"And after entering the haunted mansion, the door suddenly closed behind her and she was never seen again… And to this day, people say that if you look through the windows of the old Phantom Lord mansion, you can see the missing girl still trying to find her way out~"

The room around the raven-haired male is silent. A mixture of gaping faces stare at the teen in awe, incredulity, or plain skepticism, all while he smugly smiles from the reaction he got out of scaring a few of his friends, two which were trembling furiously.

"Is… is that really a true story Grey?" Lisanna, the youngest of the group, asks with wide fearful eyes.

"Could be," Grey says simply while sitting back in his seat, "I heard the story floating around from the upperclassmen who say it really did happen recently."

"I think I've heard this story before," Cana says while pulling her long brown hair up into a high ponytail, "It sounds really familiar."

A few of the older members of the group of dozen mull over the story, feeling as if they really had heard the story before. It sounded familiar, but none of them could figure out from where they had heard it.

"Who knows," Grey says while settling in his seat and stacking his hands behind his head, "It's just a story made up to scare kids," he then says and everyone else nods it off to mull around the room and pull out their homework to finish it for the day.


Chapter 1

POV: Narrator

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail


"Natsu!" Lisanna chirps while bounding across the room to sit next to her drowsy friend who looked like he couldn't keep his eyes open for much longer, "What did you think about the story? Wasn't it spooky?" she asks excitedly while rubbing away the goosebumps on her arms.

Obsidian eyes turn from looking out the window listlessly to meet crystal azure eyes that look back expectantly.

"What?" the boy in question asks, confused, while he tries to catch his brain that doesn't seem to be able to get a grasp on his surroundings.

Lisanna gets a twinge of worry at Natsu's lackluster response. Now that she thinks about it, Natsu hadn't been showing his usual chaotic energy that always left her laughing. Instead he had been quiet all day and hadn't even picked a fight with any of the other students which was very odd since Natsu loved to fight.

Right now, however, Natsu seemed almost as if nothing around him mattered. He seemed to be lacking his usual fighting spirit which worried Lisanna even more.

"Natsu… is everything alright?" Lisanna then asks while pressing the back of her hand to Natsu's forehead to check if he was sick.

It's warm, warm enough to be a fever, but Lisanna knows that Natsu naturally burns like a furnace. The only way she can tell that he's sick is if his skin literally burns her lightly, but right now it didn't. It was just comfortably warm which was odd since Natsu looked so downcast.

Blinking at the girl with her hand pressed to her forehead, Natsu blinks a few times, as if his eyes were adjusting, and suddenly seems to recognize his best friend before him.

"Oh, hey Lisanna. What's up?" Natsu asks jovially when he notes the girl's worried expression.

"Natsu…" she groans, and he immediately tenses up, recognizing the tone she uses on him when she's either very worried or about to reprimand him, "What's wrong?" she then asks while standing up straight and placing her hands on her hips, "You've been acting weird all day and it's really starting to worry me."

"Weird?" Natsu asks while leaning back in his seat, "Have I been acting weird?" His thoughts then remind him on why he's been rather scatter-brained all day and his happy demeanor dims a bit while he hurriedly says, "It's… it's nothing Lis."

Lisanna puffs up her cheeks, annoyed at his answer which leaves him worried that he might have offended her. Her stubborn expression that tells him she wouldn't let this subject go that easily leaves him deflating a bit in his seat. He runs his hand down his face tiredly and then rubbing the back of his neck. A nervous tick Lisanna had discovered he had when they were kids.

It either meant he was tired, shy, or about to tell a lie.

"Don't worry about it Lis, it really ain't nothing," Natsu reassures her while rubbing the back of his neck again and avoiding eye contact, "I just couldn't sleep last night 's all," he then murmurs while staring up at the ceiling of the club room.

Natsu wants to say more, to go into detail about what was really bothering him, but he just can't seem to find the words to say what happened. It's as if whatever happened last night didn't want to come to light and remain a secret, which was stupid because Natsu didn't keep secrets. Not as long as he didn't have to. Instead he just feels conflicted on finding how to open up and tell Lisanna what was bothering him which was insane because Natsu had never before struggled to talk to her short-haired girl. She was his best friend for crying out loud!

