And our guest reviewer Beth got our quote question! It's from Okami-san and her Seven Companions. Love that anime.

Jeeze, at this rate you guys will have all the chapters. x.x I hope other readers have time to find this story before it's complete, buuutt...oh well. Whatever. ^.^ It's just funsies. FUNSIES!

And I'm so glad you guys are enjoying this. This story is an approach on my part to a different kind of horror-social horror. If you've noticed, in my other stories I took on different types of horror: psychological, visceral, and shocking horror. I'm trying to test around a bit, so I hope you guys are okay with it.

Chapter 7

Third and last day on the case. After tonight, we'd be under contract to leave first thing in the morning. Our clients would be expecting an answer then.

I didn't know how far we were to the answer. It was noon and I was still huddled into a corner of my room.

Ayako had stopped by to give me food, along with Takigawa who then got into a fight so ferocious with Naru I could hear his shouts through the door. John came by to promise that he'd fix it again, and Ayako told me that she was planning on telling Naru as soon as he returned from…wherever he had disappeared to after Takigawa had shouted him down. Lin came by with a cup of tea, a smile, and a calm invitation to join him at base, which I didn't give a direct answer to. I was afraid of meeting Naru in there. I was afraid of facing him and getting his rejection.

I hugged my left hand to my chest, as though he might come and try to tear off the engagement ring.

I'd never felt so afraid or in pain.

What if Naru never believed John? Or me? Or what if he believed me this one time, but would constantly suspect me of something from this day forward? Or was afraid of it? And poor John, what would happen to his priesthood? What if whoever was in charge of him learned of this incident and excommunicated him or something?

Around 12:40pm, Ayako came to visit with a Styrofoam cup of soup.

"Thought you'd like something easy to eat," she wrinkled her nose down at me. "Good crap, you're a wreck. Seriously, are you letting yourself get worked over a little thing like this? You need some sun, girl."

Once I accepted the soup, she crossed the room and opened my amazing sun-blocking blinds. I hissed at the sudden brightness.

"Come on, eat up. Then wash your face, because I'm giving you a makeover."

"Why? It's not like he cares. I'm not particularly pretty…" Like Masako. What if he…?

Ayako rolled her eyes. "Oh please, you're adorable. The fact that you don't see it just makes it more so. Now, munch munch."

I did as told, swallowing down the soup mechanically without really taking a good look at what I was eating. Then I washed my face and let Ayako have her way with me. She had brought over a makeup kit the size of a toolbox. I thought blithely of how I didn't even have a makeup box, just a thing of concealer, some mascara, and some eyeliner. Sleep appealed to me more than makeup, you see. She also styled my shoulder length hair to hug about my face, framing my small mouth and doe-like eyes. I had always thought I looked like a bug. She pulled out my two remaining outfits and wrinkled her nose at them.

"We have to take you shopping. What kind of eighteen year old girl has this kind of fashion?"

"My fashion's fine," I mumbled. And comfortable.

"Well, put on these pants and a bra. You actually got a nice pair there. I'm going to get a blouse that's more flattering."

She came back with some wispy blue thing that reminded me of curtains of rains. It hugged the waist, but the way the fabric draped made it feel loose. It was modest, as I liked it, with tiny blue bows where the sleeves split at the shoulder.

I looked alright.

"Smile, Mai, everything will be fine. It's just some misunderstanding and Naru'll get over it, trust me. If Takigawa hadn't wasted his time calling him names and told him about what happened to us, I'm sure he would come back begging for forgiveness." She frowned as I teared up. "Don't you dare cry, that make up isn't waterproof."

So I sniffed, clenched my teeth, and fought it back, because the last thing I needed was streams of mascara running down my cheeks.

"I'm going to go find the idiot. You get out of your room for a bit." She hugged me and patted my cheeks. "Really, Mai, it will be fine. You're being silly."

How was it silly to fear you were losing your chance at being with your family? Naru had been going to marry me. His parents wanted me. We were going to make a family. Have little Naru babies.

Ayako left me standing in the doorway of my bathroom. I glanced about my messy room, breathed in the silence, and figured I might as well give room service a chance to clean up. This was going to be my last night here, after all. Might as well not waste it by settling for snotty sheets and wet pillows.

I made sure my keycard was in my pocket and closed the door behind me. I had just started formulated a so-so plan of wandering to base and seeing what Lin was up to, when I noticed the door to Naru's room was cracked open.

Something like prickling, burning cold foreboding trickled over my insides.

