I woke up after what felt like a a few hours. Of course, I had no way of telling what time it was. My cell phone hadn't been working since I woke up here.

Ryou was right next to me, leaning on my shoulder. I'd fallen asleep sitting up. As I stood up, I instantly regretted having slept at all. I hadn't moved at all for so long that it actually hurt to even try to move.

"That was a terrible idea... guess it's not the worst idea I've had though..." I looked to my ghostly companion. He was now standing next to me. Seeing me look at him, he gave me a cute smile and placed his hand in mine.

I'd calmed down quite a bit since the incident with the insane guy, but I was still a little on edge. Despite what he'd almost done, I still couldn't believe this gentle boy could be a killer. It just didn't seem possible.

We wandered around, searching for anyone or anything. Eventually, the two of us found ourselves in a large room underground. Even though I had a fairly strong stomach and things like this never usually got to me, I felt like I wanted to throw up.

In the middle of the room was a large table with a dead body strapped to it. I assumed it was dead anyway; it hadn't been moving. Though of all of it, the buckets of various body parts and internal organs scatter all around the room were got to me the most.

A sudden noise just outside the door grabbed my attention. Letting go of my hand, Ryou motioned for me to get under the table. Just as he disappeared, a man in a red jacket ran into the room. I considered telling him to hide under here, but before I could get the words out, he shut himself in the locker on the wall opposite of the door.

That's when the door was slammed open by a zombie-like man. He carried a large hammer and was dragging a dead body along with him. The body he dropped next to the table and then approached the metal locker. The guy in there was a sitting duck; there was nowhere he could run.

Just before he reached forward to open it, I shot out from under the table. "Hey big guy!" I shouted at him, drawing his attention towards me instead. I kept some distance between us, but I managed to draw him away from the trapped man. "Get out of there you idiot!" I shout to him, still trying to keep the big guy busy.

Once he'd gotten away, I didn't have to worry about keeping him busy. But that did leave one other problem: getting myself away from this guy. We were now going around in circles around the table, or rather, I was trying to go one way, but he'd block whatever way I chose to go.

I couldn't keep this up forever, so I decided to make an extremely risky move. Just after faking like I was gonna go one way, I switched direction, slipping under the table to the other side, narrowly missing being grabbed by the gigantic man. Luckily I'd always been very fast, so I managed to outrun him easily.

Even after I was sure I'd lost him, I kept running. Until I ran right into someone, knocking both of us to the ground. To my surprise, it had been the same man I'd rescued moments ago.

"You! You nearly got both of us killed!" I said, probably being a bit too harsh on him. Suddenly I remembered Sumiko, and how our last conversation had been. I'd been kinda hard on her, then I didn't even bother to search for her when we'd gotten separated.

Standing there yelling at him wasn't going to get us anywhere. For all I knew, he could be killed at any moment. Sure, we were complete strangers, but knowing I'd been so mean to him right before he was killed, I'd never forgive myself for it.

What am I thinking? Since when do I care about a complete stranger anyway? I scolded myself. This wasn't like me. Normally I wouldn't care how harsh I was on someone if they weren't my friend, but now I was feeling bad about acting so mean to someone who I didn't even know the name of.

"I'm... I'm sorry. I tend to be a bit on the harsh side when get a little irritated," I said, easing up a bit. Why do I feel sorry about this? What's changed to make me act so soft? Thinking about it, the only thing that I could think of that had changed was that Sumiko was gone.

Then, after seeing him standing behind the man in the red jacket, I realized what it was. "Ryou..." I didn't realize I'd said it out loud. When the man turned, he freaked out and took off in the other direction before I had a chance to even say anything.

"I guess others won't even give you a chance, huh?" I walked over to the ghost child. What was it about him that was making me acting so different? Probably better not to think about it. "Well, you got me, so what do the rest of them matter?" I smiled a little and offered him my hand. Before he could take it, we were joined by another voice.

"You're a strange one, aren't you?" a little girl's voice said, followed by insane laughter. There, standing just a few feet away was another ghost. It was the ghost of a little girl in red dress.