Title: Terror…
A/N:hehehe… I'm running out of excuse for my late updates… I'm really sorry… but here's one you'll be familiar with,,, EXAMS… so don't kill me ne, minna-san. Okay… anyway, I realized that some of you were mentioning something about a Ring ficcy… well, in view of all the things that have been going on in ff.net, do let me say that I have never read the Ring fic and I don't know any Sadakos… just clearing my name… *grin. Anyhow, I was so gatal (direct translation would be itchy… but it's more like mischievous here) to put that lady there, now I have no idea how to continue… BTW, I would really like to thank all of you who have stayed through with me from the first chapter. Your reviews had really helped me lots… I was just going through my first chapter and realized how terrible I was writing at that time… I'm not all that good now, but I do think I have improved. Thanks a LOT.
Satan's Angel: Am continuing… sorry for the delay *grin*
Dessert Star: THANKS!!! I'm terrible at writing romance though, that is why I stick to good old horror
Akira: Mitsui-kun? Come back to life? I think I have a sorta plan on getting him back in a scene again or something…. Though not come back to life.. *grin* I'm a peaceful girl… u can c that in my ficcy can't u?? hehehe….
Teh Tarik: Right…. You don't have to come over to Seremban just to kill me… actually I'm going over to KL on Wednesday… one of my friends shifted there… err.. pontianak? Your laughter sounded more like one,,, heheheh… *runs into hiding *
Alexia: Bad happenings in other places of the world?? *blank look* hehehe… I'm trying hard to describe stuff… but am realizing that I can't really stretch my words to really describe how I actually feel….
Sakura88: you do? Wat tuition? I go 4 BM… it's not uncommon over here for ppl to like add-maths, though I wouldn't actually say it was common either… however, I must say I LOVE Log… so how? Exams passed?
Crazy4u: Right… hopefully I'm smaller than cacing… than can go and hide somewhere… *goes in search of Gandalf to transform her into something smaller than a worm…
J2ain: Yeah… but Maki doesn't know that, now does he? *smiles evilly* Saori? Hmm… maybe… u have great ideas, you know… I'll see if it works! Thanks!
Krappkarmin: nah, I won't stop writing, as long as there r people still reading… *grin*
Miracle: err… Maki old man? Okay……….. right…. I had to add it in because I was sooooooo gatal, and only now to find that I am having some trouble…
Rae Fear: Yikes… I wonder why no body ever takes note of my pleas… *grin*thanks for reading it through… it must have taken pretty long…
Chapter 18-Choice
Darkness loomed ahead, ready to swallow him. By now, Maki, terrified and lost, was already panting. He felt as if he had ran for an hour, when in reality, he knew, it was a mere five minutes. His lungs were burning, and he realized that this was his limit. There was nothing he could do, but accept it. He was far too tired to go on. Maki's tired face turned comically into a thoughtful expression, still trying to keep his pace, and manage not to suffocate at the same time. He was pretty sure that there was something amiss in here. He had felt that for the past minute. Something was missing… something was not right.
The thudding of his footsteps echoed all the way down the corridor, making poor Maki wonder where and when would it end. Every breath he took was a terrible chore, and he heard each breath clearly, as if it were magnified by a loud microphone…
Loud… CRAP! That's it! Maki slowed down to a joy, gulping in as much air as possible. It's so damn quiet in here… He listened hard, and could not hear anything. No flapping of gigantic moth wings… nothing, except his own footsteps, breathing and the trashing of the rain. Maki slowed more, to a total stop, and chanced a look behind. Part of him was so sure that the moth would suddenly jump out and attack him, sucking his very soul… and yet, another part of him just knew that it wasn't there at all. Outside, lightning hit, and the whole corridor was lit momentarily.
Maki was turning ever so slowly. He could feel each muscle tensing, getting ready for any outcome. Time seemed to stretch out, as he turned. When he finally reached the end of his turn…
There was nothing there. Nothing at all… though of course it was hard to be sure. The moon was not giving out much light, as it was directly above the building, thus, not allowing Maki to see it. The stars were giving out much lesser light, but he knew. There was nothing there. A simple truth that seemed so hard to accept… so hard to believe. THERE-WAS-NOTHING-THERE.
Chest heaving, Maki slumped onto the wall of the corridor. He was helluva glad that the moth was gone, but heck! He couldn't believe that he had ran on for about one whole minute, wasting all his energy… and also, though it WAS gone, that didn't mean that he was safe. He was still in a terrible fix. He didn't know where the hell he was, and where he was to go.
