Hello everyone! I know it has been awhile since I posted another chapter for this story. I have been quite busy these last few months. Wrapping up finals, graduating from college, looking for jobs and just enjoying the summer weather have been dominating my time recently. Plus writers block too. But here it is, the third chapter to Cries of the Children! Sumiko will be the first person to enter Okamoto Orphanage ever since the Fire of '49. What will she find there? Read on and find out! :)

Okamoto Orphanage

March of 1945…

Sunlight wafted through the budding branches as a car wove through the winding driveway. Three children sat in the back seat and everyone was silent, including the middle-aged male driver and the female chaperone that was escorting the youngsters to their new home. The youngest child, a four year old girl, was wearing a simple grey kimono with white pinstripes and she held a similarly clad, albeit in the color pink and slightly charred, doll close to her chest, her face very morose for a child her age. Her features were dark because she, along with the other two children; an older boy and another girl around the grey clad girl's age, had experienced things that no child should ever experience. The Americans had firebombed Tokyo recently and now other cities were being carpet bombed with incendiaries, turning whole cities into massive bonfires that left nothing but the black, charred skeletons of what were once grand structures or homes, if anything was left at all.

The young girl had lost her father two years before somewhere out in the Pacific and since then, it had just been the girl and her mother living their day-to-day lives during wartime together. But now, she was gone too… The child had been sent to other orphanages but they were all crowded since other shelters for children bereaved of parents had been burnt to the ground by the fire bombings. Other orphanages and foster homes in the region around Tokyo offered to take in more orphans from the city. The young girl had been picked at random along with the other two orpans to be sent to the rural town of Hibiki-mura to live in the Okamoto Orphanage.

After a long train ride out of Tokyo with the chaperone, the children had been picked up at the train station by a driver that was hired by the Okamoto Orphanage matron. The driver was friendly but very quiet; undoubtedly his mind was plagued by the overwhelming sense of doom and despair that was starting to creep into Japan as the Allies began to gain the upper hand and as the Americans were getting closer and closer to the island country through their former Pacific holdings. After what felt like an eternity, the car finally reached the apex of the hill. The children leaned forward and gazed in awe at the stone fence, iron gate and the majesty of the mansion like Okamoto Orphanage. It was an impressive looking place.

A woman stood outside of the entrance with her hands folded over her stomach. She appeared to be in her late fifties or early sixties, was overweight and wore a coal dust colored kimono with a white apron wrapped around her waist, her jet black hair (that had small half-moon shaped spots of silver just above her ears) was tied into a traditional tight bun. The woman smiled softly when the car pulled up into the courtyard. The driver came out and he opened the door for the chaperone first before then opening the ones for the children to come out. Quietly the orphans filed out and they stood side by side in silence.

The middle aged woman walked over to the children.

"Good afternoon everyone."

The woman and everyone present bowed simultaneously in respect. The woman continued.

"My name is Okamoto, Sachiko. What are your names? Lets start with the young man on the left." Sachiko said as she looked at the young boy, who wore a navy blue kimono, spoke up.

"My name is Kichida, Hayate and this," he looked towards the young girl beside him, "is my sister Satomi."

Satomi was wearing a bright yellow kimono with two red stripes on the sleeves and above the hem of the of dress part of the outfit. Sachiko smiled and she spoke.

"What lovely names. What are your ages?"

"I'm six." Hayate said and he turned to his little sister.

"Say what your age is Satomi." Hayate encouraged.

Little Satomi spoke up.

"Four." She said.

A sad look flashed in Sachiko's eyes. She felt terrible for the children. So young and, as far as she knew, had lost so much already. Eyeing the girl holding the doll, Sachiko spoke to her.

"What is your name dear?"

The girl didn't have an older sibling to encourage her to speak up and her shyness caused her to hug her doll even harder and for her to look at her feet. Sachiko asked the question again but the girl still didn't respond. As the chaperone apologized to Sachiko for the girl's reluctance, the young girl just clung to her doll and she retreated into her young thoughts. She desperately wished that she was back home in Tokyo again with her mother. Back to the days when the girl's biggest worry was not being able to catch a tremuri ball during their games in her neighbor's garden.

