I really need to stop reading scary shit at like five in the morning. No wonder I have insomnia. What the fuck am I doing with my life. Well, hope you enjoy this, I guess.

Disclaimer: I don't own Ouran Highschool Host Club.

Hitori Kakurenbo

ひとりかくれんぼ

"One-Man Hide and Seek"

"The 'One-Man Hide and Seek,' also known as the 'One-Man Tag,' is a ritual for contacting the dead. The spirits, which are wandering restless on the Earth, are always looking for bodies to possess. In this ritual, you will summon such a spirit, by offering it a doll instead of a human body."

Haruhi was always a curious child. Everyday she would look for something new to explore and discover. She would always wander off with the other children in her neighborhood to do "fun stuffs," as she had called it. At the young age of eleven, she hadn't worried about the dangers. Her schedule was the same everyday: wake up, eat, get ready, go to school, "explore" (which was really only wandering around her neighborhood for things to do), be discover by her dad hours later, get chewed out by said dad (whose lectures she never paid attention to), eat, sleep, repeat.

One day, one of the old women in her apartment complex told her about game called Hitori Kakurenbo.

"You should never play this game, young one," she had explained to Haruhi. "It can result in death, possession..."

The woman began to ramble on. At that point Haruhi was starting to understand why the other grown ups in her neighborhood called her a loon. Haruhi was always told to respect her elders, but she thought that the old lady was full of poop. Later that night, she looked all around her room for a doll, but she was unable to find one. She looked in her closet and found an old doll in the corner of the small room. Its was made of brown cloth, like the kind you would find on scratchy blankets, and its face was a piece of yarn for a mouth and a single button for "eyes." The other one must have fallen off 'cause it was old and stuff, Haruhi decided.

It was really nothing special.

Haruhi got the doll, coughing in the process due to the dust. She placed the doll on her futon and picked up the large kitchen knife that was laying by her pillow. Her dad had always told her to not play with knifes, but she pushed his warnings to the back of her mind so she could concentrate. She lowered the knife and cut a slit from its chest to its abdomen, fluff starting to poke out from the slit. She pulled open the slit and took out the fluff out of it. She put the knife down and ran to the kitchen, grabbing the cup of rice on the counter and going back to her room.

She lifted a handful of rice out of the cup and put it into the doll. She continued for two more handfuls until the doll's stomach was full of the stuff. She picked up the clipped nails laying on her pillow and placed them in as well. She thought it was quite strange why she had to place them in as well, but she didn't really care at the moment. She grabbed the sewing needle and some crimson red thread and began to carefully sew the doll back into one piece. Haruhi had learned a bit of sewing from the elders in her apartment complex. She wasn't the worse, but not the best, either. The doll's stomach was sewn back together unevenly, the thread barely even staying in place. It definitely wasn't great, but it would do.

Haruhi was nervous and anxious at this point, but the negative emotions were starting to melt away into excitement. People always called her a "problem child," due to her being prone into getting into strange and dangerous situations. She had an issue with suppressing her curiosity, but as a young child, it was something she didn't worry about. Of course, her father did, though.

The young girl walked into the bathroom and filled the bathtub with water. It took awhile for it to completely fill up, and Haruhi was starting to get impatient. The bathtub finally filled up to the point where it was almost overflowing, and Haruhi quickly turned off the faucet. She picked up the water basin filled with salt water and placed it in the living room, under the kotatsu. It was a lame hiding spot, she had to admit, but there really wasn't really anywhere else in her apartment where she could hide. When the water basin was placed carefully under the kotatsu, almost completely filled with the water (she had spilled a bit of it while carrying it, she would have to clean it up before her dad got home), she walked into a kitchen a grabbed a cup beside the sink, placing it beside the water basin.

Haruhi went back into her room, grabbing the doll and placing it inside the bathtub.

Finally, the game could begin.

Haruhi stared at the doll for a moment as the cloth began to soak up some of the water surrounding it. Finally, she thought of something.

"...Your name is Chiruka," she said to the doll. Of course the doll said nothing back, staring back at her with that single button eye. Haruhi felt kind of dumb for talking to a doll, but she knew that it was necessary to playing the game.

She heard the grandfather clock in her apartment chime, indicating her that it was three am.

Of course her father would still be out at this time.

"Haruhi is the first it," she said, "Haruhi is the first it, Haruhi is the first it..."

Haruhi walked out of the bathroom, turning off the light and closing the door behind her, and proceeded to turn off every light in the apartment. She climbed under the kotatsu and turned on the TV.

The young girl closed her eyes.

One...

Two...

Three...

Four...

Five...

Six...

