Rome Nightmare

"I am Souichi Tatsumi, recently I'd came on vaccation with my little sister, Kanako and the man that had been chasing after me for years. I found him to be nothing more than a close friend. I don't know why I had agreed to come, it was mainly because Kanako had nagged and nagged me to go, I can't believe I gave in."

I sighed heavily, still jet lagged from the plane trip over, I looked out the window of our taxi, how much longer would it be until we reached our destination? I glared at Morinaga who smiled at me, I hated his stupid smile. Everything about him made me want to just punch him in the mouth, which I had done countless times anyway.
I averted my gaze to the pamphlet in his hand, it had the information imprinted onto it about the venue we were visiting.
"This'll be a great experience, you know" Morinaga's voice chimmed through my head, I just nodded in response and proceeded to look out the window as before, soon enough the taxi pulled over, Kanako was first out of the taxi, I got out after her while Morinaga paid the taxi fairs.
Looking around I saw an old broken down cathedral, first impression this place gave was, 'haunted' although Kanako stared at it like it was Disneyland.
I pouted, definately a bad idea to had agreed to this, it was insane.

"So, here I am, an old haunted cathedral in the middle of a ghost town in Rome, the last place I was expecting to be spending my holidays off university at."

I felt an arm slide around my waist, I turned my head and glared at Morinaga, only to have to look at his stupid smile, grinning upon me.
"Can we please get this over with?" I demanded, more then asked. Morinaga just nodded and smiled.
Kanako ran ahead of us as we walked into the building, this was supposed to be a well known torriest attraction, I couldn't see a single person besides Kanako and the idiot standing beside me.
I folded my arms and registered the foreign symbols engraved on the aged walls.
"I don't trust this Morinaga" I muttered uneasily.
"Calm down Senpai, this is cool, you can hear voices in the walls apparently" Morinaga explained.
"It's weird, they used to auction people here for goodness sake" I argued, butting in again before Morinaga had a chance to debate with me, "It's disgusting the things people do for money" I said, a moment of silence passed as we walked through the endless corridor.
"Now I suggest we..." My sentence was cut off by a sudden shrill scream echoing through the cathedral, I looked up. Taking note of the current surroundings, Kanako was gone.
"Kanako?" I yelled, no reply was made, I glared at Morinaga, beginning to panic, I ran in the direction that I heard the scream emit from.
"Kanako?" I screamed, my voice starting to shake, I knew coming here was a bad idea, dumb Morinaga, its all his fault.
It felt like this cold dark corridor would never end, I came to a room after what felt like forever of running, a stitch had formed in my stomach, jabbing at me like a knife with every breath I took.
I registered what was around, rows of chairs covered in dust, an old chandlier hanging from the doomed ceiling, stain glass windows, barely any light coming through them, and at the far end of the walkway between the chairs, a short amount of stairs led to an auction desk, I appraoched it, looking around.
There was no sign of Kanako anywhere, as I went to yell her name I heard my own being called for, I turned around and saw Morinaga just as he'd entered the room, "did you find her?" He asked.
I shook my head in response, "No."
There was a moment of lonely silence, I felt a cold sensation slither around my ankle, the bitter coldness seaped through my jeans.
It had registered my fear, it began moving faster, creeping up my legs. My first reaction was to scream, I felt Morinaga embrace me, I couldn't move, my skin was freezing over.
My arms were frozen solid beside me, axiety raced through me. Why wasn't Morinaga's body doing this, he seemed just fine.
"Senpai? What's happening? Why's your skin so cold?" I heard him say, looking into his eyes I could see his concern.
"S-somethings grabbing hold of me!" I responded, my voice shaking.
"What do I do?" He asked.
"I-I don't know" I stammered, the icy coldness was crawling up my neck, I tried to move, but it was useless, my body wouldn't move, soon enough my jaw was lock shut.
"Senpai?" Morinaga's voice came.
I felt my heart beat and life deplete, I closed my eyes tightly, the coldness felt as though it were contacting my bones and shattering them, I wanted to scream. But all that came was audible muffled agonizing crys from the intense pain.
Morinaga slowly lowered me to the ground as I collapsed.

"I am, Souichi Tatsumi. My heart, is being pierced by such an intense coldness, I can feel the supernatural eyes watching my, sucking my life from me, I can barely breathe. I felt Morinaga remove my glasses from my face, his hands? They were trembling. He didn't know what to do, but hold onto me, neither did I. I only knew this was incredibly painful, I stand by what I said, this was a stupid idea."

