First Higurashi when they cry fic
(If it seems hard to grasp what's going on then I wrote this fic the right way, some spoilers if you haven't fully watched when they cry)
My name is Jonathon Chains I live in the UK, London to be specific, I'd say I have an average enough life, I go to an average school live in an average house and do all around average things. One thing I do enjoy is watching the occasional anime and horror show so anything that does both together usually gets my attention.
John sat down and watched a new one he'd been watching for a while now "So that's what was going on the whole time. Interesting plot twist."
"John come on, lights out!" his mother called.
"Right, right" he turned off the TV and went to bed.
The next day he woke up not to his alarm but to the sound of cicadas.
'Cicadas in London? Maybe it's just mum pulling a prank.'
"John get ready, Rika will be waiting for you!"
John was too sleep-deprived to notice what she just said and got dressed for the day and went to the front door and opened it to a country village. John shut the door and then slowly opened it again and saw the same. He shut the door again 'I must've gotten less sleep then I thought' he opened the door again and stepped outside, the country was still there. "Mum."
"Yes?" she appeared.
"Where are we?"
"At home in Hinamizawa."
"…okay, okay I get it, jokes over call out the camera crew" said John.
"There is no camera crew" said his mother "now go on don't keep anyone waiting."
"Mom I'm serious now this is no longer funny" said John.
"I'm not your going to be late for school" she said "now go."
"But this-" she shoved him outside and shut the door on him. "What is going on?" John went the route he remembered from the show and made sure to not speak to anyone. That was difficult though with everyone saying hi to him and calling him by name.
He made it to the school and was let in; no-one seemed to object to some foreign stranger entering the place.
"Hey John" said a familiar voice.
"Mion Sonozaki."
"Huh, what's with the full name?"
'Calm down this is all just a dream yeah I'll wake up at some point.'
"Are you feeling alright, you look a little pale" said Mion.
"N-not a lot of sleep" said John. He saw Rika come in as well and then something that made his blood really run cold. There was a horned girl floating around her. John sat down quickly.
"Are you sure your feeling alright, maybe you should lie down."
"Yeah maybe I should." He went to the nurse's office and sat down. "Okay stay calm everything will be fine. This is all just a dream, just a dream, go to sleep and you'll wake up."
John went to sleep and soon woke up, he checked his watch and saw it was seven o clock and he was back in his room. John checked outside and saw London as he expected. Just to be on the safe side he asked his mother about Hinamizawa and she asked where that was.
"All just a dream" John walked outside and headed off to school "nothing at all to worry abo-" he was hit by a speeding car and flew into a phone booth. He blacked out.
"John, John!" John woke up and saw Mion and Satako looking down at him. He jumped up and was surprised by the lack of pain or injuries.
"Is…is this hell?" asked John.
"Uhh…"
"Hey just because I'm here doesn't mean this is hell!" yelled Satako.
"I wouldn't be too sure of that Satako" said Keiichi.
"Who asked you?!"
John checked his watch and saw the time "Its…it's…"
"You slept through the whole day" said Mion.
"This…this can't be this doesn't make any sense" said John.
"You must've been really tired to sleep through the whole day" said Rena.
"Sleeping but I-I was in London I got hit by a car why would I still be here?!" everyone looked at each other.
"John you've been here the whole time you never left the nurse's office" said Mion.
"Yeah we even came by to check on you more than once" said Keiichi.
'No, no this is a dream wake up, you are not in a class A death trap known as Hinamizawa, wake up!'
"Wow that must've been a pretty vivid dream for him to think it's that real" said Rena.
"Shut up! Shut up hallucination you do not exist now go away. This is just a dream I'll soon wake up from."
"He really has it bad" said Rika.
"Well luckily I know what will make him feel better" said Mion "time for club meetings again."
"The club?" asked Keiichi.
"Yeah the after school club we're all a part of" said Mion.
"What's it do?"
"It plays games after school" said John.
"John you ruined the cool speech I was going to give" complained Mion "but at least you're getting back to normal."
"Back to normal, why does everyone keep acting like I've lived here for years?"
"Seriously John if this is an act cut it out" said Satako.
"Look at this" Rika showed him a picture of him in a class photo from last year.
"But this…this is…"
"Come on we can still get a game in before our show is on" said Mion.
"Our show?" he was dragged out of bed and into the class room that was now the club's.
"Okay now since we're just welcoming Keiichi into the club and John is having problems let's stick to something simple" Mion went through the cupboard and went through old games John remembered seeing on the show.
'So this is all a hallucination then.'
"Is Old Maid good?"
"That's fine by me" said Keiichi ignoring John's warning signals.
"Okay then" she dealt out all the cards and something was off. John knew he hadn't done this before yet he could remember which card was which perfectly. Every single crease, every bend as if he'd done this tons of times. He saw the transparent horned girl behind Rika look at him worriedly and looked away before Rika noticed it.
'What the hell is going on?'
"Hey all these cards are old and bent" said Keiichi "you wouldn't by any chance have them all memorized would you?" all the girls giggled evilly "oh come on that's not fair!"
"If you're not cheating you're not trying" said John trying to seem normal to everyone.
"Like he said you must do anything to win" said Mion.
"The loser plays a penalty game" said Rena.
"So do whatever you have to, to win" said Satako.
"You're doomed" said John.
"Try your best Keiichi" said Rika.
"Okay I will!"
Just like in the show Keiichi lost miserably.
"Now the penalty game" said Mion. John shrugged and thought more about this situation and how disturbing it was.
'On the chance this is real have I been infected already?' in which case his panicking might be inducing the syndrome already and the thought of that wasn't helping.
"Just in time the show will be on" said Mion. She got the TV out and plugged it on.
"What TV show is this?" asked Keiichi.
"Some reality show from Britain" said Rena "we caught John watching it once and we got hooked." John watched what was his own school, his class schedule, his street, his house, his room down to the exact detail all done with a comedy edge to it.
"And sometimes they go to other places in Europe" said Mion.
'Calm down, calm down if you've already got the syndrome don't make it worse' thought John, easier said than done.
John went home soon after making sure to remain as un-paranoid as possible again easier said than done.
"I'm back" said John.
"Welcome home" said his mother.
"Say mom, how long have we lived in Hinamizawa?"
"How long? My, my its' been so long since we moved it feels like we always lived here, but I'm sure we moved here when you just turned 5 so it's been at least 10 years."
"That long?"
"We have photos a lot of them are in your closet remember?"
"Right, right of course they are" John looked through all of those. So many pictures of himself along with Mion or Rena and both and then more recently Satako and Rika came into them too. "Just what is going on here?"
He tried going back to sleep again, maybe in the morning he'd wake up back in London and this would be over.