Hiro gasped and let go of the branch, letting it fall to the wet grass with a thud. The rope was clearly years old, with dark green moss growing down the length of it, and the colour was now more of a muddy beige rather than the white it must have originally been. But what really struck Hiro was the end of the rope, the part just above his head. The end had been tied off in a loop, looking to be big enough to fit over the head of a child. Hiro stared at the noose and his breath caught in his throat as the air around him seemed to get colder. He was frozen, unable to move and feeling as though he were looking death right in the eye.

"Hiro!" a call from the house snapped him out of his trance, and he turned to see his older brother at the door, waving for him to come back inside. "C'mon, bonehead, dinner!"

With one last wavering look at the noose gently swinging in the breeze, Hiro turned and ran through the garden and back into the house, not once looking back at the large tree at the back of the garden.

"I just don't understand what's wrong with the sink," said Aunt Cass after dinner, staring at said sink in confusion. "I mean, everything in this house is supposed to work fine!"

"Aunt Cass," said Tadashi with a laugh, "look at this place – I think it'd be a miracle if something here was working fine."

"Oh don't be silly – anymore of that and I'll start stress eating again!"

"There must be something in the drains. We'll wash up in the bathroom sink, and I'll take a look at the pipes tomorrow."

Cass gave him a grateful smile as they collected the dirty plates and cutlery for dinner, carrying them to the bathroom through the door connecting it with the kitchen.

Hiro slowly made his was upstairs, dragging his feet as he went. He knew Tadashi had sensed there was something wrong at dinner, but obviously hadn't wanted to say anything in front of Cass. Hiro wanted to tell Tadashi, but at the same time he didn't. He didn't want to worry his brother about it, and Tadashi was the type of person who wouldn't take lightly to the fact that someone had died here – a child, most likely.

Hiro flopped onto his bed, laying his head back against the pillow he'd brought from home and sighed, turning to the side and curling in on himself, too tired to even think about changing into his bedclothes, the events of the day having exhausted him. Hopefully sleep would help clear his head so he could forget about what he'd found in the tree, and he would be able to enjoy the rest of the holiday away with his family. Hiro smiled as he looked at the foot of his bed, and saw that Tadashi had unpacked his backpack, placing all of his robotics at the end of the bed, lined up and ready for when Hiro would use them.

Just as the fourteen-year-old was drifting off to sleep, a scratching sound woke him with a start. It seemed to be coming from the far side of the room, somewhere near the wardrobe. Just as he was beginning to think he'd imagined it, the scratching sound was heard again, and Hiro shot up so he was in a sitting position, straining his ears to listen to even the slightest sound in the dark room. Upon the scratching happening for the third time, it was followed by a short scuffle before the sound seemed to move to a different place in the wall, residing there instead. Hiro let out a puff of air and laughed quietly despite himself. Trust him to be spooked by a few mice in the walls. He'd have to let Tadashi know in the morning, but for now the mice could stay where they were, for Hiro was too exhausted to even think about getting up out of his warm, cosy bed.

To say Tadashi was exhausted was an understatement. He'd spent the last few days staying up until early hours of the morning working on Baymax, to make sure that the robot was as close to perfection as he could get him for their family trip, and now the sleep deprivation had finally caught up with him. He looked in the bathroom mirror as he waited for the bathtub to fill with water, and was relieved to see that while he felt as though he could drop to the floor in fatigue at any moment, he looked healthy and awake. That was one less thing to worry about – at least his aunt wouldn't be concerned about him. The slightest thing could set her off on a marathon of stress eating, and no one wanted that.

Tadashi ran a hand through his short hair as he thought about Hiro. His younger brother had been acting strange at dinner, barely touching a thing on his plate and acting surprised whenever anyone spoke to him directly, as if he'd thought he was alone. Tadashi had almost missed the quite 'night' his brother had all but whispered, and a shared look with Aunt Cass had shown him that she'd noticed too.

Realising that the bathtub was now nearly filled with hot water, he reached out to turn the tap off, but to his dismay no matter how far he turned the handle on the tap, the stream of water wouldn't stop. He pulled and pulled at the handle, trying to turn it to stop the water which was now dangerously close to overflowing, but it wouldn't go any further. He tried turning it the other way, but that only resulted in making the stream faster, meaning the tub would overflow quicker. Panicked, Tadashi tried the other handle, the one he knew was for controlling the temperature, but it did nothing. If anything, the air in the small room got colder.

Tadashi fisted his hair in panic, watching as the water spilled over the tub and onto the floor. Just as he was about to turn to the sink to see if the cupboard below it held anything he could use to stop the water, he thought he saw something in the tub. Peering over the rim, he gasped as he looked straight into the sunken, unseeing eyes of a woman, her blonde hair flowing around her head like a halo and her skin deathly pale. Her clothes were old, as though they didn't belong in this century, and her blue lips were parted in a silent scream. Tadashi stumbled backwards until his back hit the wall, and tried to get his breathing in check as his heart thudded, blood rushing in his ears. His eyes were wide and he didn't once look away from the bath, frozen and unable approach it again to make sure he wasn't seeing things, the image of the drowned woman burned into his mind, leaving him too scared to move forwards.

"Tadashi?" Tadashi jumped violently at the sound of his aunt's voice coming through the door. He swallowed to wet his dry throat before replying shakily.

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay? I heard a bang – did you fall?" Tadashi cleared his throat, his eyes still on the bath.

"No, no I'm fine. Ju-just dropped the, er, the shampoo." He squeezed his eyes shut, taking his eyes off of where the woman lay for the first time, as he prayed that his aunt wasn't worried enough to pick up on his horrible acting. He never had been a good performer – science was always the centre of his school life.

"Well, all right. I'm heading to bed now – I'll see you and Hiro in the morning for breakfast, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah see you,"

Tadashi let out the breath he didn't know he had been holding as he heard his aunt's footsteps disappearing down the corridor. Once again, his gaze fell on the bath and he prepared himself for the worst as he slowly stepped towards it. Reluctantly stretching his neck to look in the tub whilst standing as far away as he could, he almost cried in relief as he saw the woman was no longer there. Shaking his head at his own stupidity, he ran a shaking hand through his hair and reached out to once again turn the tap off, only to belatedly realise that the water was no longer flowing. A quick look to the rug beneath his feet showed that there wasn't any water. Where there should have been a large puddle soaking his socks and the bottoms of his trousers, there was only dry floor. The water in the tub was at the level it had been at when he'd first tried to turn the water flow off.

Tadashi found himself lost for words as he stared at the still water, and decided to put the hallucination down to his lack of sleep. Deciding that his mental health was more important than a bath, he pulled up his sleeve and reached into the warm water, pulling the plug out of the plughole and watching somewhat distantly as the liquid swirled around, draining down the hole until the bath was empty, finishing with a low gurgle as the last of the water trickled down the plughole. He sighed and ran a hand over his face, before leaving the bathroom and making his way to his bedroom, hoping to sleep off the night's occurrences.