Oh be careful little eyes what you see,
Oh be careful little eyes what you see
The lights momentarily flicker, and Light looks up in confusion. Power problems rarely ever happen in the orphanage, and if there is an outage, they have a backup. So it is not surprising that the seven year old finds this little lapse in the system as new. He hasn't experienced one power problem ever since he has been brought to the Wammy's House. Until now, at least.
The devices finally resume their work, unblinking, and the boy looks back down to his and continues reading. He dismisses the episode as a small problem in the circuits and hopefully someone would inform Roger that it needed checking.
Once again he is lost in his studies, feeding knowledge to his ever hungry brain.
Beyond Birthday stops in his activity and cautiously looks around, as if trying to sense something. His eyes see nothing, but he is waiting. Something is off. Something is very, very off, and he knows it. How, he neither knows nor questions, but it is a strong feeling.
A stops in his tracks and turns back at him, "B, what is it?"
He doesn't look at the blonde boy, "There's something wrong"
"What is it?"
"I don't know," he admits, still wary, "But I can feel it."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes"
"It's not your imagination?"
"Trust me"
A silences himself, knowing full well that Beyond was being serious. Both of them resume walking and head for the stairs to the second floor.
"What do you think is wrong?" A prompts, and Beyond feels the wood under his palm grow cold, "The air."
The blonde lifts an eyebrow, "The air?"
"There's a shift in the air. Subtle, but it's there. It's like walking. You hardly need to think how to move your legs, but the change of position is there. You don't think about it, but it's there," B responds, both of them still not stopping until they reach the second floor.
"A foreshadowing?"
"If you think so."
A speaks again, "Should we be careful?"
"Always"
The blonde nods and they continue on their way to their room.
Dinner is ready and Light goes down to eat, his small feet pattering on the wooden floors as he reaches the kitchen.
He stops when he notices nobody is there.
No cook, no children, no food.
He frowns slightly. It was the hour for dinner, and yet there was nobody present. He then notices that the house is quiet, like no one had been here for an hour when he swears he had heard the others talking and laughing and walking around five minutes ago. He thinks it is strange, but at the same time he is curious. The air around him goes cold, and he freezes. He can't move, he doesn't want to. He feels stares on his back and he feels the urge to look back and see nothing but he can't move. The air gets colder. And colder. And colder. But small beads of sweat are forming on Light's forehead as the hair on the back of his neck stands, and he finds himself swallowing hard. A small creaking sound is heard.
He lightly gasps and roughly turns around when a hand touches his shoulder.
Red eyes stare at him, slightly confused at his expression and Light is relieved when it is Beyond Birthday and A looking at him. He wipes the sweat on his forehead with the back of one hand. A asks if he is okay and he says he is fine.
"Where is everyone?" the auburn-haired child asks, and both A and the raven-head in front of him look at each other like Light has gone insane: puzzled.
"What are you talking about? Everyone's right over there" B points to the kitchen and Light turns, and sure enough, everyone is there. The children are getting their meals and going to their tables and eating, some of the cooks are bringing new pots on the counter while some of them serve the children. There is mild conversation and a few chuckles. Light also notices how he only hears the sounds of them eating and talking after Beyond points out that they are right there.
"Are you sure you're okay, Light?" A asks
The boy nods, "Yes. I am fine."
All three of them go to get their food and share one table, B beside A and Light across the both of them. The entire orphanage knows that among all the children trained to be a possible successor to L, the three of them top the class. Thirteen year old A and B and seven year old Light – and only Light, because they all think it is his alias. They do not know it is his real name, just like they only know B as B and A as A – the institute's brightest students, after L, if L could be considered a student.
(But L is different, the three of them don't consider him a student. He is an anomaly of the human race that was housed under these very roofs, growing up to be more than what people saw as ordinary and making history in his wake.)
"Is he coming?" Light prompts after a few spoons
Beyond swallows and replies, "Who is coming?"
"L. It is October 31st."
The older boy hums thoughtfully, "Yes, I think."
"Ah."