"Is… is something wrong with your dad?" Lisanna then asks, bringing Natsu back from his mental debate, and almost regrets asking because she knows that Natsu's dad is a topic he doesn't like talking about.

"My dad?" Natsu asks dumbly, letting the information process through his head at the question, "No… no my dad's doing fine. Doctor says that he's in stable condition and doing great," Natsu continues, relieving Lisanna when he doesn't automatically shut down from the question and Natsu doesn't miss the soft sigh of relief she gives, "Really Lis… I'm fine. Ya don't have to worry about me all the time, besides, ya know I'd tell ya if something were wrong," he reassures her but she still gives him a skeptical look.

"Then why do you look so tired?"

"I stayed up with my dad again last night," Natsu lies and this seems to appease Lisanna a bit since she knew he tended to do that a lot.

However, Natsu felt bad for lying because last night Natsu had not been with his dad. Instead he had roamed around his empty house all night after having a recurring nightmare that came to him every night.

It came in the form of long dark corridors that never seemed to end. So dark that the item casting light in his hand, the light source changed every night, could only light a few steps ahead of him, leaving the rest of the hallway dark and foreboding.

Nothing ever popped out to him in the darkness, but that never meant that he wasn't left on edge. As if one day some kind of gruesome creature would finally pop out at him and drag him into the darkness where he would no longer emerge from, but that never happened.

Usually his dreams were uneventful, leaving him walking aimlessly through the darkness for what felt like hours, but there were a few times where he would find himself running. He never knew from what exactly he was running from, but deep in his gut he knew that if he stopped he'd be doomed. This left him pumping his legs harder while his source of light waved erratically through the darkness and his blood rushed furiously in his ears making it hard to hear anything around him. He'd then wake up drenched in sweat in the middle of the night, feeling as if he had run a marathon, and find that once his heart rate slowed to a normal beat he could no longer find sleep which him waiting impatiently for the sun to finally rise so he could go about his day.

Natsu, however, wasn't scared of the nightmares, instead he was scared of what might be hidden in the lingering darkness, waiting to snatch him up, that he finds himself terrified of. In fact, he'd come to accept the nightmares as a part of himself from how long and often he's had them. Natsu honestly couldn't remember the last time he had gone to sleep without having the same dream every night to the point that he would just simply let the dreams be, even when he would wake up in the middle of the night and remain unable to fall back asleep. A feat that was quickly taking a toll on him.

"Have the doctors said anything new about your dad?" Lisanna then asks, bringing Natsu back from his reverie.

"Same news as always. They don't know if he'll ever wake up," Natsu grumbles, suddenly feeling furious at the repetitive response he gets from the people caring for his comatose father.

Three months ago, exactly a day after his birthday, Natsu's father had gotten into a motor-vehicle accident that left him in a coma. Natsu had seen the whole incident happen right in front of his eyes as he watched his father driving up to pick him up when he was suddenly slammed by a drunk driver. The whole incident had played out like a slow movie and all he could do was watch, paralyzed where he stood beside Erza who had been with him.

Erza had been a great support system through the whole ordeal. Keeping Natsu in check when the ambulance finally arrived to the scene and rushed Igneel to Magnolia General Hospital where Igneel now remained. She had even comforted the pinkette as he bawled his eyes out in the waiting room for hours that they didn't have any news until it was finally revealed that Igneel was safe but in a coma.

Now Natsu visited his father every other day, staying there with him during weekends and a few times during the week. Natsu would probably stay there every night if doctor Porlyusica didn't always send him home because it was a "school night" and Natsu needed his rest. All the while Natsu's aunt was taking care of the legal matters out of Natsu's hands so he could focus on school while she remained in Peace Village where she lived with her youngest child.

This left Natsu to fend for himself with his older cousin, Grandeen's oldest child, visiting him so often from Onibus where he was currently going to college. However, Natsu knew that the real reason Jellal ever went to visit him was only to see Erza, his girlfriend.

