Author's Note: Allow me to clarify that this is an Alternate Universe story. Ichigo and his peers are normal humans in college.
If that's okay with you, on with the story!
Ichigo rolled his eyes with a dramatic sigh, "I still can't believe you guys talked me into this bullshit. An ouija board? Seriously?"
"Aww, lighten up, berry," Ikkaku replied with a heavy pat on Ichigo's back that sent the orangette stumbling forward a step or two. "This is gonna be fun. Just messing around with a board game with the lights off to get ourselves psyched up. We'll all have a nice scare from it, and laugh about it all by tomorrow at lunch. It'll be therapeutic and everything."
"I don't know man, my dad told me never to mess with those things," Ichigo said in a slow and unsure voice.
Ikkaku snorted, "What, you scared?"
"Me? Scared?" Ichigo scoffed, "Hell no. I just try to avoid disobeying my dad."
"Don't kid with me. When do you ever listen to that crazy old fart?"
"Joke all you want, Ikkaku, but if you'd seen the look in his eye, maybe you'd know why I try to listen on this one…"
"Ugh, you pansy. Get your ass in the living room. Everyone does this at some point before they grow up. It's like a right of passage or something. Just this once. Do it for the laughs."
"I don't know, Ikkaku, I've got a bad feeling about this…" Ichigo trailed off. Despite his words, he didn't resist as he was forcefully led by the shoulders into Ikkaku's living room.
Upon entering, the first thing that caught his eye was the board on the low coffee table in the center of the room.
All the furniture— couches, entertainment set, television, various knick knacks and such— had been pushed up against the walls to make space. The room was dark with all the lights turned off, and black curtains pulled out to cover the windows (not the usual color theme for Ikkaku's living room, but Ichigo figured it was for the visual effect). The only light sources were five candles lit in a star formation around the table.
Around the table sat Yumichika (predictably; he and Ikkaku were practically connect at the hip), Renji, Rukia, her brother Byakuya (oddly enough), and most notably odd…
"Aizen?!" he exclaimed. "How the hell did you rope our history professor into messing with an ouija board with us at midnight?!"
"Hello to you too, Mr. Kurosaki," the man with slicked back brown hair and simple glasses deadpanned.
"Eh, details," Ikkaku said offhandedly, waving him off as he took a seat at the head of the table. Or maybe it was the tail. Ichigo never could tell with tables. "Sit your ass down. We're gonna contact some spirits."
Swallowing down the palpable sense of foreboding, Ichigo sat down between Renji and Rukia, opposite of Ikkaku. The shaved-headed man smirked victoriously.
"Alright, now that we're all here, let's begin… everyone put your hands on the planchette," Ikkaku ordered. He was the last to put his hands on the planchette, on top of everyone else's. "Okay, now how do you do this…?"
"You don't know how to do it?" Ichigo asked incredulously with a quirked brow.
"Shaddup," Ikkaku grumbled, "I'm just gonna wing it," he then cleared his throat before saying much louder, "Spirits from beyond! Is there anyone out there?"
For a solid few minutes that felt like a short eternity to Ichigo, nothing happened. Only silence. There was thick tension in the air, but Ichigo got the feeling he was the only one who noticed it. He was feeling an inexplicable deep rooted terror, and it was growing with each passing moment.
"Guys…" Ichigo said, only to be shushed by Ikkaku. He stayed quiet for all but two minutes, "I don't like this. I'm gonna—"
Rukia, who'd noticed Ichigo stop mid-sentence, furrowed her brow in concern, "What's wrong, Ichigo?"
Ichigo gave a violent jerk to his hand and met such strong resistance that it wouldn't budge even half a centimeter, "My hands… I can't take them off the planchette!"
"Quit fucking around, Ichigo, it's not funny," Renji said dryly.
"I'm not," he shouted frantically as he continued his fruitless efforts to yank his hands away. "I keep trying, but I can't move my hands!"
Rukia was next to attempt to move her hands, "Oh my god, neither can I!"
Renji scowled, "Rukia, not you too. I can't believe you're joining in on this."
Yumichika's voice was small and fearful, "She's not lying."
At that point, everyone else attempted to pull away from the planchette, but no one could. They were all beginning to panic, though Byakuya and Aizen didn't let it show on their faces. Rukia had tears in her eyes, and Yumichika didn't look far behind her in that aspect.
"This is all your fault!" Ichigo snapped at the only person he could. Ikkaku.
"My fault?! How is this my fault?!" Ikkaku demanded.
"You're the one who made us do this!"
"You didn't have to listen—!"
"You pressured me!"
"Guys, stop fighting! It's moving!' Yumichika shouted to be heard over the bickering between the two.
There was instant silence as seven pairs of eyes focused on the violently shaking planchette. Suddenly, it gave a forceful jerk, and then it was moving across the board and was pointing at the first letter. H.
It moved again until it spelled out 'hello'.
"I-it's speaking to us…" Rukia murmured. Her voice was slightly hopeful. Ichigo knew from the look on her face that she was hoping maybe this spirit was friendly.
"Who are you?" Ikkaku asked to seemingly thin air with false bravado.
The planchette was moving more quickly this time.
'I am who I am.'
"But what is your name?" Ikkaku tried.