But the sudden need and desperation to make things right—to have my Naru's arms around me once more—pushed me forward. There was a chance he was in there, there was a chance I could say the right things that he'll hear, that he'll believe.

I pushed open the door. It moved soundlessly on its five-star hinges.

The light from the hallway poured in and the automatic light flicked on.

Naru sat upright in his bed, only a sheet over his legs…

And Masako, only in her bra and panties, straddling him, her hands on his shoulders, her short hair fallen forward to hide her expression.

He saw me at the same time I saw him.

I didn't wait to ask. I didn't even wait to hear if he said anything. I just ran.

I skipped the elevator and took the stairs. Good thing I was going down, as eighteen floors was a long way to go. Somewhere half way my eyes filled with so many tears I lost sight of which floor I was on, though I figured the last floor would spit me out onto the main landing.

When I finally came to the end of the stairs, I yanked open the door and stepped—into a maintenance room. It was large, white, and long. On each side were what had to be engines of some sort hooked up to multicolored pipes that ran up into the ceiling. Green metal tanks sat beside each one of these, and a loud humming, not unlike several high RPM engines in traffic, lined the room and filled my chest.

I found I liked this place. If I ran home someone would come after me. They wouldn't even expect me here, so I'd be left in peace to lose my dignity. And maybe, a small part of me whispered, Naru will feel guilty when he hears the truth and then finds me missing. I could cry and talk as much as I wanted too and the hum of the motors would hide me.

What I found when I took out my phone sealed the deal. No signal.

Wobbling on legs that had taken me down who knows how many floors at this point, I found a corner between one of the tanks and the wall that looked spider free and crawled in till I reached the corner, where I pulled my legs to my chest and sobbed as loud as I wanted.

Sometime later—about forty minutes according to my phone—the humming vibrations of the motor reached my chest and calmed my sobs like white noise does a newborn. My heart still felt like it had been torn out and eaten by something, but at least I had worn myself out to the point of almost feeling numb. I drowsily registered that I was cold and thought about cuddling up to one of the engines and taking a nap.

The lights flicked off. The engines humming whined and slowed.

I suddenly wasn't tired at all.

No one knew I was here. No one could know I was here.

I pulled my legs in so tight my forearms felt like they might snap. Then, in a last act of desperation, I took out my phone and clicked it on, thinking that the light might prove it really was just a black out this one time out of all the times the lights went off.

It was dead.

It clacked to the floor as I snapped my hands together and made the sign of the Unmovable One.

"On nōmaku sanmanda basaradan kan. On nōmaku sanmanda basaradan kan."

A clang, followed by a hiss made me jump so hard, I bruised my rear on landing on the cement floor. I had to focus—it was just a spirit. I shouldn't let a little dark scare me. And it wasn't like…

But Gene wasn't here anymore. If I passed out, he wouldn't be there to catch me. I really was alone.

"On nōmaku sanmanda basaradan kan. On nōmaku sanmanda—"

My cell phone flickered, then glowed to life. The green side of the tank and the whitewashed brick wall came into view.

Something crouched just outside the globe of light.

"—basaradan kan. On nōmaku sanmanda basaradan kan."

Whatever it was hadn't moved. The space the humming of the engines had taken up gaped wide, swallowing up my tiny chants.

I had to get out. Out out out, back up the stairs, back to the sunlight.

I untwined my hands, bringing out two fingers.

"Rin, Pyo, To, Sha—"

It shuddered and moved towards me. A too pale hand reached into my bubble of light. As it reached the outermost reach of the light, a round, hanging jaw with purple lips and gums and nubs of something that could be teeth came into view. In a flare of intuition, I realized that the thing in front of me was a man. A man on all fours, with something like spittle or blood dripping from his too loose bottom lip.

"—Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai—"

Bulging, yellow eyes glinted into view, staring right into mine. His flesh sagged from around his eyes, sunken, though his grey-blue flesh still gave the appearance of a something unrotted and wholesome, but I had never seen any sick man look so. Only the dead.

"—Zen!"

The face vanished and he was thrust back into the darkness.

Snatching up my phone, I fumbled out like a crazy person from my little nook and went sprinting towards the door, half blinded by terror and the uneven bouncing of my phone's light.

The stairwell opened to me, just as black as the room behind me, though I could see light from above. I went for it, taking the steps two at a time. I thought I could feel him behind me, hunched, bulging eyes, purple mouth wide—

I burst out onto the first floor.