There was an eerie silence once they entered the ruins. Narugami found himself wondering what had happened to the place. It looked like it really had been an ancient mansion, but it had probably just been a big house. In this day and age, no-one could really afford a mansion, not the sort of person who'd been living in a part of the city like this. It hadn't been burned down, because there was no ash or charcoal anywhere, but it hadn't been knocked down; the destruction was too natural for that, with ivy climbing over blunt, broken pieces of wall. It seemed to have just decayed, over a long, long time. Naturally falling apart.

"Mayura, I really don't like this place…"

"Oh, come on, Narugami!"

He heard a crunch. Under his foot were crushed pieces of china – a teacup and saucer, white with blue stripes around the rims. It looked… modern. Not incredibly stainless-steel modern, but it seemed to be younger than how old the house seemed.

"Mayura…"

He took another step. This time, he heard glass cracking. A pair of glasses with black rims was under his foot. The lenses had already crumbled, but as he stepped on them the shattered glass was ground into fine pieces.

"Narugami! There's still food in the kitchen!" He shivered. This was… strange. It was as if the occupants of the house had suddenly been whipped away, without warning, as their house aged and decayed around them. Or they had been running, or trying to get away…

A photo hung lopsided on the wall. A young man with glasses - the glasses he had stepped on? - and black hair tied back stood next to a young black-haired woman wearing a black dress. They were smiling.

In front of them stood a serious looking kid with red-brown hair, carefully lifting a small black dog to the camera as it barked. It looked like a normal family photo- a mother, a father, their son, and a pet dog.

"Mayura?" he called. She responded faintly, from some far-off room: "Yeah?"

"Can we… can we go now?"

She came down the stairs, a beautiful gold necklace clutched in her hands.

"Look at it, Narugami! Isn't it pretty?"

He grabbed her wrist. "Mayura! Don't go poking around other people's stuff! Put it back and let's get out of here." Mayura looked away and said, sounding upset, "Anyone who lived here is probably dead anyway!" Then she turned and ran up the rickety stairs.

"Mayura-" he called and followed her up. He was always reminding himself that her feelings were easily hurt, and then forgetting again. Well, he wasn't the god of Tact, after all. Not much he could do but be heavy-handed with every situation.

A large room, possibly a study, was at the end of the hallway that the stairs lead to. The far wall had a huge window that looked over the front gate. It looked like it had been melted in extreme heat…a rotted wooden desk stood in front of it, with a tall chair right behind it. The other walls were covered in old bookshelves, filled with dusty books.

The floor was littered with rubbish, the remnants of a chandelier wearing a heavy coating of dust and the area below it spotted with fallen and shattered glass pendants. What might have been a fireplace had crumbled with disuse, and the couches around it sported layers of soot, ash and more dust. They were filled with moth-eaten holes.

Mayura stood in a corner next to a rotted chest of drawers. One drawer was open, and she was carefully putting the necklace inside onto a mound of old silky looking material. Her eyes were shiny with tears and she blinked quickly. Narugami took a step towards her and heard another crunch. Another blue and white tea cup and saucer. Was it part of a set?

"Mayura, I'm sorry, it's just that this place freaks me out… can we get out of here?"

She looked up. "Yeah, okay, let's go," she said in a quiet voice, face looking fallen.

He walked over to her, near the desk, and paused. It felt as though he had stood at the same place, an eternity ago. Reaching out to a face down photograph he picked it up and glanced at the photo.

Narugami froze, and it slipped through his fingers to hit the desk. The glass on the frame shattered.

Mayura ran over to the desk and leaned over it towards him. With a creak one leg collapsed and the table fell into itself, a pile of mouldy and rotten wood on the stained floor.

Narugami knelt and sifted through the remains of the desk, leaning against the chair. It fell to its side and broke into two pieces.

He grabbed the photo from the pieces of the frame and glass.