Premise: Mai works part-time at the local police department. It seems simple at first, playing assistant to a detective, but Mai keeps dreaming these strange dreams, and then there's that weird team of wannabe Ghostbusters who seem to have a knack for keeping Mai from doing her goddamn job...
WARNING: Graphic violence, graphic assault, and murder. Please do not read or stop reading right away if you feel uncomfortable at any point in time. Please feel free to message me about any content.
DEDICATION: I owe inspiration for the writing style to black. . I love love love her style, and I am shamelessly copying it. Please go read her. What I write pales in comparison to her way of twisting present tense writing to something grand and encompassing. She's a damn good wordsmith, despite not being a native English speaker.
Possible romance in the future should I decide to continue the story and feel confident enough to write it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt. Title of the story comes from "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" by the Eurythmics.
A peaceful night in the Taniyama household is broken by a scream.
Once, a middle-aged man would nudge his wife, sleepily saying that it was the wife's turn to wake their daughter from her nightmare and convince her to go back to sleep, because dammit, he had taken care of her the past three nights in consideration of his darling wife's full-time job. Once, his wife would argue back that no, it wasn't the past three nights, it was only yesterday, she had done the other two nights before that, thank you very much. Then another scream would wreck the air followed by sobbing, and with a quick kiss as an apology for bickering, one of the two parents would leap out of their bed and hurry down to the room at the end of the hallway to their daughter.
Once, Mai Taniyama did not fear sleep, because for every nightmare she had, she woke to comforting hugs and loving reassurances that it was only a dream, it was only a dream, it was only a dream.
But that was once, not now, when the Taniyama household is made up of its sole remaining member.
Now a piercing wail echoes through the cold apartment and empty master bedroom, and Mai screams and screams until the nightmare ends and she wakes up alone.
For a few moments, she's disoriented and panics. Then, with the ease of a familiar routine, a hand clicks on the lamp on the nightstand next to her bed. Light floods the room, and Mai stares blankly at the cheerful yellow walls and old wooden furniture before sighing. Closing her eyes, she takes a deep breath and holds it.
It was only a dream. Pull yourself together, Mai!
She exhales noisily and tries to will away the images - a large hand, reaching for her chest, she slaps him away, anger that fills the air, then the hand claws at her eyes and there's red, red and darkness and pain - that threaten to resurface. Instead, she forces her mind elsewhere. She checks her phone for the time. It's 5 am, far too early for most people, but there's no way Mai is going to be able to go back to sleep after a nightmare like that one. Groaning, she unwraps herself from the cocoon of bed sheets her tossing and turning created and sluggishly moves down the hallway towards the kitchen.
The kitchen walls are the same shade of yellow, and the lights instantly brighten the mostly-clean kitchen. Mai's dishes from last night sit in the sink, her school bag is on the table, and kettle is left out on the stove. Tea, Mai thinks desperately. I need tea. The red electric kettle is easy to set up,
red red red and pain -
and she grabs her favorite passion-berry tea. Then she pauses and reconsiders the early hour. It's a Friday; Mai still has school in a few hours. Tea isn't going to be strong enough to get her through the day.
Coffee, Mai decides, and casts a mournful look at the sweet tea bag she's holding in her hand.
a hand, belonging to the man who approached her, who leaned close to tell her she's beautiful, a hand that reaches for the same eyes he compared to precious jewels and she's paralyzed with fear and that hand is the last thing she sees -
No matter how much sugar she adds, coffee has an element of bitterness Mai has never liked. She knows from experience, though, that with less than four hours of sleep, if she doesn't have a strong cup of coffee, she's not going to make it through the day.
5:13, reads the microwave clock as Mai blows on her cup of instant coffee. She sighs and leans against the refrigerator. Mai always has had nightmares. This is routine, as routine as calling up Still tired, she closes her eyes for a second
and suddenly she's there again, and all she sees is darkness because she cannot see at all, and the hard bricks of the alley dig into her back and they scrape her skin when her knees refuse to support her weight any further and she sinks down, down, down against the wall, and all this time there's a sharp pressure in her chest and a fanatical voice in her ears as the man whispers how beautiful she is -
and her eyes fly back open. A brick alley? She ignores the fear that crawls along her spine, closes her eyes and concentrates on what she remembers. Just yesterday, she had accompanied Detective Kouda when he investigated the area where the young lady had been reported missing so many years ago. Had there been a brick alley amidst the concrete buildings so common to that particular area? Mai feels an invisible band tightening around her chest. It was happening again, her dreams were mixing with the reality she lived in day after day.
"It was only a dream, Mai," she says to herself, but the coffee mug in her hand is shaking. "Only a dream!" She takes another deep breath and holds it for a few seconds. 5:16, reads the microwave clock. Mai releases her breath and takes the first sip of coffee. Ugh. Mai shudders and makes a face, but takes another sip all the same. She can already tell she'll need every last drop.
