as quite odd. She raised an eyebrow as her eyes scanned the text.

September 6th 2012

Sacchan and I had so much fun today. We played house today with Reina. I was the daddy and Reina was the mommy. Sacchan was our lovely daughter.

Shizuka's eyes widened at the date shown at the top. The year 2012 wasn't for another 6 years. How was that possible? The person who wrote the note was clearly a troubled individual, she decided. He was absolutely insound. How else would it be possible. She inquisitively went through the rest of the entries.

September 7th 2012

Reina doesn't want to be the mommy anymore. She keeps trying to hit our daughter. What a terrible, despicable mommy. Sacchan and I fixed her today. What an obedient daughter my Sacchan is.

September 8th 2012

Reina has such a beautiful face so we took it and put it in a picture frame in our house. I think Reina is happy now too.

September 9th 2012

We hunted down Hirose today, and we cooked him over the fire. He tasted really good -very tender and moist. My Sacchan is such a good cook. Reina helped us, too, but she hasn't eaten in days. She must be watching her weight for me. What a lovely wife I have. I'm so lucky. It's a shame we didn't have spices, but Sacchan said that she knew where we could find some.

September 10th 2012

Reina and I went on a date, so we left Sacchan with a babysitter. Reina has never looked lovelier. What a lucky man I am.

September 11th 2012

I love Sacchan with all my heart. She said she wanted to wear my face as a mask. She is certainly her father's daughter. My only regret is that I have but one face to give.

September 12th 2012

I met a woman today. Yoshie. But she wants to take Sacchan away from me and Reina. I can't let her. No matter what. I won't let her.

September 13th 1973

Sachi is my pride and joy

Sachi is my pride and joy

Sachi is my pride and joy

SACHI IS MY PRIDE AND JOY.

The last entry was in a completely different handwriting, a messier, larger one, and was written in red ink rather than black ink like the rest of the entries. It seemed to be a repetition of the same sentence over and over until the writing became too jumbled to read, the red ink letters mixing together like blood at the end of the note.

The hairs on Shizuka's neck stood on end as she slowly rose to a stand, dropping the papers to the ground as though they were made of pure fire. She shuddered and briskly distanced herself from the corpse on the ground, emerging from the long hallway with a great sigh and a great gulp of air. Only upon leaving the claustrophobic hallway did she realize how suffocating the air inside of it was and how much pressure had been on her temples. She rubbed away the beginnings of a headache as she examined her new surroundings.

There were a couple of sliding doors in front of her, each leading to different classrooms undoubtedly. The corridor extended to her left and to her right, however there didn't seem to be anything important there. On the left, there was a locked door -no, a decoration shaped like a door -with hundreds of seals messily plastered all over it; clearly, the intelligent thing to do would be to leave, and so she did. On the right, there was a large, red door; the words "Custodian's Closet" were written on a surprisingly well-maintained wooden plate beside it. There were an even number of square windows in the door, but it was impossible to see through them. This door might has well have been a decoration as well, as the only indication of a room existing beyond it was the soft sound of TV static.

The only way she could go seemed to be the two classrooms, one to the left and one to the right, labelled "4-A" and "5-A" respectively. Her past experience with classrooms in this building left her feeling daunted by what could possibly be behind those doors, biding its time, waiting for someone vulnerable and fearful like her. And yet, this was the only unexplored part of the school; to avoid these rooms, would be to seal the coffin with Anzu inside, and what kind of person would she be if she did that? What kind of person would she be if the idle, perverse thoughts in her mind whispered at her to simply leave her be? To let her die?

Nobody will ever know… And who cares... We're all going to die anyway…

"N-No!" she quavered, trying to amplify her voice over the caustic buzzing in her head. "She's my friend and she risked her life to save mine. I have to do the same for her."

You're an idiot, Shizuka. A useless good-for-nothing. And you're going to die.

Upon approaching the first of the two classrooms, "4-A", Shizuka found it unbreachable, however, the door to classroom "5-A" showed a willingness to slide open. Taking in a deep breath, she tore the door open as wide as it would go, hoping that whatever light was brightening the hallway could leak into the room. There seemed to be no need for that, she soon realized, as this classroom was already lit, empty, and unassuming.

A few tentative steps into the room alleviated her concerns of a malignant supernatural entity swallowing her whole, and still the threat still remained, the very walls covered in it like slime, sliding down like the sweat on her back. She wanted to feel safe, to ease the darkness in her heart if only by the dim light of a firefly.

She took a couple more steps into the room, standing squarely in the center of it when the lights go out and she hears a loud SLAM. She instinctively screeched, losing her voice halfway through as a result of her aching throat, which had managed to prune up completely. She could scarcely let out a whimper without making her larynx go up in flames.

It was as though the temperature in the room dropped nearly three hundred degrees, freezing Shizuka's limbs in place; not even her eyes would move in the impregnable darkness.

The morbidly burdened silence didn't last forever as a single light cast by an eerie anthropomorphic figure cast blue shadows over her face, highlighting wrinkles of worry carved into her pale china face.

There was a boy standing in front of her in a dirty yet familiar school uniform and it seemed like he was the source of the flickering azure light. He had a long gaping gash going across his chest from his neck to his pelvis, likely the result of a failed attempt to bisect him.

"He's following you," he spoke; his dark eyes were almost completely bulging out of his face and his pupils stared right through her body, almost like she was the one who was transparent.

"What?"

"Don't look behind you."

In a panic, she did just that.

He cast a long shadow into the room from the doorway. She hadn't even heard the door reopen, neither did she recall the blue spirit vanishing, taking its light with it. She could feel the ice around her melt, leaving her terror as frigid water to slide down her arms. Her limbs then remembered to shiver, eliciting a soft but shrill creak from the floorboards beneath her. Then he stepped forward.

She took a step back, feeling her foot scarcely miss the pit in the floor.

He stepped forward again. Like it was all a game to him.

"Who are you?" she tried to say, but it got stuck at the bottom of her throat. She doubted he would have answered her if he did hear the question. In his hand, there dangled the shadow of a pickaxe. It was too dark to see, but a soft patter followed his footsteps like light rain hitting the coffin at a funeral. It didn't take much imagination to figure out that it wasn't water.

She couldn't afford to look behind her, shuffling blindly to the back of the room and miraculously meeting the wall without getting her leg stuck in another hole. He was now in the center of the room right where she had been standing earlier, his shadow now completely covering her small body. She felt like she would just die where she stood. Her hands were hopelessly and flimsily flapping against the desk beside her.

As a result of her actions, something cold and hard slid under her hand and across the desk; she managed to catch it between her thigh and the desk before it fell. It was a key. She couldn't imagine what it could be for, but if this was what was going to get the entrance-way door open and save Anzu, then perhaps her luck wasn't as rotten as she had imagined.

The giant man kept stepping closer, taunting her with every echo he aroused. The room was spinning around her, but he seemed unfazed, inching towards her with purpose -mechanically almost.

Her mind was in a thousand pieces, scattered over the desks, down between the cracks in the wood. There was only one thought going through her head, however: escape. Her shot got slimmer and slimmer the closer he edged. It was now or never.

