Part 10: Trapped

Their screams were loud and shrill, harmful to the eardrums of anything with even the most remote hearing capabilities within the immediate vicinity. All Rin knew was that she was screaming the word "GHOST!" at the top of her lungs – outdone only by the combined lung-power of Hikaru and Kaoru – and then suddenly she was yanked into a nearby empty classroom, the door slamming shut with ear-shattering finality.

…

Five people pooled together in the middle of the hallway, laughter threatening to overtake them at any given moment.

"Oh… my god!" one back snorted into his hand. "D-did you get all that?"

"You bet!" the third-year next to him guffawed. "Man – their reactions were priceless!"

"I can't believe that they fell for the projection image," said another, who moved off to one side and shut off the projection machine, cutting off the flickering image of the transparent boy several yards down the hall.

One of the girls looked over to a familiar light-haired girl who was trying not to laugh up a storm.

"I honestly didn't expect Rin-kun to act like that!" she nearly squealed. "You were so totally right!"

"Yeah, how'd you figure Tamashīzaki-kun would freak out, anyway?" One of the other boys

The other girl smirked devilishly. "Rin-kun's a very hard boy to predict, but even he has his weaknesses! I told you my idea would work!"

"Considering your affiliation, I'm not at all surprised," the first boy cackled. "Oh, man… getting back at those Hitachiins just made my night! I can't wait to see how this all turned out!"

"All right, it's time to move onto the next phase!" the light-haired girl proclaimed, earning herself a smattering of shushing from the others.

The third year with the projection machine moved down the hall before stopping in front of one of the classroom doors. He waved over to the rest of the group, indicating that it was indeed the room their prey had dove into.

"So, what do we do next?" asked one of the boys.

"We need to make that classroom as creepy as possible," said the light-haired girl. She looked over to the projection machine operator inquisitively. "Can you jiggle the lock?"

He nodded, and attempted to twist the door handle.

He looked down at the handle suspiciously, and jiggled it even more.

"You're kidding me…" he muttered.

"Hey, what's up?" the second boy inquired, looking over the young man's shoulder.

The elder third-year gave them all a rather bewildered look.

"It's…"

…

"Locked!" Hikaru exploded, trying to yank at the doorknob in another futile attempt.

"It looks like Mori-sempai wasn't kidding when he mentioned the mysteriously locking doors," Kaoru murmured.

"Wonderful," Rin deadpanned. She rolled her eyes and looked over their surroundings in evident distaste. "An apparition in the hallway, a creepy old science classroom that still has jars of dead things floating in formalin, a stalker fangirl, and now a mysteriously locked door. The only thing we're missing now is the dead body."

"That isn't exactly something you'd want to say in a place like this," Kaoru commented, looking warily at the jars the girl had mentioned.

"Oh, I give up!" Hikaru kicked the door in frustration before whirling around and slumping down to the floor. He looked up at the other two sulkily. "It looks like we're stuck in here."

"How lovely." Rin sank against a nearby counter and let out a loud and exasperated sigh. "Look, isn't there a way we can get in contact with one of the others? You didn't just dart out of the music room without your cell phones, did you?"

She was answered with a united "Uh… "

She mentally smacked herself.

"Wait, isn't there usually a phone lying around in case of emergencies?" Kaoru dashed over to the empty teacher's desk and began to look around in the dim lighting the single emergency light in the front of the room could provide. "Since the backup generators are what have the emergency lights on, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that there would be a phone line open in case something happened?"

Hope surged through the raven-haired teen like a new breath of life.

"I don't see why not. Maybe we can get a hold of Kyoya, and he can get someone to come up here!" she nearly cheered, pushing herself from her slouched position and moving to help the younger twin. Hikaru went in the opposite direction.

After a bit more searching, Kaoru located the phone. Rin and Hikaru watching intently, he listened for a dial tone.

His face fell.

"It's dead."

Rin slammed her head down into her hands while Hikaru groaned loudly.

Kaoru looked at the useless communication device sadly as he pushed it off to the side. "I guess the storm must've knocked down the phone lines around the same time as the power lines."

There was a sudden crack of lightning, followed by a loudly, thundering boom that caused all three of them to jump.

"Would you believe that with all the insanity going on, I totally forgot about the thunderstorm?" Rin laughed nervously.

