Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts!
October part II
Something in Naminé's stomach sank and turned cold. Perhaps it was an anvil; she didn't have trouble believing it.
"You were saying?" Olette squeaked.
"It's probably just sound effects." Riku coolly said. "Let's keep going."
Kairi looked over her shoulder. "You're one of my best friends Riku, don't get me wrong. But I still don't understand how you can be so calm in situations like these."
The roars kept getting louder. Roxas started to look worried. "You're sure these are just sound effects?"
"They sound awfully… I don't know, real." Tidus said. Selphie said nothing but knit her eyebrows together into a troubled frown.
Xion looked like she was ready to curl up into a ball and roll all the way home. "Is there an emergency exit or anything? A fire escape would be fine too."
"We're getting through this. Come on, one foot front of the other." Sora instructed. The group seemed to do so stiffly, but picked up the pace. After a while Naminé rubbed her arm. "Ugh, I've got goosebumps."
A crazed laugh rang through the halls at that moment, causing everybody to jump and turn around. But nothing was there; only shadows and the dim candlelight.
"You sure we shouldn't run?" Selphie backed up a step.
"Positive! This is so cliché!" Sora persisted.
"ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?" A distorted voice mumbled loudly from the end of the hall. The sound of the chainsaw really was getting closer now, and it only got faster.
What a horrible way to die. Naminé thought.
"RUN!" Sora shouted, bolting down the hall. The rest of the group followed while Xion and Olette screamed.
"We would have done that if you didn't tell us to!" Kairi said irritably. "Stupid heels!" She bent down and flung them off quickly, thumping against the floor.
"NO SHIT!" Tidus yelled back.
"What am I doing with my life?!" The poor blonde wailed.
The evil laugh resounded through the house, the sound of the chainsaw growing ever louder in their ears. Naminé didn't realize she was sweating. Suddenly a fork in the hallway appeared before them in the candlelight. Her mind was spinning.
"Left!" Riku shouted.
"Right!" Sora yelled.
"What?" Xion shrieked.
Honestly Naminé couldn't say anything because her brain was still trying to recover from the shock. She saw a streak of brown and she followed it, but it took her a while to realize that the group had now split in two. Immediately she felt whatever feeling of safety she had left drain away.
The world was a blur of colours. How much longer? Her legs were starting to burn now along with her throat. The whirring of the chainsaw seemed to have died down some. Slowly the rest of the group came to a stop and doubled over, panting. Naminé's ears were ringing as she looked up to identify who was left.
Tidus was sprawled out on the scratched up wooden floor. "S-Selph… Why… did you… trip me?" He breathlessly demanded.
Said brunette's hands were pressed tightly on her knees. "S-sorry, Tides."
The only people who had gone down the same hallway were Sora, Naminé, Tidus, Selphie, and Olette. Naminé felt her blood going cold.
"Where is everyone?" Her mind was in such a state of utter shock she didn't know what she was saying.
The answer was obvious. "We got separated from them." Olette had to try a couple times before she could get the sentence out straight.
Sora had already caught his breath. The angry Tweedle Dum punted the floor in frustration. "Stupid Riku! I say right and he goes left! Why can't he ever agree on anything I say?" He whined.
Naminé looked down the hallway, which seemed to never end. "We've got to find everyone and get out of here. I'm gonna lose my sanity if we stay here for too long."
"Oh, are you sure?" Selphie asked, voice dripping with bitter sarcasm. "I wanted to stay here forever. How much does it cost?"
Tidus elbowed her. "Selph! Not the time!" The stubborn girl crossed her arms, clearly miffed. Even though she didn't mean it, the words stung.
"Could we maybe go back from where we came?" Olette suggested even though she was trembling in the ridiculous teacup costume.
"We've turned at least four corners. We'd never find them, or at least not now. They're probably looking for us anyway." Tidus held his chin in thought.
Sora resorted to a different tactic.
"KAIRI!" He screamed, voice echoing through the house loudly. "RIKU! ROXAS! XION!"
Selphie slapped her hand over his mouth, abruptly cutting off any sound he was planning on making. "Stupid! Don't make so much noise! Do you want Mr. Chainsaw to pay us another visit?" Quickly he settled down.
The air was musty and smelled foul somehow, the slightest bit humid. "I really, really don't want to be in here much longer." Naminé rubbed her arms again, feeling herself start to break out in a cold sweat.