She made a break for it, opting to go around the hulking figure. Her first attempt sent her crashing gut first into a desk, knocking the wind out of her, but adrenaline kept her going.

She scrambled over the desk, touching the ground on the other side of it just before hearing a labored grunt that sounded like it had come from a wild animal. Accompanied by a heart-stoppingly loud THWACK , he embedded his axe in the surface of the desk. She couldn't help but let out a sharp shriek, mere milliseconds had saved her back from becoming a chopping block.

The precious few seconds he spent tugging at his axe allowed Shizuka to make a mad dash to the door. A feeling like a cluster of spiders crawling across her side and spreading all over her body drew out a high pitched screech, as the man's enormous fingers brushed against her. Her saving grace was the fact that he wouldn't relinquish his hold on his axe to properly grab her. That didn't wash the feeling of nausea off of her, however.

Her legs broke beams of light as they passed and melded with the criss-cross shadows of the windowpane. Her footsteps were too loud, even louder in the long hallway. Emerging at the other end of the hall was like pulling her head out of water. She could finally breathe again.

She took a quick glance at the label on the keychain, her heart sinking when she read the words: Outdoor Walkway. Still, she held out hope that it would still be able to open the door sealing Anzu away from her.

Shizuka nearly flung herself at the sliding doors, her hands groping the dirty wood, wiping grit away as she searched for a keyhole. The wood, however splintered, didn't have any distinctive indentations, and one last tug of the door further cemented the grim fact that this door was as the wooden paneling lining the walls -nothing but decoration.

"I'm so sorry, Anzu… I…" she breathed desperately against the foggy glass panels. A thick layer of grime prevented her from being able to see inside the room, so she could only hope that Anzu was in there listening. "I'll come back for you."

The sound of the gargantuan man's footsteps was steadily increasing in volume, indicating that he wasn't in a rush to capture her. Perhaps he knew she had nowhere to go. She whisked around and caught a glimpse of his silhouette in the moonlight as well as a vague image of his face. His skin was as grey as death and his expression was listless as he stared her down.

Breaking out of the hard shell of her anxiety, she straightened up her body, flinching away from the entrance door as though it were made of fire and making for the unsettling door at the far right. Moving past the blocked stairway felt like stepping into a torture chamber; her blood felt like it was solidifying in her veins and arteries, her heart pushing itself to exhaustion just to keep her circulation going, but she had to keep moving. Hands finally on the door, she choked out a sigh of relief when the key slipped into the keyhole without any trouble; twisting just as easily, it let out a satisfying click .

Those thunderous footsteps approached steadily and she could feel her blood sinking to her legs, making her feel disproportionate. Her hands were slick with sweat, sliding across the door handle, transferring the unidentifiable muck onto her hand, dyeing her fingers black. Still, she managed to get it open just as the giant man got close enough to her that she could clearly see how twisted his features were.

She swung the door closed behind her, not even taking in her surroundings. Her eyes are shut and she keeps a firm grip on the door's handle, waiting for the resistance from the other side with a masochistic sense of anticipation and curiosity. Her face scrunches up and her body involuntarily inches closer to the door, nearly hugging it. She must have waited for several minutes before she realized that nothing would be happening to her. Her lungs let out the air they've been holding like an untied balloon.

The entire atmosphere was different on the other side of the door. The air was fresher, but still smelled like death, and the sound of heavy rain beating against the ground and the ageing wood filled her ears. White noise seemed to be all that she heard in this place when all she wanted was for the buzz in her ears to quiet down.

She took a couple of paces forward, allowing herself to let go of the door handle. She didn't trust this place at all, but there was no sense in remaining glued to that door when Anzu was in trouble -not to mention her other friends. She doubted that she and Anzu were the only ones.

She was outside. It didn't seem real as she strode across the walkway, the wood creaking with her every step. One one side, lay the entrance to the school and on the other lay a small clearing with what looked to be a shrine. Just beyond the clearing was an impassable mass of trees.

She bit her lip and looked to her right once more at the front yard of the school. If she could get to the front door of the school from the other side, perhaps that door would open. It was her only chance -the only thing she could afford to try. On the other side of the walkway, there stood a building slightly smaller than the one she had just emerged from, but she wasn't ready to explore the rest of the school just yet.

However, the fact remained that a trek in the dark through a rainstorm was a daunting task. She bit her lip and eyed the unexplored building, wondering if she would find a familiar face on the other side, maybe even something to shield her from the downpour.

Placing a hand on the wooden railing beside her, she let it lead her to the door. The hair on her neck rose as her fingers brushed against the door handle. Her hands flew back against her body, rubbing her bare arms as she felt a shiver slide down her spine. She twirled around, giving the door to the first building a leery once-over. Nobody was there.

"It's all in my head," she whispered to herself, but a desperate whisper wouldn't make the man with the axe disappear from her memory. He was still somewhere out there, and she left him alone with Anzu.

The transition from the walkway to the second building was just as exhausting as the previous as the one from the first building. That sense of unease and the heaviness that pushed against her temples returned in spades. She couldn't hear her own thoughts through the noise.

It was darker here, lit only by a solitary candle sitting in the corner of the room by the door. There were shoes small enough to fit elementary school children strewn all over the room. The shoe racks were covered in an unidentifiable muck, emitting an overpowering stench that threw Shizuka onto the ground in a heap. She pressed her forearms against her stomach and tried to force down the lump that shot up to the top of her throat.

Breathe… Just breathe, Shizuka. You're okay, she tried to tell herself, but the lump in her throat had other plans. Acid burned the back of her throat and she lurched forward, letting the contents of her stomach out all over a single dirty shoe. It somehow felt like bad luck, but it wasn't as though she had had any control over it. Somehow relieving her stomach didn't make her feel better and as she rose to her feet, she could still feel something kicking her underneath her skin.

She couldn't help but wonder where the rest of her friends were. The school was big, but not big enough that she wouldn't be able to find a single one of them. If her suspicions were right, then the nine of them should have been here. Where were they?

"Just die."

Shizuka's body felt like it was on fire now. Staring directly into her eyes was something similar to what she saw in that classroom. Blue and translucent, it stood in front of her, assuming the form of a young middle-school aged girl with light colored hair and malice in her monochromatic eyes. Notably, however, the girl lacked hands, both of her arms ending in messy stumps. It almost looked like someone had nibbled at the appendages until nothing remained. Other than that, there was no indication as to how she had met her end.

"You don't deserve to be alive," the girl spoke again, her voice completely devoid of emotion.

Shizuka sucked in a shaky breath. The girl was standing right in front of her and the shoe racks to her left prevented escape. She stepped back and grasped the door handle, keeping her gaze on the ghost.

Shizuka's hands barely met the surface of the door handle when the door began to rattle violently, a familiar voice roaring from the other side; the door wasn't yielding to him, though Shizuka was unsure if she could even count that as a blessing.

"I'm going to kill you, you know?" the phantom declared. "I'm going to have so much fun. First, I'm going to chop you up and turn you Jingisukan." BANG. Shizuka's chest was a volcano on the verge of eruption. "Then I'm going to feed you to the big man in the basement." Her skin no longer felt attached to her body; it was like ants were racing up and down her arms. "He's always hungry, and so am I."

