Start: Act One – Halls of the Dead

I wonder what was wrong with that guy...

Masako, after rising to her feet and standing at the doorway in confusion for a few moments, had finally decided to move to a seat on the bench in the locker room.

She sat down, engulfing her fist in her free hand, and resting her chin atop her fingers. Just as she was about to leave, someone had rushed to the entrance of the locker room and told her to stay inside.

She pushed the door open, and stepped over the threshold. She stood there for a minute, looking straight ahead. The halls were silent, and there was no presence among them... other than the sun and its rays on the windows...

"Don't come out of there!"

His urgent tone sounded in her ears before she could even register his face. Her attention snapped to his silver hair when he came into sight.

"...get out of my face, and stop shouting like that."

Briefly stricken silent, his scarlet eyes beamed into hers. "...I'm trying to save your life. Don't be stubborn," he frowned. "I told some other stupid girl not to leave and she's..."

Masako held her hands up in front of her. "Look... I don't know who you are, or why you're so upset, but I don't care. I need to-"

A swift, but strong thrust made her stagger backwards and fall onto the floor. It all happened so fast, she could only manage to blink at him in the doorway.

"Just get back inside, and shut up."

She heard him take off after he slammed the door, but she hadn't heard much else from him (or anyone else, for that matter) for the past five minutes. She wasn't sure what could've been wrong, but whatever it was, it shook him up like a rattle...

"Masako!"

The girl jumped up, and hastily walked towards the exit. "What's wrong?"

She turned the corner from behind a locker, and saw that her friend's brow was lifted. "What do you mean?"

Her friend, Adachi, obviously hadn't come into contact with the boy from earlier, seeing as she hadn't been thrown into the room. He probably wasn't trying to warn everyone that got near the locker room... so maybe there really wasn't anything wrong?

"...Nothing, Adachi. Never mind. Why are you looking for me anyway?"

"Oh, um," the brunette smiled. "You're not going to P.E. today, are you?"

Masako shook her head.

"Well, I'm going to ditch it with you. We're doing non-stop tennis drills today, and I didn't get any sleep last night."

Masako nodded to her friend, and turned around. "Just let me get my stuff."

"Okay. I have to get my stuff too."

Masako opened her locker, grabbed her racket and bag, and slung the straps over her shoulder. She turned to Adachi, who'd grabbed her racket and backpack from her locker as well, and started to walk toward her.

"Let's hurry so no one sees us. I don't think everyone in our class is outside already."

Masako nodded, and they walked out of the locker room. As soon as the two exited the stuffy dressing room and entered the bright hallway, Adachi stopped. Masako noticed her companion wasn't by her side after a little while, and turned around, frowning.

"What's the matter?"

The brunette appeared to be disturbed... but moreso angry than anything else.

"That guy... he's a creep."

Masako turned back around, and saw one of her male schoolmates lurking around the intersection of the four other hallways. He was dragging his feet with a weary look in his eyes, as though he were trying to get somewhere. But he didn't know how or why, and he was in no rush, either.

"Maybe he's drunk," she said as she watched his movement for a few more seconds, and turned to Adachi.

"He practically tried to eat my face!"

At this, her friend raised both brows. "Um... that's what boys do when they like you..."

"Masako, that isn't funny." Adachi placed her hands on her hips. "I told him I didn't like him yesterday, and he was giving me these strange looks this morning... He called me before school and said he wanted to talk. Then he... rushed me when I saw him a few minutes ago."

Masako turned back to face the boy, and saw a running figure behind him in the distance.

Her eyes narrowed, and shortly after, she recognized the girl. "Syoko's here anyway... he won't try anything while there's three of us," she said, uncertain of that statement. Why would he want to hurt her anyway?

Adachi reluctantly nodded, and watched as Syoko and her curly blonde ponytail came bouncing down the hall. She waved to the two, who waved back.

"Hey! Practice ditchers!"

Masako and Adachi violently brought their fingers to their mouths, trying to shush her.

"You'll get us caught, psycho!" Masako whispered angrily.

The blonde's slate-blue eyes widened in a sarcastic confusion. "Whaaaat? You are ditching the extra tennis practice, right? Your coach would be furious!"

"Dammit!"

Masako and Adachi ran towards her, and as Masako focused on tackling Syoko and dashed forward, she collided with the boy's shoulder. She'd turned her head back to apologize, but when she saw Adachi get close to him, she had to stop running.

"H-hey! Let me go!"

Adachi's eyes were filled with fear.. or that was what Syoko and Masako saw. The boy had grabbed her by both of her arms, and though she struggled to push him off, he continued to try to pull her close. Masako jumped the moment she heard Adachi whimper.

"She said let go, you freak!"

Masako dropped her racket and grabbed the boy's shirt, yanking as hard as she could with both arms. She felt a shock run through her body as both Syoko and Adachi shrieked afterward. Something splattered.

Masako's breath hitched in her throat as she watched Adachi fall backwards onto the floor, with the center of her face... missing. She scrambled over to her friend, grabbing her racket, not knowing if she would have to defend herself with it...

"A-adachi...!"

She choked on her exclamation as she saw her friend begin to wail on the floor. Parts of her eyes were... gone, and so was most of her nose. The muscles in her face were exposed, and blood ran down the sides of her skull and into her hair.