His sweat was dripping from his face to the floor slowly, drop by drop as he continued thinking. He felt it… heard it.
*Plink**plink*
Sounds like the floor is made of metal, Maki thought, not really focused. His mind was too into trying to find a way out. It was a while before what he thought actually hit him, and he stood up straight.
*Plink**plink*
Metal…
Maki squatted down, reached out and touched the floor. Cold. His usually lineless face wrinkled up in concentration, trying to fathom all the things that were going on. He rapped the floor for confirmation. Its hollow sound was confirmation enough, and he stood up, sighing heavily, scared and worried.
Maki rubbed his shirt over his face, drying up all the sweat that still lingered there, thinking hard. As far as he knew, no one ever used metal flooring… no one in their right mind in a normal school corridor that was… anyway, a metal floored corridor in the middle of one of the most prominent schools should've been the talk of all teens. This type of stories would have been passed on from generation and generation of teens. It just wasn't possible that he knew nothing about it.
For some reason, Maki felt his heard fluttering, beating faster now, even though he had stopped running. Cold fear slipped into him, numbing every nerve, wrecking his system… and though part of himself was screaming for himself to relax, as there was nothing to fear… no reason to, he could not stop his racing heart. And after all, a steel-floored corridor was reason enough, considering the circumstances.
Lighting crashed, thunder trashed, and the rain got steadily heavier. Maki was in a dilemma. He could now, do two things. Proceed forward, or turn backwards. He felt, deep down, the best thing to do is to go forward. He had no idea where he was, and how he got here, and the mere prospect of turning back, somehow got his heart racing. It was true that going forward was not a solution… but nothing in here was a matter of solution, it was just a matter of better choice and a longer wait. Intuition told him to move forward, and he complied with it, rather willingly.
He started walking forward in the dark, breathing steadily. He was already recovering from his long run, quickly… he was trained to do so. As he continued forward, he didn't once let his guard down although there was no gigantic moth or woman-with-a-bony-frame around.
As he moved forward, his sweat continued to fall, drop by drop.
*Pink**plink*
* * * * * * * *
'Finally!' Fujima muttered under his breath as the main gates of Shoyo High came into view.
'Ne, Fujima… do you think that IT would let us go that easily? I mean… it doesn't really take long to um… you know,' Hanagata gulped, '… kill Maki and…'
'I dunno, Hanagata… but I just feel that… it doesn't bother about us. It wants Maki, and it got him. It seems sorta sufficient for it… but then again, we would never know until we finally step out of the gate, now would we?'
As they reached the gate, however, Rukawa and Sendo just stopped. Breathing hard, both of them glanced at the tallest building, feeling… somehow knowing that Maki was in there. The rest stopped too, looking at them. The raindrops were getting bigger, and falling harder, drenching them all even more.
'Rukawa, Sendo… daijoubu? Come on, we need to get out… now,' Koshino called out.
'This is it… we're here… but I think it's gonna take much more guts to step out of the gate… more courage than most of us have,' Sendo muttered, loud enough for almost all of them, huddled together, to hear. Rukawa on the other hand, just continued staring up at the building, his eyes filled with tears. He could almost hear Maki's thoughts… his feelings…. So many… so many had passed from his midst just like that… and he was yet to get used to it…
'Sendo? What on Earth do you mean?' Jin's voice cut through the rain.
'Try it yourself,' Rukawa murmured softly, only for Jin and several others to hear. Jin froze a little at the sound of Rukawa's voice. He swallowed hard, and turned towards the gate. He looked at it hard for a long time, seeing nothing different, sensing nothing much either. He tried to move forward, only to realize that he was stuck. He couldn't budge an inch. Fear, terror, horror and sorrow gripped his so tightly, paralyzing him. Seconds past… and Fukuda, feeling frustrated now as precious seconds ticked by while Jin stood immobile, let out a aggravated sigh. He was already getting a headache with all the rain on his head…
'I don't know what the hell is wrong with all of you,' he muttered, moving forward. As he neared the gate however, he suddenly stopped. He urged himself to move on, but found it impossible. He was rooted to the spot. Beside him, he felt Jin stumbling back, unable to take the tension anymore. Dark, black fear encased him then, suffocating him… and together with it, came a sense of hopelessness, something Fukuda had yet to learn.
* * * * * * * *
Maki was getting impatient. He was in a nervous wreck… and the silence was not helping much. He was so taken by fear, and he yearned to see the end of the corridor… immediately.
