Chapter 1: Accusations Part 3: Panic

Akako saw the ghost girl at the same time I did, and we both immediately sprinted away, still holding hands. The ghost was incredibly fast though. If we couldn't pick up our pace, there was no doubt in my mind that she'd capture and kill us. My heart was pounding, my adrenaline level was rising.

She was gaining on us. The girl seemed small, just a child, yet she ran like a track star, which Akako happened to be. If Akako wasn't dragging me along at this speed, I would have been caught by the ghost long ago. However, I couldn't take this sort of exertion much longer. I was no runner.

My legs were already starting to hurt and my lungs felt like they were going to burst. I was panting heavily, while Akako looked perfectly fine. Stupid athletes...

"I can't run much longer!" I called out, my voice sounding ragged. "I think I might collapse!"

"Do you want to die today?!" he screamed back at me. "Move it or lose it! Literally! If you don't keep going, you'll lose your life for sure!"

"I know that much!" I hissed. "But even you can't run forever. Where do we go? What if a door we run to is locked? And this ghost could chase us forever! Tell me what to do, dammit!"

"You can't think of anything yourself?!"

"Sort of panicking right now! You trust a crazed woman to make a sound decision that will be the deciding factor in whether we live or die?! All I know is, we better lose her soon! Ouch...my legs feel like they're going to fall off."

He sighed and shook his head. "That's what you get for staying inside on your computer instead of getting some exercise, Ms. Computer Junkie."

"Idiot! Instead of insulting me, can't you figure out where we should go?!"

He quickly looked around as we were running, and suddenly veered right, dragging me with him. He ran straight for one of the rooms, labeled infirmary. Just where we needed to go! But would it be open?

Akako took a deep breath. "There's no way the infirmary is locked. If someone is hurt, they'd need to get in immediately. I hope that's the case, anyway..."

Akako released my hand and slid the door open. He ushered for me to go inside, so I ran right in. He came in after me and quickly shut the door.

"What about the ghost? She could still get in!" I screamed in horror.

Akako's eyes widened. "Well I don't have anything that could fend her off! But she seemed to be running behind, so we can only pray that we lost her."

After what felt like hours of standing in silence, we finally sighed in relief. It didn't seem like she'd be finding us for a long while. Noticing two beds, I quickly plopped down on the first one I saw, snuggling right in. It was actually pretty comfortable.

Akako was opening drawers, and fishing around for stuff. When he was finished collecting what he needed, he approached me. He had gauze and what looked like bottles of medicine. He also had some tubes of something. He rolled up my left sleeve, then opened up one of the tubes, and smeared some stuff on my arm that stung pretty good.

"Ouch," I growled. "What is that? It hurts!"

"Some kind of disinfectant," he responded. "You don't want your arm to get all gross with infection, do you?"

"No."

"Then enough complaining and take it like a man...woman."

I frowned, but let him finish up. "Shouldn't we have washed off all this blood before you applied all that?"

"I tried turning on the sink, but nothing came out," he replied. "Now hold out your arm, and keep it still. I'm going to wrap it up now."

I did as he instructed, and he took out the gauze and wrapped it around several times, before finally knotting it tightly around my arm. He smiled in satisfaction.

"I surprisingly didn't see any bone poking out, so your arm is just in bad shape, but not broken."

"I guess that's good news," I said. I scooted farther back into the bed, and laid down, resting my head on a pillow. "My record is still clean."

"What record?" he questioned as he sat on the bed beside me.

"I've never broken a bone before," I answered. "Not once. So I'm still good there."

He nodded. "Well, we've been through a lot. And I know how badly you want to find everyone, but wouldn't you like to rest up a bit? You look ready to fall asleep..."

I quickly sprang up, feeling horrible that I was trying to relax. "No. You're right. I wanted to search for our friends. And if there are more ghosts out there, they could get killed. There are corpses everywhere, and I don't want Kimiko and the others to become them. I can rest when they're all safe."

"Are you sure about that?" he asked, looking serious. "Pushing yourself never does any good. Haven't you realized that? You're constantly pushing yourself to the limit and you've hardly gained anything from it."

"I'm absolutely sure about this," I responded, looking him dead in the eyes. "They're your friends too. So you should also being willing to push yourself to the limit for them. And I'll go on my own if I have to."

Akako glared at me for a while, then groaned. "Stubborn. Stubborn. Stubborn. Of course I'm coming with you. You'll die for sure on your own."

"So you promise to protect me?" I asked, feeling a smile coming to my face.

"It's a promise." He extended his pinkie. "I promise to protect you until the end."

I giggled and wrapped my pinkie around his. "It's a promise then."