"With all the time that's gone by, it should've let up by now," Hikaru mused as he walked over to the windows. He reached out and pulled aside the overhanging slats to peer outside.

Kaoru and Rin leaned in behind him, Kaoru looking over his brother's shoulder and Rin having to nudge the two aside. All three were stunned greatly to find that the situation outdoors hadn't gotten any better.

If anything, it was worse! Debris littered what they could make out of Ouran's campus, and tree branches waved about even more wildly than before, smacking against the streetlamps and floundering in the torrential rain. Several tree branches were dangerously close to being snapped off and sent flying. Rin was surprised that she couldn't see any broken windows.

Almost as if to remedy the latter observation, a tree branch whipped into their vision and slammed into the window. The three second-years each let out a yelp and jumped back. Hikaru let go of the curtain slats, causing them to clatter together,

"All right, we're definitely going to have to stay away from the windows," he said, eyeing said window nervously.

"Great idea, but that one window spans across a majority of the room," Rin pointed out, gesturing for emphasis. "And this place is littered with all sorts of dangerous stuff." She looked over at the door again. "Can't we open it at all?"

Kaoru moved over and gave it an attempt, but wound up shaking his head in defeat.

"Forget it."

"Move over." Rin pushed him aside and twisted the handle violently. When that didn't work, she threw her weight against the door, still to no avail.

"So much for that," she said ruefully, rubbing her now very sore shoulder. "Great. So now we're stuck in here?"

"Looks like it." Hikaru sighed and looked over the room again before casting an accusatory glance in the disguised girl's direction. "This is all your fault, you know. If you'd let someone know where you were going, we wouldn't have gotten into this mess!"

"Well excuse me for not waking someone up just because I needed to step out for a moment!" Rin snapped, not at all in the mood for the older boy's snarky attitude. "I was only planning on going to the bathroom and straight back – how was I supposed to know that I'd get lost‽"

"Okay, Rin, calm down," Kaoru intoned, patting her gently on the back.

"Calm down? Tell your idiot brother to get off my case!"

"I'm the idiot? Look who had a panic attack because she was being followed!"

"Hey, you freaked out too!"

"Come on, you two…" Kaoru sighed in exasperation. Sometimes he didn't know what to do with either his brother or that reckless commoner.

"Did not!"

"Yes you did – and don't deny it!"

There was a loud and audible crack. It interrupted the two's argument, snapping them into silence long enough to stare at the window warily. Outside, the window howled violently, and they could actually hear the debris hitting against the school building.

"I don't think this room is safe," Hikaru noted lowly.

"Neither do I, but what can we do? The door's locked!"

"There's a storage closet over here." The two looked over to find Kaoru peering into what looked like another custodian's closet. "It's small, but at least there aren't any windows."

Rin peered around him to get a better look and inwardly panicked at the smallness of it. Three people crowded into that tiny little room… and two of them being the twins…

A shrill whistling sound pervaded the air, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. She suddenly became aware of a draft in the room she hadn't noticed before.

'What the…?'

Without leaving her the option to argue, one of the twins yanked her into the closet while the other slammed the door shut just seconds before the was a CRASH and the sound of breaking glass. She landed on her rear with a dull thump.

"What was that?" Rin demanded in the sudden pitch-blackness of her surroundings.

"I don't know, but I sure don't want to find out," Hikaru said somewhere to her left.

Rin frowned. "So now what do we do?"

"Just try to wait out the storm until someone finds us, I guess," Kaoru said on her right, sounding weary. She thought she heard Hikaru stifle a yawn.

"Well, at least we're all together…" she wiggled a little, and accidentally elbowed Hikaru in the stomach. "Hey, could you scoot over? It's awfully cramped."

"I wish I could, but I'm kinda squished as it is. Hey, Kaoru? Think you could move over a little?"

"Not really. Wait, whose arm is that?"

"Mine." Rin yanked her arm back upon feeling a set of fingers brush lightly against it. 'Of all the people to get locked in a closet with…'

That last thought was probably her last coherent one for the night. She stifled a yawn, but failed at it miserably. The night's events had finally caught up to her it seemed.

"Hey, Rin, I've got an idea –"

Hikaru's voice swam in and out of her comprehension, words blurring together and hardly making any sense. Before she knew it, Rin was fast asleep.