'Damn!' he muttered frustrated, picking up his pace at the same time. He had gone no more than five steps however, when suddenly, he stopped. Miraculously, his wish had come true. He was facing the end of the corridor. It broke into two here. A few meters in, both to the left and right, was a door. Both doors glowed softly. One a dark blue-black, the other, a bright red.
Suddenly, a wave of deja-vu attacked him. It was so strong that he had to lean on the wall for support. The sense of deja-vu ebbed away, leaving him hollow and filled with a certain sense of desperate fear… desolate fear. Suddenly, he wished that this corridor had no ending… that he could just walk on, for the rest of the night, until daylight.
Nat a very good idea, as it's only, Maki looked at the watch that Sendo had somehow managed to pass to him as he ran past him, around 12:10. Maki knew that it was Mitsui's watch that he was holding now… and though he knew not why it felt so important, he had worn it tightly around his wrist, fearing of losing it. Maki shuddered involuntarily, and assured himself that walking for hours would still have been a better solution compared to this.
Anyhow, Maki thought, shaking his apprehension and fear away, we don't always get what we want, and the corridor did end, and once again, I'm stuck… Sheesh!...
Maki turned from the dark-shaded blue door, to the contrasting bright shade of red on the other side. Deep down, he made his decision right away… however, it only seemed right in this situation, to ponder and think and analyze deeply, forgetting the fact that he was supposed to be running away from a random chaser. He had a bad feeling about the bright red door. It was too cheerful, and it didn't fit into this gloomy atmosphere… and it also reminded him of the blood seeping though the gym doors… Ito's blood….
That seemed like centuries away… Maki sighed, turning back to the other door. Fear crept into his heart stealthily. No… it wasn't apprehension, but plain cold terror. Maki then turned to the last option… back. However, he cancelled his initiative immediately when he saw what laid before him… total darkness that ran goodness knew how many miles. He was about to turn back, as he couldn't see anything. However, at that moment, lighting hit, lighting the corridor up for a moment, and… for that moment, Maki's heart refused to beat. For that moment, Maki forgot how it was to breath. During that short illumination, Maki had seen a figure… out of the corner of his eyes. It was advancing towards him… and he could feel sweat starting to pour out of him again. That figure was human, no long white hair or millions of caterpillar feet… and it was far away, yeah… but Maki could not stop the waves of fear… hell torrents of fear that was bellowing in him, closing his throat up.
The worst thing of all is the fact that I'm alone. I'm miles and miles away from any help what-so-ever. That's the worst… I'm alone…
When Maki finally remembered how to breath, he scrambled over to the dark bluish door. He reached for the door handle. Dead-cold. For reasons vague to Maki himself he was starting to sweat more than ever. It fell from him one by one.
*Plink**plink*
Maki was having a hard time moving… he seemed to be moving in slow motions. Slowly, he strained his muscles to twist the knob. It complied little by little. Maki took one last look at the red door, and shoved his way in, the image of the walking man still carved in his mind.
Crap… I could have been imagining it! Quit shivering! Maki ordered himself as he leaned on the door with his eyes closed. Now, there was absolutely no way to return… he could only continue forward.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
He was in another corridor. From the look of it, Maki deduced that it had been fashioned according the early 60ties. The whole corridor was laced with red carpet as far as his eyes could see it. There were no windows, but even so, Maki could trace no stuffy odor closed rooms usually had. His eyes roamed around, finding for something, which would most-likely be an air-conditioner, to explain this, but found none. Here, it was the wall that looked like it was made of steel. On the sides of the wall, pretty high up, candles were lit. Placed some distance away from each other, it provided enough light for Maki. Maki noted that the wax were melting, which meant that they were real, old-fashion candles… not the electric ones used now a days. Several knight-suits were placed with their backs to the wall, holding up axes. That sight was enough to send Maki cowering… but he couldn't do that… he wasn't allowed to.
The corridor wasn't really wide, and could hardly fit in three people without them feeling uncomfortable. It was pretty high though, about twice Maki's height.
What the hell? Is this still supposed to be Shoyo High? Maki suddenly thought, it looks more like some kind of old-fashioned castle to me…
The hair on the nape of Maki's neck prickled. He felt scared.
A/N: So? How do you think it went?? Hehehe…. Yeah, I'm wondering if I still know what to write. Again I would really like to thank all of you for reading all these… oh, btw, can I have a vote of how many ppl would kill me if I killed of Maki-san? Err…. Just votes thank you, I don't want demonstration… *grins uncertainly*