Disclaimer: ...I still don't own much of anything (including Ghost Hunt or the title "Lady Labyrinth"), other than an an increasingly absurd number of books, considering how tiny my room is.

Chapter Thirteen

I opened my eyes to find bright, warm sunlight and Mai's smiling face.

"Hey there, stranger," she said playfully. She was wearing a light blue dress, and she had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. We were in some park, one I hadn't seen before, laying in the grass next to a set of swings that were swaying gently back and forth. For a moment I wondered if this was an actual dream, an elaborate fantasy concocted by my own brain, specifically engineered to torment me.

Mai seemed to sense my worry, and her smile faded. "What's up? Did you have another run-in with that…thing?"

Well, if this is a normal dream, I have a cruel, sadistic subconscious. I shook my head. "No, nothing tonight. It's…Mai, Naru's having John and Ayako perform an exorcism tonight. On you." I sat up as I spoke, and fought the urge to hold Mai's hand, or tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

Mai tilted her head to the side, her eyes full of curiosity. "Oh. And?"

I stared at her, feeling distinctly insane. "And…well, I'm worried about you. About how it might affect you."

She shrugged. "It can't be much worse than my current situation, although I don't think it will work. The spirits John exorcises need to fear the power of God, otherwise it won't work. I don't think this spirit, or whatever it is, fears anything. And as for Ayako…" She looked at me and raised her eyebrows. "Well…you know. Besides, even if Lin and Naru try and use their skills, I don't know that it would work. I'm not a haunted house, and I haven't been cursed by an evil spirit…as far as I know. This isn't something we've seen before, and I don't know how this exorcism would negatively affect me."

"That's just it, though, you don't know. None of us knows anything! And we can't just go rushing into things. You could get hurt!" Mai winced as I shouted the last part. I let out a long breath, my head sagging forward. "I'm sorry for yelling. I'm just so worried…"

Mai's eyes opened wider, her head pulling back in surprise. "I had no idea you were this worried about me, Houshou."

"Of course I'm worried about you. I've always been worried about you. I just…don't ever want anything bad to happen to you." I looked down at my lap and cleared my throat.

"You don't…" she stopped, trying to figure out what to say. "If…if it makes you feel better, we'll be careful, okay? If something happens, I should be able to force you out of here, so you can wake up and tell the others to stop."

I looked back at Mai. "That…actually, that does make me feel better, at least a little bit. Still…why aren't you worried? What if something goes really wrong?"

Mai let out a laugh, but it sounded cold, and bitter. "Everything has already gone wrong." She shrugged again. "I don't see how this could get much worse. I need to get out of here, Houshou, and until I figure out how to do that on my own, I will gladly accept help, even if that help is dangerous. I've been stuck in my own head for months; I can't stand much more of this."

"I wish I had gotten here sooner…I should have been here for you…"

"No, stop it," she said sternly, as she leaned forward and placed a hand on my arm. "You didn't know. You came when I called, came all the way across the world for me. You reminded me that there's a world outside of here, and gave me hope that I could get back there." I thought I saw tears well up in her eyes, but she quickly turned away, taking her hand off of my arm, leaving my skin tingling and my heart hurting.

Ayako's words from earlier came echoing back into my head. When will you have another chance?

I took a deep breath, my entire body shaking, all of my muscles tensed, as if I were preparing for a car crash. "Mai, I…"

As she turned back toward me, a violent gust of wind blew between us, and I could smell the stench of decay as it swirled around us. Mai's eyes went wide with panic, and I could feel my heart hammering in my chest.

"It's not safe!" Mai yelled at me over the wind.

"I'm not leaving!" I shouted back. I could tell from the look on her face that she thought that was phenomenally stupid, but I didn't care.

She grabbed my hand and pulled me close to her. Please, don't let this be the last time I hold her hand…

"Alright, I don't know if he'll separate us or not, but just do your best to stay calm." She spoke directly into my ear, standing up on her tip-toes and pulling down on my shoulder so she could reach, all of which made it hard to concentrate on anything other than how close she was to me. "Hopefully, whatever skills you have in here will show up if you concentrate on staying calm and still."