Haruhi could've sworn she heard a thump from across the apartment, but she kept her eyes closed, blocking out her rising fear and worry.

Seven...

Eight...

Nine...

...Ten.

She opened her eyes, only to be met with a Japanese talk show playing on the TV, the host's voice echoing through the apartment, giving Haruhi some relief.

The girl crawled out from the kotatsu, and walked to her room to get the knife she left in there. She was careful enough to not run into anything, but she tugged on her long hair, her anxiety levels starting to build up.

She got to her room, feeling around for the knife. She hissed, feeling it prick her finger. She could hear drops of liquid, but she assumed that she made her finger bleed and it was dripping on the floor, adding another thing on her list to clean up. She grabbed the knife, luckily getting it by the handle.

Haruhi walked out of the room, gripping the knife tightly. Her anxiety levels were getting dangerously high, her own footsteps making her paranoid.

She reached the bathroom after wandering around a bit, and opened the door. It was dark, but the Japanese girl could tell that nothing changed.

Except for the splashing of water in the bathtub.

Haruhi gulped, and felt around for the bathtub. The splashing stopped the moment she touched the ceramic surface. Haruhi was on the verge of crying with how scared she felt, but knew that she couldn't quit the "game" halfway through.

Or bad things would happen to you.

"I-I have found you, Chiruka," she choked out, wincing at her stutter. The doll stayed unresponsive, but Haruhi knew that there was more than just her and a doll in that room. She stabbed the doll in the stomach, the thread coming undone, and the rice spilling out into the water.

"You are the next it, Chiruka," she said, propping the doll back up.

As soon as she said this, she ran out of the bathroom with almost inhumane speed, not noticing the doll's yarn mouth stretch into an insane grin.

Haruhi had never been more scared in her life.

In her eleven years of being on this planet, nothing had frightened her more than this. Not even when she almost fell off a girder when she was playing in the construction site.

She quickly crawled under the kotatsu, ignoring the calm-hearted laughter of the children's show host. Her eyes darted to the cup laying next to the water basin full of salt water. She picked up the cup and scooped it into the water basin, filling it with water. She put the cup to her mouth and filled it up with the water, leaving the cup half empty. She puffed out her cheeks, the awful taste of the salt water stinging her tongue, but she did her best to ignore it and keep it in her mouth.

She pulled her knees to her chest as she heard a crash of something falling over, it sounding extremely close. She stayed still for a few minutes as she heard the sound of the TV distort and become unsteady. The girl was on the verge of a panic attack.

Why did she decide to do this? Curiosity? Was that all? Because of curiosity?

Haruhi was furious with herself, but she didn't have the time to argue to herself. She crawled out from the kotatsu, noticing that the TV had changed to static. She grabbed the cup of salt water, careful not to spill it.

She walked around her apartment, searching for the doll so she could end the ritual. She could somewhat see that what fell was a drawer from the kitchen, spilling out the contents of it.

Haruhi was terrified at this point. She walked around some more, doing her best to keep her footsteps silent. She eventually reached her room, and reluctantly opened the door.

In the darkness, the girl could see the doll curled up on her futon, a blanket thrown lazily on it. Haruhi trembled. She didn't even have a blanket in this room. She tiptoed inside the room and walked towards the doll, visibly shaking.

The Japanese girl poured the salt water from her cup onto the doll, hearing a faint sizzling noise, like bacon cooking in a pan. She spit the other half on it as well.

"I win, I win, I win!" she chanted, not taking her eyes off the doll.

Everything went silent.

Haruhi turned on the light. Everything was visibly intact and was the same as she left it. The only thing different was the damp doll sprawled out on her futon.

Haruhi picked up the doll and threw it off her balcony, not looking back as she left to clean up her mess.

A little girl with her hair in pigtails walked towards her apartment building, feeling quite scared. She had been playing and lost track of time. She kept her gaze on the ground as she twiddled her thumbs.

She stopped as her foot hit something mushy. She lifted it, seeing a brown cloth doll with one button eye and a yarn smile.

She smiled and picked it up, holding it above her head. "Wow, a dolly!"

She felt a twitch in her hands. She held the doll in front of her face, examining it closely. "Hmm?"

A dark chuckle was heard and a bloodcurdling scream followed it.

"I'm coming for you... Haruhi Fujioka."

"Just you wait."

And there's the prologue. I hoped you enjoyed.

Most of the things about young Haruhi are headcannons I pulled out of my ass, so I'm not sure if they're true or not, since young Haruhi isn't mentioned much in the anime.

You might wanna prepare yourself for this one, because people are gonna fucking die, mate.

...I'm gonna enjoy this one, I can tell.