Author's Note: I do not, nor ever have, nor ever will, own Mermaid Melody. Mermaid Melody seems to be lacking in the horror department, so I thought I'd try my hand at it. I've never really written this kind of story before, so let's hope it goes well. Please forgive the cheesy name, I couldn't think of anything.
This story will primarily revolve around Hanon, though there will be parts following other characters as well.
"Mmm!" Hanon couldn't help but squeal out, a reaction not much different from the two other girls in the room. The blue haired girl sat on Lucia's bed, wielding a melon pudding and a spoon. Lucia was on the other side of the bed, and Lina was sitting in a backwards-turned chair, both also with pudding.
Lina had finally went through with her promise to buy some melon pudding. Now they were all enjoying the fruits of her trip to the convenience store, as well as starting off a sleep over. The night was going well so far, and Hanon was sure they'd have fun. She just hoped they wouldn't be too dead in the morning, it was a school night after all. Though as the night continued even that worry faded away in the fun and the pudding.
-----
"IIIAAAAAA!!" Hanon jolted awake, eyes shooting wide open. She quickly sat up, trying to get a grip on what was going on. The young teen tried to shake away the remnants of her dream, she was sure that scream had been real. The mermaid sat in her sleeping bag, in a dark room. From the star light streaming through the window she confirmed that she was indeed still in Lucia's room, right where she'd fallen asleep. That just left the two other people who'd fallen asleep in the room. The groggy girl got up and looked around. Empty. Lina's sleeping bag was still there, and Lucia's bed looked slept in, but there was no Lina in her bag and no Lucia in her bed. Hanon quickly left the room, instinctively shutting the door behind her.
She stood in the blackness of the hall, fidgeting her toes on the carpet as she tried to gauge where the scream had come from. It was hard to tell, as she hadn't exactly been alert when it had come. So much so she wasn't even sure who it was that had screamed. She was pretty sure, though, that it had come from below her. The kitchen then, seemed a likely location. Where else would someone go in the middle of the night? There was no need to go downstairs to use the bathroom.
And so she began taking blind steps towards the staircase, walking with certainty due to her knowledge of the building. She sighed to herself, envisioning things like Lucia going down for a midnight snack, then dropping the butter without noticing and slipping on it as she left. She almost took a spill herself, forgetting to look out for the stairs. After stumbling over the first few she managed to pinwheel her arms backwards and manage to not fall. She stopped and sighed again, this time of relief.
And just then, in the silence, she heard the step. The third step from the bottom on the first floor always creaked--a fact all midnight snackers trying to sneak by Nikora knew. Just as she'd stopped, someone stepped on it. Her heartbeat raced, trying to figure out if they were going up or down-which was or course impossible. She managed to calm herself, reassuring her heart that it didn't matter, the worst that could happen was a small scolding from Nikora for being out and about so late.
By the time her heartbeat returned to normal, she realized the person must have been moving away, as they would have reached her by now. Just then something wet wrapped around her arm. She shrieked terror and jerked, flailing her legs out. The wet thing vanished, and as she landed behind her on her butt she heard something tumbling down the steps.
"Oi, Hanon, what do you think you're doing!?" A familiar-and not very happy-voice from below her called out.
"Lina!?" Was all Hanon could manage, her current heart rate running circles around the one from before. She tried to slow her breathing as she listened to Lina pick herself up and continue up the stairs--for the second time. "S-sorry…you just scared the hell out of me." She muttered, blushing in the blackness.
"Ah, I would've reacted the same way. I wish you hadn't kicked me quite so hard though." Lina muttered, and Hanon envisioned her rubbing her stomach. She decided to keep the fact that it had been an accident to herself for the moment. Then she took notice of the sticky feeling on her pajama sleeve left behind from Lina's hand.
"Ne, what was that on your hand? And was that you who screamed?" Hanon hadn't really meant to ask two questions at the same time, but her unasked for alarm clock came out as well.
"Scream? Wha-no. I don't know what you're talking about. And this is just tomato juice. I made a sandwich and didn't realize how juicy the tomatoes were-it got everywhere. Well, it wasn't exactly easy to eat in the dark anyway." Lina explained.