They continue the meal with a few bits of conversation here and there, and for just a moment, Light forgets the strange incident a while ago.
A heads back to their room to get his phone while B and Light converse in the living room, talking about interesting subjects and how most of the news is getting boring every day. He pauses in his tracks when he faintly hears the sounds of two children arguing, bits and pieces of the conversation sounding suspicious.
"But…that dangerous…could die…don't…think?"
"Shut up…do…say!"
"Me-!"
"Do it…at…"
The blonde frowns slightly, because he's heard these voices before and he knows who they belong to, but he doesn't pursue them. Whatever it was they were doing would come to light eventually. So he turns, goes to his room, picks up his phone and heads back downstairs to join B and Light.
He taps Beyond lightly on the shoulder and the boy turns his head, "What is it?"
"Can you still feel it?"
Beyond frowns, "Yes."
"I see. I'll need your help then, I think something's about to happen."
The boy stands up and straightens his shirt, "Did you find something?"
A nods, "I heard Mello and Matt talking. Matt was saying about something dangerous and that everyone could die"
"Matt and Mello? Are they scheming again?" Light looks up at them
"I think so," A replies, "Those five year olds can be plenty of trouble."
"Are you sure it's just something they're doing, A?" B asks, "I don't think it's that simple. The atmosphere feels somehow…ominous."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean it feels like-!"
Pitch black.
A sound of a machine shutting down.
A black out.
"The lights were flickering earlier, right?" Light asks and he could faintly imagine A nodding with the accompanying noise of approval he was hearing, "Yes."
They stay silent, frozen in their positions for a few minutes, waiting for the lights to come back on. But more minutes pass and still no sign of anything sparking.
"Is the generator down or something?"
"I don't know." B responds, "I don't know but…"
Something creaks
"What was that?"
"The air's getting colder"
"AH!"
"Light!" Both A and B shout in unison while the lights flicker back on unexpectedly, breathing hard, both of them look down at a very pale Light who was sitting on the floor, staring at his right leg that was outstretched in front of him. His skin was not broken, but there was a huge wet stain of blood on his pants at the part of where his knee was. The blood was also on the floor surrounding his leg, with a few trails of it to his right.
"Blood?" A breathes after a while
"Those…those look like footprints…" B points to a few stains that resembled the said marks
"Ha-handprints as well," the blonde beside him adds
"I-I…" the auburn-haired child sitting on the floor was near sobbing, breathing unevenly and shaking, beads of sweat running down his face, "Something…very, very cold touched my knee."
"…This must be some sort of Halloween prank by the caretakers or something" A mutters
"A prank gone too far, then" B says, "Does this have anything to do with Matt and Mello?"
A does not answer, while Light swallows his saliva and tries to breathe every now and then.
He is terrified. Matt knows that he does not want to do this, but Mello forces him to. He has heard stories of incidents like these gone wrong, and if they messed up then it will mean the endangering of the entire orphanage. He gulps as the lights suddenly turn back on and he stares at the blank space in front of him.
Mello was gone.
"Mello?"
Tago-taguan, maliwanag ang buwan
(A game of hiding, the moon is bright)
Magtago sa dilim-diliman
(Go and hide in the dark of the night)
Pagbilang ng tatlo, nakatago na kayo
(At the count of three, hidden you must be)
Isa, dalawa, tatlo!
(One, two, three!)
A, B and Light all head to Roger's office while A holds onto a still pale Light, trudging forward. The lights turn off again along with the same machine-powering-down sound they heard earlier.
"Another power out?" Beyond grits his teeth
"They really need to get that thing checked," A snaps angrily. Once their eyes have adjusted to the dark, they resume walking toward Roger's office.
Only that they find themselves never getting closer.
"A," B stops them for a while, "We should have been there now. Why does the corridor seem like it's looping?"
"That's ridiculous," A says, voice quivering, "Corridors can't loop, B"
"This one looks like it does," Beyond responds, "A, we've been living in this house for a while now, this corridor was supposed to lead to Roger's office which is a right turn ahead. We should have been there five minutes ago, why are we still here?"
