Last time: Lin and Naru met someone claiming to be close to Mai, and that Mai was in some kind of danger. Naru and Aria arrived at Mai's apartment to find the door standing open. What is going on?
The Disappearance of Mai Taniyama - Part 2: New Surroundings
At Mai's Apartment…
Naru pushed the door open fully and nearly had a heart attack when he found that the apartment looked like a low grade tornado had ripped its way through and had left everything in its wake either shattered, battered or overturned. Only one chair remained upright in the kitchen area. On top of the mess there was a dark energy filling the space so thick that even he could feel its presence.
Prepared to not receive an answer, he called out into the silence, "Mai!? Are you here?" As expected, there was no answer, but Naru began to search for any sign of her within the mess anyway.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Aria as she seemed to fall into and clutch the same door frame he'd passed through only moments before. She was breathing laboriously, though she'd taken the stairs just fine. Turning to see her better, he noticed tears flowing down her face. The woman had admitted to having visions and he'd seen the signs, in those he'd worked with, enough to know she'd just gotten something. That couldn't be a good sign. He felt his fear begin to rise, but he stuffed it back down and forced his thoughts to still. Fearing something when he didn't know the answer for certain would only waste time and delay his ability to help Mai. Instead, he asked, "What is it?"
In a shaky voice, barely above a whisper, Aria replied, "It's them, the Khiitani. I'd recognize this feeling anywhere."
Naru glared at the mess that was Mai's apartment. "The Khiitani." he repeated, "Isn't that the extra-dimensional race that McLoughlin proposed fed off newly awakened empaths?" He paused, thinking over the section of the article, and amended, "Well any empath, but it was the ones that were newly awakened to their gifts that drew the Khiitani the strongest, right?" Could Mai be an empath? I know she seems to show strong empathic tendencies, Naru mulled the idea over and tried to recall what else he'd read about in McLoughlin's article.
Aria nodded, "Yes. They are far more dangerous than the article detailed."
Earlier, while he'd been busy recalling the article's words, he'd been able to keep calm, but with Aria's alluding to the fact they were more dangerous, the fear for Mai's well being grew, along with a slew of added questions, including a momentary thought wondering how the woman seemed to know more than what was printed in Marie McLoughlin's articles, but, above all else, the fear for Mai kept rising to the forefront of his mind-despite all his best efforts to push it down and keep it at bay-his imagination kept finding different ways to imagine how the khiitani could be more dangerous. No, I have to keep calm, Naru coached himself, I can't help Mai if my emotions get the better of me!
"Among other things, after the article was published," Aria continued after a short respite, "Marie learned that the Khiitani were one of a handful of extra-dimensional beings that could fashion alternate physical bodies for themselves. If they have, indeed, done so, no one will have any clue what they look like. They could look like anyone." The worry on her face slowly transformed into a rising anger. Clenching her fists, she straightened. "I will not let them take Mai from me too!" Their eyes met, and with determination shining in her gaze, she said, "I think it's time for me to meet the others who regularly assist you on your cases. I have a feeling they, too, will want to help get Mai back!"
Naru nodded. "I'll have Lin call the others right away." He watched Aria turn to walk towards the stairs, but as he watched her walk away, his thoughts whispered, I can't lose Mai either. If she dies…Before he could complete the thought, his mind rebelled, not allowing him to delve deeper into the possibility of never hearing her laughter or seeing her smile again.
When Aria reached the stairs, she looked back at him and called, "Are you coming?"
A sudden probability brushed his mind and he called out, "You go ahead, I'll catch up."
"O...okay." She agrees and continues down.
Once he confirmed that she wasn't going to return to Mai's apartment, Naru dodged back in. His eyes quickly searched around the ransacked home as they sought something small that he'd seen her frequently carry with her, like her phone or her purse, something she was sure to have used daily.
His eyes raked over the room. Amongst the debris and damage, his eyes landed on the clean-edged kitchen knife that protruded from the wall. That's a horrible sight, but, thank goodness, there's no blood, he sighed with relief. Just because this room didn't have blood in it, didn't mean the others didn't as well. Just to be sure, he moved his search on to her room and found it in a similar state of disrepair, if not worse so because the space was so much more compact, but no matter where he searched, he was relieved to find no blood. As he traveled back through the hall, he decided that he was taking too long and decided to choose something that she'd obviously use on a regular basis-something like silverware or a chopstick. As he moved through the hall, he happened to look down and spy Mai's lucky key lying on the floor just to the side of the hall's entrance. Crouching down, he picked up the key and stood once again.
