"Hey! Come on! Get up!"

"Sumiko, if this happened because of that stupid charm you made me do, I am going to kill you," I groaned, slowly sitting up. When nothing around me looked familiar, I forgot all about what I'd just said. "Where are we?"

"It looks like an old school," my friend said, looking around. "This place... it looks familiar. I... I think... I've been here before."

"Ok, so where are we?" I repeated the question, getting slightly annoyed. Standing up, I noticed Sumiko shaking. "Hey, what's with you?"

She didn't respond, so I tried again, getting through this time. "Yo, Sumiko! Come back to reality! What's got ya so scared?"

"I remember... I remember everything now, Xiao," she said, reminding me that before she'd transferred, she'd lost her memory. No one knew why or how, so she transferred to start over. Some of it came back over time, but everything about what had caused the amnesia in the first place had stayed a mystery. "I know this place. We're going to die."

"Don't you be getting all negative on me now," I shouted at her. Sure, it was probably pretty heartless, but I didn't need her getting all weepy on me. That was the last thing we needed. "Where's that little-miss-sunshine Sumiko?"

"You always say I'm too cheerful," she whimpered.

"Yeah, well, forget about that, ok?" I started to walk down the empty hallway, trying to find some sort of exit. "We gotta get outta here and get home."

"We can't..." Sumiko cried. Immediately I stopped. Part of me hoped I'd heard wrong. "There isn't a way out! We're trapped until they kill us and then we suffer for the rest of eternity!"

"You said you were here before, didn't you?" I argued. "How'd you get out?"

"I... I don't know! There was an earthquake and when I woke up I was home. None of my friends who came with me made it out!"

"Well then they're probably still here," I said, making a poor attempt at being optimistic. It'd been about a year since Sumiko had transferred, and that was a long time to survive in a place like this. "We'll find them and we'll get out of here together."

Before she could say anything, the ground started shaking just as it had before it sent us here. The two of us were thrown to the ground and I blacked out.

When I finally woke, I was alone. Everything around me was different.

"Sumiko?" I called out, but there was no response. "Guess I'm alone then. I wonder if she got home like before?"

Soon, I found myself wandering through the seemingly endless hallways until I realized that I was getting nowhere. Every so often I saw a few skeletons, though I doubted they were real. I didn't bother investigating because I simply didn't care. Not like anything could be done anyway.

Sitting down and leaning on a nearby wall, a song my mother used to sing came to my mind. She'd once said it was a song used to calm restless spirits, though I'd never believed it. Sure, I still sang it, but it was because it sounded pretty.

Maybe it was because I was lonely and missed home or maybe because I just needed something to do to keep my nerves under control, who knows, but I began to sing that song. It always seemed more like a lullaby than something to soothe spirits, but I suppose it could work either way.

Rest my little one

The day is done, it's time to go

Let your dreams take you far away

Rest my dear until the dawn

Don't be afraid of the darkness

I'll never let it harm you

My arms will shelter you from the cold night's wind

I'll be here, my little one

Staying by your side

Until the morning arise

As I sang to myself, I didn't notice that I'd had an audience. It was only one, but still kinda freaky when you didn't know anyone was around. Looking up, I noticed a small boy sitting just a few feet in front of me. For a moment, I didn't realize that he was actually a ghost.

He tilted his head to the side, almost as if he wanted to ask something or if he was confused. To be honest, I wasn't really sure I wanted to know.

"Do you know that song too?" I asked, letting my curiosity get the best of me and trying to guess what he wanted to say.

He nodded then tilted his head again, this time pointing at me and trying to say just one word. "Siihher?"

"Siihher?" I mumbled to myself, trying to understand what he'd tried ask. When I finally got it, I wanted to slap myself in the forehead for being so stupid. "Sister?"

He nodded, pointing at me again.

"Am I your sister? Is that what you're asking?"

He nodded again.

I felt sorry for him. He looked like he'd died quite painfully, and then he was alone. It was really sad, even to someone like me. "No, I'm sorry," I softly. "Is she here somewhere?"

He shook his head and then tilted it to the side yet again.

"Why don't you talk?" I ask, copying his head tilt. When he just opened his mouth, I realized he couldn't. Or at least he had whole lotta trouble trying to. His tongue had been cut out.

"Poor thing, it must have been awful going through all of that," I sighed, before another thought hit me. "I don't even know your name. Do you think you can write it?"

Searching around, I found nothing to write on. Just as I was about to give up, I noticed a loose nail and grabbed it, figuring he could use it to scratch his name onto the old wooden floor. I watched closely as he wrote, each letter just barely visible.

"R-Y-O-U. Ryou?" He nodded and I smiled for the first time since I'd gotten here. "That's a nice name, Ryou. My name is Xiao."

"Well, that's not creepy at all," a voice said sarcastically nearby. I turned towards it and saw a boy about a year or two older than me with blond hair.

"Says the the guy who sneaks up on little girls," I said, irritating him. "Hey Ryou, are-" I stopped as I realized the ghost was gone. "Huh. Alone again I guess."

"You're the one talking to a ghost."

I ignored him and took a moment to look him over, careful to watch for anything to suggest he was a psychopath. "Kisaragi Academy, right?" I asked cautiously, recognizing the uniform from one of Sumiko's pictures from her old school. "My friend transferred from there."

"Whatever."

"You know, if you're gonna be around here, you might as well tell me your name," I told him, kind of annoyed that he'd showed up, made my ghost friend disappear and then didn't want to say a single word to me. "Especially after you made Ryou go away."

"That ghost you were talking to is a murderer, or have you not seen all the bodies laying around?"

"He's a child," I said, not even totally sure why I was defending him. "For your information, he was kind enough to sit and talk with me. He even told me about his sister." Sure, he didn't exactly talk about it, but I kinda figured there was a connection between me and his sister. He asked if I was her, so you can figure we looked alike. And then there was the song. She must have sang it too.

"You're insane," he said walking away. Rushing forward, I grabbed his arm, stopping him.

"I have been wandering around for hours and I have no idea where the hell I am and the first person I come across is a ghost who died a painful death and had his tongue cut out. And now you show up and scare him off and then just walk away?" I shout at him. "What the hell is your problem?"

"You are really annoying," he mumbled, pulling his arm free and walking away.

"You know you could at least tell me your name! Even the ghost was nice enough to do that!" I called after him. This time he stopped and shouted back before continuing on.

"My name is Yoshiki. You happy now?"

"I'm Xiao!" I shouted back, but he either didn't hear or didn't care.