"Hey Rina, do you hear that?"

It was quiet, but there was no doubt that it was someone's voice. I couldn't quite make out the words, so I decided to take a closer look.

"Shiro, Tsubaki, against the wall and don't make a sound," I said to them as I silently glanced around the corner.

At first, there appeared to be nothing. But when I heard the voice again, I spotted the girl it belonged to.

"R-Y-O-U. Ryou? That's a nice name, Ryou. My name is Xiao." the girl's voice said to someone sitting right in front of her. When I looked more closely at her companion, I didn't know what to think. It was the ghost of a little boy no older than Shiro and Tsubaki were.

When the attention of the girl was drawn to something to the other side of her, the ghost walked away. It was heading right towards where the twins and I were hiding.

"Go, go!" I urged the twins to go back the way we'd come from. I'd seen that ghost before and I knew what he could do. I made sure they stayed in front of me, leaving me between them and the violent ghost child. Even if he caught up to us, I could at least buy them enough time to get away.

The three of us ran down the empty halls, too afraid to look back to see if the ghost was following us. Even though I was much faster than the twins, I constantly adjusted my speed to keep them ahead of me and still within sight. But that wasn't any help when Tsubaki crashed into someone and fell to the floor.

"Tsubaki!" Shiro rushed to her side and helped her up while I focused my attention on who is was that she had run into.

The man was definitely too old to be a student, which could make him useful. He wore a red jacket and was carrying a video camera.

"This way," I said, grabbing his arm as well as the twins. The ghost was still coming, even though he might not be able to see us yet. I led us into the closest open classroom. Ducking behind a cabinet, I held the twins close to me. It was my responsibility to make sure they were safe, and I wasn't about to fail. "Don't make a sound," I whispered to them.

The sound of footsteps approached the door of the room we were in. For a moment they stopped outside the door. To keep Tsubaki from making any sort of noise, I covered her mouth with my hand. Shiro could handle himself in these situations, but Tsubaki tended to panic and cry whenever she got even just a little scared.

As the footsteps started heading away and eventually seemed to disappear, I let out a sigh of relief. "I-" I was cut off as a hand covered my mouth. I hadn't realized he'd been so close. At first I started to struggle against his grip, but then I understood why he'd done it. The footsteps were coming back.