"Somewhere in the depths of the city, in the back alleys, wanders the Beautiful Lady," Mai says in a hushed tone. It's after school, and Mai and her best friends are in the AV room for their daily ghost stories.
"A girl was attacked was a few years ago. She had been walking home after staying late at cram school one evening and decided to cut through the alleys to reach her apartment since the sun was already beginning to set. Then, suddenly, she heard a voice call out from the shadows."
"'Hello, little girl,' the voice called, 'Do you want to be beautiful?' The girl knew something was wrong, but the voice sounded like a lonely woman. The girl paused and looked around, but she didn't see anyone.
'Excuse me, ma'am,' the girl said, 'Are you okay? Where are you?'"
"An elegant woman wearing all white stepped out the corner. By now night had fallen, but even though there was only a single streetlight a few meters away, the elegant woman seemed to glow almost eerily. But that's not all. Instead of eyes, she had two empty sockets that were full of blood! The girl was captivated.
'A pretty girl like you deserves to be beautiful. Do you want to be beautiful?' the elegant woman repeated.
Without realizing it, the girl opened her mouth.
'Y-yes,' she said."
"The next morning, she was reported missing. The police found her, but it was too late; the girl was dying. Her eyes had been completely clawed out and she had lost too much blood. The police tried to comfort her and ask who had done it, but up to her last breath, all she would say is, 'The beautiful lady fixed me. Beautiful. I'm beautiful now.' No girl has walked through the alleys ever since, but the Beautiful Lady is still there, just waiting for the next girl to walk by."
Mai clicks off her light and changes her voice to be the creepy one she used in her story.
"Do you want to be beautiful?"
There's two squeals and Mai clicks her light back on.
"Eww!" says Keiko.
"Mai, don't use that creepy voice," Michiru admonishes.
Mai simply grins in response. It's not the first time her 'creepy voice' has scared Michiru. Truthfully, Mai's feeling a little unnerved just from telling the story. It reminds her too much of the dream that she based it off on.
"You're up last, Michiru," says Mai as she puts away her flashlight.
Michiru collects herself and begins. "Okay," she says, "I'm going to tell you about the old schoolhouse."
"The old one?" Keiko asks. "You mean that half-collapsed wooden one?"
"It didn't collapse," says Michiru. "Construction work was stopped because of a curse."
It's at this point that Mai realizes that today Michiru will probably have the best ghost story, not Mai. Oh well. She turns her attention back to Michiru and is instantly drawn into the mystery surrounding the old schoolhouse. A teacher who committed suicide, a truck that ran into the school, and deaths of construction workers… When Michiru's turn is over and she clicks off her flashlight to leave the three girls in the dark, Mai feels a thrill of fear.
"Here goes," says Michiru with a note of determination in her voice.
"One," they chant together. "Two… three… "
"Four."
The girls scream, the light clicks on, and there is a woman standing in the doorway. Mai instantly recognizes her beloved mentor and employer, Detective Kouda Misaki, who has a habit of using her break from police work in the afternoons to take a walk that coincidentally ends up at Mai's school right before Mai's shift starts. Mai smiles sheepishly at Kouda, who raises an eyebrow knowingly with a faint look of amusement on her face.
"Good afternoon, Mai," Kouda says dryly. "You work in ten minutes." Mai looks at her wristwatch and her eyes widen.
"Oh!" she says, and she shoves her small flashlight into her shoulder bag. "Thanks for reminding me. Did you have a nice walk over here?"
"As always," says Kouda before disappears from the threshold. Mai says a quick goodbye to her friends and dashes out the door to catch up to Kouda before she leaves. She's going quite fast, and Mai is barely able to avoid bowling over the teenager who was sulking outside the the door to the AV Club. She takes in pale skin, dark clothing, dark hair, and a dark look in uniquely colored eyes. He seems interesting, unusual, and even familiar for some reason that Mai cannot place, but Mai is in a hurry - Kouda just rounded the end of the long corridor, and it does take a little bit of time to walk to the station - so instead of striking up a conversation like she might have liked to, she blurts out an apology and takes off again.
(In another time, another place, the young man wasn't intimidated by the fierce-looking policewoman and shamelessly listened in to the conversation inside. In another time, another place, the young man was the one to make a dramatic entrance instead of hiding from the employee of police department that remains very skeptical of his own business and has pulled him aside for questioning more than once. But in this time, in this place, he settles for glaring at the thoughtless girl who almost ran him over and walks in to talk with her friends. They somehow manage to keep him there for an hour, babbling excitedly about the most trivial things, while the girl who has the power to change his life walks away.)
A/N: Chapters to come will be longer should there be enough reader interest. I hope you enjoyed reading and please review.