Hunters Hunted

Large, ominous storm clouds loomed on the horizon, sporadically silhouetted by very bright and dangerously close lightning strikes. Not coincidentally, the three-story mansion's facade became almost menacing, as if it and the storm had joined forces with the express intent of warning any would-be visitors to keep their distance.

The five present members of the Battlefront Paranormal Investigation Society stood on the house's rickety front porch awaiting their newest, and latest member, Yui. During the wait, Yuri had decided to inform the others of their designated locations; she and Noda would be exploring the first floor, Otonashi and Kanade the second, with Hinata and Yui being assigned to the third floor and attic. Just as she finished, the team looked off into the distance to see Yui, dressed in a cat costume complete with tail, running up the front walkway. As the girl crossed the remaining distance, Yuri greeted her. "Glad you could make it."

Panting and bracing her hands on her knees, the pinkette regarded the team leader. "Sorry I'm late! I thought my mom would never leave! She was determined to have the neighbors checking in on me every few hours, but I managed to convince her that she doesn't have to treat me like a baby anymore and that she could trust me while she's out of town."

Otonashi, who was dressed in business casual and carrying a cane, raised an eyebrow. "In other words, you lied to her."

Yui nodded emphatically. "You don't really think I'd miss this little adventure do you?" Her enthusiasm effectively masked the tinge of guilt she felt at the orange-haired teen's observation. Yui had spent much of her life in and out of the hospital due to a weakened immune system, and only in the last few years had been successful at fighting off various types of infections. Because of this, Yui's mother had a habit of sheltering the seventeen year old. Dismissing this, Yui looked at Yuri and Kanade. "You two are adorable!"

Kanade, who was dressed in an angel costume adorned with soft, pristine white wings that almost shimmered in the misty air, smiled demurely. "Thank you. Your costume is very cute as well."

Yuri, whose costume was that of a witch nodded and smiled. "Thanks. The three of us should go shopping sometime. You know, have a little girl time together."

Kanade nodded in agreement. "That sounds like fun."

Yui looked the boys over. Noda, obviously dressed as the Grimm Reaper, was wearing a black robe but still carried his trusty halberd instead of the traditional scythe. She scrutinized Hinata and Otonashi much closer, however. "You two aren't very creative, are you?"

Hinata came dressed in his baseball uniform. "Between school and away games I've barely had time to sleep let alone shop for Halloween costumes."

Yui scoffed. "You could have cut holes in a sheet and thrown it over yourself and it would've been better than coming in clothes you wear almost everyday anyway." She looked curiously at Otonashi. "And you are...a business man, am I right?"

He shook his head. "House."

The others looked at him but didn't say anything.

"From the TV show?"

They shook their heads almost in unison.

"He solves all sorts of medical mysteries. Take the pilot episode for instance. No one could figure out what was wrong with the patient until House figured out she'd eaten some under cooked meat and tape worm larvae got into her bloodstream and traveled to her brain." Otonashi paused, waiting for a response but never got one. He rolled his eyes and waved a hand dismissively. "Never mind."

Hinata gave his friend a sideways look. "You're really weird, you know that?"

Kanade began rubbing her hands in an attempt to warm them. "The moral of the story is to always use a meat thermometer."

Yuri held on to the brim of her hat as the wind began to increase in intensity. "Now that our medical, slash cooking lesson is over, we should get going. This place doesn't look like much on the outside, but there's a lot of ground to cover inside. Let's get moving."

The three teams parted ways at the foyer's spiral staircase. Yuri assigned Otonashi and Kanade to the house's second floor, Hinata and Yui to the third floor and connecting attic, while she and Noda set out to explore the ground floor. As the two ventured farther away from the entrance, Yuri scanned the surroundings for anything of interest, while Noda watched for anything that could cause either one of them harm. If it moved, he'd kill it, and more importantly in his mind, if it threatened Yuri in any way, shape, form, or fashion he'd kill it twice, or even a thousand times as long as it guaranteed her safety.

