Alright! It's half past three in the morning and I'm super-duper cold but my mind wouldn't stop yelling at me to write out chapter four so here you guys go! I'm really pleased that you guys seem to be enjoying this particular verse because I've worked really hard on it (and because I need this in my life)

In any case, enjoy~!

Reply to comments:

Roseheart37819: Hi! Furihata is a weirdo, don't let his suave thinking fool you! Your wish is my command~~

Abyssadoor: There. There you win. I dare you to guess the word count of this chapter. *sigh*

Disclaimer: See previous chapters.

Chapter 3: Six Trillion Years and a Shadowy Story

He was horrible at the game, so horribly bad at the game that he continually mixed up the rules for chess and checkers and thought that the king could move wherever it pleased, so there was no way it was him.

A heavy metal clank from beyond the door of the Room startled Kouki. Right, Nagayasa had told him that the labyrinth's rooms changed one by one. That meant that he would be stuck in here for about an hour before Nagayasa could text him the new directions. Wonderful.

Kouki sighed again absently shifting the pawn back into place and meandering off to the direction of the bathroom.

Kouki was convinced he was going mad. He'd have to be, there was no other logical explanation for it than that.

He'd been working in the labyrinth for roughly one week and every day after he'd brought the chess board to his workplace, he'd come back in morning to find one of the pieces moved in a strategic position on the board. It was always the black pieces and always one of the pawns.

He had written it off the first time with little effort but the second and third times he'd went to Nagayasa and asked him just to be certain and just as he'd expected, the amiable man claimed to have not touched the board, afraid that he would shatter the fine glasswork. The fourth time it happened he decided that he'd ask Akabane about it since the woman was in charge of feeding Patient Zero in the evening. She had dutifully reported that there were never any changes to the board when she went to feed him and in the same breath told him to not waste her time with dull requests again (Kouki was seriously scared of that petite woman. She was evil, he could feel it).

When he had walked into the Room on the fifth day to find another black pawn shifted up two spaces and taunting him he grumbled agitatedly. He paced around the room sighing and grouching at the board like it was cause of his problems; he worried a bit because of the implications of such a thing. He cursed his inefficient employer because had he known this was what he'd be reduced to he'd never had agreed so foolhardily to the job. Then he did something really stupid.

He responded.

He sat and looked at the board briefly before shifting a white pawn forward one space. He didn't know what to expect, if it would appease the 'Chess Ghost' as he'd started calling it but he did it anyway.

On the sixth day, he was greeted with the sight of another black piece moved on the board.

He wasn't sure whether he should be pleased that his theory was proven to be right or to be weirded out at the thought of a benevolent chess playing apparition. He had taken a seat to contemplate where he should play when his eyes caught on the door to room B-11-C. Then he wanted to slap himself for being stupid. Well, more stupid anyway.

If anything was playing then it was the thing in the room across from him.

New horror dawned upon Kouki just then because he realized what that implied. Patient Zero could move around at will.

Patient Zero could come out of his box.

Patient Zero could escape.

A strangled sound had clawed its way out of his throat as he stared at the door in apprehension. What was the protocol for this sort of thing? Did he call Hyuuga and tell him that there might be a serial killer on the loose? Did he investigate further himself? Well that was a definite 'no', he'd only had a passing conversation with the thing and he was scarred for the rest of his waking days.

Kouki stared at the door a little harder, fear making its way in his gaze as he tried to think about what he should do. Then, because his mind was a traitorous thing, his brain whispered 'why don't you just ask him'.

And Kouki was seriously considering it.

He had paced himself a trench in the tile floors trying to think of ways to find out without consulting the culprit himself. He thought of the cameras (hadn't Hyuuga said the Room was under twenty four hour surveillance?) but Akabane was thorough in her search even if she was unwilling. There was no documentation of Patient Zero moving during the night hours. Not even sounds. He thought of staking out in the Room to watch but then he immediately discarded that idea because his workplace was already a solitary confinement cell made of reflective surfaces and echoing walls. If, just by chance no matter how slim, it really was a chess playing apparition responsible for the board, he would check himself into the hospital above him. Or he'd quit on the spot. One of those.

In truth, the more Kouki thought upon it, the better the option sounded. Hyuuga had said that he was the most agreeable of the bunch but then, one of the cardinal rules of the labyrinth was to not listen to anything he said. He was stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

Besides, even if he did speak to him, he couldn't lie, so he'd have to be upfront with his thoughts anyway.

Then he stopped. For the first time that day, Kouki lauded himself a genius.

From the brief sentences (more like words, really) that he had shared with Zero, the being obviously valued honesty. He could work with that.

"Uhm," Kouki frowned at the croaking that escaped his mouth. He was nervous, sure, but he couldn't show fear. All that about the abyss and looking into it after all. He steeled his nerves and looked resolutely at the door; clearing his throat, now what did he say his name was...?

"Kuroko-san? Are you there?"

Kouki hated the echo, he'd gotten used to his footsteps reverberating and his breaths enclosing the room but he had pledged that he wouldn't start talking to himself. Hearing his voice bounce back at him was really unnerving.

