A/N: I don't own Ghost Hunt
Mai stared at the ram shackle house dejectedly. They had been called to a case near a forest, and apparently it would be in this… hut where they would be sleeping. Ayako seemed to share the same feelings as Mai.
"It's a shed. An old shed. I am not sleeping in that." She picked her bags up off the ground again, and made her way back to the van. Mai, although sharing similar feelings, did not retreat back to the van but instead sat down on top of her rucksack. A gust of wind blew through the forest, making the leaves shiver. Mai picked up a stick and began drawing in the ground. Big fat pellets of rain started to fall from the heavy sky.
"Mai! Stop wasting time. There's still work to be done." Mai jumped at Naru's sudden voice and dropped the stick. She looked over, and saw Bou-san and John carrying in the equipment. She waited for Naru to turn to go into the hut and poked her tongue out at his retreating back, before making her way over to where the others were. She grabbed one of the monitors, and followed Bou-san and John into the hut.
After a while, base was set up in the biggest out of the three rooms that made up the hut. Several chairs had been put into the base room, and a small table had also been crammed in. Mai sat down huffily on one of the mismatching chairs, her hair plastered to her head and watched the monk and the miko argue, which ended in the usual tradition- Ayako hitting Bou-san. Naru waited for the din to die down.
"Right. Now that you've all stopped acting like idiots," he glared at Ayako and Bou-san who shifted guiltily in their seats, "we can get to work. We are investigating the forest, in particular the bit by the clearing. Takigawa-san and Matsuzaki-san go and see if you can sense any spirits there. Lin and John, you place cameras at the edges of the woods." The various team members nodded their understanding and left. Mai fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat.
"Ne, Naru…"
"Mai, tea."
"Hai!" Mai sprang up and went over to a tiny kitchenette in the corner of the room, complete with a cooker, sink, and cupboards. She poked around until she had found all the ingredients for the tea, and quickly made it and gave it to Naru. Silence fell between the two remaining occupants, and Mai could feel her eyes glazing over due to boredom. There was a crackle over the walkie talkie in the corner, and soon John's voice floated through.
"Um, is this a good position Shibuya-san?" Naru looked at the monitor.
"Move it to the right a little."
"Okay." There was a pause as the camera was adjusted a little.
"That better?"
"Yes."
"Okay." The walkie talkie went dead. Mai blew out a breath of air as silence resumed. Her eyes started droop, and she was about drift off to sleep when she heard something. Suddenly alert, her head snapped up and she screwed her eyes up in an effort to hear it again. She was in luck. There was a sort of… whispering coming from outside. Her curiosity piqued, Mai moved towards it, barely aware that Naru was doing the same.
Come here… come here my dears… come this way and be part of my game… come and be part of the HUNT!
Mai snapped her eyes open suddenly. Her head was on something hard and uncomfortable, and there was a stillness that seemed uneasy. She slowly sat up, and realised that the hard uncomfortable thing was the ground. She looked around, and realised that she was in the middle of the forest. Naru was sitting opposite her, eyes closed and propped up against a tree. As Mai brushed the dirt and leaves out of her hair, Naru's eyes opened. He frowned when he realised where he was.
"Mai. Are you hurt?" Mai looked at him in shock.
"No. Are you okay?" Naru ignored her and instead pulled out his phone. He flipped it open, and growled.
"Naru?"
"It's gone dead."
"Naru, where are we?"
"Mai, if you looked around, you would realise that we are in the forest."
"But we were in base!"
"Do you remember how we got here?"
"No…"
"Neither do I. So I think that it probably means that we were either possessed, or we were hypnotised. It would be more likely that it was hypnotism, as we both remember up to the same point."
"Okay… so where are the others? Are they still in the forest or are they in base?"
"I don't know," Naru grudgingly admitted. There was a ruffle of a breeze, and a clear, cold voice rang out among the trees.
"Welcome, my dears, to the Hunt. Don't worry- I'm not going to kill you. Yet." The voice chuckled. "You have 3 days to make your way out of the forest. If you manage it- well, then I'll let you go. If not…" The voice left the sentence hanging.
"What about the others?" Naru asked, fury lacing his tone and his fists curled.