"B, shut up and continue walking."
"Take a good look, A." Beyond steps aside and both A and Light look at where Beyond once stood, a few feet away was the staircase that led to lower floor. The lower floor which had just come from a few minutes ago. Light squeezes A's hand harder and the blonde grits his teeth. He grabs Beyond and all three of them run downstairs. The boy swings the front door open and motions to step outside, only for it to violently swing back close, making them land backward on their backs.
"Wha…" B manages after a few seconds
"This is definitely one of the worst pranks I've ever encountered." A shouts, letting go of Light and burying his face in his palms, "Could they just stop it?"
"A.,."
Beyond's voice. He doesn't acknowledge the other boy.
"This isn't funny anymore," the blonde sobs, "To everyone watching the cameras, stop it, please."
"A!"
That was Light's voice, and yet he pays no attention.
"Don't screw around with me!"
"A!"
Then he feels it, the feeling of fingers entwining around his neck. At first he is stunned to the point where he freezes, then slowly, as the cold appendages curl clamp their palms onto his skin, he lifts his head, shivering, and the paleness of his face shadowed by the blackout. He starts sobbing when he hears the croaking sound behind him.
All three of them freeze while there is movement behind A. A figure, stark white, while the death rattle gets louder and louder.
Light screams and the figure behind A jumps up and leans forward, pushing A downward, screaming as well. Several light bulbs and glass windows shatter as B gets down and covers his ears while A remains in shock, unable to hear anything. The lights, those with bulbs intact, flicker off and on for a few seconds before sparking and fusing out and engulfing them in darkness once more.
The figure behind A is gone.
The seven-year-old slumps to the ground and chokes on his sobs while Beyond gets up and rushes to A, shaking him while frantically shouting.
"A!" he yells, but the boy remains staring at the floor, breathing hard, "A, snap out of it!"
The blonde finally looks up, distress on his face as tears stream down and Beyond hugs him and awkwardly pats his back. Whatever that thing was would eventually come back, but the problem was that if it did they wouldn't know what to do, especially with it trying to choke A. He stands up, grabs Light by the hand and heaves A up and start trekking toward Roger's office. Both of his companions were in a heavy state of shock, but he could not afford to leave them alone. Not with what just happened recently.
He arrives at the looping corridor, takes a deep breath and moves forward.
Roger's office is at the end of the turn to the right, he repeats in his head, Roger's office is at the end of the turn to the right. I know it's there.
And surprisingly, five minutes later, they arrive at the front door of Roger's office.
He knocks politely and when he hears the approval to enter, opens the door and steps inside with his companions. The room is brightly lit with the chandelier overhead and Roger sits on his chair by his desk, signing away paperwork as he normally does. He looks up at Beyond and smiles, asking his business here. All three of them are confused, but regain their composure. If they wanted to talk to Roger with enough sense for him to address the matter, they couldn't act like they were near catatonic due to hysteria.
"Have you experienced any problems with the power here, sir?" B asks
Roger shakes his head, "No, I haven't. Is something the matter?"
"It's just that," the boy starts, "Our rooms and the hallways seem to have their lights malfunctioning, sir. They flicker, some of them die out completely."
"I'll address the matter as soon as I can, B."
"Thank you, sir"
They step out of the room into the pitch dark and stand a bit to make their eyes get used to the surroundings. Light crouches down and looks through the crack beneath the door , and strangely, no sort of light comes from under it, like it normally would if the room were lit. B notices and Light sits up, confused.
"Why is there…"
"I don't know," Beyond replies, not bothering to let the younger child finish, "Once again, I…don't know"
"You've been saying that a lot lately," A finally speaks, trying to lighten the mood
B snorts, "Nice to see you're out of your catatonic state"
He receives a small nudge at the side and he chuckles.
"What do we do?" Light asks, still sitting
"Maybe," A replies, "We find the other children, see if they experience the black out too, or if their rooms are lit like Roger's."
"How do we find them?" the younger boy crouches down again to look at the crack
A looks at Beyond, "How did you get to the office without looping then, B?"