Feeling himself grow somber, Natsu tries to liven himself up by giving Lis a reassuring smile, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes and Lisanna only grows more worried for her friend. Natsu decides to ignore her pained looks by reaching into his own bag and pulling out his own homework to work on knowing that if Erza saw him slacking off the senior would surely rip him a new one. Especially if he allowed his grades to slip.

Not saying another word, Lisanna sits down beside Natsu and pulls out her own homework. Slowly the others in the club room bring out their own work, waiting silently until the bell rang to end their lunch break. All the while Natsu tries to drown himself in his work before his eyes wander back towards the window to stare at a passing cloud. His mind filled with the previous night's nightmare that left him a bit worried, especially since it had been so different than the normal nightmares he had.

It had once again been one of those dreams where he suddenly found himself running down the long corridors. Behind him he could feel the familiar presence of the darkness chasing him, reaching out and trying to grasp him like always. The one new thing about the dream this time that other than the sound of his rushing blood filling his ears he could also hear what sounded like childish laughter, and what sounded like rattling wood.

Before him, the swinging light from his flashlight hardly illuminates his path as Natsu continued to run blindly. He ran until his foot got caught on a fallen object that left him sprawling on the ground causing the laughing behind him to intensify. Hearing the voices even closer now, Natsu tried to stand up and run but found his shoe laces somehow tied around the legs of the chair making it hard for him to flee. As he tried to set himself free, Natsu had looked up into the darkness, slightly illuminated by his flashlight, and saw a bone-white hand emerge from the darkness that froze him in place.

"RUN!"

Without warning, a large object flew over Natsu's head and crashed into the object hidden in the darkness that Natsu could not see. This caused the hand nearing his face to retract while he was forcibly pulled to his feet, his shoes being pulled off and forgotten, before he was dragged down the corridor.

Natsu tried to keep up with his savior who continued to drag him through the darkness without any sign of slowing down.

"Hey flame brain, let's go," Grey calls while slapping the back of Natsu's head, bringing him back to the present.

Obsidian eyes blink a few times, realizing that the bell signaling the end of lunch had just rang and everyone around him had already put their things away. He also catches the look Lisanna gives him, noticing that she would not drop the subject of his daydreaming and odd behavior which meant he'd eventually have to talk to her and tell her about his nightmares.

"I'm coming," Natsu mutters while shoving his books into his backpack before swinging the bag onto his shoulder and following his friends out of the club room while recalling the last part of his dream as he follows his friends to their next class absent-mindedly.

The last thing Natsu had remembered before waking up at the usual hour of three in the morning was the sight of long blonde hair that was tied into a neat braid that covered what he assumed was a girl's back. Through the chaos he had even noticed that she was dressed strangely as she held onto him for dear life with her cool hand nearly comforting Natsu through their run. It wasn't until she rushed through a door and allowed bright sunlight to brighten everything around them that Natsu found himself waking up and being unable to thank his savior.

Closing his tingling hand into a fist at his side, Natsu shakes his head and tries to keep his mind focused while a single questioned swam through his head.

Who was that girl?


Welcome back lovelies!

Here is chapter 1 just as promised and I really hope you all enjoyed the new changes. Also, due to popular demand I will be updating on Fridays, so expect our weekly chapters on those days unless it changes in the future.

Reminder that I update weekly so chapter 2 will be out Friday, January 24, so look out for that.

Shout outs

I want to give out a great amazing thanks to my new story Favorites...

- bahall1964

- Loore1990

To my new story Followers...

- Shaula78

- bahall1964

- Loore1990

- Crissdragon

And to my new story Fantabulous Reviewers...

- Meow Orbit = Welcome back! And duly noted!

- takeagamble27 = Fridays it is then, and I'm so happy to hear your excitement for my new story!

- Guest = Heard you loud and clear!

Well that's all the shout outs for today

If you're enjoying my spine-chilling story give me the honor by Following, Favoriting, and Reviewing - remember, reviews are the reminders I need in order to update faster - and if you have any questions or haunting ideas you can also PM me and I'll gladly add it into the story.

Until next time my ghoulies!