"Please don't," Shizuka pleaded, but her voice isn't strong enough to drown out the sound of the furious banging on the door behind her.

"Why the fuck should I listen to you?" came the response, as monotonous as ever. "It's true, there's not a lot of meat on your bones, but that kind of meat is just the most scrumptious. That's why people love lamb meat so much more than grown sheep."

Shizuka shut her eyes tightly and let out a broken sob, leaning against the door and letting it slam against her over and over again. It's the end. It's the end. It's the end.

Siblings that say they never fight are most definitely hiding something.

Lemony Snicket

“Come out, come out, wherever you are…”

Ryou felt his blood turn to ice. He hadn’t heard that voice in years.

“It’s me. Amane. I miss you.”

The music room key in his hand, he slowly began unlocking the door. She’s singing. He can hear her.

“Stop hiding, big brother.”

The door slides open easily. He stands at the doorway for a moment, taking in the scenery, making sure he was still alone. This building was full of phantoms and vengeful spirits. This building was, perhaps, several times more dangerous than the one he had found himself in at first. He wasn’t certain how he could tell; the only thing he knew was that there was something very evil in this building -something that pulsed and and bled -something alive .

“Stop hiding.”

Ryou had had an acute belief in ghosts for as long as he could remember. Perhaps ‘belief’ was the wrong word. He knew they existed because he could feel them existing around him, brushing against his shoulders, whispering in his ear. Nobody else could feel them like he could, yet he could hardly call it a gift.

When he stepped into the room, he was relieved to find that there were no malignant spirits inside. In fact, the atmosphere in the music room was surprisingly less suffocating than that of the rest of the building -not that this meant it wasn’t still unsettling. There were photos on the wall that seemed to follow his every move and a piano in the corner that looked shockingly more well-kept than everything else in the school. It even looked playable -not that he’d put his fingers anywhere near that thing. He’d seen enough horror movies to know that carelessness like that would be the death of him, and he didn’t want to die.

There were rows of children’s desks leading all the way back to the second door; having been in the hallway earlier, he knew that trying to open the second door would be a waste of time. Even if it were to open, the floorboards on the other side were completely totalled. Still, he maneuvered his way through the desks, avoiding holes in the floor, and approached a small object, glimmering atop one of the desks. It was a modern-looking glow-in-the dark watch. He sighed and ran a hand through his bangs; he had hoped it would have been useful. Nonetheless, he decided to pick it up.

“Don’t touch that!”

He jumped. This voice wasn’t Amane’s. He turned around only to notice a dull blue light sitting on the piano stool with his back to the piano. The cause of the phantom’s death wasn’t entirely apparent from what he could see, but that didn’t matter very much. He didn’t emit an entirely malevolent aura, so Ryou decided to heed its warning.

“Does it belong to an angry spirit?” he asked the boy calmly.

The ghost shrugged and cocked his head to the side. “It belongs to me.”

“Ah, then my apologies,” he said, breaking out in a cold sweat. Something has changed. “I hope I am not disturbing you here.” His eyes darted around the room. He needed to leave this room as quickly as possible.

“Not at all,” the ghost drawled. “In fact, I’m glad you’re here . I need someone alive… Someone who can do something very important for me.” He could see Ryou’s hesitation and smirked. “I’ll make it worth your while if you do. See, I have something you need.”

Ryou swallowed his fear and replied, “You do?”

The phantom nodded. “Yup. Something to help you out with the more… vengeful spirits here. I can’t really touch it because it would hurt me, but I can tell you where to find it.”

Ryou contemplated for a moment, his eyes glancing behind the boy for a moment, through his transparent head. “And what would I have to do?”

The ghost grinned mischievously. “Now, we’re talking.” He pushed against the stool and got to his feet. “I need you to find my sister, Natsu.”

“Is she…”

“She’s alive,” he added. “I know she is. I need you to tell her where I am -where I died.”

His words puzzled Ryou, prompting his next question. “I can do that, but, I must ask: can’t you speak to her yourself?”

The boy sighed and kicked the stool, knocking it over. “Go over to the cabinet at the back of the room and open it.”

Ryou was uncertain, but did as he was told anyway. He felt a sharp sting of pain in his chest when his fingers touched the door handle.

“Do it.”

Ryou swung the door open, nearly ripping the rickety thing off its hinges, releasing a stench that made his knees unstable. He held his breath and looked inside at the source of the smell. To his horror, he found the corpse of a boy with the same face as the ghost. The body was bound in black string, which pressed tightly against it, tearing at the exposed skin of its arms.

“What in the world is that?” Ryou mumbled, feeling an urge to run his fingers over the string.

“Beats me.” Ryou gasped, jumping to the left. The boy was now standing uncomfortably close to him. “I think it’s some kind of seal. Every time I try to leave this room, it gets tighter.”

“Can’t it be removed?”

“No…” he replied bitterly. “I think you have to burn it off, but if you do that, you might burn my body, and I’ll disappear. I can’t disappear without letting my sister know what happened to me. If you try to burn me… I ‘ l l   k i l l   y o u.”

“Duly noted,” Ryou uttered, his back pressing so hard into the wall, one would think he was trying to phase into it. In the next blink, the boy was farther away, standing beside the piano again. Ryou reluctantly began to walk towards him. “Wh-What is your name?” he asked. “I think it may help me find your sister if I knew as much as possible.”

The boy smiled grimly. “It’s Kaito. My sister has bright red hair and is a middle school student, though she looks much younger. She’ll be wearing a black and white school uniform. Is that enough information for you?”

“I… Yes,” Ryou replied hesitantly. He hoped he would actually find a living, breathing girl and not a dead body. He was not quite confident in his ability to track this girl down either, seeing as he’d been in this school for a well over an hour and still hadn’t found his friends or anyone else for that matter. He was beginning to run out of places to search.

With that, he began to leave the room. After he had passed through the doorway, the ghost’s voice called out to him. “Wait!” Ryou looked over his shoulder at the boy who was standing at the threshold, unable to pass. “One more thing… If you’re one of those sadistic bastards… and you hurt Natsu… I’ll find a way out of this room, and I’ll kill you.”

Ryou simply nodded in understanding and headed forth towards the staircase. The words of the ghost replayed over and over again in his mind; how would the ghost know his sister was hurt? Or dead? Would he even believe Ryou if he told him the girl was dead? It was almost like the phantom wanted Ryou to escort Natsu to the music room, but what if that wasn’t possible? Ghosts were seldom reasonable, and Ryou mentally scolded himself for bargaining with one. He suspected that he may not have had a choice, however.

On the second floor, he recalled finding a girls bathroom. Of course, it wasn’t the best clue to finding Natsu, but it was as good a clue as any, so he made that his first destination.

He grimaced at the skeleton reclining against the wall where the staircase changed direction, making his steps faster as he passed. This staircase put the art room directly in front of him; that had been where he found the key to the music room, clamped tightly in the hands of a dead girl no older than his own sister had been when she passed away. The girl hadn’t even been decomposed yet, making it much easier for his mind to make the connection between the two, to his dismay.