"Tell me if you need to rest though," he pressed on. "I know how weak you can get when your sugar level drops. And it seems like we might be trapped here for a while. So...in case you needed a boost. Um, I bought a few caramel candies I had planned to give you today as a present. There's around ten of them, so...tell me if you're feeling low."

Akako was going to give me a present? Haha, his cold shell was deteriorating. This was his true character poking through. The kind part of him I'd fallen in love with and was trying to see more of.

I must have been grinning like an idiot, because he suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Thank you. That's really thoughtful. But might I ask...hehehe...why did you feel the need to give me a present?"

He scowled again, once again hiding behind his mask. Dammit. "Tch. Well, you're always complaining that I forget your birthday and never buy you presents, so...I felt...just a little bad, okay? Just...Just drop it. We have people to find, remember?"

"Alright!" I shouted, punching the air. "Let's keep our spirits high and get moving."

My high spirits didn't last long though. Because as we started walking around, searching randomly throughout the halls, I stepped in the remains of a corpse. My smile contorted into a wide-eyed expression of sheer terror. He had been stabbed multiple times in the gut and chest, his skin torn and blood spilled out everywhere. It felt like I'd stepped in soggy bread. I clasped my hands around my mouth and backed off of the body, leaving an imprint in the shape of my foot on his stomach.

My stomach gurgled and my body started to shake. "Th-That guy wasn't here when we were running away before...D-Does that mean that...he was killed recently?"

Now more than ever, I was terrified. Knees knocking together, and vibrating like a massage chair. His blood had soaked through my shoe and straight through to my knee-high socks. It felt squishy and disgusting. I took long, deep breaths, trying to remain calm.

Akako put his hands on my shoulders and I shook him away. "I-I'll be fine. Keep m-moving. Out of sight, out of mind, right? B-But...would you mind...if we held hands? Uh...only for reassurance..."

He silently nodded and once again, he took my hand. It felt very warm and strong, compared to my small, shaking, ice-cold hands. I was still shaking, but much less now. Like I'd said, this really did give me some reassurance. I gave him a look, and without having to verbally communicate with him what-so-ever, he knew to proceed.

I tried not to think of how my friends could be in a similar state. Or worse...me.

Sakura's P.O.V.

My eyelids fluttered open and the first thing I registered was a throbbing pain in my head. I looked around me and noticed my head was leaned against a splintered door. I moved my head forward, and brought my hand to the back of my head. Some splinters had lodged their way into my scalp, and I carefully pulled them out, whimpering in pain each time.

I then started focusing in on my surroundings. There wasn't much to see, really. I was in a long hallway. Its wooden floors were falling apart, and it would be easy to fall into one of the huge holes if I wasn't careful. I looked up at the sign hanging from the door I was against. It was a classroom, but not one I'd recognize.

I propped myself up and sprang to my feet. The ground felt strange and uneven. I soon realized that it wasn't the ground that was throwing me off balance though. One of my shoes was missing. I glanced around, but it was nowhere in sight. The shift in height between my two feet was uncomfortable, so I quickly discarded my other shoe. Now all I had on were my black and red knee socks that came with our uniform.

A sudden realization hit me as I looked around again. For one thing, I had no clue where I was and didn't know how I'd even gotten here. And secondly, I was all alone. What's going on? Obviously, this isn't Hakumei, so where is it? Enter panic mode.

I let out a whimper and started hyperventilating, feeling really afraid. If I was all alone in an abandoned-looking place like this, does that mean I had been kidnapped? Is there a killer lurking in here? I was about to cry, but then I heard a voice.

"Is that you, Sakura?"

Exiting from a nearby door, I saw Atsushi. He wore the usual calm expression, appearing almost bored. I gasped when I saw that his hands were covered in blood.

"Atsushi...there's blood all over your hands. A-Are you hurt...or?"

He shook his head. "I'm not hurt. But...someone else was when I woke up. When I awakened, I was next to you and I decided to look around. And...what I found wasn't pretty. I opened up that room when I heard someone screaming. I found a girl with a knife lodged in her gut. She had other stab wounds too. I...couldn't save her. But come in here. I found something sort of interesting. And you've already seen we aren't in Hakumei anymore. This might tell us where we're at..."

I followed after him as he slid the door open and stepped inside. I froze immediately when I saw the girl he'd been talking about. She laid in a pool of her own blood, eyes rolled back into her head, her expression still showing the agony she'd been feeling as she died. I saw the stab wounds, just how deep they'd gone in. A few chunks of her flesh seemingly peeling off. My stomach gurgled, and I held my breath, tears pricking at my eyes.