'I have no name.'
"Ask it what it wants from us," Aizen ordered calmly. If one hadn't been paying extremely close attention, Aizen would have appeared entirely at ease. Suffice to say, he was not.
Ikkaku cleared his throat before speaking, "What do you want from us?"
There was a long pause. An uncomfortably long pause. So long in fact, that some of them started to muse that the… whatever it was… had left. The fact that none of them could move yet quickly silenced those thoughts.
The planchette shuddered to life once more. It trembled in place for a few tense seconds, then wildly jerked back and forth over the H and the J.
This went on for a while until it stopped and slowly spelled but one word…
'Hungry'...
Ichigo's heart leapt into his throat. Somehow, he didn't get the impression some pork ramen would satisfy this thing's appetite.
"W-what's going to happen to us?" Rukia dared to ask aloud. Her voice was pitiful and small, but easily heard in the chilling silence of the darkened room.
"I don't know," Ichigo answered truthfully.
Just after he'd said this, the planchette started moving one final time. Like last time, it only spelled out one single word.
'Run.'
With that, all the windows in the room shattered at once, a blustering wind bursting forth into the room and sending the curtains awry. All the candles were blown out in an instant, throwing all the room's occupants into darkness much more complete than before.
Then came the shrieking, cackling laughter.
Almost everyone, excluding Byakuya and Aizen, were now screaming. They quickly found they could now remove their hands from the planchette.
Rukia was first to get up and run for the exit. She was closely followed by Renji, and Byakuya, then everyone else realized they needed to get out of their fast. They made for the exit, hearts beating erratically as their fight or flight instincts were kicked into overdrive.
As they neared the front door, Ichigo took a head count. He jolted to a stop. "Wait, where's Yumichika?"
His question was punctuated at the end by a shrill scream from the living room. Then more insane laughter.
"Yumichika!" Ikkaku yelled as he doubled back to the living room.
Ichigo chased after him. They arrived just in time to see Yumichika being dragged into a dark vortex where the ouija board had been. Yumichika clawed at the floor in a vain attempt to slow down his impending doom.
"Ikkaku!" he screamed, face twisted in fear. "Help me! Ikkak—uahhh!"
Just as Ikkaku was reaching for his friend, Yumichika was pulled with one final jerk into the vortex. The screams could be heard however, and should any of them survive the ordeal, the sounds would haunt them in their dreams for many nights to come.
The way the shouts and cries grew higher and more frantic as they morphed from terror to agony. The resounding crunches Ichigo and Ikkaku could both hear that should never be associated with a human body. How even now, they could hear Yumichika calling out to Ikkaku for help with his last breath.
Bile was rising in Ichigo's throat through it all, and it was a vehement struggle not to vomit all over the floor where he stood.
"Yumichika!" Ikkaku yelled desperately, and continued to yell until his throat was raw. He attempted to throw himself into the vortex, but Ichigo held him back. Ikkaku elbowed Ichigo in the side viciously, "Let me go!"
"No, Ikkaku, he's gone!" Ichigo pulled him back into the hallway, toward the front door. "There's nothing we can do!"
"Give him back to me," Ikkaku cried, struggling even more, "give back Yumichika, you bastard!"
"Guys!" Ichigo called over his shoulder. "A little help?! Open the door!"
"I-I can't!" came Rukia's panicked voice, followed by the rattling sound of the knob and door itself being furiously jimmied. More frantically, she called, "It's locked!"
He got the feeling that telling her to just unlock it wouldn't help anything.
"Move over, Rukia!" Renji snapped, shoving her to the side. He gave the knob a few sharp twists to no avail. "Dammit!"
"You idiots!" Ichigo growled, slapping a palm to his forehead. He stomped up to the forefront of the crowd. "Outta my way."
He shoved everyone back, and with one mighty kick to just beside the lock, he kicked the door down.
The others stood there in shock for a moment before they were all rushing forward in a frenzy to escape the house. Just as Ichigo was stepping over the threshold, he heard a shout of both pain and surprise from right behind him.
He turned around to see Ikkaku on his stomach on the floor, his knuckles white from how hard he was gripping either edge of the doorframe. His feet lay on the floor a short distance behind him, having been cleanly sliced off. A shadowy, clawed wisp of a hand had a hold of what was left of one of his ankles. The shadows adjoining the hand snaked all the way back to the living room, where the vortex and ouija board were.
Ikkaku stared up at Ichigo with wide eyes. There was fear in them, but what surprised and scared Ichigo was that there was also some macabre form of acceptance. A serene smile slipped across Ikkaku's face for a split second, as if he wanted this.
Ichigo grasped wildly for Ikkaku's hands, "Ikkaku, don't—!"
But his friend had already let go. Shortly after Ikkaku disappeared from his sight, Ichigo could hear the screams, and the crunching, just like with Yumichika.
Ikkaku was gone.
Two of his friends were gone. That thing was still in there.
Like a coward, he ran. The screams and the shrieking, insane laughter that sent involuntary chills down his spine like nails on a chalkboard could still be heard all the way down the road.
Still, he ran.
Ran from that thing.
Author's Note: Let me know if you catch any typos, grammatical errors, or glaring plot holes! As always, I don't have a beta-reader. Until next time.