"I thought about it," came the reply, "I thought about how the office should be by the end of the hall. Untouched. Just the way it should be."
"And it was there," A ponders on this for a minute and then adds, "Let's first find Matt and Mello."
Light scans the crack for any trace of Roger at all, but then someone from the other side crouches as well and looks at him, the person's eye wide and visible and red, and he stumbles back in a panic, "Y-yeah…we should."
The red-headed girl walks into the dark hallway, confused by the blackout in the entire house. She hears a croaking sound and whips her head toward the direction, watchful for attackers. The sound gets louder and louder, but she cannot see anyone.
A gust of wind coming from nowhere pushes her backward, slamming into the glass windows. She falls from the third floor of the building to the ground, head first. Blood pools at the blades of grass as she lies there motionless, with her neck broken.
While the three of them were not the type to mingle with most of the children other than their close circle of acquaintances, the location of Matt and Mello's room was no hard place to find – not with all the trouble usually erupting in there and with Roger often having to drag both boys from their room so often. On the third floor of the orphanage, and Beyond, A and Light head for the door with 307 written in metallic gold lettering. A crash from a good distance makes all three of them whip their heads back.
The hairs behind Light's neck stand up and Beyond ushers the child to move forward and look ahead. They have reached the door in front of Matt and Mello's room.
Beyond immediately turns the knob of the door while A was about to hit his knuckles on its surface to knock, leaving his left hand assaulting air and pausing as his eyes focus on Beyond. They enter, and B notices the blonde's reaction.
"We've no time for formalities," he explains
A snorts, "At least I've the decency to be polite."
Light spots the red-headed five year old curled up in the corner of the room and approaches him. The child has buried his head in his knees, wrapping his arms around them, cocooning himself.
"Matt," the older boy shakes him, "Matt. Matt, wake up."
Matt slowly lifts his head up and looks at Light, green eyes teary. Light finds this new, because he has never seen Matt without his goggles on, the object seems to be left on the floor beside him.
"You got in," he chokes, "I thought it was locked from the outside."
"What?" B blurts, looking from the wide open door to Matt.
"Matt, what happened?" A steps forward as Light helps the young boy stand and join them on the other side of the room
"M-Mello's idea…" Matt chokes out, "…dangerous game"
Beyond lets out a puzzled sound and A whispers, "He's still a little disoriented. Something happened."
The raven head looks at the child again, and notices that his eyes are darting to and fro from various spots in the room. He hurries to the door and holds it open, afraid to have it slam close like the main door downstairs.
"Let's get out of this room first," he suggests, earning looks from Light and A, so he explains, "This place seems to disturb him."
They sit themselves on the corridor a few doors from the room after B closes it, Matt relaxes himself and takes a few deep breaths before starting, "It was Mello's idea. He said he got dared by some kid to do it. Specifically, he was dared to play with a Ouija board tonight, Halloween."
"Hard to imagine Mello, of all people, to be pushed around by a dare," A remarks
"There are a few kids," Matt fiddles his fingers, "That big kid from Block B on the second floor, didn't catch his name though."
"Oh, I know that one," Beyond nods, "Broke his nose a few times, wouldn't go near Light though. The kid glares good." And Light receives a hand ruffling his hair.
Matt continues, "So Mello did it. He asked my help to secure a board without the house knowing. He's not that good with tampering the system so obviously, that's where I come in.
"I told him it was dangerous, but he went along with it. For safety measures, we didn't perform it at midnight; the darer didn't specify the time. He just said to use the board. Obviously, that thing's effects aren't only confined at midnight."
"Maybe it's just worse at midnight," Light says, "But it could work at anytime."
"It may be weaker during the day then," A suggests
"So is that what we do now?" B asks, "Wait it out?"
Silence.
"What if it doesn't just disappear?" the raven-head continues after a while, "What if it weakens, but it's still there? What happens at night, then?"
Beyond gulps, Light stares at the ground and Matt's eyes reflect shame. A speaks up, "How sure are we that what these kids did is responsible for the events tonight?"