Just as he was approaching the west hall of the second floor, his ears caught the faint sound of a girl sobbing. His breath caught in his throat, his entire body tingling with anxiety. He almost didn’t want to find the source of the sobbing. With tense, heavy steps, he stepped into the west hall; the voice was much louder. He busied himself with a note pinned to the wall, trying to delay the revelation, fearing that it may lead to his death.

Don’t come to school after-hours.

This is your final warning.

He sighed and tore his eyes away from the blood-soaked note. It was no use; it just made him more anxious. It was time to simply take the plunge.

The voice was loudest in front of the girls bathroom, but it didn’t seem to be coming from inside the bathroom itself. The bathroom was covered in seals, anyway, so it didn’t seem very wise to try and enter.

Ryou passed by the bathroom door and glanced around the corner cautiously. When he spotted the source of the sobbing, he let out a sigh of relief. The girl fit the description of Natsu, but her hair was black and fell straight over her shoulders and down her back. Was she a classmate of Natsu’s?

“E-Excuse me?” he called out to her.

The girl, whose face had been buried in her arms, sat up straight and looked up at Ryou with wide, red eyes. “Who -Who are you?”

He raised his hands in a peaceful gesture, with his palms facing her. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised. “I was simply wondering if you, by any chance, know a girl that goes by the name ‘Natsu’ All I know about her, is that she wears a uniform similar to yours and has red hair.”

The girl stared at him for a moment, quivering and twitching in place. She moved her hands up over her ears and dug her nails into the skin of her temples. “No. No. No. Nononononononononononoonono…” She repeated the word like a prayer, under her breath, refusing to make eye-contact with Ryou.

He took a couple of steps towards her and crouched in front of her. “M-Miss…” he said softly. “Are you alright?”

The girl’s pupils rose, almost like she was looking at something behind him. Her breathing became slow and laborious. Her shaking eased into steady rocking -back and forth, back and forth like a scared child.

He raised a hand to touch hers, trying ease her grip off of her face. Red liquid began pooling where her nails were embedded. She let out a shaky gasp as a drop of blood slid down the side of her face.

“BEHIND YOU!” she shrieked, tearing her hands out of her skin and pushing Ryou away.

He twisted around. The first thing he saw was the bright red hair; the second was the blood-soaked middle-schooler uniform; the third was the rusted axe above his head. He dropped to the ground on impulse, narrowly missing the swing of her axe, and began to crawl away. The black-haired girl’s screams filled the room.

He managed to stand up and glance over his shoulder. Natsu’s axe was stuck in the black-haired girl’s face, nearly bisecting it, yet by some miracle, not only was she still alive and capable of screaming, but her shrieks of agony were getting increasingly louder. Natsu propped her boot against the girl’s chest, slamming her against the wall, before tugging her axe back out. She glanced briefly at Ryou, eyeing him as though he were next on her to-do list.

He didn’t look twice before bounding through the archway and into the stairwell. On the plus side, Natsu was very much alive; on the minus side, Natsu was very much alive.

He felt sluggish, as though his blood had spontaneously coagulated and refused to flow through his veins and arteries. He knew there was nowhere for him to go on the third level, so he let his body carry him down to the first floor. If he was quick, he could hide himself in the bathroom before she even made it down the stairs. Surely a girl of Natsu’s small stature would find it hard to keep up with that heavy axe in her hand, so Ryou had the advantage of agility -the only one that mattered at the moment.

Just as he had calculated, he managed to slip into the boys’ restroom before she was done going down the stairs. The bathroom smelled putrid; it was how he imagined a slaughterhouse probably smelled -like death and decomposition. He tried to hold his breath, but the stench made its way down his throat. He gagged, his throat drying up in disgust. Simply inhaling it was making it difficult to breathe, but he tried to ignore the sensation and rushed to the stalls. Only two of them could be entered; the rest were surrounded by broken floorboards.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t alone in this bathroom, but perhaps it was the paranoia that Natsu instilled in him. He swung open one of the stall doors, letting out a broken sigh of relief at finding it completely empty, and entered. He shut the door and turned to face the toilet. He lowered its lid and took a seat, careful not to let his feet show in the opening of the door.

He wasn’t certain whether his breathing was inaudible or whether deafening thuds of his heartbeat were simply making him deaf to everything else. It was an extremely loud couple of minutes, waiting for the telltale rattle of the sliding door. He tried to still his breathing, but the overpowering stench of whatever was polluting the air made that task difficult. His skin and eyes were also starting to burn as a result. He knew he had to leave before he caused permanent damage to his body, but the lingering threat of the axe-wielding schoolgirl was one that froze his limbs in place.

After a painful few minutes, he grew impatient. Cautiously, he stepped out of the stall and approached the door. The windows were too dirty to see through, but he could definitely hear something on the other side. Whatever it was seemed to be getting farther away, and when he was certain it was gone, he slid the door open to inhale the not-so-fresh air of the hallway. It still tasted like death and dust, but it was better than the restroom.

He allowed himself time to recover from the poisonous air -time for his eyes to stop watering, to let out a quiet cough or two, and scratch the itches that had developed on his arms and face. He’d probably develop rashes later, but if it meant he was alive, that didn’t matter. For a moment, he was at a loss at which direction to go next. It wasn’t like he could have known which direction Natsu went.

He wiped his sweaty hands on the hem of his shirt before rubbing the tears out of his eyes. It was only when he regained his vision that he noticed that the threat he’d been running from was still present -just not in the way that he had expected it to be.

His eyes were assaulted by a mural of red and black, splattered across the wall in front of him, and in the center, like a fairy coming out of a rose, was Natsu’s face; the rest of her body now decorated the wall around it. It was as though someone had sent her entire body through a meat grinder and spread it like jelly across the entire wall. They only left her face intact, sitting almost sarcastically clean in the middle of all the chaos. Had all of this happened while he was hiding in the bathroom? How was something like this even possible?

If he previously had Natsu to worry about, it could have been safely said that whatever had managed to kill her, and do… that to her, was now the bigger threat.

It was only when he tore his eyes away from the grisly sight that he realized how loudly he was breathing. He reached into one of his pockets and closed his fist around a crystal he had managed to find in one of the classrooms. If his knowledge of the occult wasn’t off, he recalled it would repel any spirit that comes into contact with it, but its uses were limited. If whatever killed Natsu was still around, then perhaps it was a good time for the crystal to get its first use.

“Just die.”

It took Ryou a moment to realize those words weren’t being directed at him, but rather someone else. He could hear rattling and banging from the next room over. Someone was in trouble. Logically, he should have run over to help, but his mind was telling him to leave.

“You don’t deserve to be alive.”

It was these words that snapped him out of his fear. They may have been spoken to someone else, but he wouldn’t truly deserve to be alive if he failed to rescue the person in the next room. It may have been impossible for him to save Natsu’s victim earlier, but there was one person he could still save, and two people were certainly better than one, especially in a place like this.

Peering through the doorway, he spotted the azure glow of a spirit -a hostile one, his gut was telling him. He tried to look further and see the victim in this scenario, but he ran the risk of being spotted immediately by the ghost.

“I’m going to kill you, you know?”