As he looked at the supposedly lucky key, he watched the broken chain slip through the key's hole and fall away to the floor. It brought to mind a fable he'd once heard, where the broken chain of a necklace was a sure sign of a bad omen soon to be fulfilled, but he didn't want to believe in such things, especially if it had to do with Mai. Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he deposited the key in his right hand pocket. Exiting Mai's apartment he closed the door firmly and hurried to catch up to Aria, who had ended up waiting for him at street level.
On an astral plane…
Mai opened her eyes to the darkness that she'd come to associate with the astral plane, but, instead of the normal spirit orbs, she looked around she saw a world stagnantly different from her own, the likes of which frightened her terribly. The trees she could see were grotesquely twisted-if they were, in fact, trees at all-the ground she noticed, was goupy in nature, so much so that whatever it was made out of pooled around her feet and clung there when she tried to move. The surface was also covered in various sized gelatinous bubbles. Some of which seemed to boil, others only swelled and then diminished in size, like they were breathing. When any bubbles did swell to the point of breaking, they released a plume of the dusty-green gas that seemed to make up the majority of the dark mist that encircled her. It also seemed to be what coated everything around her. A hollow clunking noise sounded somewhere in the mist overhead. Shortly thereafter, she was shocked when, right next to her, she heard a 'tree' moan as it slowly picked up and thudded past her, it's base churning the goop with each step Where on earth am I? Mai wondered.
As she continued to study her surroundings, she was finally able to make out a figure in the mist and immediately recognized him. It was her dream Naru. Unlike her normal dream, however, instead of his usual smile, he looked worried.
"Mai, are you alright," he asked as soon as they got close enough to speak. "Do you know where your body is?"
Mai just dropped her eyes to the unstable ground unable to look him in the eye, "I don't." As she recounted what had happened in her apartment and how creepy the guys were that had attacked her she kept her eyes averted. When she'd finished with the tale, she dared to look back up at her dream Naru and asked, "Do you know where we are?" She hoped he had some idea.
Looking around Naru whispered, "I could be wrong, but I believe we might be in the astral plane of a different dimension, somewhere disconnected from our world." Suddenly his eyebrows knitted together more harshly and his jaw clenched, with worry, "I hope this doesn't mean that you've been physically moved to another dimension!"
That thought scared Mai, more so than anything else that her dream Naru might have mentioned. A voice rose out of the myst, "Such a lovely show of terror! We shall feast for a long time."
They turned to see the owner of the disembodied voice, but what they saw shocked them more than anything they could have imagined. It was like something out of a nightmare. Gazing at it left Mai frozen on the spot with fear. Dream Naru grabbed Mai and pulled her behind him, but she could still see the creature weaving back and forth as it walked, or was it scuttling toward them, the movements were almost spider-like, an enormous creature that seemed to tower over them. When it came close, it became more obvious that it looked closer to a praying mantis than it did a spider, but it also looked vaguely human in some of its parts. A portion of it's torso was strange, like the collar bones had somehow been overgrown and turned into spikes that went off the shoulders. Out of the collar bone grew a set of human-like arms that ended in taloned hands. Under the long, thicker abdomen, the other twelve thin, bony limbed legs were very much insect-like in nature, tapering to points near their ends. The 'chest' of this giant creature had what appeared to be three paired rows of sharp, spiked teat-looking protrusions. Leading Mai to wonder if what she was looking at was a female. As she took in the bright green carapus that protected the monster like armor, she spied a set of long, blueish, veiny wings that sprouted from it's back. It was hard for her to miss that the creature's head had large, black, multifaceted eyes as they never once turned away from her, nor could she miss the large, spiky mandibles. The antennas that graced the top of it's head were an odd shade of brown that seemed to contrast with the rest of its body.
Behind her, two more monstrosities melted into existence from out of the mist, shambling forward with their grey and black bodies-the grey matching the color of the mist. Though they look similar to each other, they were wildly different in form from the first. They almost reminded Mai of some of the monsters she'd heard about from some of her peers who'd been chatting about them because of a game they played. If she recalled correctly, the monsters had been called driders, humanoid on top with a spider-like lower body. The biggest difference she could see, however, was that instead of only having eight legs like a spider would have, there were many more-too many more-legs supporting their bulbous, hairy, spider-like bodies.