At the end of the very long hallway, they came to a large room with even more hallways branching out from several connecting doorways. Yuri looked around mapping the room as best she could in the light of the heavy duty storm lantern she was carrying. The shape of the room was round with each walkway leading to a door. "This definitely wasn't here before."

Noda shrugged. "Maybe we just missed it."

Yuri pulled the downloaded copy of the blueprints up on her phone and shook her head. "There's no way we could have missed it. We came down this same exact hallway the last three times we were here. See?"

He watched as she traced their previous route with her finger. The rest of the Battlefront generally considered Noda to have much more brawn than brains, but it didn't take a genius to see something was very, very wrong this time around. "So what do you think?"

Yuri considered the question for a moment. "I think...I think we should go back. If we chance going through all that..." she gestured toward the myriad of doors "we might never find our way out." Just as Yuri finished her assessment, there came a very loud noise, as if a door had slammed shut behind them. They turned sharply, shocked at what they saw, or rather, didn't see; their exit had been sealed, and looked as if there was never a door there to begin with. She walked over to the would-be exit and ran her hand along the spot where the door frame should have been. "It seems to be a solid wall now..."

Her companion surveyed their surroundings, his weapon ready for anything. "I don't like this Yurippe. It feels like we're being lured into a trap."

Yuri leaned against the wall contemplating their next move. "I see two choices here – the first and most obvious would be to make a new door." She glanced to her partner's weapon. "The second would be to see if any of those doors might lead us back to the entrance of the house." She glanced at their second option, and then stepped away from the wall. "Let's try the direct approach first."

Noda acknowledged this with a disturbing amount of enthusiasm, walked over to where the door used to be, and drove the blade of his halberd into the wood.

After several well placed swings, Yuri raised a hand signaling to stop. She inspected the damage her companion had inflicted on the wall, and while it was more than sufficient, the structure had not given way as she suspected it would. "I swear, it's like someone came in and remodeled the place since we were here last." She sighed. "Looks like our fact finding mission has turned into a survival experiment."

Several doors and dead ends later, Yuri and Noda finally found one that didn't have a solid brick wall behind it, or didn't lead to a staircase that ended looking straight up at the ceiling. Still, they had been walking for hours and hadn't found so much as a window to climb out of. Eventually the hallway they had been following began to widen, and at the end of it they could see the entrance to what looked like another very large room. Seemingly out of nowhere, a foul odor began wafting from the room, causing Yuri to cover her nose and mouth with her hands. "Ugh, it smells like something died in there."

Noda said nothing, but kept on guard for what they might encounter as they pressed onward. As he and Yuri neared the doorway up ahead, the smell had become so bad that it was becoming difficult to breathe.

Suddenly, a rat darted out of the darkness, and was promptly sliced in half by Noda's weapon. His satisfaction turned sharply to horror as the two pieces of the animal fused back together, and then fragmented into a swarm of hundreds. The purple haired teen's blood ran cold as he watched them all scurry back into the darkness as quickly as the one had appeared. His attention was diverted as he saw Yuri fall to her knees. She was clasping her throat as if she were choking. He knelt down and attempted to help the green eyed girl to her feet. "Let's get away from whatever's making that smell."

Yuri choked, her face becoming red. "It's not..." She gasped desperately trying to take in a breath. "I feel like..."

He watched, once again in horror as unseen hands gripped Yuri's neck like a vice; her eyes glazing over and her lips as well as fingernails turning blue at the lack of oxygen. The girl's body then rose off the ground, and was dropped unceremoniously like a rag doll; limp, lifeless, and completely unresponsive. Panicked, Noda rushed to help Yuri. "Yurippe! Yurippe are can you hear me?!"

She didn't move.

She didn't speak.

"Yurippe, say something!"

I had a really difficult time with this chapter, for a few reasons I know you don't care about, so please take a bit to tell me how it turned out, okay? Next up: Otonashi and Kanade explore the second floor of the haunted house.

Stay tuned!