The banging was getting louder. Ryou frowned as he recalled the layout of the room. There should have been a door behind the victim, right? Why weren’t they going through? Unless there was something worse just beyond it…

“Please don’t…” It’s faint, but could it possibly be…

He felt off-balance and his head was throbbing from the immense pressure, but he knew he had to do it. He held his crystal out like a shield and charged towards the blue light. The ghost turned to bore her listless eyes into his own, but he hardened his resolve and ran directly into her.

“Watch out!” came a squeaky cry to his left.

His body passed right through the translucent girl, but the distinct crack of the crystal told him his plan had worked. When he turned around, the ghost was gone, but more importantly, he was now staring into two familiar irises.

“Shizuka!” he cried out, nearly shedding real tears.

Shizuka herself looked incredibly surprised to see him. Her eyes were damp and her entire body was still shaking from her encounter. “Bakura, is that really you?” She shambled forward and placed her quivering hands on his chest.

Ryou placed his own hands on her shoulders to steady her. “Yes,” he replied, breathlessly. The atmosphere of the room continued to press uncomfortably against his temples, causing them to ache and throb terribly.

“You saved my life,” she stated. “I was so close to dying…”

“But you’re still alive,” Ryou interrupted her. “Let’s focus on that, okay?”

She nodded briskly. Once she felt well enough, she stepped away from Ryou, feeling her cheeks heat up. “What kind of place is this?” she mumbled, staring at the door. It had stopped shaking, but there was no guarantee that whatever had been slamming against it wouldn’t come back. “Ghosts, corpses, doors that don’t open…”

He sighed. He was relieved to find a familiar face, but the reality was that they were still in this school: Heavenly Host Elementary. He had to admit, it wasn’t the first he’d heard of this school, although he had been under the impression that the school no longer existed.

“Have you seen any of our friends around here?” he asked.

She nodded slowly and then hugged herself. “Yes, I was with Anzu up until about half an hour ago…”

“‘Was’?” he asked suspiciously, remembering the crystal in his hand and tucking it safely back into his pocket. “What happened? Is she… Did she… ” He was almost afraid to ask, but he had to know.

“O-Oh,” she stammered. “No, she’s not dead. I mean… I hope she isn’t. She got trapped in the school’s entrance. It’s almost like the door isn’t a door… anymore… I-I’m sorry. I don’t really understand how it happened. But she’s counting on me to find a way to save her. Maybe it won’t be so hard now that I have you helping me!” She smiled timidly at him.

It must have been very hard for her to put on that brave face, Ryou noted, so he tried his hardest to smile back. “Alright. That sounds like a good idea. I haven’t finished exploring this building yet, so how about we finish up here and then go back to the other building to see if we missed anything?”

“Okay,” she agreed, letting him lead her through a doorway and into the east wing.

The two headed towards the music room where Ryou had left Kaito waiting. “S-Say, Bakura?” Shizuka spoke up before he opened the door to the classroom. “Do you think everyone is here?”

“Hm?” He turned his back to the door and gave her a thoughtful look.

“Y’know… even Honda… and Mai…Rebecca and Mokuba… Yugi and my big brother.”

“I wish they didn’t have to be,” he answered solemnly. “But the more time I spend here, the more likely it seems. I hope they’re all safe.”

“Y-Yeah.” Shizuka looked at the ground, trying not to meet Ryou’s gaze. “I hope so, too.”

“Shizuka?”

“Yes?”

“I need you to stay back. Don’t come into the music room with me.”

She immediately gave him an incredulous look. “What do you mean? We just found each other. What if one of us gets lost again?”

“It…” Ryou remembered the warning Kaito gave him regarding Natsu. “It might be dangerous. There is a spirit in there, and he has something I need. However, I must tell him some bad news in order to get it.” He recounted to Shizuka all the events from when he first met Kaito to when he found and rescued her.

“Then leave!” she scolded him, her voice breaking. “If it’s dangerous, don’t do it. What could he possibly have?”

Ryou sighed. “Demon wards. Seals. Things that I know we’ll need moving along.”

“But what if he hurts you?” she says in a softer voice. “I can’t keep going alone. I’m so scared.”

Ryou gave her a reassuring grin, pulling the crystal he had used against the previous spirit back out of his pocket. “I have an ace up my sleeve.”

“Then let me come in with you,” she insisted. “I’ll watch your back.”

The offer warmed Ryou’s heart, but he was still wary of what Kaito could do. It was clear that he had no reservations about killing people. Still, she did have a point; he couldn’t be sure that there weren’t any other angry spirits or homicidal people wandering around searching for someone to be foolish enough to stand in one place for too long.

“Alright,” he told her and reached out for her, pulling her close. “Let’s go in together.” He opened the door.

“Back so soon?”

He was sitting on the piano stool right in front of them as they entered, with his hands in his lap and his devilish grin on his face.

“Yes,” Ryou said.

“Did you find Natsu?”

“Yes.”

“Then where is she?” he snapped in a tone that made them shiver. “Did you tell her where I was?”

“I didn’t get to,” Ryou admitted. “She was dead when I found her.”

“Dead? What do you mean by that?” Kaito growled. “She was alive when I left her!”

Ryou felt uncomfortable telling him how his sister had tried to kill him and how the girl had eventually ended up, so he simply replied, “I am sorry for your loss.” It felt odd saying this to someone already dead. Wouldn’t she be joining him soon? The idea of Natsu becoming one of the hundreds of mad spirits roaming the halls wasn’t a very cheerful thought.

“Can you… bring her body to me?” Kaito sounded more desperate than angry now. Ryou shifted uncomfortably before shaking his head. “Why not?”

“Her death…” Ryou tried to speak plainly, but the words couldn’t come out. He couldn’t bear to utter a word of the gruesome execution Kaito’s sister suffered; the ghost boy understood nonetheless.

To both Shizuka and Ryou’s surprise, Kaito let out a bark of laughter. “Who killed her?”

The living duo exchanged glances nervously before Ryou gave the boy a response. “We don’t know. We didn’t see it.”

Kaito let out yet another laugh. “What did she look like? What did her body look like? Does she still have a body?”

Ryou grunted and stepped closer to Shizuka. “It wasn’t pleasant. I can’t… talk about it. I’m sorry.”

“Did that bitch get what she deserves?” Kaito turned his back to the duo and began chuckling to himself. It then became evident exactly what became of the boy. It was hard not to look at the bloody hole in the back of his head. “We were in it together…”

Shizuka tugged Ryou’s sleeve and gave him a pleading look. The two began to wonder if the demon wards were even worth it.

Almost as though he had been reading their minds (and in this place, who knew, really?), Kaito let out another laugh, turning his head to look at the pair from over his shoulder. “D i d   y o u   r e a l l y   t h i n k   I   w o u l d   l e t   y o u   l i v e ?”

“Shizuka, run!”

There was a loud SNAP and then everything faded to black.

The rain is falling ever harder and all I can hear is the sound of the water. I'm drenched but I can't move.

Paolo Coelho

Ryou woke up to the quiet sound of a girl sobbing. He hadn't the faintest recollection of how he had ended up passing out, and for just a moment, he had even forgotten where he was. That voice, however, that was all it took for the past few hours to come back to him -the gore, the death, the fear, the dread, all of it. He felt something sharp digging into his palm and realized that his fists had been tightly clenched around several small rocks -the spirit warding stone; it had shattered.