Sora scratched the back of his head. "We can't just stand around here. We've got to look for them. So come on!"
For a long while, there was no sound except for their footsteps thumping throughout the empty halls. Sora led the way bravely, stance almost as brave and proud as that of a lion. Tidus and Selphie naturally stayed close to each other, and Olette seemed to be sticking to Naminé tightly, never letting go of her arm. Even in the costume, she reminded Naminé of a puppy. Innocent, kind, but cowardly.
The two girls shrieked when the muffled sound of the chainsaw reappeared again.
"You're kidding." Tidus sighed.
"There!" Selphie pointed down a different hall. "I can see something in the distance. Hurry!"
The broken-up group sprinted in that direction, occasionally tripping over nicks and nails in the rough wood. The hall opened up to be a room full of coffins, large, black, and all closed. They almost met to Naminé's waist. The sounds of the chainsaw seemed to be getting louder and louder for the second time.
"Coffins?" Olette echoed her thoughts.
Sora whipped his head towards the sound of the crazed laugh yet again. "We gotta hide!" He started lifting the cover off one of them, and thankfully it was empty. The brunette hopped inside and lay completely flat. "Well? Come on!"
As fussy as she sounded, Naminé wasn't too fond of the idea of jumping in a coffin. Because, well, it was a haunted house, right? Obviously there was going to be something freaky like dripping blood or even worse- spiders. She had horrible arachnophobia. Even the tiniest house spider could make her shriek and curl up in a corner. If there was even a chance of a spider being in there she would rather have her head sliced off by a chainsaw. Her knees started shaking. No way.
She woke up hearing Sora's voice. "Nami, what are you doing? You gotta hurry and hide!" His one arm was propping up the heavy lid, lifting it up as if he were to put it down any second now.
"T-There's no s-spiders in there, right?" She managed to ask over the noise of the chainsaw.
"Not that I can see. Now, hurry up!"
The blonde found herself unable to move at the possibility of something being in there. She simply shook in front of the coffin that Sora was in.
He sighed and grabbed her wrist, pulling her into the coffin with him and quickly using one arm to slide the lid over their heads, covering the small space in darkness.
Naminé attempted to process what was happening. She was crushed on top of him, moving slightly from his heaving chest. His heartbeat was loud and strong against hers, and a hand rested on her head, awkwardly unsure of what to do with it.
Her cheeks burned. "Sora! What are you doing?" She hissed angrily, knowing she couldn't make too much noise.
The brunette was unaffected by her reaction. "What else was I supposed to do? You wouldn't get in!" He whispered back, turning his head away and pressing his ear against the wall. "Your head would've been rolling on the floor if it weren't for me. Now hush, I can't hear."
She mumbled bitter protests, avoiding his gaze as she squirmed slightly in his grip. Naminé mentally slapped herself for agreeing to come to the stupid haunted house. This was not supposed to be this bad. Chainsaws, coffins, Sora- What else would happen? The recycled oxygen was becoming harder and harder to inhale. It was like breathing under a blanket for too long.
An eternity seemed to pass. Naminé couldn't take it anymore.
"Well?" She whispered. "Is the chainsaw gone?" And can I get off you now? She barely bit the last part back.
"I think so." He mumbled the response, and lifted a hand off her head to push up the lid. Light flooded into the dark space, making the blonde wince.
Time went in slow-motion for a second.
Standing above their coffin was a man with bright red hair and a bloody hockey mask. His bandaged hand grabbed at the string of the chainsaw, emitting an ear-splitting scream from Naminé as the roar of the chainsaw rang through the halls. Right when she was about to cower behind her arms and say her final prayers, there were two yells mixed in- one high, one low, and the hockey mask man tripped over their coffin and slammed into the wall with a painful thud and fell limp.
Time moved again.
Standing there in place of the man was Tweedle Dee with Kairi, Roxas, and Xion following close behind. The blonde opened and closed her mouth several times in a failed attempt to say something, anything, but no coherent words formed. What should she have said? Thank you? I was scared? How did you find us?
Instead it all came out as "Mmphawaaaaaa?"
Sora seemed unfazed by it all. "Riku! Kairi! Roxas, Xion! How did you get here?" Tidus and Selphie shakily lifted off the covers of their coffins and sat up upon hearing the noise. The brunette stood up and stared at the K.O'd guy who Riku had kicked in the back roughly.
