Chapter 1: Job Offer
Screams echo through the halls. A little girl, crying over a woman's body, blood spilling from her stomach. A voice breaks the silence. "It's your turn, precious!" The girl turns swiftly behind her, and finds a mysterious figure, looming behind her, a knife dripping blood in hand. The young child runs out of the old, creaky house, looking behind her to see if she was being chased.
The girl trips while running and face plants into the grass, dirt covering her body. She quickly turned around and saw the house she once lived in, on fire. A black shadow appeared in front of the doorway. The child frantically shook, sweat dripping from every part of her body. The shadow ran towards her. The house came crashing down on the shocked figure trying to escape. Flames engulfed the area as sirens were heard in the distance.
Mai jerks up from her bed, breathing heavily. "What was that? A dream?" Mai turned her head, noticing the time on the clock. 8:37… "AAHH! I'M LATE!" The brown haired girl rushes out of her bed, scrambling to get ready. She looked through her closet and decided on brown short that went to her knees, along with a shirt, adorning pink and green diamonds on the front with brown diagonal lines intersecting the diamonds.
Mai grabs her back and heads down the street to the Shibuya Psychic Research center. "Ah…Naru's gonna lecture me again for being late. Well, let's just get this over with." Mai opens the door and walks into the living room, seeing Naru, Lin and what appeared to be a client sitting on the couch.
"Mai, your late!" Mai sighed. 'I knew it..'
"Sorry Naru, I overslept a bit. I won't be late again."
Naru sighs and puts his hand on his head. "It doesn't matter, just make us some tea." Mai nods and leaves to make the tea. After a while, Mai entered the living room with 3 cups of tea. She sat down next to Naru as the client began to explain why he was here.
"Please proceed."
"Yes, right. In my town, there's a certain house on a hill. A few years ago, the house caught on fire and burned down. However, last year, they decided to rebuild the house so they can sell it. The construction ended about 5 weeks ago. Ever since then, people would come to visit the house in the interest in buying it, but strange things occurred and people never came back to the house."
"Can you explain exactly what things have happened?" Naru questioned
"Yes. People thought it was a prank at first, but they would suddenly get the chills like something was near them. They would hear questions like, "Where is my daughter! What have you done to her!" Everyone would immediately turn around and find no one there. I have also experienced these things, but the real reason why I'm here happened just a few days ago. I was walking past the house and saw two figures in the window. It was a man and a woman, they looked like a couple. But they were looking out as if they were waiting for someone to come. People have also reported seeing another apparition of a man holding a knife running at them."
"A daughter, you say?"
"Yes. The family that used to live there had a daughter. No one knows what happened to her. After the house burned down, we only found the bodies of the wife, husband, and the killer. The daughter went missing."
"I see…I'll take the case."
"Thank you so much." The client left the office. Mai cleaned up the tea and washed the mugs.
"Lin, gather the team, we're heading out this weekend." Lin walks out of the living room and into his office to contact the rest of the group.
Later that week at the house
The group arrives at the house and Mai begins to have this feeling like she's being watched, which makes her shiver. They enter the house and Mai realizes that this was the same house from her dream a few nights before. The group sets up base in one of the bedrooms, setting up the main monitors around the house.
"Mai, take this camera down the hall into one of the bedrooms," Naru told me. I nodded and grabbed the camera from Naru. She left the room and walked towards the bedroom.
The hallway dropped in temperature, sending a chill down Mai's spine, her hairs standing on end. Someone was watching her. Mai freezes as she hears a chilling voice right next to her. "Welcome back, my precious…" The voice sounded like a man. Mai wondered who it was, thinking it was a prank. She swiftly turned around but saw no one near her.
Mai shivered in fright, as she felt a hand tap on her shoulder. "KYA!" Mai screamed as the person behind her was taken aback.
"You alright Mai?" The brown-haired girl looked up and saw a woman with long reddish-brown hair.
"Oh, Ayako. It's…nothing…" Mai went into the bedroom and positioned the camera. Ayako thought that Mai was lying when she said nothing happened but decided to ignore it.
After all the equipment was set up around the house, Mai went to the room where she would be sleeping while on the job. Mai entered the bedroom and found it strange that she seemed to recognize the room. She ignored the feeling and laid in the bed. "I wonder what's going to happen now…"