Rough draft I

The room was empty, save for a maple desk, a red famicom, and of course, the large bed sitting against the right wall. It was all she had ever known, and truthfully, it was all she had ever wanted. She liked being alone, she thought, it was easier to live without the hassle of people; without the hassle of the emotions and work that are associated with them. Besides, she was content with how it was now, so why change anything?

Madotsuki kept looking at her bedroom door. She knew that beyond it was the outside world, full of people she didn't care to see. She sighed as she shook her head in a sort of disapproving manner and walked over to the famicom. She turned it on and saw the same game - the only game - that she had. Her eyes were glued to the screen as she watched the little red man run around, jumping up to catch eggplants in his mouth.

Madotsuki lost track of the time, it was after midnight when she finally put down the controller. She stumbled out to the balcony before going to bed. She liked looking at the stars and the city beneath her; it reminded her of something, but she couldn't remember quite what it was. Turning away from the view, Madotsuki opened the door to the balcony and walked back into her room, laid down on her bed, and slowly drifted off into slumber.

Again she was on the balcony; but something was different, far different. The sky and the city beneath her changed to an almost desert-like scene. Nothing else was really out of place; the balcony's railing was still there and the air conditioning unit to the left was in fine shape, but it was as if her apartment had just switched locations.

She went back into her room, which again, was completely normal. Not really caring where she was (as long as she was alone), she sat down in front of her television, grabbed the famicom controller, and pressed the television on. NASU didn't fill the screen, instead a flickering eye appeared on the television, not necessarily blinking, but the lights from the television were actually flickering. Madotsuki jumped back and threw the controller at the television, it busted, but the eye was still there, as if it wasn't even being projected by the TV; and was, in actually, hovering in front of it.

In an act of sheer desperation, she ran back toward her bed, and hid under the covers. Clenching the sheets and peeking out of them only when she thought it was safe. Minutes passed, and then an hour, until Madotsuki simply just couldn't live with the curiosity of what was happening around her as she hid in darkness. She pulled the cover down just below her eyes, and saw the unnerving eye watching her, but doing nothing else.

She crawled off her bed and went over to it, nothing she did had any sort of real effect on the object, and although it wasn't doing anything necessarily threatening, Madotsuki still felt uneasy while it watched her; to the point where the thought of leaving her bedroom actually crossed her mind. Sure, she would feel incredibly uneasy and scared around people as well, but at least she knew what to expect, this was just so unknown.

She made up her mind once the music started. A soft but eerie sound emitted from the television; she was afraid to look up at it, but when she did, she saw that the eye had been replaced with a full screen picture of what she could only describe as Aztec men holding spears. This again, shocked her, especially considering the television was completely busted from the remote.

Eyes closed, Madotsuki made a dash for the door; she rushed out and slammed it behind her. Wiping the sweat off her brow, she opened her eyes to find that not only was she not in the apartment corridor, but she was also still just as nervous and scared as previously. The room that she was in now was a dark, circular room with 12 doors, each one with a design more perturbing than the last.

Truthfully, Madotsuki thought, they weren't quite as bad as she made them out to be. One of them had a set of eyeballs as decoration, but that was about as worse as they got. Still, she had just entered what she can only assume to be a totally different dimension; this was definitely not what apartment corridors looked like. Cautiously, she walked around, examining each of the doors. A few just looked like normal doors (albeit oddly colored), some of them seemed to be made of a different material, but really, they each seemed rather harmless, except for the Eyeball Door, which Madotsuki was a bit too frightened of to get close enough to examine it.

She sat in the middle of the doors and quickly went through her options. She could go through one of the doors, return to her room with her possessed television, or stay here in utter darkness until someone, or something finds her. Scared and without quite a lot of choices, Madotsuki decided to enter the least intimidating door.

It was a dark purple door with the only designs being light purple edgings in the shape of rectangular, which is pretty much the norm for wooden doors. As she peeked through the creek, she saw a snowy land with a couple of trees that looked delightfully peaceful and calm. She walked in, and although it was cold, there didn't seem to be anything particularly scary about it.

Deciding that she couldn't just stand in the cold until someone came to find her, Madotsuki realized that she may as well look for her own way out. The snow came up to her ankles, and it made things difficult for Madotsuki to walk, especially since the snow was creeping into her shoes and engulfing her toes.

