Chapter 2: Not Alone

"T-Tobio?"

Her mind raced. Her metal heart raced. She had to be hearing things. A small draft ran through the room and played with the ends of the curtains. Unconsciously, her grip tightened on the flashlight. Her internal clock told her that it was almost three in the morning.

She started to wonder just how good her imagination was when she heard a small noise. It almost sounded like someone saying something again. Uran tried to zone in on the frequency with the sensitive modulators in her ears. Instead of words she found a strange crackling sound. Something rustled on the floor near her. She glanced over her shoulder, turning her head so slowly that she could hear the joints in her neck click. The crackling grew louder.

And closer.

Then she saw it. It was looking right at her, circular eyes reflecting the small amounts of light that had managed to crawl into the room. It was coming closer, it was…

A mouse?

"Hey little guy." Uran whispered to the little mouse that was sniffing around on the floor. "Were you the one making noise?"

She took a few steps its direction and crouched down. The mouse looked up at her, continuing to sniff the air. After a moment she heard another sound.

Music.

Faint, a faint repeating melody that she hadn't noticed before. It too was scratchy, like the needle of a radio stuck between two channels. But it didn't sound scary, or even sad. Instead it sounded…happy, in a weird sort of way. This made Uran more curious, but the same could not be said for the mouse who had also heard it. With a squeak, the poor thing bolted back into a hole in the wall.

Maybe, just maybe, Uran wasn't alone. "Where are you?"

The music stopped and she heard that faint crackling again. "Over here."

Once again she tried to zone in on its location, but the distorted crackle faded away, as if the voice had dissolved into static.

Maybe she did have a fried circuit. Now the house was quiet, save for the light rustling of the curtains in the draft. She held one of the curtains still by clutching it in her fist, then carefully letting go, but within seconds the draft had picked it up again. Uran clicked the flashlight back on. The shadows cast by the abandoned furniture formed a jagged pattern on the walls as the light glided over them. But one of them looked different; maybe it was the way it was detached from the others. Maybe it was the way it seemed to move on its own.

"Hey, wait!"

She followed the shadow until she got to the bottom of the stairs. On the stairs she thought she saw him, with his knees drawn up to his chest and his head resting on his arms. Even with her flashlight's beam directly on him, it was tough to make out any discernible features.

The static sound got louder, then as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The voice was much clearer this time. "…I'm sorry if I scared you…"

As if on cue, the charge in her flashlight ran out. But strangely, when the light was off she could get a better look at him. He was close to transparent. His empty eyes were so bright they almost looked like stars, but there was no life in them. She was the one with the questions. But the way he was looking at her seemed to go on and on, like he was looking to her for answers.

"Tobio?" Uran decided to cut to the chase. "Are you the one he keeps coming to see?"

"Huh?"

"Astro, he's my brother. He comes here a lot."

Brother? "Astro…" he repeated, as if testing out the name. "He does...but it's not to see me."

"It's not?"

His voice started to crackle again. "...I don't think he can see me like you can."

With a blink, Uran realized he had reappeared at the bottom of the stairs a few feet away, drifting along near her like a little cloud.

"I was kinda surprised you could see me at all."

"Really?"

"Yeah…"

When she had left her house that night to set out on this little adventure, she didn't expect something like this to happen. Moments before she had wanted to run, to leave and forget this old house, but now things were different. As much as she was startled, deep down she had a feeling that whatever, or whoever this "Tobio" was wasn't bad. Not at all.

"What do you do when he's here?"

Tobio shrugged. "Watch him mostly."

"What does Astro do when he's here?"

Tobio thought back to a few days ago.

[A/N]: There's the cliche of "feeling the hairs on the back of your neck stand up" when around something paranormal. Robots as far as I know don't have neck hairs, so the sounds of "crackling static" are supposed to be the equivalent.