Allo!
Well, I started right after I posted the last one, but I didn't intend for it to be done right away.. which means this update is a bit of a surprise. My cold got a bit better, but my throat got worse, so I can barely talk. The result? I write!
Disclaimer: It's in the first chapter
4-
Mai was sleeping fine when she heard something. Because the heater burnt through all the wood that Ako had put on it, Mai was already almost awake anyway from the cold. Only the barest glow of light was resonating from it now.
Mai looked around, trying to make out her surroundings. It was still quite dark outside. Which meant she hadn't been asleep long. She looked at her watch. The faceplate was too dark to read.
Forgetting the sound that woke her up, she stretched and wiped her eyes a bit. She had forgotten to take off her microphone last night so there was an indent on her face where the microphone sat.
She was about to settle down again, when John walked into the kitchen. He walked right past Mai to the door without looking twice. Mai would have thought that he was just going out to look at the surroundings except that he didn't stop for shoes. "John?" She called as he closed the door behind him.
John must be doing the exact same thing that the other guests did! Mai got out of her bed, and slipped her shoes on. With one last glance at the room, she opened the door to follow John.
She watched John climb up the way that they had originally driven in from. Up the hill, past the vehicles. She ran to try and catch up but having just woken up, he was still ahead of her. After settling into a nice pace, she looked around. John had turned off the main path straight through a group of small trees. Mai looked a bit farther than where he was. There were some larger trees. John was heading right for them.
She stopped and looked at her surroundings, after all, she wouldhave to walk back at some point. Only when she saw a huge pile of tires did she realize she had been here before. This was just like her dream at the office. She started to follow John again, into the thick trees. But as soon as he got into them, he disappeared. She wasn't watching where she was stepping, and tripped on a rock. "ah!" she cried, hitting the ground forcefully. After standing up, there was no trace of John at all anymore.
"John!" Mai called after him. She dashed to the place he had disappeared, only to see that there was a sharp decline. But in my dream there had been more of a path! Carefully stepping along, she saw John just ahead of her. But she only saw him briefly before she tripped a second time, down the rest of the hill.
Her outfit ripped a bit, and she got lots of scratches from the branches and rocks on the ground.
Mai stumbled a bit as she managed to stand up. There were now tall shrubs everywhere. How did John get through?
In a moment of decision, she threw herself through a slight gap between two bushes, to get to the other side. It was a bit of a risk,. because she couldn't see through, due to the dark and the leaves.Although it would seem that that where the path was, because she went right through. Mai caught her balance before she fell for a third time.
The shrub like plants were now much shorter. About the height of her knee. The area was so familiar. But the thing she noticed this time is that in that area the air was very pure. And cold. It was much colder here. But not a bad kind, it was refreshing. John stood at the edge of the pond, and stared at Mai.
"How did you find this place?" John asked. Although, it wasn't John. He was definitely possessed.
Mai looked around a bit, deciding what to say.
"This was my secret! I only shared it with him! Is he there? What happened to him?!"
John's voice was louder, and angry. It was certainly not something Mai had ever heard from the priest before.
"What's your name?" Mai asked, advancing a bit.
"Kiseki." John said. "Where is Shouta?"
Kiseki eh?
Who is Shouta? Obviously she never told anyone else about the place. Maybe she is looking for him, but he hasn't died, so she needs to possess someone in order to talk to him. Mai began to walk out to the edge of the pond.
"No! Don't come closer. Its not your place! Only I can be here when Shouta comes!" Kiseki said, pointing at Mai.
"Kiseki-chan, calm down." Mai said softly. Normally she was able to pacify a small child if they were upset, but this was a bit different. Besides, she was only assuming that this Kiseki really a child.
"If you come any closer I'll push you into the water!" Kiseki said, angrily. With John's voice the threat was much more effective than it would had been if it had come from a young child.
As Mai got a bit closer slowly, the ground seemed to be squishy. It was a peat moss pond. Which would mean that the edge of the water would be an immediate drop, at least 4 or so meters (approx 13.5 feet). And if she got pushed in, it would be very difficult to get out.
Mai closed in a bit more, risking the child's threat. "Do you know how you died?"
"Don't get any closer!"
Mai stopped, now worried. She put her hand to her ear, hoping that she could use her microphone to communicate with someone... anyone. Maybe if she yelled, she could wake someone up, hoping that they still had it in their ear, and on.
But it wasn't there. Mai gasped, and turned around to see if she could spot it on the ground behind her, but there was no sign of it.
It must have come off when I tripped. Maybe John still has his... But how would that help unless someone woke up?
Mai looked back to where Kiseki was, by the pond. "He said he would come here if anything happened. Why isn't he here?" She said, rather quietly.
Then she pointed at Mai. "You stay here! If he comes back, call for me. I'm going to search the forest for a few days! If you aren't here when I get back..." Kiseki left the threat open ended.