After the adults finished talking, Sachiko turned towards the children and she smiled sympathetically at them. The pop sound of the car's trunk being opened was heard. Turning around, the children saw the driver leaning into the trunk to pull out one suitcase. It was for the Kichida siblings, the grey girl had nothing left after the firebombings. Most of her worldly possessions had either burned away to cinder or were stolen by desperate people. All she had left was her doll…

Sachiko and the chaperone then turned to the children and began to gently herd them into their new home as the driver followed with the Kichida's suitcase. The grey girl felt scared. The orphanage was so big. She was afraid that if she were to wander the halls by herself, she would get lost and be gone forever. Sachiko opened the doors and she then turned around and gestured the children to go inside…

July 20, 2015…

The charred, weathered door creaked as Sumiko opened it. She stepped inside into what may have once been a very beautiful foyer, which was now a fire blackened and plant invaded wreck. The great luminescence provided by her flashlight helped to illuminate the dark and eerie space. The Fire of '49 had truly decimated the place. The wooden bannisters were charred black and some of the balusters were gone as well with the broken off pieces lying on the charred floor. Soot and scorch marks decorated the walls and looking up towards the ceiling, Sumiko saw a crystal chandelier.

The dangling crystals glimmered from under a blanket of soot and cobwebs and a few of them twinkled like stars as Sumiko's flashlight hovered over them and then moved away. Sumiko looked around at the windows that dotted the walls. One window to her left on the mezzanine above had ivy growing through it, the vines and leaves having snaked their way under the windowpane and rooting themselves into the cracked and burned wall. Taking careful steps, Sumiko proceeded cautiously across the floor. She was walking towards a simple door that was underneath the mezzanine and was close by a set of stairs. Sumiko wanted to make a thorough investigation if she could of the ground floor before she proceeded up to the second.

Upon reaching the door, Sumiko saw the soot covered doorknob. Not wanting to stain her hand, she folded the hem of her shirt and she covered her hand with it and she reached for the knob. The door was locked but the doorknob could be turned around completely. Sumiko jiggled the knob some more and she rattled the door to no avail. Just as she was about to give up on trying to open the door, she heard a noise come from the second floor.

The old, blackened floorboards above creaked under the weight of what clearly sounded like footsteps. Sumiko became frozen where she stood as she listened raptly towards the noise. It sounded like it was coming from the mezzanine to her right. But looking over the bannister above, Sumiko didn't see anyone there…

As suddenly as the noise had appeared, it stopped. Sumiko just stood there for a solid minute, her enrobed hand still clutching the doorknob. She was scared, terrified of what she had just heard and she wished that somebody else had had the idea to come explore this place too. But she knew this to be a fallacy. Forcing herself to let go of the knob, Sumiko then willed herself to go to towards the stairs.

Before ascending, Sumiko tentatively pressed her right foot onto the first step and she put her full weight on it to test to see if it was still sturdy enough to support her. The charred wood groaned a little but it still held her foot. Gaining confidence, Sumiko began to walk up the stairs. Despite the summer heat, Sumiko noticed how cool it was inside the orphanage ruins and as she got closer to the second floor, it got even colder. It was like being inside of a freezer and Sumi held herself and rubbed her arms to calm her goose bumps and to warm herself.

There was a broken window at the front of the building but Sumiko knew deep down that the cool air was not coming through there… As soon as she reached the top of the stairs, a pale figure suddenly materialized around the corner of the hallway that was there. The figure, a tall Caucasian woman with what appeared to be wavy blond hair done up in a style that was popular in the late 1940's, was wearing an immaculate nurse's outfit from the same era complete with a dark blue cloak that was draped over her shoulders and a nurse's cap that crowned her golden head. Sumiko became planted to the spot with surprise and she watched as the Blonde Nurse simply walked quietly down the hallway before disappearing only a minute later. As soon as she had disappeared, the temperature in the room became a little warmer.

Sumiko breathed a sigh of relief, happy that the spirit of the woman did not see her at the stairs. Looking on ahead at the hallway, Sumiko shined her flashlight down the dark and desolate place and she saw something laying on the ground where the nurse had disappeared. Making her way across the, much to her chagrin, noisy floorboards Sumiko discovered that the object was a piece of paper. Curious, she picked it up and saw neat cursive handwriting. It was in English but Sumiko could understand it.

