Ayumi's eyes opened and she saw a little girl standing before her. She wore a torn up red dress and had long messy black hair. Ayumi tried to move and talk, but she still couldn't. She found her energy depleting again with each failed struggle.
She was in a room that seemed to have dirt walls and a dirt ceiling.
"Hello!" She said with a bright smile. Ayumi just stared at her. Who was she?
"Can't talk? Well don't tire yourself out. It's useless anyway." She said. Her smile grew and Ayumi felt a feeling of dread take over her as the little girl took out a pair of perfectly sharp scissors. They didn't look like the ones Yoshiki had earlier. These scissors were clean and ready to cut anything
"I wonder how your face would look like with holes all over..." She said as she positioned the scissors near Ayumi's face. Ayumi's eyes grew wide in fear as she tried to move again.
The little girl plunged forward with the scissors towards Ayumi's eye.
...
Satoshi looked outside the window as thoughts swarmed through his head. Nobody was outside. Usually with the time they've spent in the school people would be searching for them. Right? He knew his parents would be flipping out by now with his and Yuka's absence. It was getting late and the moon was high up in the sky. No cars were passing by the school either. He knew it was late and all, but there would usually be one lone car passing by.
It was like they were in a completely different world, but it looked the same.
"Where will we go now?" Yuka asked. Satoshi looked back over at his little sister. They were in the principal's office. The lights had gone out a few minutes after they woke up in the room.
"I guess we just go home. But I'm worried about the others. We should try finding them and see if they're alright." Satoshi still wasn't clearly sure what was going on. He wondered if what he saw was just a dream, but Yuka had also clearly saw it. She was still shaken by the sight of those monsters biting into human flesh.
"Do you think they're all over the school?" Yuka asked. She was asking about those dead people. He still wasn't sure if they were even people.
"I don't know. But if we wanna make it home we gotta get out of this room." He said. Satoshi walked towards the door and looked back at his sister.
"You ready?" He said trying to hide the fear in his voice. Yuka turned on her little key chain light she had and found on the principal's desk and nodded.
"Y-yea."
...
A girl with short black hair and red rimmed glasses looked down at the body being consumed by the dead. She sighed and folded her arms as she watched the spectacle of her own body being devoured slowly. Her neck's tendons were being torn into, and her intestines being pulled out and slurped up. A sharp snap was heard as they broke into her rib cage.
"Are you enjoying it?" She asked with a monotonous voice. Well she had come this far and surprisingly she could still keep going even if she was dead.
Naho Saenoki began to walk away from the scene.
...
"So, when did you learn how to kick a door down?"
"Well one day my siblings, father and I went out for ice cream. When we came back the door's lock had malfunctioned and we were locked out. That was when my father took the chance to teach me how to kick in a door. He said the weakest part is usually under the doorknob."
"Wow, who knew that would save our lives one day." Naomi said after listening to Seiko's story.
"Yea...I gotta thank him when we get out." Seiko said. She looked down as she thought of her siblings and worried over them. She knew the eldest one knew there were leftovers in the fridge, but he would be worried that she wasn't home yet.
"What if we don't?" Naomi asked.
"Don't worry! I'm sure we will!" Seiko said. She put her hands on her hips.
"We'll get out in no time!"
"I hope so." Naomi said. "But it's so dark. We can barely see anything."
They were both using their cellphones as lights in the bathroom. The electricity had gone out while they were waiting to gain the courage to go back outside.
"The door's locked right? We can wait until tomorrow, so when the sun's up we can see." Seiko said.
"I guess we could do that but..."
"I know, you wanna get home as soon as you can so do I. But it's dangerous out there."
Seiko patted Naomi on the back trying to comfort her.
Naomi was on the verge of tears, and hated herself for being this way. Seriously? If Seiko could keep her cool why couldn't she?
...
Yoshiki woke up in a room. Well he thought it was a room. The floor was hard and his head was spinning. He put his hand up to his head and examined the fluid that was now on it.
The side of his head was bleeding a lot, great.
He could only crawl at the moment. He tried his best to get to the open door. All he could think about was Ayumi and where she was. He was sick with worry and the pain in his head wasn't helping.
"Ugh..."