Kairi rubbed the back of her heels. "We followed Selphie's trail of ribbon. Her hat was falling apart, remember?"
Said girl popped right out of her hiding place and took off the whimsical hat. Sure enough, all the bits of ribbon that were on it had fallen off. She started dancing and chanting, "Oh, YEAH! Selphie saves the day! Booyaka!"
Xion smiled weakly. "Selphie, that is never going to catch on."
"Lucky Riku got to knock out the chainsaw guy." Roxas adjusted his bunny ears and pocket watch. "Though I'm pretty sure if anyone could knock out a high school senior in one kick, it'd be Tweedle Dee over here."
"You guys alright?" Riku surprisingly offered a hand to the trembling girl who hadn't said a word through the ordeal.
Slowly she took it and stood up. His larger hand was a lot warmer, she couldn't help but notice.
"Yeah, I'm okay." Even her voice was shaking. "But I think you might wanna pay a little more attention to that lump over there." She pointed to the shivering blob that was unsuccessfully hiding under the coffin lid which stuck up due to the puffiness of her teacup costume.
"Is it gone?" Olette squeaked, voice muffled from under the lid.
"Yeah." Tidus nodded. "But that guy is no mystery."
Riku crossed over to the masked redhead and flipped him over, grabbing his arm. Roughly he snapped off the mask to reveal the face of Axel Tatsuyama, a senior and one of the most popular boys at the performing arts school. His signature red spikes and bright green eyes made him an instant hit with the female newcomers. He himself was skinny but surprisingly strong. At least Riku looked and fit the part completely.
"Axel?" Naminé exclaimed. "What is he doing here with a chainsaw?"
Sora kicked away the horrifying weapon to the other side of the room. "Maybe he's here for service hours. You gotta get at least 10 in senior year to graduate."
Kairi sighed. "Of course this is the job he decides to take up."
"Should we call the police?" Xion asked worriedly. "He did kinda try to kill us."
Selphie frowned. "That couldn't have been his job, though. He's a pyromaniac, not a murderer… right?" She added the last word a little hesitantly.
"Please. You leave him alone with a chainsaw and teenagers, pyromaniac or not he's gonna go insane with it." Riku shrugged.
"What a creep." Sora scowled, which was a rare look for him. "He could've ended up slicing off someone's head and he'd still get away with it for saying it was just an 'accident'. He sweet talks all the counselors and even Principal Xemnas."
"And does it work?" Naminé asked, pulling Olette out of the coffin.
"Most of the time no." Tidus laughed. "Guy's a broken record. Smooth talking with the ladies, though."
"I only knocked him out. And we still don't know where the exit is. We better hurry before he wakes up." Riku tossed the mask onto his face.
Sora started snickering. "Who's got some duct tape? We could toss him into a coffin and-"
"We're leaving!" Naminé spun on her mary-janed heel and started walking away. She was in no mood to joke around. She'd nearly died! Why did she even agree to come here in the first place? It was all their fault for thinking of even going!
Her feet stopped moving at that thought. No, that wasn't true. None of them had known that a crazed pyromaniac with a chainsaw would chase them through a haunted house. They just wanted to go because they thought it would be fun. And after all, they were together now, so she really didn't have a reason to stay mad at them. Surely they would find a way out. Nobody was to blame. In fact, Riku had just saved her and Sora, so she should've been grateful. Her cheeks burned in shame, and mentally slapped herself for even thinking that. Great friend she was.
"Naminé, what's wrong?" Kairi caught up to her with a worried look on her face.
She smiled weakly. "Nothing, forget it. Let's hurry and get out of here."
A high shriek pierced her ears. Immediately she turned around. "What?"
"Olette, what are you getting so worked up about? It's just a door." Selphie laughed. She'd pulled off the lid of a standing-up coffin to see a hallway attached to the wall.
"Oh… is that light at the end of the hall?" Xion noticed.
Roxas nodded. "Yeah! Let's follow it. We've pretty much explored the rest of the house."
"Dibs!" Sora cried as he ran right into the door.
"Sora! We should stick together!" Riku called, running in after him.
"Sticking together isn't in his mental vocabulary. He does what he wants at his own pace." Tidus chuckled, but followed anyway.
"He never learns." Kairi giggled, heading in.
"No fair!" Selphie screamed, shoving her way in.
"Hey, wait!" Roxas ran into the corridor.