The cold was really getting to her; she had wished she had never entered the door. She looked back to try and find that very door, but all she could see was snow; there was no way she was going to be able to find her way out. She started to yell out in desperation, and then, she saw her. A beautiful girl wearing a long, white kimono with really long dark hair was wandering around, seemingly lost, between some trees.

Despite her fear of people, Madotsuki knew the situation. Either ask this woman for directions or help, or die from freezing. Although hesitant, the answer was clear, and she approached the girl. As she got closer, the girl seemed to get farther away, or blend into the snow. Either way, it took quite the time to reach her, and when she finally got there, Madotsuki noticed something oddly familiar about the woman, though Madotsuki brushed it off as nothing; she hadn't known many people throughout her life, after all.

Madotsuki tapped her on the shoulder, and when she turned around, she realized where she had seen the woman before. Madotsuki stumbled back and let out a scream. Her face was completely empty; she was a Yuki-onni, a snow demon, something that'd freeze her and collect her body as a trophy. Madotsuki didn't stop to talk or question the girl, but instead, Madotsuki just ran away from the being under the assumption that those fairy tales her mom told her when she was little were true.

She ran in the cold, toes in searing pain from the snow, until she saw something unexpected and out of place. Right there in the middle of a blizzard, sat a cozy bed, almost identical to her own, with a nice, big comforter to hide under. Madotsuki knew it was silly to hide under the blanket, but what other choice did she have? Run until her legs wore out and then let it catch her? Madotsuki knew she didn't have much of a choice, besides, the blanket looked warm.

She cowered under the covers, and even when she took peeks and saw that the Yuki-onni wasn't there, she pulled the blanket quick back over her head, just in case. She sat there for what she would call hours, until finally, she just dozed off.

When she awoke, she was not in a bed.

She was sitting on a long flight of purple stairs. Instead of railing, the side of them had grotesque hands – the kind you'd expect to see in horror movies, deformed and missing fingers – lining the steps. There were no walls or even a floor that she could see around her, just pure and utter darkness, and of course, those hands.

Madotsuki, again frightened, ran down the flight of stairs as quickly as she possibly could. She could finally see the gray floor, but in her excitement, her legs went a bit faster than she meant for them to go, and she tripped, landing face first on the concrete floor.

It wasn't anything major – just a small scrape on her face – but she felt pain. Something she was unaccustomed to because of her reclusive lifestyle. She didn't like the feeling, and when she saw the blood drip, it almost made her faint. Madotsuki decided that she wasn't very strong, and finally decided to get up and walk it off after a bit of crying.

She kept following the concrete corridor until she saw wisps of flames emit from a door at the end of it. Madotsuki threw her hands up in the air in frustration. Flames or creepy hands? She thought. What the heck is going on? Why am I here? Madotsuki was almost at the point of tears, all she wanted was to be back in her room, playing her famicom and lying in her bed.

And that's when she realized it; despite this place being horribly scary, despite it being full of her worst fears, she did find it different, she had been living in her apartment alone for almost 6 years, it was almost a nice change of pace. Almost.

At least, that's what she was thinking before the snow started falling.

She looked around for the Yuki-onni, but could see no sign of her. Suddenly, she realized that she herself was wearing the Yuki-onni's clothes, shocked and confused, Madotsuki closed her eyes tightly and shook her head erratically, hoping that it was just an illusion. Sure enough, when she opened her eyes, she was in her normal clothes and the snow was gone. But the flames seemed to have been suffocated.

Confused but curious, Madotsuki entered into the door that hosted the flames. It was all the same thing, a gray corridor with nothing much inside it except some pale colored boxes. There was another hallway, and having no where else to go, Madotsuki entered it.

The walls suddenly changed from that dull gray to a plainer white. There was an odd black hole that Madotsuki could only guess was a window high above her. She kept going in the white room, not particularly looking for anything.

The soft melodies of a skilled pianist seemed to come from deeper inside the room. They seemed melancholic and sad, but they had a certain feel to them that was ominous and unsettling. Madotsuki was cautious, but eventually let her curiosity guide her, no longer quite as afraid of the unknown as she was before.