He made it out the door and sat up against the wall outside the room. He breathed heavily as he cradled his head. "Dammit!" He was so angry at himself for losing her. He remembered promising himself that he would protect her.
He slowly stood up and began to stumble down the tunnel.
...
The scissors stopped right before they touched Ayumi's right eye. Ayumi watched as the little girl made a confused expression and tried stabbing her again.
It didn't work though. It was as if an invisible force was stopping her from inflicting pain on her.
The little girl backed away, "Well it seemed that I can't kill you..." Then her smile grew wide as she opened the door. "But I'm pretty sure they can."
Walking corpses flooded the room. They walked in with a hungry look in their eyes as they looked at Ayumi. She fell to the ground, her arms and legs had a prickling sensation in them. It was like they were waking up from lack of blood circulation. Ayumi found her voice and screamed.
"Good, I want to see you struggle before you die!" The little girl said as she giggled. Ayumi scrambled away from the dead, trying to escape. There was no other way out other than the one door in the front of the room.
"Please, stop!" She yelled. the girl just stared in amusement. They were getting closer and Ayumi's breathing was growing faster.
She crawled to the farthest end of the room, and screamed again.
...
Yoshiki started to run as fast as he could towards the source of the scream. He knew it was her, "Shinozaki!" He yelled.
He ended up finding a wooden door after making a turn. He started kicking the door. Once that proved as a failure he started ramming into it with his shoulder. He could hear Ayumi crying on the other side and an intense feeling of dread and anger filled him.
"You're going to break your shoulder like that." He turned to see a girl wearing a different school uniform than the one Kisaragi students wore.
"I don't care!" He yelled as he rammed into it again. The door wouldn't budge at all. It was as if it was part of the wall itself. "And who the hell are you?"
"Naho Saenoki." She said as she pulled out a small piece of paper from her pocket and a small vial full of a clear liquid. She opened the vial and poured some of the liquid on the paper.
"Move now! I can burn this door down." Yoshiki had no idea what to do. He wasn't sure of it could work or not, but at this point he would try anything. He backed away and watched as she set the wet piece of paper on the floor near the door. She took out a box of matches and lit the paper on fire. The fire quickly ate away at the door, turning it to ash within seconds. Yoshiki quickly ran in and Naho followed.
Yoshiki pushed down the first two corpses to the floor. He had lost the scissors and had no idea how to kill them. He left them there squirming on the floor as they tried to get up.
He pulled on the shoulder of the corpse nearest to Ayumi and pushed it away before it could get a grasp on him.
"Kishinuma!" Ayumi cried. The little girl stood in the middle of the room, staring at the scene silently.
"We need to get out of here now." Naho said.
Yoshiki scooped the terrified Ayumi in his arms. He didn't care if she didn't like the gesture or not. He just wanted them to get out of the room as fast as they could.
Naho pulled out a paper doll with writing on it and several other small pieces of paper and set them set them on the ground near the little girl.
"I may not be able to win now...but I will soon." The child said. They left through the door, careful to avoid the two corpse that were almost standing up and the one that was advancing towards them.
Ayumi held on Yoshiki tightly. There was still that feeling of overwhelming fear in her, but now that he was here it was bearable.
They ran until they came to a dead-end in the tunnels. Yoshiki set Ayumi down on the floor, and sat down next to her. He looked around but couldn't see Naho anywhere.
"Where'd she go?" Yoshiki asked.
"Who was she anyway?" Ayumi asked didn't get to see her face."
"She said her name was Naho Saenoki." Yoshiki said.
"Really? She's a famous paranormalist! Where did she go?" She looked forward and squinted her eyes to try to see far down the hall but couldn't catch any sign of her.
"I don't know. I hope she's alright though." Yoshiki said, "It's strange,as soon as we turned the corner she was gone."
"Well I hope she- oh my god you're bleeding!" Ayumi said as she looked at Yoshiki's face. Blood streamed down the side of his face to his chin.
Yoshiki covered the wound with his left hand. "Ah, no I'm okay." He said. He had forgotten about the damage that had been done to his head. He could feel the warm blood on his palm as he pressed down applying pressure to it so the bleeding would stop.
"Geez no you're not." Ayumi pulled out a small yellow cloth from her pocket. She started to clean up the blood that was on his face. She couldn't get all of it off however since some of it had dried up and stuck to his face. "Move your hand." She said.