"Oh, don't you worry about your little friends. What's a game without a little healthy competition?" Mai gulped.
"You mean… we're competing against them? Against them for what?"
"Oh dear. You are a bit slow. No wonder she annoys you so, Naru."
"Who are you? How do you know my name?"
"My dear Naru, I know many things. And as for who I am… well, that would be telling. I have to go now, the other pairs –your friends- have woken up. Until next time." There was another breeze that blew through the woods, and Mai turned round to Naru.
"Naru. What's going on? What are we competing against them for?"
"Survival." It felt as though the ground had vanished from beneath Mai, and she shakily collapsed on to a nearby tree stump.
"Survival?!"
"Yes."
"That's… that's sick."
"Yes." Naru moved over to a tree stump next to Mai, and resumed his normal thinking pose. Mai had gone deathly pale, but bit by bit her colour returned. Soon, her shocked expression had been replaced by a more thoughtful one. Suddenly, she sprang up.
"Naru! I have an idea."
"I doubt it will be that good, but it will do good to stay amused."
"Jerk. I read in a book once that whenever this scientist was in a situation where she couldn't find the solution, she tried to remember one. That way, she blocked out all the useless bits of information, and the solution was clearer."
"Mai, I already have several solutions." Mai's face fell slightly. "Solution 1; we crash blindly through the forest and hope that we find the exit. Solution 2; we crash blindly through the forest looking for the others, then the exit. Solution 3; we hope that Lin's shiki find us before three days are up. Solution 4; we find the others, and then exorcise this damned ghost."
"But we don't know which pairs they're in."
"It's simple. The ghost has out us in partners least likely to succeed. For example, take you. You don't argue with Matsuzaki-san, Takigawa-san or John. Lin hardly talks to anyone, so he doesn't count. However, you and I argue constantly, and we're together. Thus, I am basing this for the fact that Matsuzaki-san and Takigawa-san are together, leaving John and Lin. Plus, we were together in base anyway to begin with. It would have been easy to set us up together."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense."
"Of course it does."
"So I guess we could do solution 4?"
"Congratulations. You've finally caught up." He replied sarcastically.
"Hey! There's no need to be such a jerk!"
"Come on Mai. All this arguing is wasting time. Did you dream about anything whilst you were asleep?"
"I… um…"
"It's a yes or no answer Mai."
"Sort of." Naru raised an eyebrow.
"What do you mean by 'sort of'?"
"All I remember is this sort of… whispering."
"Do you know what the whispers were?"
"No, I can't remember. Sorry." Naru ignored the apology and stood up. He walked towards the edge of the clearing before crouching down.
"What're you doing?"
"Footprints."
"Come again?"
"Mai, think about it. It was raining earlier, and what does water and dirt make? Mud. And we must of got here somehow, probably on foot, meaning that we would have left some footprints." He went back to scanning the forest floor, and Mai crossed the clearing to examine the other side. Silence resumed as they worked, but it was broken by a yell from Mai.
"Naru! I found something!" He walked over to where she was standing and glanced at the ground. Sure enough there were footprints, but instead of them leading into the clearing like he had expected, they were pointing away into the densely packed trees. Mai made to follow them, but Naru held her back.
"Bakka! Are you going to just blindly follow that trail without even trying to think? I know that you have a low IQ, but I didn't think that you were that stupid!" Mai jerked away from Naru's arm and turned to face him, her eyes blazing with fury.
"Naru, if there was something bad down there then wouldn't I have sensed it? It's fine; in fact, my instinct is telling me to go down there. So there," she added on as an afterthought. Naru regarded her for a minute or two.
"Fine. We'll go down this way." Mai was stunned. He never gave in that easily. Maybe he was finally starting to crack? Her thoughts rambled on as she followed Naru into the densely packed trees. A quiet voice behind them chuckled, and the leaves ruffled silently.
This is an idea that has been brewing in my mind for, oh, nearly a year now, and I thought that it was high time I posted it. I have part of chapter two written out, and so hopefully the next chapter won't be too long. But you know how long it takes me… look at Lullaby and LvC. XD And the bit about Mai saying that in a book she read this character tries to remember solutions is true. In Angles and Demons (by Dan Brown) Vittoria mentions that that is how she tries to get out of sticky situations.
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