I did go down and investigate the second crash. Not because it had the same, bone-shattering, authoritative quality that the previous one held, but because Yami had appeared next to me, demanding that I did so.
"I promise, Sukai-chan, you'll understand what I mean after you watch this play out."
"What you mean by—"
"By playing dirty. By scaring them out."
I raised an eyebrow, but followed him down the attic stairs.
"Isn't that what you tried to do earlier?" I asked. He whipped around. Something wasn't right with him. I was pleased that he'd seem to have forgiven me, happy that he'd come back to see me, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. The way he bounced when he walked, fidgeted with his hands, as if he had too much energy and not enough to do. Yami had always complained about not having enough energy to do anything.
"No! Well, yes, but you didn't let me. This time, I—"
I stiffened. "I was talking about the scream, Yami. The woman's scream from earlier."
Yami's brow furrowed in confusion, then the memory dawned on him.
"That little joke, you mean? With the cat skull? No, no! This is much better I promise—"
I didn't bother to listen to the rest of Yami's sentence, running past him and down the staircase to the first floor.
I followed the accented voice of John, the worried, hapless voices of the others I didn't know, hurrying through the half-renovated rooms of the first floor. I was moving towards a side of the house I'd never before ventured into. The side that, in the attic, was represented by a shadowed and windowless cubby.
A doorway opened up in front of me, separated from the formal front hall of the house by a skinny, short hallway. I could hear the voices of John and his companions echo up loudly.
Yami was standing in the doorway. His expression had calmed down, he no longer fidgeted or jumped. He was serious, even angered, and I stopped moving just a few feet away from him.
"Yami, what did you do?"
"Wait here and you'll see."
"How come I've never been over here before?" Yami shrugged, casting a lazy glance into the dark room behind him before looking back at me.
"How should I know? You have no reason to leave that attic, but you do so anyways."
He had a point. I'd wandered the house before, more often without him than with, so it didn't make sense for him to know why I'd never gone to this side before.
But I didn't want to let it drop. I knew the room behind him was a staircase to the basement of the house—it dawned on me suddenly. I could picture the basement, unlit, musty, cold. I'd never been to this part of the house before, but I knew what Yami was hiding.
I just didn't know why. Any of the whys.
I took a step forward. "Yami," I said, meeting his steady gaze. "What did you do?"
He smirked. "Patience is a virtue." I glared, barely a foot away from Yami and the doorway now.
"I don't care. What did you do?"
Yami disappeared, the dark doorway opening up for a moment before the caramel-haired man appeared, carrying the limp body of tiny Masako in his arms. Blood matted the back of her head, her left ankle, the foot bare and bruised, was twisted at an odd angle.
I didn't bother to step to the side as the man hurried by, John and a black-haired man I was unfamiliar with just behind him. I listened to their voices as they made their way across the house, but I wasn't paying attention to a word they were saying.
The door to the basement was wide open in front of me, gaping, menacingly inviting.
Then, it slammed shut, the knob rattling, the wood around it cracking from the force.
Yami took a deep breath, sitting down on the top step of the staircase, the high from the foreign energy gone, having finally been used up entirely in the effort of closing the door. What had he been thinking, showing Sukai-chan what he'd done?
Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thought. The fact that she'd ventured so close, the fact that she wasn't placated by his answers, the fact that she just kept asking questions, was enough for Yami to understand the gravity of the situation, how close the balance was to breaking.
"Neo-kun," the spirit in the room below whispered to him. He could smack himself for calling her Lucy earlier. She wasn't Lucy. He wouldn't let himself believe that. He couldn't let himself believe that, couldn't let himself believe that the broken spirit that hid in the shadows, the one he'd twisted and the one he couldn't fix, was what remained of the young woman he'd once loved.
Masako's empty shoe flew through the air, slamming into the door behind him. "Neo-kun," she growled.
If he was going to call her Lucy, he might as well start calling Sukai-chan Lucy too.
"I really don't think we need both of us to take her."
"You are not leaving me behind! I'm next!"
"And what would lead you to that conclusion, Ayako? If there is any next, then I'd bet Mai or John is it—you're too old."
Monk's face hit hard on the wood floor as Ayako fumed. "Please, this spirit obviously has it out for beautiful, brilliant women. His order is a little mixed up, but he'll figure it out soon enough, and I don't want to be around when he does."
Monk was up, ready to retort, but John broke in, stepping in between the crypto-married couple. "Who goes isn't really important, considering the longer we bicker, the longer it will take to get Miss Hara help. She is bleeding, did Kazuya mention that?" John knew they were making light of a situation they didn't understand, a situation that frightened them, but the pettiness of their arguing bothered him nonetheless.
The two paled, shame clear in their expression. Then, Monk set himself, moving determined and quick; what seemed like barely a moment later, he pulled out of the long driveway and onto the main road, Ayako with him.
Mai was still asleep on the coach. Naru had returned to the chair beside it. Blood on his cuffs, he sat on his knees with his chin in his hands, his gaze stuck on the book, which he'd placed on the makeshift coffee table beside one of the unused laptops.
He'd told Masako it wasn't necessary for her to go and find out what the others were doing. She and Ayako had made their way to the office room soon after he'd started reading "The Black Cat". Ayako had complained about being woken up, muttered about Mai still being asleep, while Masako had stood forlornly near the door.