"M-m-masako! Behind you-"

Masako scrambled backwards against the wall, and as the fear of coming into his grasp heightened, she rose to her feet and kicked the boy in his stomach. Still terribly frightened, threw her hand out in front of her and started to run.

"Fucking come on," she whimpered, grabbing Syoko's hand and pulling it with her.

The pair ran hard and fast enough to feel their feet pound on the floor through their shoes. It hurt so much... But they couldn't focus on anything else, other than what they'd just seen.

"Wait a minute... wait!"

Syoko dropped Masako's hand, and tears welled in her eyes. They were at the end of the hall now.

"We shouldn't let anyone else go near him..."

Masako's eyes were red, straining themselves against letting her break down.

"But we...

We can't just hang around and patrol the area. He'll probably... kill us too."

The blonde bit down on her lip, and hard. She looked into Masako's eyes, and felt her throat aching. She just wanted to sob... so badly...

"We could go to the principal's office. Tell him. Tell everybody what just happened... on the intercom."

Masako nodded, and reached for Syoko's hand. The blonde took it, and they ran into the staircase on their left.

The raven-haired girl led her best friend up two flights of stairs, and along the way, she noticed that Syoko was... stifling her sniffles.

She stared ahead, not wanting to intrude on Syoko's grief, but wanting to tell her she could cry. That she could cry all day and night, because she had been the one to introduce Adachi to Masako. That she was always her friend before she was Masako's. That she wasn't the only one that had lost a friend, but she was the only one who'd lost her best friend from kindergarten in a matter of seconds.

She would tell her in a better place, at a better time...

They came to the main hall on the third floor, and noticed that the corridor was both silent, and empty. Minus one murderer however, and thus, a big improvement from the first floor. The pair walked past classrooms, seeing a few faces watch them wander the hallway, wishing they were them, and they silently told those faces that they shouldn't want to be them. Because someone was just killed in front of their eyes.

They turned into the office, and thankfully upon first glance, the principal and his assistant saw two broken faces instead of two girls who were supposed to be somewhere else.

"What is the matter?" the woman asked, dropping her stack of papers. She hurried over to the two with outstretched arms, and Syoko stood still, crying, as the assistant hugged her and rubbed her shoulder.

"Sir... some maniac just killed our friend on the first floor," Masako barely managed to say, covering her mouth mid-sentence. Syoko crying behind her was about to push her over the edge...

The older man's features wrinkled, and he dropped his stack of papers as well, standing up. "This had better not be some kind of joke, miss Tanuma."

"We promise... it's... not," Syoko said, gasping for air in between words.

Masako started to cry as well, hunching her shoulders with sobs as the tears ran down her face. She moved to the right side of the office, sitting down on the sofa.

"Miss Nakane, call the police."

The principal came from behind his desk, and walked in front of it to the intercom. He picked up the microphone, and began to speak.

"Attention all students. A fight has broken out on campus. Please follow your instructors and evacuate the school."

"Um, excuse me..."

Masako had turned around at the soft ton of her voice, and so had Syoko. Neither of them expected to see the assistant talking to another pair of students.

"You all can't be in here right now," Miss Nakane said quietly, holding the end of the telephone.

Neither of them responded.

They just entered the office- one of them looking in Miss Nakane's direction, and the other looking towards the principal as he continued to make the announcement.

"...Did you two hear me?"

Miss Nakane put the phone back on the hook, and frowned. "I told you two to leave," she whispered.

Syoko quickly moved towards Masako, now standing, and grabbed her arm. She didn't know what to expect, but she knew the boy downstairs had acted the exact same way. No one could tell while they were under the light, but both of the students' were lazily moving forwad, and their skin was clammy.

"I'm giving you your last warning."

The boy was an arm's length away from her now, and the other student wasn't far behind. As soon as the male reached to grab her, Syoko called out.

"Miss Nakane don't let him get close!"

"Wh...what...?" She cried, throwing her arms out in front of her.

It was a mistake she didn't know to avoid. She tried to push him away, but ended up giving him something to latch on to. He audibly ripped through the flesh of her hand, and clamped his teeth to her bone.

"Sir! Get away from the girl now!" Masako yelled. The other student was by his side now, rushing forward.

"I repeat. A fight has broken out on campus. Please follow your instructors-"

His left arm and the front of his shirt were clenched between unnaturally powerful fingers. The principal shook and jerked his arm repeatedly to get her off, to no avail. The girl's reach had gotten to the side of his face, and both Masako and Syoko shut their eyes as tightly as they could.

"Help me!"

"We need to get out of here," Masako choked, pulling Syoko's arm.

"But we can't just leave them!"

Masako ignored her, and ran out of the office with the blonde's wrist in her hand. She tried as hard as she could to ignore the sound of the principal getting his face ripped off as well, but there was no one to save him... no one to stop him from screaming...

As he was torn apart over the intercom.

"No! Help!"

The two kept running after they'd hit a left out of the office. His agonizing scream rang in their ears as it blared over loudspeaker, and what was even more terrifying, was the fact that no one would ever know what was happening to him in that room except those two.

As they neared the end of the hallway, they heard voices within range. They kept running, but slowed down, as they heard whoever it was approaching their direction...

And after a few seconds, a tall blonde male turned the corner with a readied sledgehammer in his hands, and the two instantly came to a halt.

End: Act One - Halls of the Dead