It said:

"Claudia, remember that tonight at midnight is the night of the séance with that mirror again. Meet me in front of the upstairs parlor doors and I will give you the key to the children's room. Wake up the two girls and bring them to the room. Be careful not to wake up the other kids! Most importantly of all, be wary of Gertrude. She may be old but she is still sharp as a tack and I get the feeling she knows something is going on…

See you tonight.

- Francine"

Sumiko scrutinized the names that were mentioned in the note. Claudia, Gertrude and Francine… Those were the names of the three American nurses that perished in the Fire of '49. Looking down the hallway, Sumiko ascertained correctly that the blonde haired ghost that she just saw was Francine Moyer. But this note now opened up a series of unexpected and bizarre questions. What did Francine mean by "séance with that mirror again?"

What was the mirror she was referring to and why did Claudia have to bring two girls to the séance? Also, why was Gertrude kept in the dark about the paranormal ritual? Sumiko had a sinking feeling that the tragic 1949 blaze may have had an even more sinister background then previously imagined… It was the same feeling she remembered experiencing at the Watanabe Shrine. The sense of dread, fearing that her and the lives of her friend and boyfriend were doomed and that death would soon come to greet them at the next hallway in the form of the Skinless Man.

But now, a new and even more ominous force had come into Sumiko's life and she did not know what form it had this time. For all she knew, it could have been Francine. Shaking her head of these thoughts, Sumiko looked around. She explored the mezzanine, walking around the entire thing and coming back to the hallway without finding anything standing out of the ordinary except for the sharp shards of glass that lied about in front of the smashed window. With nowhere else to go, Sumiko proceeded down the hallway.

It was pitch black down the hallway and the great light of the flashlight helped Sumiko to see what was present. There were more doors down this passage and the walls were the charred remnants of picture frames; whatever was depicted in the photographs behind the stained glass covers had long since been reduced to a bubbled melted mess and old gas lamps, scorched radiators and a random small dresser beneath a blackened mirror lined the walls. When Sumiko shined her flashlight upon one of the gas lamps, a light suddenly flared up and the same thing happened to the other lamps as well. This bizarre phenomenon startled Sumiko and she jumped when she watched the hallway become illuminated by a dull, warm light.

Breathing heavily, Sumiko tried to calm down her shocked nerves. Turning off her flashlight, Sumiko approached the door to her left. It was charred but the door wouldn't even budge. Just as she turned around to go to the door adjacent to the one she tried to open, Sumiko's hearing picked up something. It was a very soft sound that resembled a child crying.

"Big brother… I don't want to die…"

The words tore at Sumiko's heart, so much so that she all but ran further down the hall to avoid hearing anymore heartbreaking ghostly voices. Just as she reached the end of the hallway and where another one began horizontally, a cold, prickling aura caught Sumiko's rattled attention. Turning to her right, Sumiko noticed a double door. Unlike the rest of the place, the doors mahogany paneling was unmarked by soot or burn marks and its brass handles gleamed in the light of the gas lamps. Recognizing the aura as being similar to what she had seen back at Watanabe Shrine, Sumiko lifted the Camera Obscura up to her face to see what it could "see."

The Viewfinder lit up and Sumiko clicked the button. After the blinding flash, the image on the Viewfinder changed into an unrecognizable, distorted mass. Sumiko removed the Camera from her eye and she stared at the door perplexed. A strange, red circle with hiragana text appeared on the door. It looked like some sort of magic seal and a very powerful one at that. Sumiko had never seen anything like this before back in Watanabe Shrine.

"You need the song…"

A familiar, childish voice startled Sumiko from her concentration and she turned to her left to see the same purple kimono wearing girl from earlier that afternoon. For a moment, the two of them just stared at each other and nothing was said between them. The young girl then suddenly disappeared and then reappeared before Sumiko, causing her to step back suddenly with surprise. Unfazed by the young woman's reaction towards her teleportation, the young girl silently reached out towards Sumiko's right hand with her left and she placed a scrap of paper into the palm with her right without breaking her gaze from Sumiko's eyes.

"The others have the other lyrics around here too. Find them all and recite—"

The soft tinkling of metal filled the still air.