And the sobbing girl…

"Shizuka!" he called out, looking around. His surroundings were black, save for a sliver of weak light coming from where he assumed was the door. Unfortunately, if Shizuka truly was in the room with him, there was no way to find out unless he managed to get to the door and illuminate the classroom.

His mind brought up the image of the malignant spirit, Kaito, and he shuddered, as that image brought with it the memory of Kaito's sister splattered against a wall like a rotten tomato. If his warding stone was broken, however, he could only assume that Kaito's spirit was banished and he was safe -or rather, as safe as one could be in this alternate dimension.

It worried him that he hadn't gotten a response from Shizuka after calling her name, so he braced himself against the dusty floor and pushed himself to his feet. The wood creaked loudly with every step he made. It took him a while to navigate through the room in the dark. He vaguely remembered the layout of the desks in the room so it was simple to get his bearings after standing up, but his recollection of the craters in the ground was lacking.

To his great relief, the light really was coming from an open door, albeit the one on the other side of the room to the one he had originally entered from. He pushed the door the rest of the way open to let in more light. Though the side of the room where he had woken up was still too dark to see into, he was able to see the shapes and outlines of the desks and cabinets nearby.

He didn't need to keep wincing into the darkness of the room in order to find Shizuka, however, as she was sitting with her back against the wall in the corridor just outside the alternate door. She was sitting in the fetal position, with her head buried in her arms, and was sobbing heavily. The hand that he could see was clenched in a bloody fist and was shaking vigorously. Upon closer inspection, her entire outfit, as well as what he could see from her skin, was covered in blotches of blood.

"Shizuka! Are you alright?" he asked, rushing up to her and kneeling by her side. "Where did all this blood come from?"

Upon hearing his voice, she looked up, her bangs sticking to her blood and tearstained face. "Ryou? Is that you?"

He reached out to push the hair out of her eyes and tuck it behind her ear, getting a clearer look at just how awful she looked. There were red smudges in several parts of her face and her expression was a pitiful mixture of fear and agony. "It's me, Shizuka. It's Ryou. What happened after I passed out?"

Her eyes darted all over his face, almost like she was attempting to verify it against the memory she had in her head. "Ryou…" she moaned. "I don't know what happened…" she uttered, taking in a pained gulp of air at the end. "You told me to run, so I did, b-but…" She bowed her head again, shivering as she let out a sob. "The door shut on my way out." With that, she raised her bloody fist and, holding it with her other hand, she let it unfurl before Ryou's eyes. Even the blood covering her skin couldn't hide it. Every one of her fingers, except for her thumb, now ended in a short, messy stump, each scarcely even a centimeter long. The skin and tissue at the ends looked jagged and torn. "It… It hurts…"

It took Ryou a couple of seconds to put two and two together, but when he did, he pulled her disfigured hand gently towards him with both of his hands, bloodying the button up he had on. "It will be alright. I'm going to wrap this up for now, and then as soon as we can, we should find the nurse's office. When we get out of here, we can have a real doctor look at it for you."

Shizuka nodded, her eyes shutting as she lets out another sob. "I'm sorry!" she says, her voice rising an octave. "I'm just causing you trouble! And I left Anzu all by herself… You should just leave me here... "

"No!" Ryou rebutted firmly. "I'm your friend Shizuka, and friends look out for each other, right? I won't leave you behind, no matter what. We're gonna keep moving, and find Anzu and all our other friends."

Shizuka frowned. "You're right… I'm just losing my mind here."

Ryou gave her a gentle smile. "I can certainly understand why you would." As he spoke, he relinquished his hold on her hand in order to tear off the bottom of his shirt. He didn't need the whole shirt anyway. He then pulled her hand back towards him and began to gently wrap the cloth around her hand, making sure to fully cover the bloody stumps as he did. He had to swallow some bile when he felt the shattered finger bones as he wrapped up her wounds. He couldn't even imagine how painful this must have been for her.

Once he had finished, he tenderly rubbed the top of her hand with his thumbs, looking directly into her eyes. "I won't leave you, Shizuka." Ryou was uncertain why he felt compelled to perform this small gesture; to say that the two of them had been close (even good) friends before this would be a lie, and yet he felt almost duty bound to stay by her side until this was all over. Maybe it was because this was all his fault. He shouldn't have let Shizuka come into that classroom with him, just like he shouldn't have let his friends perform that ritual in the first place.

Seemingly calmer now, Shizuka wiped her face with her uninjured left hand and nodded. She allowed Ryou to help her to her feet and with that, the two headed off towards Heavenly Host's main building.

The rest of their time in the second building went by quietly. They encountered no angry spirits or axe-wielding middle school girls, and passed into the outdoor walkway and out of the suffocating prison they had been in before. For a moment, the two of them paused, staring out at the boundless forest and listening to the rain pouring around them. It was a sinister sight, but none as sinister as the horrors waiting for them inside the school, so in a way, it was a nice reprieve.

"I didn't really get to look around here before," she told Ryou. "I was running away from someone… maybe he was another ghost. I'm so scared he's still in there, waiting for me to come back." I don't even want to come back.

Ryou was silent for a while, as if evaluating the danger at the other side of that door. "Well, if he is there, we'll face him together." he replied, not taking his eyes off of the trees.

She nodded and then reached into her pocket, pulling out five small paper wards, stained with Shizuka's blood, presumably. "I found these actually, after you passed out. They were just outside the door to the music room. Will they help?"

Ryou gave her a friendly grin. "These are great! Good job!"

Shizuka let out a small giggle, the first since she had woken up in Heavenly Host. "Thanks! I think you should hang on to them. You're the brave one."

He was taken aback at her words, then he shook his head. "No, I think it doesn't matter who holds on to them since we're staying together, right? Besides, you found them."

Her smile faded and she put the wards back in her pocket. She held her left hand out over the railing, cupping it and letting the heavy rain fill it up. She watched it overflow and spill and then leaned in and splashed the water against her face. Ryou watched her silently as she rubbed blood out of her hair and off of her skin as much as she possibly could. She then held her right hand out to Ryou. "I think we should clean it a bit too, right? So it doesn't get infected?"

Part of Ryou almost expected even the rainwater to be bloody in this place, but when he reached out to touch it, it was just normal water, and probably the cleanest water they would come across since the plumbing wasn't working in the school.

The duo's first stop in the main building was the door that had Anzu behind it; it still wouldn't budge no matter how they tried to tug and pull at it. Ryou knocked on the door and called out, "Anzu, are you in there?"

There was a long pause and Shizuka was about to burst into tears, when Anzu's tired voice came from the other side of the door. "Ryou? Is that you?"

The relief was heavy in his tone. "Yes; I have Shizuka with me! Are you alright in there? Has anything happened?"

"Oh, I'm so glad Shizuka found you! No, I've just been staring at the walls the entire time. Well, that and checking if there are any hidden switches to get the door open. No luck there, though. How about you guys? Have you guys found a way to open this door yet?"

Ryou felt almost guilty, shattering the hope in Anzu's voice as he replied, "I'm afraid we haven't. Shizuka has told me the front door won't open either; is that true?"

"Yeah," she replied solemnly. "I've tried everything." So going around the building from the front likely wouldn't make a difference -although something told him that even attempting to go over the railing in the outdoor walkway was a bad idea.