In comparison to the first creature, the shape of these twos' chests suggested they could be male. They were both notably shorter than their female counterpart, and their heads were vastly different too, looking ant-like and set onto their shoulders with a webbed, skin-like structure that was thinner near the head and wider at the base where it connected to the shoulders, reminding Mai of a cobra's hood. Their bare humanoid torsos sported a double set of arms. One set ended in plated, honey-colored, almost stinger-like spikes; the other set ended in taloned, five fingered hands.
With the arrival of the males, something about their shapes and sizes of all three monsters in relation to each other, made Mai's mind flash back to the trio who had broken into her apartment and attacked her, and it wasn't just their sizes. She couldn't explain it, but as they circled her and her dream Naru, something about these creatures' individual natures began feeling the same as her three attackers had. A shudder wracked her frame as fear rose within her like a tidal wave, a wave that seemed to pour out of Mai and into the three creatures.
Dream Naru watched, stunned as they began siphoning off Mai's fear. Their mandibles clicking in pleasure at their meal, their attention wholly on Mai. In a desperate attempt to save Mai, he pushed her out of the astral plane and back to her body, forcefully waking her.
Elsewhere...
Mai blinked several times, trying to adjust to the bright fluorescent lights buzzing above her on her ceiling. From her lying position, she could see that all around her, the rectangular room was covered from top to bottom in smooth, white tiles and there was a faint smell of mildew. Her arms were peppered with goosebumps and as she sat up, she tried to rub some warmth back into her arms. It wasn't extremely cold, but it was enough to feel uncomfortable. Looking around she saw that there appeared to be no way in or out of the room. Underneath her was a bare mattress that sat directly on the floor along one wall. In the opposite corner of the same wall of the room, sat a single stainless steel bucket, one similar to the kind people used in the olden days to milk cows. After looking around the room again, she realized that whoever had put her in here, had intended for her to use the bucket to relieve herself. In disgust, she groaned, I hope I'm wrong. I can't believe they expect me to relieve myself in a bucket of all things, how dark ages. Mai sighed, covering her eyes. It's then that she noticed the ache behind her eyes. And now, I have a headache and no way to deal with it.
Along the wall across from the head of her bed was a needlessly large mirror that she estimated to be four feet tall and roughly five feet wide. With my luck that's a two-way mirror. She sighed. If things weren't bad enough, those three freaks can watch me whenever they want and I'd have no clue. Her mind flashes with the idea of using the bucket with someone watching. The thought was humiliating, but very possible. I really hope Naru knows I've been taken, but...it's not likely since the real Naru doesn't seem to know about my dreams until I tell him.
After looking at the blank white-tiled walls for what felt like an hour, Mai's headache had begun to worsen along with the chill. So she curled up on her side, and tried not to think about what they'd do to her next. In the end she decided it would be better if she never saw any of the three ever again, concluding, I don't think I could handle any more visits from them.
Just before she could truly fall asleep, a clattering sound issued from somewhere within the room. Sitting up quickly, which only caused her head to spin and pound even worse, she immediately spotted the metal tray. It contained a pitcher of water, the water still moving from whatever had moved it, a glass and a plate containing a sandwich and a small bag of corn chips. Where did that come from, she asked herself, looking around trying to ascertain its origin, but failed to find a clue other than the tray's current location near the opposite corner of the room. At least they aren't planning to starve me, she concluded. Getting up, she went over to the tray. When she got close enough to see, she noticed that also on the tray was a note under a small cup. When she picked up the note, two small, white pills fell onto the tray beside the cup.
The note simply read: These pills will make your head stop hurting.
Mai sighed as she decided to go ahead and take the pills, her head was only hurting worse the longer she stayed awake. Afterwards, she ate her food and drank down a good amount of the water pitcher. I need to keep up my strength if I'm to have any hope of getting out of here, but it would be so much easier with help. I hope you can find me Naru.
Mai pushed the tray, now empty of food, away from her and went back over to the mattress to curl back up on it, her head still pounded, but hopefully it would subside soon. Her body felt cold and heavy and she wanted to sleep, but she feared what awaited her in her dreams-remembering the most recent one dream Naru had shoved her out of to wake her up.
As she lay on the mattress fighting her fear, muffled laughter filled the tiled room. A female voice asked, "Did your little spirit friend truly think sending you back to your body would prevent us from feeding on you, human? He was wrong." The words were filled with truth and promises Mai could only wish the woman and her entourage wouldn't keep. Remembering what she's seen on that strange astral plane and the woman's unspoken promises all haunted her and left Mai imagining the worst scenarios while her skin crawled.