They don't answer for a while
"We don't" Light breaks the silence, "But we have to act under the assumption that it does. Even if it does not make any sense."
No one retaliates, and the young boy continues, "A, you've had an experience with them before, haven't you? That's why you're so scared, that you don't want it to be real."
A nods, "Yes."
"B, you are familiar with them, you're somehow close to the supernatural. Matt, you don't question its existence."
"I'm a kid, man," the red-headed dryly laughs, "And so are you"
"Stories are common in Asia, really." Light returns the laughter, "From how to see ghosts to how to kill them. I don't really know how it is here – in Europe."
"So you just don't question it, without a doubt?" B asks, "Even if you're only getting a faint hint of the situation?"
"If I was told I could kill anyone by writing their name down and it happens, I'd believe it," he says, scratches his head, then adds, "Maybe after two test runs."
The group chuckles a bit.
"So, what do we do?" A asks, "The halls are silent."
"We get them out," came the reply, "I don't care how or why the halls are silent, we get everyone out."
They all nod and motion to get up when Matt says," One more thing."
They look at him.
"After the first blackout, Mello went missing."
Near cups his hands over his ears as he curls up on top of his bed.
All three of them look at Matt as if he had just shot someone before Beyond breaks the silence with a "What?"
"He did." The five-year-old looks down, "Afterwards, I tried to get out of the room to find him, but it was locked. More like jammed and kept shut but something else though."
"Something that doesn't want you to find Mello." Light adds "You are either capable of stopping them from doing something to Mello, or they wanted to play with you separately."
"The former, probably," A replies, "Did anything strange happen after Mello went missing, Matt?"
He shakes his head and the blonde continues, "Matt, is Mello wary of the supernatural?"
"Very," he answers
"Then that means they would trying to break his mental facilities and deteriorate his state to insanity," Beyond says, "Without you to snap him to his senses, he'll make for good entertainment."
"Are they targeting Mello? Because he started this?" Matt asks, alarm in his eyes
"Oh, no. They – whoever 'they' are – do not have targets, whichever they find pleasure in seeing break down or kill, they target." It was clear that he wasn't thinking of bringing comfort and only chose to state what he believed a fact, but it doesn't help calm Matt down. A helps the young boy up and pats his back, Matt nods, as if understanding that A wants to say it was going to be alright.
"Okay, so what do we do first?" the red-head asks
"Well, we try to get everyone out, but obviously, splitting up would be a bad idea. The power is down so we can't tell them to get out and wandering around in the dark alone is dangerous, given the circumstances." A answers
"So we need to get everyone out in packs, just to be safe…" Matt says, absorbing the words, "It should be better especially for the younger kids…oh cr-!" and he bolts past them, racing to find a door.
Beyond follows suit in a panic, "Matt, what is it?!"
While the others race after his pattering, panicked footsteps, the sound of a name rings clear in the hallways, "Near!"
A child sleeps peacefully in his bed, shut down from the world and the looming threat of death over the orphanage. His shifts slightly, feeling a bit warm in the covers. His legs are heavy. He stirs awake, trying to shake feeling into his legs, much like what you feel when you've been sitting on them for too long.
He can't move his legs.
But something is moving underneath the covers, shifting the weight from the legs, up to his upper body, until whatever is moving crawls up directly near his face. From underneath the covers, a pale face of a woman peers at him with huge unblinking eyes and he screams.
The thumping increased both by speed and volume as the group approached the room. Reaching the door, Matt twists the knob, only to find it locked. He resorts to banging loudly on the wooden surface, "Near! NEAR! Near, are you in there?!"
Beyond tries the knob and gently lets Matt aside before stepping back, twists around and land his right foot on the door. The impact is enough to break a few parts into splinters, but not enough to open it. He backs away and tries again, getting blood smeared on the door. Three more kicks and the door falls ajar while Light bursts inside and climbs onto the bed where the four-year-old sits still, hands on his ears.