I stumbled back, knocking into Atsushi, who'd just closed the door. He caught me awkwardly before helping me to stand again. I started sobbing and finally found myself able to look away.

"What happened to her?" I whispered. "Who would do such a thing? S-Someone...murdered her. Were we brought here to be killed to? AAAHHHHHH!"

I let out an ear-piercing shriek and Atsushi clasped his hand over my mouth, muffling me.

"Shhh," he hissed. "Earlier, I saw a huge man with a hammer passing by. If he finds us, we're dead. Keep it together! If you panic like this, you won't survive. You have to stay calm and collected."

"Easy for you to say, Mr. Military!" I snarled, distancing myself from him. "This must all seem kind of like training to you, huh?! Well a normal human being would be scared!"

"I never said I wasn't scared!" he hissed, looking offended. "I'm terrified actually! But you can't let that fear show. You can't give into it. Because then you won't make rational decisions and you'll damn yourself. Just take a few deep breaths, and then follow me."

I did as he instructed and took slow, deep breaths. I leaned against the wall for some support and closed my eyes, pushing the image of the girl's corpse out of my mind. I just told myself not to look at her again and to listen to what Atsushi said. I opened my eyes and nodded at him.

He nodded back and gestured for me to follow him. He walked along the wall, avoiding desks. It looked like he was making his way over to a glass cabinet. As we walked, I noticed how small the desk appeared. Teenagers like us would never fit in seats like that. This appeared to be an abandoned school for...little kids? I couldn't really estimate how little they'd be though.

We finally stood in front of the cabinet and he opened it up, removing two objects from it. In his hands, he held a box of matches, and what looked to be an old newspaper.

"Hold onto this," he said, placing the matchbox in my hand. I tucked the matches away in one of my back pockets. Yup. Our skirts had pockets on their back. Made me wonder what pervert designed the uniforms anyway.

He shook some dust that covered the newspaper and started reading it aloud. "Heavenly Post. 'Breaking News: Serial Kidnapping Ends In Murder.' The good name of Heavenly Host Elementary School has been stained in blood today as horrific details on the recent wave of disappearances are revealed. Over the past month, numerous children have gone missing within the town, and authorities quickly turned to kidnapping as the most likely explanation. Now investigators have located the whereabouts of these children, and their findings are far worse than anyone could've anticipated. The bodies of the absconded youths were discovered within the Heavenly Host Elementary School building on September 18th, 1973 at around 7:00 PM. Authorities further revealed that a male instructor from the school was found with them, alive but near-catatonic, holding a pair of bloodied scissors. Each of the corpses appeared to have had its tongue severed and removed...mutilations far too...to describe." Atsushi squinted his eyes. "Sorry. Some of this words aren't legible."

That was fine by me. I was disturbed enough as is. "So...if that newspaper is here, does that mean we're inside Heavenly Host?"

He nodded. "I'm not sure how or why though. And if my hunch is correct, that girl won't be the only corpse we'll encounter." He threw the newspaper aside, and walked towards the door. "Sorry, Sakura, but this is goodbye. I'm going to search for some answers. And if there are more dead bodies around, I'm sure, knowing your nature, that you'll only slow me down. So long..."

"Wait! Atsushi!" I called after him, but he slammed the door shut and I heard his feet clack against the floor as he ran away.

I fell to my knees, launching myself back into panic mode. I'm all alone in a murderous school and I don't know any self defense. How the hell am I supposed to survive?!

"ATSUSHIIIIIIIII!"

Kimiko's P.O.V.

I sat in some sort of strange Science lab, facing Shuji and Toshiaki. All of us were thoroughly confused as to where in the world we were and how we had ended up here. All our questions would be answered, however, as a ghost girl appeared before us.

All three of us jumped when all of the sudden, a girl with blue hair appeared before us. She wore a school uniform with a jacket tied around her waist. She looked mostly human, but her eyes were like a dead fish. And she straight-up told us she was a ghost who died here.

"My name is Naho Saenoki," she greeted us. We were all still on edge. "I'm a ghost that died here in this school."

"D-Died?" Toshiaki stuttered, shivering.

"Yes," she responded plainly. "I'm a ghost. Do you know why you're here? And where you are?"

We all shook our heads in silence. I looked at the two boys, and their faces showed expressions of disbelief. I couldn't believe my eyes either. A ghost was pacing in front of us?!

"You're in Heavenly Host Elementary School," she informed us, smirking a bit. "Here, ghosts lurk, and they'll try to kill whoever they see. There's no escape here. Well...there is one way. But I'm not nice enough to say where. But you can't escape through windows or doors. What brought you to this hell? I assume you must have performed the Sachiko Ever After charm I posted on my blog, yes?"