Mai didn't want to stay at the pond. The cold air was numbing by now. And her ripped pajamas were not doing much to help. If she had cut herself, she wouldn't have been able to tell. It was not the best place to stay, because if she stepped onto a particularly weak spot, the ground would collapse, and she would end up in the cold water. "Kiseki-chan, why don't you stay here, and I'll go through the forest looking for Shouta-kun." Maybe it would work.
"No! You stay here! I doubt you even know how to get out of here!" With that, Kiseki began to run off in a different direction from the one that she and Mai had come from.
"Kiseki-chan!" Mai called, but it was too late. The darkness had already completely obscured her.
Sighing hopelessly, Mai looked behind herself.
The shrub through which she had come through left no signs of ever being passed through. No matter how hard she looked, she couldn't see which one it was.
Great. I'm waiting for a spirit that I can't even see, or a person who will never come. What do I do now? Although, Mai had an answer to this. She had three main points to her situation. It was really early in the morning, she hadn't had enough sleep, and she needed some sort of information. Luckily, there was one thing she could do that would deal with all three.
Mai settled down in some of the knee high grass, and closed her eyes.
Masako heard some voices in the other room, and opened her eyes.
It was about 6:45 in the morning. She stood up and turned to the entrance to the kitchen, where Naru, Lin, Takigawa and Ako were talking.
"There has never been two at once before. Its a surprise. The last person was gone for a week, so who knows how long it will be before you can find them." Ako said. Masako entered the kitchen, noticing that both John and Mai weren't around.
That must mean...
Masako walked towards the table. "Good morning." She said.
Ako looked up. "I'm really sorry about your friends. I'm going to go out and search through the forest. It may not help that much, but I have to do what I can."
She stood up and put on a pair of shoes before leaving.
Masako took her spot at the table. "We are prepared for this, right?" Takigawa asked. Lin stood up and walked into the other room.
"Takigawa-san. Go check the camera pointing at the door from the midnight onwards." Naru said. He sighed, but stood up,and complied.
Lin came back past Takigawa with a device in his hand. He put the device in front of Naru, then sat back down.
It was device with a few keys and a screen the size of a deck of cards. He turned it on, and a grid appeared on the screen. Masako watched without saying anything.
On the screen were several green dots very close in the middle, one a bit away, and another quite far away. Naru pressed one of the buttons a few times, and the grid got wider. The clustered dots didn't change, the one a bit away moved to near the edge, and the last one was too far to be seen on the screen. Naru pressed another button, and the grid slid along, until the green dots that had been there were gone.
After a few seconds another dot appeared on the screen, moving in a slight zig zag pattern towards the side.
"The cluster would be ourselves, and the other two would be Taniyama-san and Brown-san" Lin said. Naru flicked it back to the original place it had been.
"Yesterday, I had you place those receivers all around the property, as far as you could go without getting lost. Now we have a general idea of where they might be."
Takigawa reentered the room. "Somehow the camera was in the wrong place. We didn't get any footage of where Mai was sleeping by the heater, or of the door. I checked the camera pointed at John. He got up and walked out of view." he pointed at the device in Naru's hand. "Well? Where are they?"
Naru paused for a moment. He had moved the camera a bit... but he was sure it had been to the right place... "Lin, stay here and direct us to the others. Takigawa-san and Hara-san, come with me. We can easily find the stationary one, but the moving one will require us to work together."
They nodded. Masako pulled her microphone out of her pocket, and put it on her ear. Takigawa already had his on his ear, and so did Naru. Naru stood up and put on some shoes.
Once outside, Lin directed the three up the hill. "Just a bit more..." They took a few more steps. Takigawa looked to the right. There was a huge stack of tires.
"What is that for?" He asked.
Naru knelt down and picked something up. "I found it." There was a microphone in his hand. It had a blue ribbon tied around it, but it was definitely the same kind that the rest of SPR was wearing.
Takigawa looked around. "But thats not what we were looking for. I'll bet that's Mai's. Meaning the one remaining moving would be John."
Masako looked around as well. "She can't be that far away then." Naru didn't say anything, but looked at the microphone in his hand.
"Lin. Next." Naru said, and put the microphone in his pocket
They had been following careful instructions for about 2 exhausting hours, full of trial and error, when they finally had the signal from John's microphone almost cornered. Naru began to approach, just as Lin instructed. Masako was right behind John, and Takigawa was preventing him from running off from another side. The large pile of rocks was blocking from the other side.
Naru caught sight of John, in his pajamas looking around shift-ily his back to the large pile of rocks. He lookd a little bit beat up, as if he hadn't cared what was in his way, but just walked through it.
"Why are you following me? How did you catch me?" He asked, loudly.
Naru ignored it, and instead continued to approach just as Lin was saying.
