Haunted

Pairings: Amuto, Tadamu, Kutau, Rimahiko.
Warnings: Paranormal.

(( Hello~ My name is Electric Plum. This is my first Shugo Chara story, and I hope you enjoy it! I don't own Shugo Chara, of course! The characters are all older, because otherwise it might not be plausible. Elementary school students ghost hunting? I don't think so. So Amu is a ninth grader. You can figure out everyone else's ages from there – I'm too lazy to think about it. This is loosely based on the Ghost Huntress book series, which I don't own either. Enjoy! ))

Chapter 1

Hinamori Amu couldn't sleep.

It wasn't that she had drunk too much soda or was too excited – she just… Couldn't sleep. Well, that wasn't it, exactly. She felt like she was being watched. It could have been that she was in a new house and wasn't used to her surroundings, but that wasn't the reason. It didn't help that her mother checked in on her every fifteen minutes.

"Amu-chan?" Right on time. Her mom was a magazine reporter, but not for a cool one that let her meet celebrities. She wrote for a housewives' magazine, focused on cooking and cleaning and raising children. She did have a good knowledge of home remedies because of it. Amu had downed too many cups of noxious tea to count whenever she came down with a cold. Amu switched on her lamp, blinking at her surroundings. She still wasn't used to the purple walls of her new room. The lamp and blankets were mismatched, taken from her room at their old house. The new house was much bigger, and was more recently built as well. It wasn't creepy or anything, just… Different. It unnerved her.

"What?" Amu replied. Her mom walked in, holding what looked like a little white radio. It didn't have an antennae or anything, though.

"I found this in Ami-chan's old things. It's a white-noise machine." She paused, giving a smile. "See, it's been proven to help people of all ages sleep, not just babies. It has ocean sounds, womb sounds…"

Amu interrupted her mother, sliding out of bed. "No offense, Mom, but I just don't think womb sounds are going to help me sleep. Thanks for the thought, though. I'll give it a try." She took the small white box and guided her mother out of the purple room.

She laid back in bed, huddling under the pink and yellow quilt. She was freezing all of a sudden. Amu pushed a button labeled "midsummer" at random, and the room filled with the sound of crickets and cicadas. She turned off her lamp and closed her eyes.

There was that feeling.

Someone was watching her.

The crickets were a bit comforting, but they didn't help much. She shifted in bed, laying on her side. Suddenly, an odd sound came from the white noise machine.

"Aaaahm heee yaah."

She bolted upright. The whisper was barely there, but she had heard it. She must have been crazy. "What?" She squeaked. It's not a ghost, she tried to reason as her heart began to race. I'm just so tired that I'm hearing things.

"Ahm Heyah."

I'm here.

"Go away!" Amu tunneled under her quilt, clasping her hands together. It's a ghost! She prayed to her guardian angel, which was the only thing she could think to do. "Please, guardian angel-sama, protect me. I'm sorry I've doubted you, but I really need your help right now!" She whispered, hoping that she wasn't just speaking to air. There had to be guardian angels, since there were ghosts… Right?

Needless to say, Hinamori Amu didn't get to sleep that night.

In the morning, she shrugged into her school uniform, adding her own personal touches – plaid legwarmers, buttons on the collar… She had developed a sort of punk style over the years, encouraged by her parents. She and her little sister were almost exact opposites. If Amu was punk, then Ami was pink. If Amu was chocolate, Ami was vanilla. Amu swiped on some mascara around her amber eyes, and pulled a bit of her pink hair back with her signature X clip. She stepped back, studying her reflection in the full-length mirror. She still looked like she hadn't slept, but it would have to do. It was just her luck that a ghost would haunt her before her first day of the eighth grade. She inhaled the eggs her mom fixed, posed for a couple of pictures for her father – he worked as a wildlife photographer, but insisted on recording every moment of his girls' lives – and then began her walk to Seiyo Academy.

((I hope you liked. I'm looking for a beta reader for later chapters – let me know in a review if you're interested! Thanks! ~EP ))