June 22, 2014

3rd Person POV:

"Yo, Rena!" Keiichi called from atop a trash hill, seeing the other teen yanking on an old cross-beam, and she jumped in surprise, standing straight. "Working hard, I see!" he teased, jumping down the piles of junk as she turned to face him. "Keiichi-kun! What are you doing here?" she squeaked, and he assumed a vaguely military posture. "I received emergency information about an accident, and came to help. Where is the injured, ma'am?" he asked professionally, putting a hand to his forehead and looking around theatrically. "What accident?" she asked in alarm, and he faced her again sharply. "I heard the Colonel mannequin is buried alive here!" he shouted dramatically, and she blinked a few times before giggling weakly. "Oh, that! You surprised me." she chuckled, putting a hand over her heart. "So, where is the Colonel?" Keiichi asked, putting his arm down and casting his eyes about the heaps of junk.

She shook herself, smiling. "Sorry, he's over here!" she said brightly, jumping over a few things and then kneeling. "Here, can you see him through this crack?" He kneeled beside her, squinting down to see the buried mannequin. "Whoa, he's buried pretty deep. We might need an ax or a saw to dig him out." he said seriously, and she blinked, as if forgetting something. "Just wait a minute, okay?" she said brightly, then suddenly got up, skipping up the nearest pile of junk and disappearing down its side. "Hey!" he called in surprise, but she was already gone. He stood up, wandering lazily around the small valley that the junk had formed, spotting some old magazines and newspapers in one corner. He knelt, picking through them absently as Tomitake's words ran through his head. It was a horrible crime. I hear they still haven't found one of the arms. He stopped in shock on the page of an old newspaper.

There was one…he thought in surprise, reading it aloud. "Tragedy at the Hinamizawa Dam. Tortured and hacked to pieces. The murderers hacked the victim with hatchets and pickaxes in cold blood, and then took an ax to the body and cut off the head and appendages into six parts. One of the murderers is still at large…" His eyes widened, remembering Rena's flat denial. "I don't know." Mion's. "No." A chill ran down his spine. "There was a murder…" he whispered, and for a moment there was dead silence, except for the endless humming of the cicadas.

"So you found out."

He nearly jumped a mile in the air at the quiet, deliberate voice, whipping his head up to see Ashes crouching on an abandoned TV set several meters above him, one hand lazily wrapped around a metal pole with a knife on top. "Shōkyaku-san?!" he spluttered, unable to think of anything else to say, and her mouth moved up in a smile that didn't meet her eyes. "So you found out about the murders, Maebara Keiichi." she chuckled as she lowered her makeshift spear, running her fingers over the edges of the blade. He blinked rapidly. "Murders?! T-there was only one!" he stammered, pointing helplessly to the paper, and her mouth curled up again. "Only one that you know of yet. It happens every year you know. The curse." she mused aloud, flipping the spear over to examine the butt. His eyes widened. "What curse?" he said demandingly, and she smirked. "You'll out soon enough. All I can say is, I'm glad that I live out in the woods, where it's safe." she chuckled ominously, licking a cut on her thumb as blood slowly oozed to the surface from the sharpness of her blade.

There was a sharp creak behind him, and he whirled, seeing Rena standing above him with a hatchet in her hands. His eyes widened and he let out a sound that was a cross between a choked scream and a startled yelp, tumbling backwards. "Are you okay? Are you?" she squealed frantically, jumping down the pile. He sat up, clutching his head. "You freaked me out…" he gasped, and she smiled sheepishly, raising her hatchet "Well, you said we needed an ax or something, that's why I…" He shakily got to his feet, wincing at his newly acquired scrapes and bruises. "You brought a huge one…" he chuckled, brushing himself off and then looking up at the sky. "But it's getting dark, so let's do this tomorrow." She looked downcast. "Okay…" He put his hands on his hips. "Hey, come on. You'll get to dig out the Colonel tomorrow!" She sighed. "I guess so…"

That day, in retrospect, those noisy evening cicadas…were a warning of the events to come. Of all the things about to happen.

***Time Skip***

Keiichi blinked as he saw Tomitake taking pictures of a bird in a tree. "Hello!" He turned, fiddling with something on his camera. "Oh, Keiichi-kun. Nice to see you again." He nodded cordially. "Same to you." he said, and Mion grinned. "Have you taken any good pictures?" Tomitake grinned happily. "Yeah, I got a couple." He winked at Keiichi. "Anyway, you're quite the playboy, Keiichi-kun. I want to be surrounded by girls too!" All three started as Rena blushed and Keiichi waved his hands frantically, Mion grinning at the both of them. "It's not like that!" Keiichi stuttered, and Tomitake put his hands on his hips ask Mion blinked. "Will you be staying for the Cotton Drifting Festival?" she asked, and he nodded. "Yes, that's my intention. I'm heading back to Tokyo after I take some pictures of the festival."