"Don't worry, Anzu!" Shizuka reassured her. "Now that Ryou's with me, we're gonna find a way to get you out of there for sure!"

"I know you will," Anzu replied in a muffled voice, almost like she was feeling uncertain. "Thanks, guys. I'll be waiting for you."

"We'll see you again really soon. Just hang in there," Ryou added. His words may have sounded hopeful, but he couldn't shake the terrible feeling in his heart that this was more of a final farewell than anything else. He forced himself to quell the feeling and gently pull Shizuka away from the door.

"I've already seen this entire floor, and there's nothing on the floor above except for the room Anzu and I woke up in," she informed him. "There's nothing left to find."

"Are you sure there's nothing else up there?" Ryou asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Well, I didn't get a really good look at what was in the room I woke up in because something was in there."

Ryou watched her brow furrow. He understood that she didn't want to go back upstairs, but it was a matter of life or death and he couldn't take any shortcuts trying to find a way to rescue Anzu. "Well, whatever was there probably didn't stick around. I'm sure it's safe now." Or rather 'safer' "I say we get up there and check if you missed something. If you left in a hurry, it's likely you weren't thorough."

His insistence irked Shizuka, but she begrudgingly followed him back to the upper floor. The hallway was just as it was when she and Anzu left it: impassible due to the large gap in the floorboards. The only place they could go was the classroom that she had woken up in. She wanted to stop Ryou from opening the door to the classroom but the words got stuck in her throat just as he slid it open.

"There's nothing in here," he informed her. It wasn't entirely a lie, but it wasn't quite the whole truth. He could sense that something had been in the classroom, but that it wasn't there anymore. Spirits, particularly violent ones, left a bit of their essence everywhere they went, the way a smoker would leave the scent of nicotine behind. As far as he could tell, however, the room was safe, and that was what mattered to him at the moment.

He walked confidently into the room, and after a few seconds, Shizuka meekly followed, not wanting to be left behind. The room was still lit the way it had been when the ghost had been writing on the chalkboard, making this possibly the brightest room either of them had come across in the entire school. She sent a nervous glance towards the chalkboard, but the surface was as smooth and clean as new; it was as though there had never been an angry spirit there to begin with.

"This is interesting," Ryou mumbled as he crouched beneath the window by the corner of the room. He was shaking the glass cabinet with a fascinated look on his face.

"What is it?" she asked, rushing towards him and trying not to glance at the maggot-covered lump of meat radiating the scent of rot and death from the other side of the room. If only that had also been removed from the room just as the sinister writing had.

Ryou glanced up at her and shook the cabinet again. "It moves."

"Huh?"

"Well, it's not bolted to the floor like the other ones," he pointed out. "I think we should try to move it. It's incredibly heavy though, so could you help me?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" she asked. "What if it falls over and something bad happens?"

Ryou sighed. "I've got a feeling that bad things will happen regardless. Besides, we won't know unless we try. Remember, Anzu's counting on us."

Shizuka held her right hand to her chest. "I can't use my hand, but I'll try my best."

Ryou grimaced, only just recalling the state of Shizuka's hand. She was in no condition to be pushing shelves. He couldn't believe he had allowed himself to forget what his recklessness had caused. "Ah, wait. I forgot about your hand. Maybe I can just push it alone. I am a boy after all." He let out a nervous chuckle.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Shizuka snapped. "Just because you're a boy doesn't mean you're stronger all of a sudden." She shoved past him and shimmied in between the wall and the cabinet, using her back to push it towards Ryou. With her first heave, she managed to shove it a whole ten centimeters backwards along the wall. Ryou could only look on in awe. "Well?" she said expectantly. "Come help me move this thing!"

"Right!" Ryou grabbed the cabinet from the other side and pulled it towards him.

After managing to push the cabinet half a meter, Shizuka exclaimed, "There's something behind this! Ryou, let's keep pushing!"

"Something?" he grunted, tugging on the piece of furniture and feeling his fingers get sore. "What is it?"

She grunted, propping her leg up against the wall and using it to help her push back. "Something like a door. The key to the entranceway might be in here."

Once the cabinet was fully out of the way, Shizuka dropped to the ground and laid back, resting her aching spine. She sighed loudly. "That was hard! How is that thing so heavy?"

Ryou went to stand next to her, slowly wiggling his fingers to make them feel less numb. "Beats me. Now, let's take a look at that door."

The door that Shizuka found was very different from most of the other doors in the school. For one, the door opened on hinges rather than sliding open, just like the doors leading to the outdoor walkway. That small difference somehow made things much more ominous. Then again, in the short few hours that they had been here, the two of them had decided to trust their gut more than anything, and, unlike the door leading to the outdoor walkway, their gut was telling them that there was nothing to worry about here; that was as good a sign as any to check out what was inside this secret room.

The first to go through the door was Ryou, his eyes widening in surprise at just how clean and well-managed the room looked in comparison to the rest of the school. It wasn't a very big room: about two by four meters. It seemed very much like a storage room, only there was nothing inside, save for a square table with a lamp in the middle. The lamp was plugged into a jarringly modern looking outlet.

"Well, that's disappointing," Shizuka grumbled, stepping forward and toying with the chain that turned the lamp on and off. "I was hoping we'd find a key in here."

Ryou frowned, looking around the small room, scrutinizing the bare walls, trying to find something that could help them. "There has to be more to this room than this." Just as the words passed through his lips, the room turned dark and the entire building groaned. "What just happened?"

Shizuka dashed back towards the door, accidentally bumping into him. "I… I turned off the light -by accident. And now it won't turn back on."

He put both hands on her shoulders and gently moved her out of the way to check the lamp himself. He tugged lightly at the chain, hearing it click several times, but, just as Shizuka said, no light could be seen. "That's strange. Do you think perhaps that this lamp triggered something elsewhere?"

She shrugged, still shaken. Sure, a lamp suddenly breaking wasn't exactly the worst thing she had endured in the past few hours, but it was the sense of dread that made her lose her voice. She felt like she was a criminal on death row, and with every moment, she was one step closer to the electric chair.

"Nothing to lose by checking it out." As soon as the words left his lips, he regretted them; in a place like this, they had everything to lose. The proper wording might have been 'We've got no choice but to check it out' Perhaps it was a way of conveying hope; of saying that they already braved the worst part and things were all under control, but that was probably the farthest thing from the truth -not that either of them were willing to admit it.

The implications of Shizuka's fiddling with the lamp presented themselves to the duo immediately after they left the classroom. When they opened the door they had entered from, they found a large hole in the floorboards, making the door virtually useless; in fact, most of the gaps in the floorboards had been moved around since the lamp extinguished itself. More notably, the gap preventing them from exploring the rest of the second floor was no longer there, meaning that the rest of the classrooms were now open to them (if their doors actually worked, that is). Unfortunately, however, the gap had simply moved backwards, preventing them from descending the way they came. They would have to find another way down if they were going to get back to Anzu.

On her way to the classroom's second door, Shizuka realized that even the holes in the classroom floor had moved around. For one, the spot where the bloody, maggot infested lump once sat was now a black, gaping crater. In her heart, she could only bid that rotten eyesore good riddance.