"Unfortunately."

Kouki jumped, even when he was expecting to hear him respond it still creeped him out. Kuroko's voice was an even monotone, frigid like the air around him. The brunet sighed, he was really going to do this, wasn't he?

"Can I ask you a question?"

There was another pause, longer than the last and Kouki wondered if he would get an answer.

"In technicality, that was a question." Kouki stopped. Did he just make a joke, or was he being serious? There was a small pause and Kouki idly thought that he should clarify just in case.

"Have a good day, then."

"No, no wait! That wasn't the question I wanted to ask you!"

"Then ask it and please stop wasting my time."

Oh, so Kuroko didn't need to wait for his echo to settle, he could answer whenever he wanted. Kouki swallowed, "I need you to be absolutely honest in your answers."

A soft scoff rung out in the room and Kouki felt like he should be insulted by something, "I only speak in truths, it's you humans that can't be trusted."

Yep, definitely feeling insulted. "That's not true!" Kouki spluttered, "Lots of humans can be trusted!"

The voice hummed, "Yes, but I distinctly remember you lying to me after speaking only twenty words."

"Wait you counted that?" Kouki blurted, did he really count how many words were said to him? Is that why there was dead air in between his responses? "Why would you count that?"

There was another pause. "There is not much else to do in this room, human."

Suddenly Kouki remembered that he had an interrogation to complete and he sighed again, "Right, well, about that. Have you been moving my chess pieces around?"

"Yes."

The answer was immediate. No pauses, no unnecessary words, just a straight answer and Kouki flinched to alertness. His throat was suddenly dry and he licked his lips, "Can you move a piece now?"

The unmistakably fragile click of a piece against the board had Kouki turning around so quickly that he heard a pop in his neck. On the board, the black knight on the left of the queen was now sitting innocently in the front of a pawn.

There were small tremors running up and down his spine now, he could feel his fingers shake. His heartbeat was pounding in his ears and he was sure that the frenzied rhythm was echoing throughout the room but his traitorous mouth opened once more. "Can… can you leave that room?"

There was a pause. One that seemed to drag on for a few minutes as Kouki stared numbly at the chess piece, but he didn't care. This changed everything, this was not happening.

"And if I could, human?"

Kouki was going to get himself killed if he didn't shut up so why the hell was his mouth still moving?

"Show me."

The voice fell silent for a while. Kouki had shaken the fear from his limbs and had made his way numbly across the room to play his turn, the pawn quivering in his grip. His eyes kept trailing back to the door, stomach hitched to his throat and shoulders stiff, he felt antsy and suddenly wished that he hadn't even brought the dumb chess board to work with him.

When he had finished placing his pawn on the board, he got up and walked to the kitchen for something to drink. Then he walked back to the main room and started pacing again. He was really, really anxious, he wanted to yell at Kuroko to make up his mind and either show him or don't. Then he rethought that because he really didn't think he could handle it if Kuroko suddenly appeared in front of him.

"Place your left hand over your right hand."

"Jesus Christ, give someone some warning before you do that!"

Kouki had jumped and maybe he had screamed a bit at the sudden cold monotone voice. His hand was over his heaving chest as he glared pathetically at the door in front of him.

"I apologise." Except he really didn't because Kouki could hear the amusement colouring his tone. "Place your left hand over your right hand," he repeated.

Kouki frowned and crossed his arms over each other hesitantly, he turned his gaze back to the door, "You aren't gonna possess me or something, right?"

The voice hummed again, "Or something."

Kouki froze.

Then he felt it.

A sudden lurch in his stomach, a freezing feeling that whispered through his bones and then he couldn't move a limb. He couldn't even blink. He felt a chill carry down his spine and paralyze his body in place and suddenly he regretted everything. His chest hurt, it felt like he was drowning and his mind was screaming at him to put your hands down, you idiot but he couldn't. His body wouldn't listen to him.

He tried to look down but only succeeded in moving his eyeballs down to his hands. What had he done? He was panicking, what was causing this?! All he did was cross his hands, nothing special.

Then he saw it.

The shadow.

The small shadow cast by his hand over the other was expanding and consuming the floor beneath him, darkening his skin and tainting the tiles with the dark blackness. Kouki watched on in abject horror as tendrils of the shadow twisted up in a macabre mockery of evaporating water and swirled around itself. More and more convoluted shadowy tendrils joined the dark space until suddenly, they stopped.

There was a scratching sound, the only sound in the room and Kouki struggled to swallow the lump in his throat and the shadows quite literally became a man.

Pale was Kouki's first thought. So pale that under the lights of the room, he seemed to be translucent. Then Kouki realized that he could actually see the board through his chest and his mind went blank.

Whatever was paralyzing him released its hold on his limbs and Kouki collapsed into a pile of useless limbs onto the floor.

What the hell did he just do?

Surprise! *blows party flute*

Tetsuya is in the building people! I repeat, Tetsuya is in the building!

Let's see Furihata dig his way outta this one.

Shower me in your thoughts~! What do you guys think Tetsu's gonna do next? Are you excited for the next chapter?

I am!