"…How am I supposed to fit?" Olette wailed. "I can't be alone!"
"Are you wearing anything underneath? Maybe you could take your costume off to get through." Xion suggested.
"Well, it's just a T-shirt and the black leggings, but it'll do." Olette started changing out of it as the blonde slowly made her way inside, feeling along a smooth wall. Her heart was pounding, expecting a jumpscare. She was sure that after tonight, she'd never see chainsaws in quite the same way again. In the dark she could make out several figures ahead of her once her eyes adjusted.
"Whoa!" She heard Sora's voice from the end of the road. "What the heck is all this?"
"Did something happen?" Tidus started running so the rest of the group did as well. The sudden brightness against her eyes made her wince and blink rapidly. Once she regained her vision, she got a clear look of her surroundings.
The walls and floors were painted an eerie blood-red. A long, long hallway stretched in front of them, strange paintings hanging up on the walls. They were beautiful, but seemed splattered in what Naminé could only hope was red paint. When she looked at the name plates below the paintings, they seemed scratched up, burned, and stained with the red stuff. It was almost as if someone was crawling out of the picture, trying to free themselves but was too late and caught fire. The very thought sent shivers down her spine.
"The hell is up with this place?" Tidus whispered. "These paintings are so…"
"Unsettling." Xion softly finished.
"It's like they were trying to escape." Naminé voiced her thoughts.
"Yeah, none of them have names. Were these really burned or something?" Roxas wondered.
Kairi held her chin in thought. "Do these halls ever end?"
"They have to," Riku adamantly said. "It's not possible."
Sora shook his brown head. "Let's keep moving. Nothing else we can do."
The group walked forward in silence although Naminé's feet were beginning to grow sore in the mary-janes. The shoes were already uncomfortable enough, but now they were starting to ache out of pure exhaustion. Physical activities weren't her thing and never would be now. Not after this, at least. She wondered for a while how many calories she must've burned in one night when she came across two very familiar paintings and her feet stopped.
"Oh!" She exclaimed, making the group jump at the sudden sound of her voice. "These are…!"
"Starry Night and the Mona Lisa." Riku said.
"What about it?" Selphie asked.
"I've seen these a million times before, but I still get so excited just looking!" A wide grin stretched onto her cheeks. "I wonder how long these took to paint…" She reached out to touch idly at the smooth surface of the swirled colours of Starry Night. "So beautiful."
"I don't know about you, but the Mona Lisa always freaked me out." Tidus eyed said painting cautiously as if the beautiful woman would reach out with her hands and strangle him. "Did you guys hear there's some sort of hidden message behind her eyes? It's probably some death message."
Naminé looked carefully at the woman. "Really? I think it's neat. Mystery is always a cool factor in famous paintings. Imagine how long this must have taken." Her fingers brushed over something round and bumpy in the Mona Lisa's dress. "Huh?"
"What is it?" Olette said, voice a bit high with anticipation.
"That doesn't seem right." She frowned. "There's this round lump here. Paintings are usually perfectly smooth."
"A button?" Selphie wondered. "Press it press it!"
"Are you sure?" Her hand hovered hesitantly over the spot. "It could be a trap."
"Do it!" Sora urged.
"Well…"
"Stop hesitating!" Tidus clapped a hearty hand on her back. "We got nothing else to do."
"Alright, alright." Naminé pushed on the button.
Everything was quiet for a few moments. Then a large square panel started moving outwards and slid to the side, revealing a dark chute of some sort. There was no seeing inside, or any source of light.
"So it was a mechanism." Riku nodded.
"Where does it lead?" Xion wondered aloud.
Naminé shook her head. "I don't wanna know. It's totally dark!"
"It may be our only exit." Kairi said.
"Anyone got a phone or something? Maybe we could use it to see inside." Tidus suggested.
"I've got mine." The dressed-up Alice pulled her white iPhone out of her white stockings where she'd been safekeeping it. Somehow it didn't fall out while she was running earlier. "Alright, let's see where this goes." Pressing the circular power button, she got down on her hands and knees and reached her arm inside, shining the corridor with light, but nothing got any clearer. It really was just darkness.
"See anything?" Riku asked.
She shook her head before realizing they couldn't quite see it. "No, there's nothing. I don't see a ladder or anything. It's just black all over."
"Guess we'll have to find another exit." Sora sighed. "It's just a trapdoor."