Rena smiled at him. "I hope you win some awards for your photographs soon!" she said encouragingly, and he laughed, stepping over the curb and walking past them. "Oh man! Well, see you at the festival." Mion waved to him. "Bye!" Keiichi turned to them as Tomitake wandered out of earshot. "You all know Tomitake-san?" he asked in surprise, and they both nodded. "Yeah. He comes to Hinamizawa two or three times a year." Mion explained, and Rena beamed. "He says he takes pictures of the seasons and wild birds." Keiichi nodded worriedly, his eyes following the retreating man's back. "Wild birds, huh?" he mused, a chill once again shuddering down his spine as he remembered the events at the dump.

***Time Skip***

"Cotton Drifting, huh?" Keiichi asked as he knelt at the water's edge with Rena. She nodded. "The cotton absorbs all your bad stuff. And it ends when we throw the cotton into the stream." she explained, and he lazily twirled a small stick around his fingers. "So does Shōkyaku-san ever show up for this?" he asked, concealing his unease, and Rena bit her nail nervously. "Actually…this is the only holiday she doesn't show up for. I haven't seen her come to this at all, but I think she does do it at her own home. I find it hard to believe someone who believes in Oyashiro-sama so much doesn't celebrate the Cotton Drifting festival at all." she mumbled, and his tension slightly drained away. At least I won't have to deal with her being creepy again…but I would like to get some answers from her! He thought irritably, a mood that he carried through him all the way through the rest of the festival.

He paused however, seeing Tomitake with a woman, her hair a light ash blonde with warm hazel eyes. "I think you're truly a part of Hinamizawa now." she said cheerfully, and he rubbed the back of his head. "Well, I'm not so sure about that. There's still a lot of things I don't know." he admitted, and Tomitake perked up. "About Hinamizawa?" he clarified, and Keiichi nodded. "Like that thing about the dam construction, for one. They said Hinamizawa was pretty close to being underwater. It was a huge deal, wasn't it?" he asked, and Tomitake sighed.

"They started planning the dam about seven to eight years ago. Hinamizawa and all the areas upstream were going to be submerged." Keiichi blinked in shock. "It was that big of a deal?" Tomitake nodded. "There were protests, of course. It went to the courts, and they discovered a lot of scandals and corruption revolving around it. While all this trouble was happening, they decided to cancel the construction." Keiichi's eyes fell into shadow. "There was a murder where someone was cut to pieces, right?" Tomitake nodded solemnly. "Yes, there was. It was about four years ago, around this time of year. I think that was on the day of the Cotton Drifting Festival, too." The woman smiled slightly. "The older citizens didn't doubt that it was the curse of Oyashiro-sama." Keiichi's eyes widened. "The curse of Oyashiro-sama?"

"They thought the guardian deity of Hinamizawa brought divine retribution to the ones who were going to submerge the village." Tomitake said, and the woman nodded. "Since then, it's happened every year." Keiichi made a confused motion. "What has?" Tomitake's eyes narrowed. "Every year, a death occurs on the day of the Cotton Drifting Festival." Keiichi started. "Every year?!" he gasped, and Tomitake nodded once. "Yes. The year after the dismembered corpse murder, a resident of Hinamizawa, who was a supporter of the dam, died when he fell into the water under a cliff while away on vacation. The wife was never found." The woman picked up after him. "And the year after that, on the night of the Cotton Drifting Festival, the priest at the shrine suddenly died of an unknown illness. His wife drowned herself in a swamp on the same night."

Tomitake spoke up again. "And the year after that, again on the night of the Cotton Drifting Festival, a neighborhood housewife was found beaten to death." Keiichi's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "A housewife?" The woman clarified. "The victim's husband was the younger brother of the dam-supporter who had died two years earlier." she said, almost with relish, and Tomitake pushed up his glasses slightly. "And the fifth Cotton Drifting Festival After The first murder is…" His friend cut him off. "Tonight." Keiichi's eyes widened again, and he looked at the ground. "And… Shōkyaku Ashes? What does she have to do with this?"

The woman smirked slightly. "Oh, Ashes-san? Her family…were the first ones to fall victim to the curse." Tomitake sighed and shook his head. "Her mother was American, thus her unusual name. Ashes-san's mother and father were not supporters of the dam, but neither were they against it. In essence, they were mediators between the two factions. Ashes-san was about nine when the murders occurred. Her family lived in the same little cabin she resides in now, and the murders actually occurred therein. Both her parents were found, sliced up to the point of being almost unrecognizable. Ashes-san was hiding in her room with a bloody pocket knife, utterly terrified. From what the police could get out of her, someone had come in and attacked both parents at the same time, and she had taken up the knife to defend herself. She was completely traumatized by the incident; it turned her hair white and left her with a deep-seated mistrust of other people."

Tomitake's friend smiled slightly at this. "Ashes-san has since lived alone in the woods. She comes out to do odd jobs and pay respects to Oyashiro-sama, but never on the night of the Cotton Drifting. Maybe she knows something we don't?" she chuckled lightly, and Keiichi managed a small and shaky smile. "Yeah…maybe…" he stammered, turning to head down the road to his home. Ashes's cold eyes seemed to drill into his mind as his heart beat rapidly in his chest, remembering her little secret smirk and her words: "All I can say is, I'm glad that I live out in the woods, where it's safe." His pace became hurried as the shadows under the trees seemed to grow just a little more menacing.

Just what the hell is going on in this village?!

4.06 PM, USA Central Time