Entering into the main room, she could see a large round table with two chairs on either side. Looking around, she spotted a very large window in front of an even larger piano, with only a single, darkly-garbed man playing it. Everything in the room was white except for the man, and Madotsuki thought that odd. The window showed stars and darkness and planets and moons.

The man didn't look particularly dangerous like the other things Madotsuki had encountered. She walked towards him, and he stopped playing and walked back cautiously, almost as if he was scared. The man was trembling and his hands were held against his short black hair in defense. His head slowly lifted up, and despite his arms shielding his face, Madotsuki noticed his eyes.

They were black, beady eyes that shot off in opposite directions. His left eye shot downward, while his right seemed to be facing an upwards position, he looked rather ridiculous, Madotsuki thought, but not in the least bit harmful.

"A-Are you going to hurt me?" He said, his voice full of anxiety and fear as he kept backing away from Madotsuki.

The girl looked at him questioningly, he was now almost halfway across the room, his hands covering his face, and continuously going back. Madotsuki wasn't particularly sure how to respond, of course she wouldn't hurt him, why would he even think that?

"Why do you think I would hurt you?" said Madotsuki, barely audible in a quiet and calm voice. A voice that isn't used much at all. She tried walking toward the man, but he just made a flailing motion with his hands and motioned her to stay back. After a few moments of silence with Madotsuki and the black-haired man staring at each other, he finally decided to respond.

"I don't like people; I like being alone. When you're here, I'm not alone." said the black-haired man quietly, who had now backed himself up against a wall. He started to sit down with his head buried in his knees, and his hands covering his head.

"If you don't like people, why do you have two chairs? And such a large piano?" Madotsuki replied, again in the softest tone she could muster. She stopped facing the man and turned around, back toward the entrance of the space ship, but before starting on her way back, she added. "I don't like people either."

The man lifted his head up from his knees and looked at Madotsuki. "Wait," he called out, "Y-You don't like people either?"

Madotsuki turned back around and didn't really answer him. They just stared at each other. At least, that's what Madotsuki thought the man was doing; it was hard to tell with his odd eyes. Minutes passed before someone said anything, and it was the man who finally broke the silence. "My name's Ma-Masada. D-do you want to play the piano with me?" He was still obviously nervous, but he didn't seem to be afraid.

Madotsuki still didn't say anything, but instead, she walked over to the piano and started playing. She wasn't very good and kept hitting the wrong notes, but Masada kept telling her she was doing fine, even when she obviously wasn't. They started laughing when a particularly hard piece ended up sounding like the sound effects on NASU.

Masada and Madotsuki both grew tired after hours of playing, Madotsuki especially, since she had wandered around prior to this. Masada, who was now cheerful and delighted to have her company, gave her a few drinks and let her stop practicing for a while.

"Masada," Madotsuki started, in between sips of the drink he had handed her, "do you still hate me because you're not alone anymore?"

The notes that were floating around the room came to a halt, and Masada hesitated. After another bout of silence, Masada turned to Madotsuki, and with a smile on his face and his eyes wide opened, said "I'm glad we're not alone anymore."

They played and talked and shared stories until Madotsuki was just too tired for anymore. Masada showed her to a large, white bed that was built in to one of the walls of the space ship. He tucked her in, and as he left to the main room, he heard Madotsuki say, under her breath, "Sweet dreams, Masada-sensei."

It took Madotsuki a while to wake up. And when she did, she was in her room. Her television wasn't busted, and only the NASU menu screen was on it. She seemed to have sweated in her dreams, because her hands were wet as if she had been nervous. Getting up, she looked around her room a second time, just to ensure that nothing was out of place.

The room was the same, with her maple desk, her red famicom, and of course, her large bed sitting against the right wall. It was all she had ever known; but for some reason, she was no longer content with it. She thought she still liked being alone, but maybe it was okay to let just a few people in.

Madotsuki looked out on her balcony and saw stairs that weren't there before. Steps that had nothing to the left and right of them, just like the stairs that led to Masada. And, wanting to see him again, Madotsuki climbed the stairs. An anxious expectance was drawn across her face as she ascended, but right before she was at the top, she tripped and fell, landing face forward on the concrete floor.

Masada stared out into space, the soft, melancholic melodies of his piano drifting through his room. The piano keys were wet with tears, so the notes stuck together and had a bit of delay. He was alone again, and he hated every moment of it.