Eventually she decided to push the troubling thoughts away. It was then that she resolved, in her heart, to grip tightly onto the hope that her friends would come for her and to never let these things or people or whatever they were take that hope away from her. Screwing up her courage, Mai finds it in her to speak and verbally remind herself, "My friends will come for me. They will save me."
The female laughed and as if she'd heard Mai's whisper said, "No one is coming, even if they do come searching for you, they won't live long enough to find this place!"
Mai didn't reply, instead, she turned onto her side facing away from the mirror, and continued to try to push the fear away and continue believing Naru would find her. All she had to do was refuse to believe anything else.
Soon the laughter faded and then altogether died and her one-room-world quieted. Exhaustion clouded her mind and so, with the woman gone, she closed her eyes hoping to find what little peace she could in sleep. She missed when the wall reopened and the smaller, creeper male entered the room to quietly take away her tray. Nor did she see how he stopped to run his eyes over her body before he slipped out of the room. Just as silently as before, he closed the door behind him.
Just outside Mai's apartment...
"What did you go back into Mai's apartment for, Shibuya-san?" Aria asked curiously. She hadn't expected to have to wait for him for quite so long.
Naru looked at her thoughtfully, "I needed to see if maybe Mai left a clue for us. She isn't really as stupid as I might suggest at times," he disliked lying, and, in a way, he wasn't, however he couldn't blatantly tell her the full truth because revealing his abilities to strangers seemed to generally come with bad consequences. Revealing his real name could be like that too. I still have secrets to keep, his thoughts faltered as he considered recent events, maybe too many, he amended. I wish I had told Mai the truth before now. What if this is when I lose her too? His heart ached with the thought, almost feeling like he'd received a blow. "I also checked for blood," Naru admitted truthfully. "I needed to know if they had injured her." After taking a deep breath to clear his mind he asked, "Are you ready to head back to the office? After we gather the others, we can discuss our next step."
Aria looked away from him with a smirk gracing her lips. She knew he was feeling pain in his heart about losing Mai, but she was happy that it further confirmed the suspicion that she'd felt soon after they'd met. Nodding her answer, she drops her smile and falls into step with Naru, a knowing glint in her eye. "I think I finally understand why she calls you Naru." Her voice was quiet and tinged with a touch of lonely sounding humor, her lips curved into a small, sad, smile.
Naru glanced at her, wondering what all the woman had heard. Unable to stave off his curiosity, he asked "She told you about me?" He was also curious to know what else he could learn about Mai's other dealings with Aria Kalani, but in the recesses of his mind, he found himself wondering, if that really was the woman's true name.
"Yes, she's spoken of you, Mr. Shibuya, and your assistant, Lin, Koujo. She also told me quite a bit about the others who often help you out on cases. I don't know if you would be interested to know, but Mai and I share a connection. Each of us has a different reason to continue that connection, but we had someone who was important to both of us and we lost that someone. I can't afford to lose Mai too, she's like a younger sister to me." Aria sighed and she stopped speaking. The eyes she turned to Naru were filled with dread, a feeling he found he could understand well, one he shared. He didn't want to lose Mai either.
Remaining silent and deep in thought, Naru's mind grew more determined. We have to save Mai. He was confident that once they told the others, they'd feel much the same way. The return trip seemed significantly shorter and it wasn't long before they arrived back at the office. Upon entry, thanks to Lin's foresight, they found Monk, Ayako and Yasuhara waiting. Out of those not consistently on SPR's payroll, only Father Brown and Miss Hara had yet to arrive, but Lin was quick to inform Naru that they were due to arrive.
In a rare show of consideration, Naru began speaking with gratitude at the forefront of his words, "Thank you for contacting the others Lin." Turning to everyone else, he stated, "I will fill everyone in once Father Brown and Miss Hara arrive. In the meantime I need to look something up. I'll be in my office." With that, he turned and walked away. It wasn't long before he was in his office and his door was closed with a firm "click."
The reception area...In the sitting area, Lin passed out the tea he'd made for the group while Monk openly studied the new commer, who was once again looking at the hands in her lap. Lin noted that she very specifically avoided looking in the eyes of any of the men in the room. "Just who might you be," Monk asked her. "A new client?"