The young girl suddenly stopped talking as she refocused her gaze towards something, or someone, down the hallway. Feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, a shiver went down Sumiko's spine. Something powerful was behind her. Her fears were confirmed as the air became a frightening silent film-esque monochrome and a cloud of fog escaped from Sumiko's lips as she began to breath heavier with anxiety and fear. Summoning the courage to turn around, Sumiko turned to see who was coming.

It was a woman. She was wearing a black kimono decorated with what appeared to be a red spider lily flower pattern, hakama pants underneath and the woman's hair was tied back into a ponytail just like a miko's. On her brow line was a bira-bira, a kind of hair ornament (kanzashi) that had small rectangular pieces of metal hanging from rings connected to the piece along with a crown of three fake, silk Japanese bellflowers and red string was tied around the long strands of hair that graced the woman's shoulders in diamond shaped patterns. Strangest of all, the woman had an eye patch over her left eye and a great cloud of smoke that filled her end of the hallway was behind her. She was an eerily beautiful specter, but was just as terrifying.

"Get away from there…," she hissed in a deep resonating voice that was filled with a simmering anger, "Get away from that door!"

Sumiko ran. Following her instincts, she sprinted down the right-side hallway, rounded a corner and found a door and she went towards it. Thankfully, it wasn't locked and she let herself in and all but slammed the door. The monochrome air disappeared and color returned, but Sumiko dreaded that it wouldn't last. She just stood there in the room, shaking and scared senseless, waiting for the frightening spirit of that woman to phase through the wall to come after her again.

After what felt like an hour (actually five minutes), Sumiko fell to her knees. Her heart was pounding rapidly in her chest as a familiar sense of dread began to overwhelm her.

"Not this again… not this again," She said to herself. "Why is a spirit like that here anyway? This was an orphanage, not a shrine. Why is she here? Was this place built on the foundation of a torn down shrine sometime in the past?"

Ruminating over these facts helped Sumiko to collect herself and she stood up to take a look around her new surroundings. It was a small bedroom. A dust clouded window stood pitch black against the wall and beside it, a blackened dresser with old, greyed handles, three red kimono boxes stacked to its right and the charred remains of a bed frame and its mattress. Adjacent to the bed and dresser was a cheval mirror that was covered in dust and soot. That girl in the purple kimono told Sumiko to find the remaining lyrics to a song. She looked at the crinkled note that the girl had given to her.

"Firefly, firefly

Lantern of the night

Your light shines so bright

Glorious as cherry blossoms

Short lived as they..."

The lyrics were interesting. They sounded similar to a song that Sumiko remembered singing when she was a child. It was called Hotaru Koi, a song about fireflies and was traditionally sung by children during the summer nights when the fireflies would be out searching for mates. During those summer nights years before, Sumiko's parents would sometimes take her outside into the woods around their home and they would watch the fireflies light up the air with their golden bioluminescence. Sometimes Sumiko's father would help her catch the brilliant little insects with mason jars or traditional paper lanterns.

She could remember giggling as the tiny flares of light began to glow like an inferno as the creatures flew and scuttled about in their prisons and the great lit wave that resulted at they were released. She could almost hear her mother and father's laughter again. See them smiling as well… But after Ichirou, her father, died in a car accident in 2002, Sumiko and her mother Rina never went on another firefly excursion ever again. Her mother simply shut down and Sumiko had to grow up and deal with her parent's depression and learning how to live without her father.

Closing her eyes, as if like a sluice gate to stop the wave of painful memories from getting to her, Sumiko reminded herself of the Purple Girl's plea.

"Find the rest of the lyrics she said. I don't know how the rest of the song goes. Is this portion here the first part or the second? I wish I knew…"

An idea came into Sumiko's mind and she got out her phone. However when the screen lit up, she saw that there was no service. She was alone on her quest, her only solace being that the camp grounds and town would have reliable cellular service. Denied the Internet for now, Sumiko decided to search the room that she was in. She hoped that some clue towards the song had survived the fire.

She looked in the dresser and hit pay dirt. Inside the third drawer was what appeared to be a dairy. It had somehow survived the fire, possibly through paranormal means Sumiko thought or simply because it was shoved back in the far corner of the drawer with some old blouses covering it. It wasn't left unscathed by the passage of time however. The cover was a dark blue and with an illustration of bush clovers on it while inside, the pages were a yellowish-brown and the graphite pencil writings were somewhat faded but, thankfully, were still legible.

