Disclaimer: I am in love with Zack Fair! Wait… that's not my disclaimer. I don't own Final Fantasy! There. That's better.
A/N: Just so you know, I hate horror stories with a passion. Why am I writing one, then? Well, I'm bored.
Go Out the Door, Not Up the Stairs
Zack peeked out the door for the second time in ten seconds. The storm was still raging; as a matter of fact, it had gotten worse. He shook his head, chuckling under his breath. "Still stuck here," he muttered.
"Great, that's a lovely update from five seconds ago," said Genesis, who was reading Loveless, "when we were also still stuck." Sephiroth chuckled under his breath. Zack was about to retort, but he realized that it was actually very funny, so he did not comment.
Angeal was beginning to feel more and more like something was watching them. In fact, he could almost see a pair of red eyes staring at them from out of the darkness. Hollow, evil red eyes of a creature that haunted this place, and… wait! They were real! "What is that?" Angeal muttered, pointing at the eyes.
"HOLY COW! It's gonna eat us!" Zack shouted, running up the spiral staircase.
"Zack! Don't go up the stairs!" Genesis called after the boy, but he ran up the stairs as well. Sephiroth and Angeal both followed them warily, still looking down the stair at the pair of eyes that also seemed to be following them.
"S-stay back," Sephiroth stuttered, pointing Masamune in the general direction of the eyes.
"You know, whenever someone goes up the stairs in a horror movie, they get killed," Zack realized as he looked around the room. They were in a large sitting room now, with a dusty crystal chandelier on the ceiling and a number of couches covered in white fabric so that they looked like ghosts.
"Says the one who went up the stairs first," Angeal pointed out. Angeal and Sephiroth were still slowly backing up the stairs, the eyes moving closer and closer the further back they went. Genesis was peering over the railing at the eyes, trying to determine what they were, while Zack was looking straight into a different set of dark gray eyes.
The same painting sat in a frame above the mantelpiece. And Zack still could have sworn that the woman was staring at him. Maybe she was checking him out.
"Hey guys, you might want to take a look at this," Zack said.
"Kinda busy, here," said Angeal, who had unsheathed the Buster sword to point it at the flickering red eyes that were still hopping up the stairs. Sephiroth nearly tripped as he realized that he was all the way on the second floor and there were no more stairs to go up. Angeal followed close behind, his arm almost brushing against Masamune's blade. Sephiroth laid one of his hands on Angeal's back, telling his friend not to step back any further or he would be seriously popping Sephiroth's personal space bubble.
As the eyes moved closer and the creature passed in front of a small fragment of light reflecting off of the chandelier, Zack started laughing. All three first class SOLDIERs turned to look at Zack, who was nearly doubled over in hysterics, crying with laughter. "What?" Angeal asked, so distracted that he was no longer paying attention to the creepy eyes.
"It's a bunny!" Zack said, pointing in the direction of the albino rabbit that sat in a little pool of light at the top of the staircase. Sephiroth slapped Angeal on the back of the head.
"You got us all freaked out because of a BUNNY?" he raged.
"Sorry, the thing has creepy eyes!" Angeal said over his own laughter. Even Genesis was laughing as he picked up the rabbit and began stroking its head.
"We should name him 'Fluffy'," Zack suggested.
"Oh no, we're not naming him anything," Angeal said, suddenly very serious. "As soon as you name something, you want to keep it."
"Why can't we keep him?" Zack asked, petting the little animal now nestled in Genesis's arms.
"Because he probably belongs to the owner of this house," Angeal said.
Zack raised an eyebrow. "C'mon, 'Geal, this house has a layer of dust and cobwebs two inches deep. Nobody lives here anymore."
"Maybe someone doesn't live here," Sephiroth began, "but what if something…"
"Shut up, Sephiroth!" Genesis snapped. "You're scaring Fluffy!" The rabbit, in fact, looked rather unperturbed by Sephiroth's eluding to ghosts.
"I'm sure 'Fluffy' would have noticed it as well if he'd stopped reading Loveless and actually looked around the place," Sephiroth said, making air quotes around the rabbit's name. He didn't even like the stupid name, anyways, especially when it was being used as an excuse for Genesis being absolutely terrified of ghosts. "This is a haunted house, Angeal said it."
"I said it wasn't haunted," Angeal pointed out.
Sephiroth shook his head. "Whatever. Anyways, we've all been feeling creeped out since we got in here. SOLDIER members, especially first and second class, should always have a good intuition when it comes to these sorts of things. Come on, you've all sensed it. We're not alone here."
Zack gulped, glancing over his shoulder at the painting. "That's what I was trying to tell you, she…" he trailed off when he noticed that there was a mirror in the ornate frame around what had once been the painting. "The painting is gone!" he gasped.
"What are you talking about?" Angeal asked.
"It was just here a minute ago," Zack said, "the same painting as downstairs!"
"You must be seeing things," Angeal replied.
"No I'm not! I swear it was right here!" Zack said pointing at the mirror. He was too afraid to go across the room and examine the mirror.
Genesis screamed and clutched the rabbit more tightly. "This place is haunted!" he shouted hysterically. "We're gonna die! This always happens; you go up the stairs in the creepy old mansion and you die! We're all going to get killed in here!"
"No way!" Zack shot back. "I refuse to let that happen! I can't die yet! Whatever happened to fulfilling your dreams?"
"Yes! We have to all get back so that we can fulfill this mission," Angeal said. He could definitely make an argument when it came to fulfilling dreams and upholding honor.
Zack shook his head. "No, no, that's not what I'm talking about," he said. "My dream is to marry Aerith!"
Sephiroth chuckled. "Not gonna happen. She's way out of your league."
Zack groaned. "Can we just focus on getting out of here?"
Angeal turned and took a step down the stairs when there was a bang like a gunshot. Genesis gasped and dropped Fluffy, Zack jumped even higher than last time someone scared him, and Sephiroth leaned over the railing, searching for the source of the noise. They finally figured out what caused the bang when Angeal pointed one finger at their place of entrance. The door was slammed shut.