"Yeah." Naminé let out a sigh as well and began to withdraw her arm when her hand bumped roughly against the top of the entrance and her gloved fingers began to slip from her precious phone. She gasped loudly and reached in deeper and soon the device was bouncing around the chute. Naminé continued reaching further in until her whole body from her waist up was inside. She could hear her friends calling her, asking what was wrong, but she was too busy trying to save her poor phone. After it bounced off the back of her hand one last time, it fell into the darkness and out of her sight.
"No!" She heard herself cry out, lunging for it, and this time falling head-over-heels into the chute after it.
A ghastly shriek ripped from her lungs as she tumbled down, down, down into the blackness, limbs flailing and desperate to grab onto something, anything that could stop her from falling to her death because she wasn't too fond of the idea of it. Her friends' voices called for her, several of them mixing together into ones she could hardly depict from the others. Her thought process was quickly deteriorating, but her jumbled thoughts managed to come together into a few simple lines:
I have almost died too many times in one night.
I have to ask for a new phone.
I'm probably going to die now.
What a horrible way to die.
Her rear slammed hard in a rough landing onto a cool metal surface she hadn't been able to see before. Blue eyes flying open in shock, she glanced around and tried to stand up and respond to the voices above, but then she started sliding down the metal.
And kept sliding.
That was when she realized she was trapped in some freak metal slide-chute thing and was probably going to keep sliding until she hit the bottom, wherever the heck that was.
An exit?
However, she was having a bit of a problem pondering over this because she was rapidly going down a steep incline and was not slowing down at all no matter how frantically her gloved fingers clawed at the metal surface under her. Before long she found the wind whipping her hair back wildly and her lungs burning from screaming too much. Her eyes squeezed shut as her mouth hung open, releasing a shrill yell that was almost as loud and desperate as the one she'd let out on the way down. Sure, she had dressed up as Alice, but this was a Rabbit Hole she hadn't been expecting to fall down. At all.
The shaft, whatever it was designed for, twisted and turned like a water slide. Naminé's stomach twisted in knots, feeling a faint vertigo start to swirl within her. If it were possible for hearts to leap, hers would've been in her throat at the time. Her mind blanked completely until she made one last sharp turn and popped outside, landing roughly on a squishy mattress.
Mattress?
The cool, refreshing night air felt wonderful against her flushed skin. Catching her breath, she looked around. There was a lineup for the haunted house, Halloween music playing, and a man dressed up as a vampire stood outside the exit she'd just flew out of. Naminé craned her neck behind her to see that she'd popped out of what looked like a chimney on the side of the house.
She opened her mouth to speak when the vampire interrupted.
"Congratulations! You've found the secret exit to the haunted house!" He started to applaud. "By the way, does this happen to be yours? Came out of the exit a while before you did." In a white and red glove held Naminé's iPhone, which, aside from a few scratches on the screen, was in perfect condition.
Still traumatized from the wild ride, she found herself unable to respond, and grabbed the phone and checked it up and down before hugging it to her chest. Thank goodness…
"Look out!"
When she blinked, something crashed right on top of her, knocking the wind out of her and crushing her thin body to the mattress. The weight continued to increase until she was sure they would have to get a new mattress to replace the giant hole that had been created in the middle of it. Lifting her head, which was about the weight of a bowling ball at the moment, a streak of brown lifted up as well to look her in the eye.
"Sorry, Nami." Tweedle Dum greeted her.
After everyone picked themselves up, Xion was surprisingly the first one to speak words of wisdom:
"Never again."
A huge group hug ensued. Nobody complained.
An hour later, Naminé was back in her father's car wrapped tightly in his coat on the ride home. She'd never been so glad to be in his car. For the first time that night she realized how exhausted she was.
"Didn't I say you'd be cold?" His face turned to her in profile.
"I told you Father, I hate working up a sweat." She replied in nothing but raw honesty.
"Well, I suppose you enjoyed yourself. Was it scary?"
Naminé thought about this for a second. In one night she'd been chased by a chainsaw, pulled into a coffin, nearly had her head sliced off, fell through a trap door, slid down a metal slide and landed on a mattress and got crushed by all her friends.
"Nah."
A/N: Oh my gosh, it's been way too long since I've updated this fic. I was starting to write another one and almost forgot that I had to finish writing the conclusion for this month/chapter. The next one will be a bit more serious, so feel free to tell me what you think and R&R! :)