I choked, I felt a warm liquid oozing from my mouth, I could no longer breathe, attempting was pointless, my life was now detached from my body, leaving nothing now, but cold bitter darkness.

"I am Morinaga Tetsuhiro, I just watched my love die from some unexplainable force, I didn't often cry. But this hurt, Why didn't didn't I heed him when he'd said this was a bad idea? Because I'm an idiot, my senpai was always right. This was all my fault, he's... Dead"

I combed my fingers through his hair, my forehead pressed against his, my breathing shook, I sobbed silently in despair, "don't leave me, we still have to find Kanako" I sobbed.
No response followed, my heart broke, I reluctantly pulled myself together enough to reach for the cell phone in his pocket, I clasped it in my shaking hand and started dialing the emergency number, thank god they'd given it to us before we'd left the airport yesterday.
As I dialed the last digit the screen shattered into pieces and darted straight at me, slicing my tear covered cheeks, I gasped and dropped the phone, I looked around the room, not a sign of anything physical, I looked back at Senpai's face, his skin had become a light blue.
The moment replayed in my mind, he'd collapsed, blood had split from his mouth, it was all so unexplainable.
I had to find someone, I had to get out of here immediatly, get help finding Kanako, if she wasn't already dead.
I had to be positive "I'm so sorry Senpai" I mumbled, getting up, still holding his fragile body, as I lifted him, he still looked as though he were frozen solid, but his entire body was limp.
I spotted the enterance we'd came through and ran for it, straight back into the corridor that had led us to this awful place.
I kept running, my heart racing my chest, I ran for ages, breathing heavily, I didn't recall the corridor being so long, I couldn't see the exit anywhere.
Eventually I noticed, everything had changed, the aged walls had names and dates engraved into them, some were from hundreds of years ago, I slowed down and glared at them, having recognized a name, which read.

- Souich Tatsumi -

Died 24th of October 2008

I stared at it, my mouth ajar, that was today's date, that was Senpai's name, right beside was Kanako's, my eyes widened, I hugged the deceased body tighter in my arms and ran, this was all impossible.
What a worthless holiday, what a horrible memory.
He heard the walls start to crumble, the walls collapsed infront of him, I came to sudden halt and breathed shakily, walls collapsed behind me, I dropped to me knees holding Senpai closed to me, I closed my eyes tight.
Everything went silent, walls stopped falling. I slowly rose my head and looked around, a thich fog coated the ground, the air filled with a murky coldness.
I heard the walls crumbling again, I was prepared to try and escape it, without warning, hands appeared from the wall, faces became visible. The hands reached for the body in my arms, grasping one of his ankles and pulling him from my grasp, I lunged for him, only to be pulled back by the collar of my shirt.
I struggled, my eyes wide as I watch them pull Senpai away, I screamed and reached out for him, my attempts were useless.
I recieved a hard knock over the head which sent me to the ground, I breathed hard, a silver glint caught my eye, along with a shadowy figure.
I heard something split the air, a sharp agonizing pain slit straight through my throat, I clutched it, blood split from the wound. I gagged, trying to breathe. I felt the blood exract from my body. I tried to scream, I kept my hand out stretched to Senpai, trying to reach him.
I couldn't, I failed. My energy was going fast, I closed my eyes, gagging on the blood emerging from my throat.
I'd die knowing I failed to stay alive, die knowing I failed to reach my love.
This was the end, everything went black.

I awoke, the sun raze trickling through the blinds left of my bed, I slowly opened my eyes and stretched my arms, my body was covered in sweat, I cast the blankets aside and sat up. Looking around the familiar room. I sighed with relief, "It was all just a dream..." I mumbled to myself, I got up and stumbled quietly out to the loungeroom.
To my delight Senpai was there, asleep on the couch, 'That's right, we'd had an arguement earlier about going on holidays' I recalled.
I approached him and gently shook his shoulder to wake him, He awoke almost instantly, "mm?" He grumbled into the pillow.
I stared at him for a moment, "good morning Senpai" I greeted warmly.
"Morning" he replied lazily.
"Hey Senpai?" I said, getting his attention.
"Yeah?"
"Let's cancel that trip to Rome" I said smiling.
Happy he'd agreed, I went to the kitchen and let him continue sleeping, after all, a holiday in Rome, really was a stupid idea.

- End -