Hi, guys! I really wanted to apologize for not updating yesterday, but I wasn't at home the whole day. But like a compensation, this chapter is longer. Hope you, like it and if you do, please review and show me your support, if there is such :DDD, because it would really mean a lot to me. ^^

The sun was shining brightly in the sky, as if marking the beginning of the new day. Outside was unusually warm and there wasn't left any sign of the rain from last night. The sunbeams, which had managed to go through the dark windows, were gently caressing the boy's face, as though, desperately trying to wake him up.

Luffy wrinkled his button nose. He covered his head with the nearest pillow, with the vain attempt to somehow block the rays, torturing him. He turned his back to the glass wall, but when the new streak of light, hit his back, he just gave up. For a moment Luffy wondered if he could loll in his bed for a few more minutes, but then he remembered the reason why he wanted to get up. With a heavy sigh, followed by a big, cat-like yawn, the boy rose to a sitting position. Luffy rubbed his eyes sleepily, trying to wake himself up. The boy yawned one more time, and with reluctance, left his bed.

He headed lazily to the kitchen on the first floor, almost falling down the stairs in the process. This sun should have waited an hour or three more, to rise up. Luffy tripped a few more times, but finally managed to get to the so-wanted destination, without killing himself. The kitchen was like the rest of the house - modern and a combination of wood, glass, and white walls. It was nice, but a little bit unfriendly. It was more of a kitchen made for a page of fancy magazine, then a cozy kitchen for someone's home. He liked it, though.

There wasn't really a kitchen table there, so the boy sat down on one of the chairs in front of the bar, which, another surprise, was made entirely of thick dark glass. So were the chairs. At least they had comfortable fluffy pillows on them, so Luffy didn't have to worry about making his butt sore.

What are the first things, I am thinking in the morning. Jeez. Luffy took out an apple from the fruit-bowl on the bar and started munching on it. So, today he had to go to his new school, take his uniform and pay it, go to Ace's work to give him some documents to sign and fill for the school, after that, return to the school with the documents and probably ask a teacher to show him around. Maybe it wasn't going to be a bad idea to do a little research for the town too, after he was back. And the prisons. And the cemeteries. And to pay a special attention to the hospitals for mental diseases in the town. And especially, where exactly they were situated. A lovely Saturday, indeed. He needed a cigarette.

Luffy threw the core of the apple in the trash and went upstairs to change his black T-shirt and white shorts, to something more appropriate. If it was up to him, he would just go like this to the school, but Lu didn't want to embarrass his brother at his workplace afterwards. So, he didn't really have a choice. After he was equipped with a pack of cigarettes, working lighter and money, he went out of the house. He had his phone and headphones too, so it wasn't really going to be such a boring walk. The boy stuffed the headphones in his ears, and lit up a cigarette, turning up the sound of the phone to maximum, and starting to search for a proper GPS. He found and after an hour or so, he was totally lost.

Luffy was walking along an, how he discovered, extremely long street. There were some shops on its sides, but they were either closed or demolished. The boy looked around. Actually most of the buildings were partly demolished or completely in ruins. Everything was dirty, with spilled rubbish everywhere.

It was almost noon and the sun was shining mercilessly at its highest point. The air had become heavy and Luffy was just thankful for not being stupid enough to bring a jacket. From what he could see, the windows of the buildings, which were actually standing, looked gray with dust. Obviously, they hadn't been cleaned for a long time. Luffy was starting to wonder, when was the last time here had been a living person. The obnoxious sound of cawing crows, broke the heavy silence.

Oookay, maybe the GPS was a bad idea. A really bad idea. But how could've he known?

Nevertheless, he kept walking, trying to find a properly functioning GPS. He was just passing through some alley, which was partly obstructed by something looking as a car, when all of a sudden a rat sprang up of one hole in the brick wall of the building next to him, almost going over his feet. Luffy jumped up with a squeak. A manly squeak, of course. The poor rat was even more frightened by the strange sound and by Luffy, and it just ran away as fast as it could.

Luffy looked around, being thankful for the first time, the place was uninhabitable. It was going to be really embarrassing, if someone had heard him. The boy went hurriedly through the alley, not risking to meet another rat. After all, the experience hadn't been pleasant for both him and the animal. A little gross animal, but still.

Luffy turned right, hoping to finally go somewhere. The boy looked at his phone. It had died. Oh, yeah, he forgot to charge it last night. Perfect. He sighed, lifting his eyes from the black display. He was on a street with a few shops. There was one, named 'Toys for everyone', which looked like the most stable building around. Lu decided to try his luck, hoping to find something to give him some clue, where he was. He wondered if it was too naïve to hope for a map. Well, at least I'm not going to roast. The door was hanging sideways on one of its rust-eaten hinges, so it wasn't really difficult for Luffy to go inside. Entering the toy shop, the boy was met with welcoming coolness. It was pretty moist inside, but he wasn't going to be pretentious.