Upon crossing the uncharted territory that had been revealed, another staircase could be found; this one led up another floor. The teenagers kept the passage in mind as they moved further through the hall, using only the moonlight shining through the dirty windows to guide them. Turning the corner showed them classrooms 2-A and 3-A. Neither of the classrooms could have been entered in any way, however, not that either of them were complaining. It only meant less time spent on dead ends and more time to find a way to get out.

The corridor ended yet again in a staircase that seemingly led to the upper floor as well, although the stairs were blocked by stacks of small desks and chairs, making it impossible to climb them. For good measure, Ryou attempted to move the misplaced furniture, but to nobody's surprise, it was all fixed in place.

There was what seemed to be the mangled corpse of a high school boy stuffed between the chair and table legs. They could see bones jutting out of odd places and joints bent at unnatural angles. From the appearance of the boy, Ryou pegged his death to be quite recent -as recent as a few days prior. On the ground by their feet, there was a bloody student ID card with the name "Izuru Tomitake"

Shizuka's breathing hitched and she covered her eyes, darting to the window to cleanse her vision with the eternally raining sky. "How horrible it must be…" she whispered. "To die in a place like this."

Ryou had to agree. He pocketed the ID card and approached Shizuka. "We won't end up like them. We can get out of here."

She heard his words, as disgustingly optimistic as they were, but she couldn't bring herself to believe them. She doubted that even he believed the things coming out of his mouth. Anything to keep them moving forward, right? "Let's just go…" she mumbled, walking towards another door.

"'Science Lab'" Ryou read off of the label beside the door. He winced, his nose resisting as something sinister, yet oddly familiar, pushed violently against his sinuses. "What is that smell?"

"I don't even want to know." Shizuka covered her nose with her injured hand; the smell of rain and iron was only a slight improvement. Her free hand was used to push the science lab door. It struggled, but with Ryou's help, she managed to get it open.

It was clear that the scent did not originate from this room, so, partly to be thorough and partly to escape the foul stench, the two shuffled inside to see what the science lab had to offer them. Thankfully, the fluorescent lights were working inside. It looked like your average science lab, with long counters, sinks, bunsen burners, beakers -the works. There was also a surprisingly realistic model of the human body, the lifeless eyes of which seemed to follow them around the room. It had parts of its flesh removed in places to display the vital organs of the human body. Such an object, which was already creepy in mundane settings, seemed much more suspicious in a setting like Heavenly Host, so the duo couldn't help but to periodically sneak glances at it as they maneuvered around the lab.

"It's so cold in here," Shizuka grumbled, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering. "It feels like there's a window open or something."

Since the windows inside the lab were clearly and firmly shut, Ryou's eyes immediately went to the open door, trying to get a good look at the hallway window through it. The rain continued to hit the glass aggressively, and he was able to conclude with great certainty that it hadn't been opened.

As his eyes travelled back across the room, they passed over the anatomy model, scrutinizing it for a moment in apprehension. "Shizuka, is it just me, or does that model look much farther from the door than it originally was?"

She followed his gaze and frowned. "I don't know…" she mumbled. It certainly looked closer, yet she couldn't quite determine whether this was due to it actually being closer or due to her mind playing up her fears. "At any rate, there's nothing in this room… We should leave," she said slowly, her eyes never leaving the model. It felt like if her eyes moved away for even a second, it would be even closer than before.

Ryou agreed with her sentiment and with that, they began inching towards the door; the only problem, however, was that no matter how they went about it, they would have to get close to the anatomy model to pass through the door, and neither of them found that idea at all appealing. The 190 cm model had turned from ugly but harmless into public enemy number one.

They had managed to creep halfway across the room towards the door before Ryou sighed and tore his eyes off of the model to look at Shizuka. "This is ridiculous. We're just being paranoid. Don't you think that, if this thing actually wanted to kill us, it would have done so already?" Before Shizuka could utter a response, Ryou turned around and began to take larger strides towards the door, leaving her behind to bite her bottom lip in anxiety.

He was standing right in front of the dummy when he cast a knowing glance at Shizuka. "See?" he told her. "Nothing to worry -" He wasn't even allowed to finish his sentence before the stiff model raised the arms that seemed to have been glued to its sides and grabbed Ryou's shoulders. It lifted him above the ground and tossed him back into the opposite corner of the room, causing his shoulder to collide painfully with the back wall.

"Ryou!" Shizuka squealed.

Ryou grunted, barely conscious. He could tell that his shoulder, which had taken the brunt of his fall, was either broken or dislocated. "Shizuka, run!" He got to his feet; his legs were sore but he could still run towards his companion.

The model just stood there, watching them and waiting for their next move. Shizuka and Ryou, on the other side of the room, mirrored it, frozen where they stood and watching it warily. Its posture, in stark contrast to the posture it maintained before it attacked, was decidedly more natural now, like a predator lying in wait. They could see its exposed organs pulsing and throbbing in place, keeping it alive, so to speak.

It only took one movement on Shizuka's part, a feeble step backwards, to reanimate the model and set it after them. They didn't even have time to think about each other before they each went off towards different corners of the room. The model set its sights on Shizuka now, bounding after her, its heavy steps making the room shake. Using this distraction, Ryou made a break for the door, grabbing the door handle and watching Shizuka run from the creature.

She spotted Ryou by the door and glanced behind her. If she could get enough distance between her and the model, she and Ryou would have time to shut the door behind them. He might be able to open it afterwards, but at least it would have bought them some time. With that in mind, she ran as fast as she could to the farthest workstation against the back wall and climbed on top of it. She watched him catch up with her for less than a second and then leaped as far as she could from the workstation as she could. She stumbled, but adrenaline kept got her to her feet just as quickly as she fell. She soared through the door, grabbing the wall to keep steady.

There was a loud thud as the monster slammed into the door that Ryou had just shut. "Keep running!" Ryou barked at her when she stopped to look at him. "I'll hold him back as long as I can and come after you!"

Shizuka nodded followed the order. Once she was out of his sights, Ryou focussed all his attention on keeping the door closed. For some reason, the model wasn't trying to open it, but was repeatedly ramming itself into the wood. He wasn't sure how long the door would remain in once piece under this onslaught, but he couldn't let Shizuka down now. It was a great strain on his broken shoulder, unfortunately, so he only hoped that he would be able to last through it.

"Hey, Ryou!" a voice called out from behind him, followed by the sound of running feet. He was so dumbfounded that he nearly let go of the door.

Before he could turn around to find the owner of the voice, a taller boy helped him push against the door. Their faces were close enough that he could identify the square jaw and short brown hair. "Honda?" he questioned, disbelief in his voice. "Is that really you?"

Honda looked relieved as well, a tired smile washing over his face. "In the flesh. Now, what the hell is behind this door?" he asked over the sound of the ceaseless pounding.

Ryou frowned. "An anatomical model, believe it or not."

With a sigh, Honda muttered, "An anatomical model? In a lab of all places? This place is just full of surprises, isn't it?" The sarcasm in his voice wasn't lost on his company, but it was clear that he perceived the threat the model posed to them.

Ryou let out a sad mixture of a laugh and a cough. "It has been quite the adventure."