"Hopefully?!" I shouted.

"Just trust me, okay?" she said, locking eyes with me.

Before I could respond, she was gone, her face fading into darkness. Everything around me went black, and I felt a now-familiar falling sensation in my stomach.

The eyes didn't appear immediately, but I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not.

Stay calm, Takigawa, I reminded myself.

That was easier said than done, however. I felt like I was choking, as if my throat was closing up. My heart throbbed painfully in my chest, my stomach felt like a twisted mess, and on top of it all, the awful rotting smell was clogging my nostrils and clawing its way into my mouth. With every breath, I thought I would vomit.

You are not going to let Mai down tonight, I told myself as I gritted my teeth. Not tonight.

One by one, I forced my muscles to relax, thankful that I had any control over them at all. I tried to embrace the falling feeling, tried to convince myself that it was fun. It's like a carnival ride…a harmless, friendly carnival ride…

Suddenly I felt solid ground under my feet. Everything around me was still pitch black and empty, but at least I had something to stand on. I had no idea what that "something" was, but anything was better than falling. I crouched down on the mystery ground, not trusting my legs to continue holding me up. Beneath my hands, the ground felt sort of soft, like skin stretched tight over bones.

I quickly focused on clearing my thoughts, emptying my head, and allowing my mind to focus on the enormous task of keeping myself calm.

Far above me, a pair of familiar, massive eyes opened. They were attached to nothing, no head, no neck, just a pair of yellow, bloodshot eyes looming in the darkness.

I doubled my efforts to stay calm, this time focusing on bringing my heart rate down. In the back of my mind, I wondered if Mai was safe, if she had managed to fight him off before he came to me, or if…No. I told myself, and drove the thought from my mind.

The eyes seemed to turn, looking first left, then slowly pivoting to the right. Then, the thing spoke, although this time it felt like an echo in an empty room, rather than a sound in my own head.

"Hmm…" it growled, the eyes narrowing to slits. The thing took in a huge rasping breath. "I know you are here, Houshou Takigawa. You cannot hide from me."

A shiver ran down my spine, and I felt bile rise in my throat, but still I maintained my calm, slow breaths.

The eyes shifted again, and I felt a pull on me, like a magnet on a compass. Some force made my legs ache, made them yearn to straighten, but I refused to listen. I kept my body anchored to the ground, my legs still bent in a crouch, my hands extended in front of me to help support my weight.

The eyes slid up, the pupils straining to see, expanding to take in the darkness. Then, the eyes slowly oozed downward, the pupils like drops of pitch waiting to fall.

I must stay calm, I told myself as the smell of death grew stronger around me. This is all a dream. He can't hurt me in a dream.

I was quickly proven wrong.

As the eyes inched closer to me, closer to finding me, I felt a sharp, searing pain blossom behind my eyes. White hot knives plunged into my eye sockets, into my ear drums, into the back of my throat. I felt a scream begin to tear its way out of my vocal chords. If I make a sound, I'm dead. I don't know how I knew it, but I did, knew it the way animals can sense impending earthquakes. I refuse to let him win! I growled within myself, a bright flash of anger igniting something within me.

I forced the scream back down, and plunged my brain into blankness. He can only hurt me if I let him. He hasn't wormed his way into my brain. I repeated those words to myself as a mantra, and I soon hear Mai's voice join my own, repeating: Stay calm, Houshou. Stay calm. The sound of her voice, imagined or not, was all I needed.

I embraced the pain, felt it consume me until it was all I could see or feel. It spread out along the nerve endings of my body, winding its way through my fingers and toes, twisting and churning in my stomach and my lungs. Everything before my eyes was white, a white so bright it hurt to see it.

"Houshou!" a voice said, and suddenly the pain all ended, and it felt like I was slammed back into my own body. I felt a hand touch my shoulder, and I fell backwards, cringing away.