"Everyone. Forward, go towards him now." Lin's voice came.
"Somehow this isn't fair! Just give me a few days okay? I'll find him this time! I swear!" John said, looking to Naru, who was the closest of the group.
"Hara-san. Move a bit faster." Lin ordered.
Masako saw that John was possessed. "What is your name?" She asked, calmly.
John looked at her, now that she was also closing in. "You sound just like that other girl! All she tried to do is get me to give up! I wont this time! Don't even think about trying that!"
Takigawa was now at the right distance as well, so Lin told him and Masako to stop. "What other girl?" If he means Mai, then we might be able to find out where she is.
John shook his head. "She's not going to leave the pond until I get back! She probably couldn't find her way out. If Shouta comes back, then she'll have him wait for me!"
Takigawa looked to Naru. "Where is the pond?" Naru asked.
"No! Thats our special place! Just because she found out about it doesn't mean I'm gonna tell everyone!"
John looked really weird, whining like a small child. Masako looked at him. "Please. Can you leave our friend? We can help you if you do."
"I don't think you can." John said.
Takigawa really wished he could do something, but there was nothing he could unless risk hurting a good friend.
Masako looked to Naru. He whispered something into his microphone. "Force." That was it. Takigawa and Masako got the idea. They began to approach, synchronized. John looked all around, then fell to his knees.
"I will keep waiting Shouta. Come and find me." Masako watched the spirit float up and away. It was a young girl in a summer dress.
"She's gone. It was just a little girl." Masako said. John looked around, confused.
"What... where are we?" he asked, looking at himself. It would have seemed that he had fallen while he was wandering, because his palms were dirty too.
"Brown-san. Where is your microphone?" Naru asked. John reached into his pocket, and pulled it out.
"Lin, we're coming back." Takigawa said, and they stared walking.
Mai saw a house. It was in the middle of the forest. The trees were tall, and the house was very small. A girl knocked really hard on the door. "Shouta! Shouta! Come on!" An older man opened the door.
"Oh Kiseki-chan, Shouta said he went out to his secret place." The man said. Kiseki bobbed her head in a little bow.
"Do you know where that is?" She asked.
The older man laughed. "No, he wouldn't ever tell me. It's a secret, he said."
Kiseki laughed. "Okay, thank you, I'll find him."
Mai saw her run to a bit of a clearing. It was on a hill. That must be where the lodge we are at right now was built. She ran up it, and started to go through to some more huge trees.
Before doing so, she bent over to look at some very small trees growing. About 5 centimeters in height right then. Mai wondered how long ago this had happened. "They'll be good cover for the path in a while. I hope they get as tall as the ones around here!"
Mai watched as she headed down the hill. It was a bit less of a slope than Mai remembered, but the path was more defined.
Kiseki hurried to the bottom, and through two bushes. It was the same ones Mai remembered going through, but this time it had a gap created by people going through it lots of times.
By the water was two boys, about the same age as Kiseki.
"Shouta?" One of them turned around. Kiseki was in tears.
"Oh no. Kiseki! Why are you here? I thought you wouldn't be here for another week!" he said.
She pointed at the other boy, who seemed very uncomfortable. "Why did you... I thought it was a secret!"
Shouta didn't have anything to say.
"I never want to see you here again! If you come back, I'll... I'll... I'll push you in!" Kiseki said, turning around, but not leaving.
"No!" the other boy said. "I'm sorry, I made him show me! Its my fault!"
Kiseki turned again. "I hate you, Shouta." she said quietly, then walked away.
Mai saw the two boys watch the crying girl leave, but not move to follow.
Back at the lodge, everyone was sitting around in the base. Everyone except Mai, that is. John was watching the footage of himself getting up over and over to see if he remembered anything.
Masako told them about what she saw. "Just a very young girl. She must really want to see this Shouta. Do we have any way of telling whether or not he is alive?"
Takigawa sighed. "Mai would be reeeealy helpful at a time like this. After all, hers is the kind of research not restricted by electricity, Internet access, or location."
"We will alert Yasuhara-san and Mori-san tonight then?" John asked, turning away from the monitor.
Naru nodded, and looked at the microphone in his hand.
"Unless we find Mai before then." Naru looked to his watch. "For now, we'll get something to eat."
Masako, Takigawa and John stood up, and went to the kitchen, just as the door from the outside opened up to reveal a tired Ako. "Brown-san!" She said, and sighed. "You're back already."
Lin looked to the kitchen. He spoke to Naru. "You're going to then?" Naru nodded, and Lin walked into the kitchen.
Masako sat down at the table, and Takigawa thought for a moment. "Do you know about a nearby pond?"
Ako shook her head. "Only the lake here. There isn't any other water that I have come across." She bowed her head. "I'm sorry that I couldn't be of more help. But I can make you a lunch..."