No one moved. I was too afraid to even breathe. Until the sounds faded once again and we were sure they wouldn't come back, we sat there in complete silence.
"Sounds like they're gone now." The hand was removed from my mouth and I released my grip on Shiro and Tsubaki.
"That was too close." The four of us stood and I turned my attention to the twins. "Shiro, I want you to sit here with Tsubaki. I'd like to talk with this guy a minute." I motioned towards the man we'd run into just moments ago. Shiro just nodded and watched over his sister while the two rested.
"They're too young to be in a place like this," the man said as the two of us walked over to another part of the room. "I don't want to know what would happened if their sister weren't with them."
"I'm not their sister," I calmly corrected him. "We ran into each other in here. I couldn't just leave them here, so I've been looking after them. I'm sorry, I should probably tell you my name first. I'm Rina Mitsuga. But you can just call me Rina if you like."
"I'm Shougo Taguchi. What are you doing in here?"
"I don't know about those two, but I woke up in here after doing some charm my friends suggested. If I had to guess, I'd say that was what brought us here," I said, thinking it over for the first time.
"If it has anything to do with Sachiko, then you're right. But how did you find out about it?" Good question. All I really knew was that my friend Emiko had found it online. If he knew this much about it already though, did that mean he knew how to get out of here?
"My friend was the one who found it," I said, shaking my head. "Do you know how to get out of here?"
He was quiet a moment, as if he were trying to remember something important. "I believe I heard Mr Kibiki talking about it before. If my memory is correct, by doing the charm properly in reverse, you can leave that way."
"What do you mean by doing it properly?" Did that mean we did it wrong?
"You're here because you failed. You have to say that phrase once for each person participating as well as once for Sachiko. Didn't you know that already?"
That means someone had purposely put the wrong directions on the internet, but why? I pushed that thought out of my mind. "Why are you in here?" I said, trying to change the subject a bit. Talking about this was only darkening my mood and that was the last thing I needed right now.
"I was helping Mr Kibiki with his research until we were separated. Now I'm taking video of the bodies here so that I can file a police return once I get out of here," he informed me, holding up his camera. He'd lowered his voice when mentioning the bodies so that the children couldn't hear what he said. "While searching for Mr Kibiki of course."
"Shiro," I called the little boy over. "Would you tell me the names of your friends that did that charm with you?" He listed off a few names and I wrote them on a scrap of paper I'd had in my pocket. "Thank you. Go sit with Tsubaki now, alright?"
After he was back with his twin, I stood next to Taguchi. I held up the paper, looking through the names as he played back the footage on his camera. As we went through all the names of Shiro and Tsubaki's group, I also searched for my own friends among the dead in the video.
"Looks like we have a chance of finding one of their friends." Only one of their friends wasn't found on Taguchi's camera.
"What about yours?"
"Every one of them is on there," I said, pointing at the camera. "I'm on my own here. About that way out, what if you try to do it the proper way with someone not from your group?"
"I don't know, but I doubt it would end well."
So I might never make it out of Heavenly Host.