"Near. Near, we have to get out of here." Light gently shakes him
The child shakes his head, soft white curls moving, "What if they notice?"
"Who will notice?"
"Them." Near looks up at him, uncertainty in his face. Then he shifts his gaze to the other side of the room and his eyes grow wide, "Light…Light, look." He raises an finger and points to where he is looking at.
Light, puzzled, whips his head to where he is pointing and stops his breath short.
There, a noose stems from the high ceiling, attached to a hook. And the wearer of the noose, a figure wearing grey clothes, with her long black hair and shriveled, dehydrated hands, her head bowed low, looking at the floor. Light regains his breath, but both he and Near are frozen in their states, Near still pointing and Light not removing his gaze from her.
"Light, what's wrong?" Matt squeaks in the doorway, wary of coming inside.
Beyond stops A from stepping in, and Light says, "She's right there."
"Who's right there, Light?" B asks, eyes trained on the empty spot the boys fix their eyes at.
"Her. The hanging lady."
A and B simultaneously freeze for a second, and the lady, who only Light and Near can see at the moment, slowly raises her head up, letting out a death croak. She looks at them, her skin filled with cracks and looking like the dry earth in drought, before cocking her head to the side and smiling. Light and Near scream.
"Oh shhh-" Beyond and A storm into the room, the raven head pulling Light and Near into an embrace and pulling them off the bed before the noose breaks and the lady crouches low and shoots her off towards the boys. They evade just in time and she hits the wall instead. She turns to them, snarling, and Light and Near, who have fallen to the floor, scramble off of Beyond and run towards the door while A pulls B, who has landed on his back, and storm outside.
"Go, go. GO!" A shouts as Matt shakily starts running off in the other direction.
B sprints, adrenaline allowing him to ignore the pain on his foot, despite the continuous bleeding, "Open as many doors as you can, tell everybody to go outside!"
On instruction, they twist the doorknobs of every room they pass, thankfully wrenching open and poke their heads in, yelling at the occupants to get out and run outside. The mob of children follow them as they head downstairs, yelling and kicking or punching doors open.
When they reach the main door, the lock still holds it close and Beyond has lost too much blood from breaking open doors. A group of children rush into another room and the sound of glass shattering is heard, they come back later holding an axe and several cylinders of fire extinguishers. Handing the axe to A, they start hitting the hinges and the lock, before the door gives way and A directs them to go outside.
"You know, your command for not panicking to avoid injuries would be more convincing if you dropped the axe," B says jokingly
A grins, "Let's get your foot fixed up before I decide to chop it."
"Sure thing, Lumberjack."
Once outside, the younger children arrange themselves into a group while the older ones huddle by block. Someone from each group does a headcount and goes back to report to A. After the headcount, some of the children attend to B's foot while A assesses how many of them are out.
"So the blocks of the second floor are complete?" The blonde asks a girl from the older groups
"Blocks B to F are complete. We are missing one child from II-A, a young boy." She replies, wiping her forehead
"Was his room opened?"
She nods, "Yes, but he wasn't there."
A forms a slight frown and dismisses her, before turning away to speak to his best friend. The raven head's foot had stopped bleeding, but given there had been no first aid kits available, they had to wrap it up with a few torn parts from his sleeve. Beyond raises the left torn sleeve and gives A a smirk, "Best part about being in Wammy's is that children know how to arrange themselves in dire times, hmm?"
The blonde sits down and gives a breath of relief, "Maybe"
"How many are we here?" B asks
"Second floor is missing one kid, and three blocks are missing from the first floor. The staff isn't here. Actually, I haven't seen them around since this all started, aside from Roger," A replies, looking up, "It's like they are in a whole new plane of existence completely."
"They must be," Beyond replies, "What else?"
"Only a few kids from the third floor," A continues, and then he spots Near and Matt coming, "We've yet to find Mello, as well."
Just then the bell toll, loud and clear through the chilly air, and everyone falls silent.
"Midnight," Beyond Birthday pales, the change visible in the moonlight
A whips his head around frantically, finally noticing his mistake, "Where's Light?!"