"Dark? Why didn't you turn the light on?" Hanon question, cocking her head to the side despite no one being able to see it.
"I couldn't?" Lina answered, making Hanon feel like she was missing something. After the aquamarine princess failed to give a response, Lina spoke up again. "The power's out."
"Oh." Hanon replied mechanically. And after a pause: "So, um, where's Lucia?"
"In bed, isn't she?"
"No, the room was empty when I woke up. That's why I'm out here, I was coming down to see where you guys were--and who screamed."
"I'm telling you, no one screamed. That's what woke you up right? It was probably a part of your dream."
"It was not!" Hanon replied angrily, for some reason feeling like she needed the scream to be real. "I was having a good dream, there shouldn't have been a scream." She stated firmly, crossing her arms and nodding to herself.
"Dreams don't make sense sometimes." Lina replied, a shrug in her voice. Hanon could tell this argument wouldn't go anywhere and decided to drop it and get back to what she was doing.
"Well, anyway, I'm going downstairs to look for Lucia." The blue haired girl informed the green pearl voice, leaving out the reason for the search. She began clumsily down the stairs, and heard Lina follow after her.
After she reached the bottom-managing not to fall the whole way-she began feeling her way along the walls, making her way towards the kitchen. Lina-who was still following behind-had said she'd just had a sandwich, but, if she hadn't heard the scream, then she may have been eating it outside or something. And anyway, she preferred to stick to her first choice anyway. Her second-guesses on tests always seemed to be wrong, so she tended to stick with what her gut said first.
Just as she stepped into the kitchen, her foot collided with a cold, wet, puddle. She couldn't stop her momentum in time and felt her leg fly out in front of her. Without the sense of sight the fall seemed to go in slow motion, she felt her legs raise above her body and her arms reach out to grab something. She found nothing, and as a result next felt her upper back slam painfully into the linoleum.
Her pajamas eagerly soaked up the fluid covering the tiling as each part landed, and as her head clunked against the floor with a crack her hair got drenched too-mostly from the splash of her collision with the floor. She sat up with a moan; head throbbing and feeling weighted down from all the soaked up wet whatever-it-was.
"What happened?" Lina asked in her worried tone, taking the last three steps quickly and stopping at the doorway.
"Nothing, I just slipped. Oh--watch out, the floor's wet." The brown eyed girl answered, thinking to herself that that was an understatement. Whatever she'd slipped in, there must have been a lot to make all of her dripping wet. She got to her feet, with some difficulty, after crawling clumsily to the left and finding a counter to pull herself up with. Along the way she made a little squeak as her hand went into something squishy. "Ugh, Lina what did you do? Throw the whole stock in the blender and leave the lid off?" She complained, thinking of the tomatoes the taller girl had afore mentioned.
"I'm goanna go look for the emergency kit behind the counter." Lina announced, ignoring Hanon's question, and headed away from the kitchen.
"Kay'. I think there's a flashlight under the sink." Hanon replied, though judging by the fading footsteps it was more to herself than to Lina. After figuring out where she was she made her way around the room and eventually found the sink. Found meaning accidentally plunging her arm into a sinkful of dishes and water, which also resulted in her third shriek of surprise for the night.
She bent down and felt around for the handles, then pulled them open. She cussed under her breath as she smacked herself in the head with one of the cabinet doors. This was not her night. She felt around in the cabinet space-grimacing at the nasty feeling her hands were receiving from all the dust and debris sticking to her wet fingers. Finally, amidst the bottles and buckets, she felt something long and made of plastic, and pulled it out. She fidgeted around with it, but failed to get any results.
Grunting in frustration, she turned around and sat against the cabinet frame, trying to get the flashlight on. Finally she realized there was no button and she needed to turn the end, and on came the light; along with her fourth scream for the night. She dropped the flashlight and it rolled to the side, its light still trained on the corpse not three feet away.
Ending Note: So that's the first chapter, tell me what you think! I'm trying to make this have an actual story to it and not just be random murders, that doesn't really show yet considering the only thing I've done so far is randomly kill off someone. But it will be explained later! I think...