Authors Notes: Okay first off I would like to apologize for the long update and the short chapter you are about to read, I haven't written a chapter this short in a while, but I am officially brain dead with the first week of schooling for me over. Yet I did not feel comfortable to leave you all hanging too much longer. You had already been waiting patiently enough as it is. I hope that I will have another chapter better than this next week. I am now going to find some mind numbing relaxing activity to do. My first two Chemistry Classes where no fun and now I have headaches remembering how to do conversions properly, I was never a math whiz. It would not be so hard if I did not have to learn that on top of a few other thing all relating to math in one big dose.

Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt

-Flashback—

The whole way down to the kitchen to make tea I tried to figure out if I had really seen what I thought I saw or not.

Case File Three: I Just Want To Be Real Part Five

Back in the base, I did my best to ignore the doll as I walked over to Naru and gave him the requested tea. Sitting down at the table, I worked on reorganizing the pictures. A few minutes later I got them all set up from oldest to newest again. Starting with the first picture, I took time to really examine the doll. She had sun gold hair and theses startling blue eyes. The girl in the picture had an assortment of ribbons at her feet. A picture right under it was a crime scene photo. It showed her lying in a puddle of blood. A knife nearby the expected culprit, her doll sat in a little doll chair in the background. All right, that doll just looks creepy sitting there like that. I don't know why but it just does. I read the report summery, police expected no foul play. The girl came from a loving family with no signs of trouble at home or school. Her fingerprints where the only ones on the blade, judging by the way she fell and the blade landed, it was thought that she needed the knife for some reason, and after achieving her goal tripped and fell on it. The little girl not knowing better then pulled the blade from the wound, probably, and she then bled out. Parents were both in the garden at the time, there was no way they could have heard the child's cry.

I put aside the photo trying to ignore the fact she had died young and picked up the next one. This doll had long jet-black hair and bright glittering green eyes that looked hauntingly familiar. This time I held the newer picture and the older of the two close to each other. I stopped trying to see and tried to feel the differences instead. The more I stared at the two photos the more I realized that the doll looked almost similar to the previous little girl. The more I stared the more I was almost sure of it. Wanting to be for certain I put down the first photo and picked up the third. This time I focused more on the previous child and current doll; this one looked like the last child as well. Now knowing what to look for I flipped through the stack. Each doll and child matched up. All the way, up to the current photo. I stared at the child that had my dolls face.

More than a little bit freaked out I glanced at the doll again who was looking at me. Then at the picture, then at the doll, and back, they matched up as well. I looked down at the table scattered with pictures grouped together and overlapping. I saw the distinction, I suddenly knew with a startling clarity why the dolls never looked the same. They changed, that trick earlier, it had not just been me, and the doll did change.

"Neh, Naru?" I said getting up from my work. This is great I will finally get to solve a case. As Naru turned to look at me, I caught the doll over his shoulder it was frowning now as it looked at me. Clear disapproval written on its face, and a sudden chill ran down my spine. I swallowed hard and tried to ignore that fact.

"Naru" I repeated again nervously. "I think I figured something out, come here for a minute" Naru actually looked surprised at the fact that I thought I had found something. As if I didn't know how to think things through properly. Just that thought alone made me mad. I mean, just because I only got things right rarely does not mean that I could not get them right at all. As Naru walked over to the table and I motioned down to the overlapping pictures.

"If you look closely, the doll itself is actually the same, yet different doll. If you match up the current doll to the most recent dead child, they match. Almost identically," I finished quite proud of myself.

Naru bent over to examine the pictures, and as he looked, I could see that brain of his slowly and steadily ticking away as he compiled facts in his head. When he picked up the last and most recent picture, we both turned to stare at the doll again, or at least where the doll should have been, only it was not there. It had vanished….Slowly the room began to distort as if I was looking at the world between water that had been disturbed.

"Mai?…Mai!...MAI" and then the world went black.

9:45 AM

Mai's Dream

I was back in the basement again I noted. Doll parts laid everywhere on the ground, and scattered across various tables. The gangly man was not present now though. I took the opportunity to look around. As I examined the room I noticed that it looked a lot dirtier than the last time I saw it, even the photo was aged and worn. It was obvious that quite some time had passed. A good few years at least, just then the door opened. 'Strange Dream Naru is not here yet.' The gangly man from before walked down the stairs and in his hands was a spitting image of the girl in the picture. "Just one more stitch, one more and then you will be….ahhhhh." the man tumbled down the stairs striking his head on the edge of a table when he landed. Blood pooled out darkening the floor where he laid. It continued to spread until it reached the doll itself, coating it completely.