"Houshou, it's me." I finally opened my eyes to a world of butter-yellow sunlight, and saw Mai kneeling next to me, her hair blowing gently in the cool, sweet breeze.

I surged forward and gathered her up in a hug, burying my face in the soft, warm skin of her neck, inhaling deeply, trying to get rid of the awful rotting smell. She smelled like juniper and freshly cut grass. I knew these smells were all in my head, or rather her head, and that in reality we were both lying on hospital beds only a few feet apart, but in that second, it didn't matter.

I pulled back to look at her face, and found her expression both bewildered and concerned. "Houshou, what happened? What's wrong? Did he—"

I cut her off, grabbing her hands in mine and squeezing gently. "Mai, I think I'm in love with you."

She pulled away slightly, though she left her hands in mine. "Wh-what? What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I love you, that I've been falling in love with you for a very long time, and I didn't realize it. I…I love the sound of your voice, your smile, your passion for helping others, your kindness, your intelligence, your intuition. I love how stubborn you can be, and how you refuse to give up. I love your eyes, and the way you feel in my arms when I give you a hug, and the way you say my name." My heart was racing as I spoke, and I couldn't seem to hold it all in. "I love you, Mai."

Her voice was breathless as she spoke again. "But…Houshou, this isn't real."

I shook my head. "You're wrong, Mai. You're real. I'm real. My feelings are real. And that…that thing, whatever it is, that is definitely real." I sat up straighter and inched a little closer to her. "We're in a lot of danger here, Mai, and I couldn't stand the thought of something happening to either of us and you never knowing how I felt. If you don't feel the same, that's okay, I don't want to push you into anything. You'll be my friend no matter what. I just…I had to see if you felt the same, or if there's even a chance."

Suddenly I felt embarrassed, like some stupid 14-year-old talking to his crush. She hasn't seen you in half a year. You really think she'll just leap into your arms? I looked down, a sorry attempt at hiding my blushing face. "I…I'm sorry. This was probably stupid, I shouldn't have said anything. I should have stayed focused on getting you out of here, but I—"

"Houshou…" she said, her voice soft.

I looked up, trying to brace myself for her answer. My stomach felt like I was in an airplane that was about to plummet into the ocean. "Yeah?"

"I…" she started, and then stopped. She finally took her hands out of mine, and my heart pounded painfully as I closed my fingers around empty air. She sighed heavily and looked up and away from me as her fingers nervously combed through her hair.

"What is it? If you don't feel the same, just tell me. I…well, I won't say that I won't mind, but I will say that I just want you to be happy, and if you wouldn't be happy with me, then just say the word and we can forget I said anything."

I couldn't stop berating myself in my head. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What were you thinking? That you would ride off into the sunset together on the back of a horse? She doesn't love you, she's never loved you. How could you make her happy? I tried to ignore all my negative thoughts, but I felt like I was caught in a river current, like I was about to drown.

"I…I don't know."

The jet stream of self-loathing suddenly paused for a second.

Mai looked down at her hands and bit her lip. "I…I don't want to say no, but I don't know if I can say yes."

My eyebrows furrowed. "I don't understand."

She sighed again, and shifted her position, bringing her legs up against her chest, her chin resting on her knees. "The last time I fell in love in a dream, I woke up and found out he wasn't who I thought he was. And now…how do I know this is really you, Houshou? How do I know this isn't just one of that Thing's tricks, or it's just my brain deteriorating…"

"Its…it's me, Mai. I promise it is."

She looked up, her eyes sad and incredibly tired. "But I don't know that. I want you to be real so badly…" she looked down again, and this time her hair fell forward too, hiding her face. She raised a hand up under the curtain of hair, and though I couldn't see, I knew she was wiping away tears, trying to be strong.

I wish I had kissed her then.

Instead, I sat awkwardly near her, my brain trying feebly to come up with something comforting to say.