"I hope they're alright," she had said in her lonely, petite voice. "Maybe we should go check on them?"
"Not necessary," Naru had replied, not looking away from his book. "They are fine, I'm sure."
"But Kazuya…" Masako had muttered, and Naru had ignored.
"Oh, leave it be, Masako. It's only been a few minutes. They'll be back soon," Ayako had said.
But now, Naru felt like breaking something. Anything. He should have known to take Masako's concern more seriously. She didn't get critically worried over just anything.
And now she was on her way to the hospital, and the room sat in silence. Mai asleep, John waiting expectantly for something, a whisper, a command. Lin wasn't even tapping away on the computer; he, too, was waiting for Naru to give orders.
Something Naru felt he no longer had the right to do.
He felt what could only be described as relief when Mai suddenly sat up. She looked around the room wildly, a cold sweat making her face shine.
Everyone, everything, seemed to be panicking. Yelling, shouting, arguing, ignoring. The house had never felt smaller, the walls closing in with each step away from the door Yami hid behind.
Never before had I so desperately wanted to get out.
I stumbled along outside the house, following the edge of a large stone road. I had no idea where it went, but it led away from the house, away from Yami and Naru and the others. That was all I cared about.
I didn't want to see what happened to Masako, didn't want to believe what Yami had done. Jokes, that was what he showed me, what he played. Jokes to make the live ones glance anxiously behind them, irritate them until they finally left.
He told me that he thought we should play dirty.
I suppose it was my own fault for not really understanding that he was serious.
The image of Masako, limp and bloody, was enough to make me gag, doubling forward in my tracks.
It didn't make sense that we, as dead and non-existent as we were, had the power to do that, to physically harm someone… alive. If Masako died, if it proved true that we even had the power to take away the one advantage they held over us, then what was the point of it all? What was the point of dying and non-existence? Of not being real?
Swallowing hard, catching my breath, I sat back and surveyed where I was. I'd never left the house before, the outside was as foreign to me as the basement—unknown but oddly familiar.
It was dark, and out of an old, wondrous habit, I looked around for moon, only to find it covered by thick, ominous clouds. A heavy fog kept me blind after a few feet, and wind whipped around me—through me. Tree branches, hanging heavy and low, bounced with the gusts.
One in particular caught my eye. With every gust, it dipped low, a hard, short crack would resound through the air. With each dip I pictured it breaking, snapping and slamming hard against the stone.
Light flashed out of the corner of my eye—something was barreling in my direction, following hurriedly along the road. Standing up, I looked from the lights, to the tree limb, and back to the lights. With each glance the lights grew bigger, brighter, the branch hung lower, heavier.
Without thinking, I stepped out into the road.
Monk knew it was stupid to be speeding in fog this thick.
"Can't you go any faster?" Ayako asked. She sat in the backseat, cradling the unconscious Masako. "She's starting to bleed again."
"I'm already going too fast for these conditions, Ayako."
"But—"
Taking his eyes off the road for a moment, Monk glanced into the back seat. "We won't be able to help Masako if we're—"
"Monk!" Ayako hollered, her eyes looking past him. Monk whipped around, simultaneously slamming on the brake. He held his breath as the brakes screamed, the car still hurtling towards the young girl that stood in the middle of the road. She was looking at them, watching the car as it came closer, not bothering to try and get out of the way.
Monk was struck by how pale she was, how cold she looked. Long, dark hair whipping around her in the wind, her watery green eyes empty.
"What are you doing? Stop!" Ayako yelled.
"I'm trying!" Monk hollered, his palm slamming against the center of the steering wheel.
The girl visibly jumped when the car horn blared, expression entering her face for only a moment, but she still made no move to get out of the way as the car hurdled closer and closer to her.
Monk couldn't help it, he closed his eyes as the car skidded and Ayako let out a shrill scream.
He didn't open them until the car jerked to dead stop, until an obnoxious creak and crash rang out.
The girl was gone, and just a few feet beyond the hood of the car, just beyond the onset of the fog, Monk could see a tree branch, thick and round, stretched across the road.
Unbuckling, he stepped out of the car, looking around the foggy darkness. He could see the lights of the rebuilt church cut through the fog just beyond the fallen tree limb; the car headlights outlining each individual leaf and twig that lay broken on the road.
Holding his breath, Monk knelt down and looked under the car.
A pair of small, emerald eyes glittered back at him. Without warning, they darted in his direction, and Monk was thrown back on his hands, releasing the air he'd been holding as a skinny, black-furred cat darted out. He watched as it bounced across the road, disappearing into the bushes.
"Monk?" Ayako's worried voice drifted out from the car.
The exhaustion hit me, my breaths labored and throat hoarse. I lay on my back, starring through the trees at the blank, black sky. The sound of their voices was muffled by the continuous wind, but I could tell when they'd left, an eerie silence settling around me.
I tried not to think too much, breath too hard, because all of it hurt.
The only thought I did allow to escape was of Yami. I wondered, is this what it felt like to be him, all the time? Did he always feel this tired, sore, weak?
I chuckled, my chest heaving, muscles screaming, and allowed my eyes to close as the sky opened up and cold rain poured down.