None of the guys spoke. Their faces were completely pale. If they weren't going to man up, then I'd speak. "Yeah. Ichigo showed the charm to us. She said if we did it correctly...we'd be together forever or friends forever...something along those lines."

"Naho chuckled. "So...what would happen if you failed, hm? Did she say?"

I shook my head. "She had no idea what would occur."

That made Naho chuckle even more. "Well then, if you fail, you end up trapped here in Heavenly Host, trying to survive as long as possible before being murdered or starving to death. This school is broken down into several different spaces. If you and your friends didn't all get transported into the same space, it's next to impossible to find each other. But since you've arrived here, that means one of you messed up the charm. Now think. Was it an accident? Or...would any of your so-called friends do it on purpose? Hehehe."

Naho then suddenly disappeared, leaving us to think over her words. I looked to Shuji and then to Toshiaki. They were both lost in thought. I started wondering too. Would any of them have messed it up on purpose? Thinking it would be funny?

Toshiaki was the first to speak. "I think if anyone would've messed up on purpose, it'd be Atsushi. He doesn't like me that much and he doesn't seem like the type to want to make friends."

I shook my head in disagreeance. "No. Atsushi is good friends with Ichigo, so he'd probably take it seriously. I think that Akako did it. Yeah, Ichigo has been opening him up a bit, but he's never declared anyone as his friend. He's so stoic. He probably did the charm so he wouldn't hurt Ichigo's feelings, but flubbed it up so the charm wouldn't take effect."

Toshiaki glared at me, and slammed his hands on the table. "It wasn't Akako! Take it back!"

"I won't!" I screamed back at him. "Akako is just a cold jerk! He seems like a low-life to me. Now that bastard has damned us all!"

"What do you know about Akako?! Ichigo has really opened up his heart...and every now and then I got to see his true self...and he...wouldn't do that."

"Both of you are wrong!" Shuji shouted. We both turned to face him. He stood up and started walking around. "I think it was Ichigo. Oh sure, she suggests such a nice, friendly charm to us. But maybe she had some malice behind it. She's the type to get pissed off easily, so maybe she's holding a grudge against all of us and thought that if she messed up the charm, it would break up our frienship and she wouldn't have to deal with us. But because of her screw-up, we're here now...and even if someone else messed it up, it's still her fault for making us do that charm anyway without knowing the consequences."

Toshiaki grunted in anger and scowled at Shuji with pure hatred in his eyes. He hissed at me as well. "How dare you! Both of you! Accusing the two people I cherish the most...FUCK YOU! I BET ONE OF YOU TWO DID IT AND ARE BLAMING THOSE TWO SO YOU WON'T BE BLAMED! I know that neither of you like me that much...you say how I constantly annoy you...so maybe it was you two who actually caused all this. Even if I'm wrong, I don't want to be around either of you any longer. I'm leaving to find Ichigo and Akako. I hope I never see your faces again!"

Toshiaki flipped us off before storming out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"Idiot," Shuji hissed. "He realizes what Naho said, right? He could get killed running off like that. Tch. What do I care? He'll get what he deserves..."

We rested in an awkward silence for a while before I finally couldn't stand it anymore. "Shuji, if we sit around doing nothing, we'll just be waiting for death to find us. So...what should we do? Try to find some way to escape? Find some of our friends? What?"

Shuji took me by surprise, grasping my hand. My instinct was to pull away, but I resisted. He smiled at me. "You...you're the only one I need. You're the only one who's ever understood me. Let's forget about the others and figure out how to leave this place. What do you say?"

I frowned. "That's...uh...sweet and all, but I don't like the thought of just abandoning everyone. What if they're in trouble? And despite your accusations, I don't think Ichigo did this and I want to find her."

Shuji sighed and took a deep breath. "You're...You're right. I'm not thinking straight. There's strength in numbers, right? So if we find everyone, we can put out heads together and find a way out of here. And then we won't have to feel guilty for leaving anyone behind..."

Shuji sighed. "Guess that means we'll have to chase after Toshiaki, huh?"

"Yeah," I also sighed. "He's annoying, yes, but you can't honestly tell me you would've feel bad if he died in here."

Shuji frowned. "I'd definitely feel bad if he died. Especially seeing as how he left us on such a sour note. I kind of want to apologize..."

"Let's get moving then. And let's try to find some water while we're at it. I'm dying of thirst."

That's where I'll end for now. So, who do you predict will die first? I've already planned who will die and when, but I was curious to see what you readers thought. Leave it in your review. Bye for now! I'll try to update soon...