"Houshou…" She locked eyes with me, her face red and blotchy but still as beautiful as ever. "I…I'd like to try…to see if we could…" she paused, her throat getting clogged. "But only when I wake up. If I wake up. I need to know that you're real. I need to know that you're not Gene."

It wasn't exactly the ideal answer, but it was enough. My heart fluttered in my chest, my face broke out into a smile so big I almost couldn't see. And I, like so many love-blind bastards before me, made a promise I had no possible way of keeping.

"You'll wake up, Mai. I promise. I'll make sure of it."

Mai smiled back at me, a shy grin beneath raw, red eyes, and I couldn't help but think that it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

But then I felt a pulling feeling just behind my eyes, like a magnet pulling on a clump of iron filings. Mai obviously felt it too, as her eyes went wide and she quickly grabbed my hand. The feeling of her hand on mine gave me a sudden jolt of happiness, like I'd just grabbed an electrical wire, but the feeling was short lived.

"How is he back already?!" Mai said, her voice a low moan.

"You mean he's never come back this quickly?!"

She shook her head, her eyes flicking around frantically, trying to see which direction he might come from. "After he attacked you, it took him several hours, or what seemed to me to be several hours, to come back…I thought after attacking both of us he'd…"

The pull got stronger, and the wind picked up. I kept waiting for the falling feeling to start, but it never did. Instead, everything around me began to rumble, and it sounded like we were in the middle of a tornado. We rose to our feet, our hands clasped around each other's arms as we both helped each other up.

"Do…do you think this is their doing? Naru and the others?" I asked, shouting over the wind. I tried to stay calm, but I knew my eyes were round and frantic, and every nerve ending seemed to tingle.

Mai bit her lip. "Maybe?"

The wind continued to pick up, dragging ragged nails across our faces and through our hair. Around us, the trees stayed motionless, as if they were only paintings. My stomach roiled, and I could feel my esophagus contracting, preparing to puke. I tried to savor the feel of Mai's skin, of her hands on my forearms, of the closeness of her, but then my vision began to go blurry, and my heart pulsed erratically in my chest.

"I should go," I shouted again. "One of us is going to get hurt, and I don't—"

Mai's fingers clamped down on my arm, and all the color drained from her face. Instinctively, I grabbed on tighter as well, my hands closing around the lean muscles of her forearm.

"I'm here, I've got you, I won't let you go," I said, but she didn't hear me. Her eyes stared at me, through me, the pupils dilated as wide as they could go. Her nails dug deeper into my skin, and her lips began turning a sickly purple, the color of a bruise.

"Houshou!" she mouthed, though she could have just been gasping for breath. The selfish part of my brain tells me that those last moments for her were spent thinking of me. The rational part, however, knows that's not the case. Those last few moments for her were filled with fear in its purest form, and pain.

"MAI!" I shouted, hoping that somehow the sound of my voice would snap her out of whatever had taken hold of her.

I knew I should wake myself up, tell Naru to stop whatever he was doing, tell him he was hurting her, but I felt paralyzed. If I left, what could happen? Without me to hold on to, would Mai slip away entirely?

Mai's grip on my arms began to weaken, her hands growing cold and clammy against my boiling skin. "MAI! Stay! Stay with me! Please!"

The wind stopped dead around us. The world was filled with muted, heavy silence, and it felt like someone was pressing a pillow over my face.

The next thing I knew, Mai was being ripped away from me, just as her eyes began to refocus, and her lips began to return to their normal color. She was torn out of my arms and up into the sky, being dragged by some invisible marionette strings.

"MAI!" I screamed, my voice hoarse.

I thought I saw her reach an arm out, trying to reach me, but she was gone so fast I couldn't tell.

My vision went blurry then, and everything around me turned black. As my consciousness faded, I heard one, distinct sound: slow, rasping breaths, a heavy, furious sound like a bear caught in a trap.

A/N: WELL THAT WAS FUN. Let me know what you guys think! The next chapter will be up sometime next week. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter :)