Cassette Tape
Azusa was cleaning the storage room in the music room.
Their advisor Sawa-chan wanted them to get rid of the extra things for her to store more of her costumes. Unfortunately Ritsu had to retake an exam and Mio and Mugi had cleaning duty. That left her and Yui in charge of cleaning the storage.
Azusa sighed and her head turned to the foyer, seeing Yui watching Ton-Chan swim around the tank, "Yui-Senpai what are you doing? Can you help me clean the storage?"
Yui's eyes were glued watching Ton-Chan before Azusa spoken, "Oh! I'm sorry Azu-nyan" She rubbed the back of her head embarrassedly and walked over to her.
The storage room was a cramped room in the back of the music room. The inside wasn't so bad besides the dirt and cobwebs that clung to the sides of the wall. "Where should I start?" Yui asked.
"Finally you decide to help." Azusa said as she shook her head and her twin pigtails were bobbing and swaying in the motion. "Start by looking inside of those boxes over there"
She did as she was told. One by one Yui looked through the boxes, finding sorts of things from the previous Light Music Club, comics, journals, and antiques. "So what do we do with these?"
"Hm…Sawa-chan didn't really tell us what do with them, I don't think they have any sentimental value but we should still keep them." Azusa said, "We should just move them to the corner"
Yui nodded and opened the last box that strangely only had one thing inside of it.
A cassette tape. Yui's brown eyes widened with mirth, she knew these cassette tapes belonged to previous Light Music Clubs, and she wondered if it was another tape of Sawa-chans death band. She quickly found the pink stereo cassette tape player.
"What are you doing?" Azusa asked. Yui was grabbing the stereo from the bottom of the shelf.
"I found a cassette tape, from the previous Light clubs. Want to go listen to them with Ton-Chan?"
Azusa hesitated, "…Okay, but after this we better get back to clean the storage" Azusa said ambiguously as they walked out of the storage room.
Yui set down the stereo on the brown table, plugged it in to the nearest outlet and inserted the cassette tape and clicked play.
There at first nothing to hear but static. It filled the room. The audio began to warp and made odd garbling and scratching noises. It was offensive to the ears.
"Senpai this hurts my ears can we just stop this and clean?" Azusa pleaded.
"Okay" Yui agreed a tad disappointment in her voice but before she could put her hand over the stereo she heard something.
It was sobbing and the sobbing, sounded real, as if the sound wasn't coming from the speakers but as if the speakers were holes the sound was coming through from the other side. The sobbing went louder full of hurt and anger.
"What is this?" Azusa said nervously.
After the sobbing died down, it went quiet except for the noise of wind as if it was a gale blowing through the forest.
"Yui-senpai this is creepy." Azusa scrunched her brows together and uncomfortably crossed her arms under her chest.
"It's probably part of the soundtrack" Yui shrugged.
There was a deep low laugh before someone on the tape started talking,
It started a long time ago. Before there was even man. We just don't realize it
not until we initiated the gateway project.
we wanted to know if we could use fear.
If we could use it to control people.
entire populations..
we started from one hypothesis.
what if fear
didnt exist just inside our heads?
what if fear
was actually shared?
what if fear
was something that existed outside our reality?
"Senpai, stop the tape," Azusa ordered. This wasn't something from a previous Light Music Club.
Yui was already on it. She pushed the stop button but it had no effect. She pushed it again, repeatedly, but to no avail.
"Stop it already!"
"I'm trying!" she yelled back.
in order to test this hypothesis.
we did an experiment.
a man volunteered
a particularly erratic one.
he had experienced night terrors.
extreme anxiety attacks.
and suffered from various mental ailments.
he was the perfect subject.
Azusa went over to the outlet and unplugged the stereo.
Miraculously, it was still working, although it seemed to be dying, distorting the sound. The audio began to warp and make scratching noises again.
The eerie voice stopped talking and they sighed in relief.
They thought the tape died but it suddenly started up again.
we tested him.
showed him disturbing images.
exposed him to low frequency sounds.
we restrained him.
and imitated intense situations.
but we were not able to prove our theory.
we resorted to extreme manifestations.
we called it extreme sensory deprivation.
we chopped out his eyes.
we chopped his ears.
we chopped his tongue.
we chopped his skin.
we submerged him.
in total darkness.
our procedure proved productive.
he began to exhibit signs of erratic behavior.
he was hearing unintelligible voices in his head
he pleaded for help
his brainwave readings were off the charts
he died.
cause of death: unknown
but his brain still produced readings.
something had taken control of him.
killed him.
but used him.
his head.
eyeless.
earless.
noseless.
tongueless.
turned to us.
and looked at us
warned us.
that beyond our reality.
is a gateway.
and that we had made a grave mistake.
we had made a hole in the gateway
and now.
our world will be destroyed by this.
your friends are only the first.
soon.
everybody will be gone.
and there will be nothing left.
but fear.