Moving her face generally in his direction, she answered, "My name is Aria Kalani. I'm a friend of Mai's from Hawaii, and," she pauses as if thinking it over, "I guess you could consider me SPR's client."
Lin walked away from the table with the, now empty, tea tray in hand. After a short excursion into his office, he came back out with his laptop in hand. Just as he returned to the sitting area, the front door opened, revealing Father Brown and Miss Hara. Upon seeing the two, Lin placed his laptop on a clear space on the table and went to knock on Naru's door.
In Naru's office...
Once the office door had been firmly closed, Naru went to his desk. Pulling Mai's lucky key out of his pocket, he sat down in his chair. Before attempting to look, Naru prayed, Please let this work. Please don't let her be hurt or worse. With nothing else to keep him from doing so, he reached for the knowledge the key would be able to show him through its strong bond with Mai. The psychometric vision activated quickly, taking him deep into Mai's recent past.
In the vision, he was in Mai's body, talking with Aria on the phone. With a feeling of somewhat reluctant acceptance, Mai agrees to call him. He watches through her eyes as she hangs up and begins searching her contacts, and gets interupted. He watches the whole of her attack play out and feels the fear and other emotions roll through her mind. He sees her attacker's faces and Mai's plea for him to help her just as she blacks out. As he sits in darkness, devoid of her emotions, he feels a sense of calm roll through him, purely his own, that there hadn't been any kind of green flash which would have meant she'd died. After the darkness, he watched as Mai opened her eyes to a white tiled room, he watched the curious appearance of the tray through her eyes and the manic laughter and the woman's words, but it left him curious about what had happened and what exactly was being referred to when the voice had brought up Mai's male spirit friend.
A sudden knock on his door brought Naru back to his own body. As his eyes opened, he accidentally dropped the key onto his desk, and called out, "Come in," with as much detachment as he could muster, still trying to process the whole of what he'd seen and feeling a, relief so great that she was alive that the feeling seemed palpable and left his heart soaring with hope.
Turning to face the door, he watched it open just enough for Lin to slip his head in. Naru wondered if something about him seemed off to the man because Lin was eyeing him with concern as he spoke, "Father Brown and Miss Hara have arrived." Lin's eyes dropped to Naru's desk where Mai's key was lying plainly in the open. Lin looked back out the door before slipping in and shutting it behind him. "You used psychometry again, didn't you," he accused.
Naru did his best to keep his face blank as he responded. "Yes, I did, and now I know that she's alive and what her attackers look like...though I don't know her exact location."
Lin merely nodded his understanding, "The whole group is here; we need to go join them."
It wasn't long before Naru left his office, with Lin trailing behind. Looking around the noisy group, Naru noted that Miss Kalani was in the seat across from his own, and that the others had left the seat to the right open for Lin, even the man's laptop was sitting ready and waiting on the coffee table.
After Lin was ready, Naru ordered, "Let's start."
"Wait," John stalled, "where's Mai?"
Locking eyes with Aria, Naru asked, "Miss Kalani would you please share with everyone what you told me?"
Aria, feeling extremely sick at heart, nodded and took a deep breath, looking straight at Naru she said, "First, Shibuya-san," glancing towards, but not at, the older gentleman she adds, "Lin-san," Her eyes return to Naru's before continuing, "Everyone, I apologize for only giving you a partial truth. Let me reintroduce myself to you. My full name is Aria Marie Kalani-McLoughlin." To the rest of the room she explained, "I have known Mai since she was nine years old, and, right now, she's missing." There she paused, letting the words sink in and wasn't surprised when she heard a murmur start up around the table. She also managed to catch a glimpse of the shell shocked expression that still remained upon Naru's face, from when she'd told the group her name, before he shook his head and reclaimed a degree of control.
When he spoke, his tone had a hint of incredulous shock underlying the words, "You're Marie McLoughlin?"
Aria nodded in response to his question, though hesitantly. At the back of her mind she was becoming more and more aware of a pressure that was building. She'd experienced the symptoms enough to know that the sign ment she was losing control of her empathic gifts. If she wasn't careful, she'd lose control completely and wouldn't be able to block anything out even if she wanted to. The visions she'd been having were the most likely culprits. She took another deep breath, attempting to remain as calm as possible. Retelling the most recent vision to a group this size was not going to be easy.
Spirit_Weaver and I have agreed that we will try to post once every two weeks. We truly hope you've enjoyed the second installment of "The Disappearance of Mai Taniyama!"