The shelves were mostly empty, with a few toys here and there. Big part of the goods wasn't even consisting of toys, but of carnival masks. There were many stands with metal shelves, on which the masks were hanging and underneath them were put cupboards, which for sure had seen better times. Originally, they had been probably painted white, but now… Either because of the time, the dirt or the enormous spider webs, hanging heavily on them, Luffy didn't know, the white wasn't really white anymore. The boy started rummaging through the cupboards.

Twenty minutes later, he was seriously starting to become irritated. Luffy had checked almost every cupboard in the shop, but nothing. Six or seven, were remaining untouched, because they were locked and he couldn't find the keys anywhere, and there were three or four in the back, in which, he was looking forward to find something useful. He was getting tired, and from the humidity he could sense a headache forming.

The boy sighed, trying not to give up. He went at the back and started ransacking the rest of the cupboards. Luffy could feel how beads of perspiration were starting to roll down his back. The moisture in here, was slowly and agonizingly killing him. He couldn't have felt more like being in a basement. The air was starting to thicken and, aside of the sounds, coming from Luffy's rummaging, an unnatural and nerve-wrecking silence was settling in the abandoned shop.

Luffy felt nervous. And watched. The boy slowly and carefully straightened up his back and almost shouted when he was nose-to-nose with one of the hanging on the metal shelves masks. Jeez. He face-palmed. The mask wasn't even this scary. Or scary in the slightest. It was red with black plumes and red beads. Luffy was just about to laugh it off, but the laugh remained in his throat, never leaving his mouth.

What stopped him, was the pair of glassy eyes, peeking through the holes of the mask. Their malicious and animalistic brilliance was way too familiar to him. He hadn't slept the previous night because of them and when he had fallen asleep, they had been chasing him in his nightmares, accompanied with the face-splitting, maniacal smile.

The woman's whole body appeared behind the stand. Luffy ran out of the shop.

He didn't care she was able to appear wherever she wanted. If he was fast enough, there was a possibility of her not following him. Luffy wasn't really sure how this worked, but sometimes when you run or get away of them, they leave you alone, until their next visit. Some liked to chase you around, but the perspective of her not following him was enough appealing for the boy to try his chances and run. He wanted to at least go out in public, she was going to leave him for sure if he managed to do so.

Left, right, left, left.. A few minutes later he was still desperately maneuvering with the speed of light in the alleys, searching for a way out of this part of the town. The boy felt like a mouse in a maze, which was giving all it had to run in some unknown destination, while, in reality, it was just running around for someone else's amusement.

Luffy looked behind him. The woman was nowhere to be found. The boy was just about to stop to take a break, but the moment he turned his head forward, he was face-to-face with her. He stopped dead on his tracks. Luffy could feel jets of cold sweat slowly making their way down his back, soaking the fabric of his black, over-sized hoodie. His body was unmoving. His lungs were screaming for oxygen, but he refused to breath. He couldn't. In spite of this, his heart was feverishly racing in his chest, as if wanting to break his ribs and make a hole in his skin.

They just stood there, looking into each other's eyes. Luffy could see every single detail of her face and of her body. He could see the exact outlines of her heart-shaped face, her tip-tilted nose, her round eyes with the brownish spots and specks in her forest green irises, the inhuman sparks in them with the strangely curved teeth, with their sharp, pointed tips, turned to the inside of her mouth. But what shocked him the most, was the total absence of any kind of sense and reason in her gaze.

It was as he had thought last night. She was more an animal than a human-being. Her whole body, her appearance was screaming it to him. But most of all, everything was screaming him to run. To get away from her. As far as he could. This woman had killed not once or twice. She might be a ghost, a demented ghost, but she was perfectly capable of showing him the meaning of a 'living hell', without touching him physically. He knew it. Something deep inside of him was telling it to him. Something which he had always tried to ignore and to bury deep inside his body, his mind, his soul and to not let it see the sunlight.

But he just stood there, like enchanted by her. He felt as if he could just be swallowed in the depths of those green eyes. The feeling of slowly being allured to drown into their emptiness.

''Need some help?''

The voice took Luffy out of his trance. He turned around to see a girl with a long orange hair, slightly older than him, sitting behind the wheel of a fairly battered deep green, pickup. Luffy turned his back to her, only to be met by void space.

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