"Shinozaki. I'm alright, and besides I'm trying to stop the bleeding." He said. Her face was way too close, and he was pretty sure she wasn't aware of that.
"Ugh just move it. I'll clean it and stop the bleeding. What happened anyway? Mochida-kun would've been more careful."
Well that changed the mood. It felt like all the warmth in his heart from Ayumi tending to him was replaced with ice-cold jealousy and frustration. He sighed and stood up almost falling over from the sudden movement. Yoshiki leaned against the wall as he regained his composure.
"Kishinuma!"
"I said I'm fine. Just forget it."
"Ugh what's with you always being so stubborn and annoying? I'm trying to help you."
"Just forget it Shinozaki...I'm fine." Ayumi stood up and shoved the handkerchief in his free hand.
"At least do it yourself if you're not gonna let me do it." Yoshiki sighed and wiped off the excess blood. It had stopped bleeding, and hopefully wouldn't get infected.
"As soon as we get to the nurse's office I'm gonna need to bandage it up." Yoshiki said
Ayumi nodded, "Well anyway...What happened? Who did that?"
Yoshiki shrugged. "I just remembered getting hit in the head and then blacking out. I woke up in a room got out and later heard you screaming so I ran to you."
"Oh..." Ayumi looked away,"Good thing I screamed I guess." She said.
There was silence for a bit and it became awkward. Yoshiki sort of wanted a thank you for, well...saving her life, but he guessed pigs would have to fly before she thanked him of anything.
"Well, anyway I guess we have to keep looking for everyone." Yoshiki said trying to get rid of the awkwardness.
"Yea I guess so." Ayumi began to walk forward and Yoshiki followed.
"Well at least this place is lighter than the school." Ayumi looked at the ceiling and saw that there were lightbulbs that lit up the tunnel slightly. "Wait are we even still in the school? Where are we?"
"I don't know...but we need to find a way back." Yoshiki said. "It feels like we're underground with all this dirt. Look for stairs or something."
They continued moving forward, scanning the area for anything that would lead them back to their school.
They came to a point where they could either turn left or right. "Where do we even go?" Ayumi asked.
Yoshiki looked down both ways, "Maybe right?" He asked. Ayumi shrugged.
"We could go right I guess." She said.
"RRRGUHH!" A loud noise came from the direction they were suppose to go down. Ayumi turned her head to the right and then looked at Yoshiki.
"Actually let's go left."
"Y-yea..."
She looked back to the source of the noise and saw a large shadowy figure advancing towards them.
"What is that?" She asked.
"I don't know, but it probably isn't good."
They hurried to the left and traveled down the passageway. Ayumi could hear whatever it was as it stomped the ground with each step it made.
"Let's go in that room!" Ayumi pointed to an opened door way. They both entered the room. There were stalls aligning the side a the room, and two sinks on the other side.
"We have to hide." Yoshiki said. He opened a stall door, "get in and stand on the toilet."
"What about you?" She asked.
"AUUGHG!" The noise sounded alarmingly loud and it hinted that the unknown thing was near.
"Just get in!" Yoshiki yelled.
Ayumi got in and stood on the toilet, she placed both her hands on both sides of the walls to balance herself.
She heard the stall door next to her open and close, and knew that Yoshiki was in the other stall.
The footsteps came closer, accompanied by the sound of something being dragged.
Ayumi leaned slightly to her side to see out of the crack of the stall door. She almost lost her balance at the horrific sight. A man stood, his mouth agape with red eyes and torn bloody clothing. He held a hammer in one hand and in the other hand he held onto...another hand, that was of course connected to a body. The man had been dragging around a body. She wondered if the person was still alive, or not. She wore the same school girl uniform for Kisaragi high. Her body was facing down towards the ground, her long blonde hair obscuring her face.
"Auuooogh..." The man walked back out of the bathroom dragging the body with him.
Ayumi didn't move at all for what seemed like forever, and neither did Yoshiki.
The footsteps soon faded and after a couple of seconds Yoshiki hopped down from standing on the toilet and opened his stall door. "Are you alright?" He asked.
Ayumi got down from the toilet and opened the stall door. She looked over to Yoshiki with wide eyes. "I...I saw what it was...He was dragging a student with him..."