Dream End

I groaned as I started to wake up, my eyes feeling heavy and my body not wanting to corporate. It just took too much energy, energy I did not have.

"Mai!" an excited voice that sounded like Ayako exclaimed. Wow talk about déjà vu I thought as I tried to will myself back into the present. Slowly I opened my eyes and blinked a few times to help focus them.

"Wha-" I coughed my throat a bit dry. Ayako handed me a glass of water which a gulped down thankfully before clearing my throat and trying again. "What's with all of the excitement?" I asked when I was able to form words again.

"You have been out of it for at least a day. You fainted after the doll was found to be missing. Naru had us move you from the house and to all kinds of cleansings on it, and search for the doll. We did not find the doll anywhere, but after your break through with the pictures, Naru was at least able to expel it from the house. We later found it under the tree. It was burned again and there is no sign of it anywhere. I was ordered to stay here with you until you awoke. We are back at your apartment." I looked around and sure enough, we were back in my apartment all right.

I sat there and struggled to put two and two together, if the case was solved, why was I still having dreams? It did not make since to me. "Was Naru mad?"

"No actually he looked quite concerned about you. He did not want you in the house f the doll was targeting you that's why he had me bring you back home." Naru concerned? That does not seem like the Naru I know. I opened my mouth to press her for more details when she beat me to the punch.

"Mai you wouldn't mind now that you're awake, if I step out to the store for a moment. I will only be gone a few minutes?"

"No I guess not," I said a little dazed still at the moment. Something about all of this just was not clicking right for me, and I was trying to figure out why.

"Alright, good then I will only be a few minutes, take care not to move around too much right away until I get back you still seem kinda out of it."

As Ayako left, it got quiet in the house. Why would Naru have Ayako take me home instead of a hospital if I fainted? And what is with the dream if the case is solved. And what was that! A loud thump came from under the bed.

THUMP! There it goes again.

SCRATCH, SCRATCH SCRATCH THUMP!

Oh please, please let it not be what I think it is. Slowly I pulled back the covers away from the edges of the bed. The noise had stopped now. Very cautiously, I peered over the edge and looked down. Sure enough, there was the dolls head, its body partially under the bed, and out in the open. Slowly oh so slowly the head began to turn around, until it was at an unnatural angle. Blood streamed all down its face staining the hair, and clothing. I was to frozen to do anything but watch as it open its mouth, revealing a set of razor sharp teeth. "Mommy should not run from baby," it said in this horrible high-pitched singsong voice. Instinctively I reached for the power I had within me to throw up a barrier between it, and me as the doll continued to wiggle its way out from under my bed. Only to my horror the barrier did not form like it normally did. The doll now free stood up and reached for me. "It's okay, mommy, we will be together, forever, and ever, and ever when I am done. You can be me and I can be you!" the doll lunged. The weight of it was enough to knock me back and off of the bed, as it pushed me, and I also tried to get away from it. I collided painfully to the floor. There was a flash of silver and it was then I realized the doll had some type of knife in its hand.

Mai…A voice called from a distance as I tried to fight the doll off me. It sounded a lot like Naru's voice. Relived I called out. "Naru Help Me"

Mai…Mai you need to come back now… "Come back where have I went, Naru" I said between gasps as I tried to get away from the doll that now not only seemed to have grown heavier, but longer arms as well.

Stop fighting Mai…snap out of it…my room began to distort again and the colors swirled making me almost sick to my stomach. When the room came back into focus, my surroundings changed once again. I was on the floor in the base in front of the barrier where the doll was. Pictures were scattered all over the floor. As I shifted trying to make heads or tails out of what was going on, I realized that someone was holding me down.

"Mai" Naru's voice appeared again. It was then I realized he was the one holding me down, and at the same time doing his best to pull me away from the barrier.

"N-Naru?" I said confused as I stopped struggling to move and let him pull me back all the way to the other side of the room and then proceed to put himself between me and the doll.

"Are you back with us now Mai?" he said why examining me. Behind him all the others were looking at me worriedly as well.

"Yeah, I think? What just happened" I said still confused.

"We were hoping you would tell us that Mai, you came in sat at the table for a bit. Got up and walked over to the doll. You were almost through the barrier before Naru stopped you. We couldn't get you to wake up." Bou-san said.

"I – BOU-san LOOK OUT"

Authors Note Continued:

To be Continued….

Alright this chapter although long in coming and short as it is, will hopefully be enough to re-kindle appetites. I will have to go back and re-read the previous cases to get a better grasp on where I was heading with this. Should take a day to read them, and then I will be back on track. I promise not to leave you hanging again for quite a while if at all again. This time I really mean it too.

-Serena122189