" January 1, 1949

The first day of the New Year. It is quite exciting. I haven't felt this happy in a long time since before the surrender… Aunt Sachiko and the nurses are letting the children sleep in today. They were up until midnight last night waiting for the birth of the New Year.

They ate so many noodles* last night that I don't think the kids will need breakfast today! With Claudia translating, everyone spent the night talking, laughing and learning about how Americans and the Japanese celebrate New Years. The mirth was intoxicating. I hope for more moments like this. It feels like the war had never happened in the first place when I hear the children laugh so merrily."

The passage was cute and sentimental but Sumiko skipped through some of the pages to get closer to the summer months section. She finally came across an early June section that looked promising:

"June 3, 1949

The weather has been getting warmer. The children chatter eagerly about it soon being hot enough to go swimming in the lake here. To save money, Aunt Sachiko and the nurses and I have been mending some of the children's swimsuits to either patch up holes or to loosen the seams to make them bigger for their growing owners. All three of the nurses are good at sewing but Gertrude is a master at it. She just sits at the table with her sewing machine and she fixes a pair of swim trunks so well that they look like they had just been bought.

I hear her humming some kind of song while she works. Claudia told me that it was a Christian hymn. It should have been obvious to me since the woman wears a cross necklace around her neck. Speaking of songs, ever since Daisuke first spotted fireflies from the orphans' bedroom window last night, the children have all been singing Hotaru, Hotaru. It's such an enchanting song.

I think it was written by a priestess who served the Hibiki-Tsukuyomi Shrine here centuries ago. Claudia and Francine were curious about it, especially Claudia. They both want to know the lyrics. I think Aunt Sachiko keeps a collection of traditional children's songs in the multi-purpose room downstairs... I know the song is described in there."

Sumiko felt a wave of exhilaration. She had found her first clue! But before she left, she decided to check the rest of the room for anything else that may be of importance now or later. Noticing that there was another door in the room, Sumiko went inside and she discovered that it was a bathroom. The room had received a good deal of scorching, yet the bathtub still retained a lovely ivory gleam from Sumiko's flashlight. Looking inside the medicine cabinet, Sumiko discovered a small brown bottle with a faded, time tanned paper label with small vibrant black lettering.

"Okamoto, Hiromi

Fukuda Family Herbal Blend Specialty

Whenever pain is felt anywhere in the body, take one or two herbal capsules (depending on how much pain you are in) with water or tea. The healing effects of the herbs should work within an hour and your pain will be gone.

~Fukuda Pharmacy"

Sumiko scrutinized the bottle she held in her hand.

"Pain medicine huh? Maybe this will come in handy later. Hopefully they won't make me sick instead…"

She pocketed the medicine. Looking into the dusty and charred mirror, Sumiko took a deep breath. She had to go back outside into the hallway where that dark priestess's ghost was. Summoning her courage, Sumiko walked back towards the bedroom door. Taking a firm grip on the handle, Sumiko cautiously opened the door, the hinges creaking all the while.

The plot thickens! The "Hotaru, Hotaru" song I created is based off the real "Hotaru Koi" song that Japanese children sing during the summer. There is a recording of it on Youtube and it is very mesmerizing to listen to. I plan on using "Hotaru, Hotaru" in a traditional shinto incantation called "kotodama." According to my research (paraphrasing too), kotodama is the "power of words" and that the chanting of beautiful words can bring about good and while saying ugly ones will bring evil. Since the song's backstory includes that it was written by a shinto priestess, the song should have added effect.

Also, the red spider lily flowers that decorate the "Black Priestess's" clothing, also known as higanbana, is a flower that represents death in Japanese culture. It was once planted on graves since its poisonous roots deterred animals from digging up the remains. Also, if you were to meet someone that you were never going to see again, these flowers would supposedly appear along their path. In Fatal Frame IV, Kageri Sendou mentions these flowers in her diary, calling them amaryllis flowers.

I hope I am not boring you with my tangent! Its just very fascinating. Well anyway, thank you for reading and please review! :)

PS: *= According to the "Photos of Old Japan" site, during New Years Eve, it is customary for families to eat noodles during the Old Years final hours. In wealthier households, the servants share the feast with their employers relatives as a sign of solidarity.