Note: Back from the grave! Sorry for the loooong delay! Erm… wait, hope y'all people are still here? ^____^

Yup! It's got a new title, though pretty much the same plot. I was thinking, since Sadako's turn was called "Ring" and there was actually a sequel to it called "Rasen [Spiral]" and a third installment titled "Loop", why not think of a title for my own fiction that relates to these things? Such as "Helix"… See, I wanna expand my story beyond what I know about the original. I am borrowing Sadako, but putting her in a whole new plot, a whole new story, yet pretty much the same kind of wickedness, hehehe… ^-^


CHAPTER FOUR: OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

She had the vaguest anamnesis of an intimate contact. Of someone fondly caressing her face then later on showering it with light kisses of affection. Of a voice whispering soft, sweet nothings to her ear whilst cuddling her tightly in the warmth of his embrace…

These were the fragments of her past--their past--emblazoned in the fabric of last night's dream. Embedded forever in the memory of her soul--

"ARF!"

And that bark… That dog… Wait a minute! Kenji never had a dog!

SLUUURPPP!

Big gray eyes fluttered open in alarm as another mirthful yelp slaughtered her newly awakened senses. A loud shrill scream soon echoed through the house and was subsequently followed by the rumbling clamor of something heavy tumbling in a startled heap down the stairs. A stifled groan of pain soon ensued. Then there was silence.

The next thing Kyoko knew, she was slowly forcing her eyes open to an utterly unbearable pain shooting through her back. Just the kind that could make even the toughest fighter put on the ugliest grimace.

And this certain tough fighter would've done just that if she hadn't subsequently found herself gazing into the very apotheosis of impish buoyancy. Its orbital effervescence was almost blinding and her ears were but turning to goo at the unrelenting ravage of that same jovial cry that woke her out of precious slumber and sent her rolling down the stairs like a bowling ball thrown off key. That abrasive creature even had the nerve to smear her face with a generous amount of retch-worthy spit--

And at this, the utterly horrified tough fighter just had to scream again. Louder this time that it almost made the earth beneath her crumble into intangible dust.

"Get away from me!" was the desperate cry that bounced off the fairly thick walls of that pad as the glass-less lady megane--deluged and blinded by a desperate attempt to rid herself off her persistent playmate--scrambled up to her feet and scuttled in hysterical circles around the living room. She seemed to have forgotten all aches from the recent fall as though they had been a thing of the distant past.

"ARF! ARF!" The gleeful pug, on the other hand, kept a close trail behind, unaware of the unnerving terror he was inducing in his squealing quarry who was by now losing volumes of sweat and breath to a perduring phobia.

"HEELLPP!!! KENJI!!!" The blurry world reeled around Kyoko as though she had just been hoisted upon a carousel tuned up at the highest speed. This eventually sent her sprawling face flat on the ground, feeling more dazed at the words bursting out of her mouth than the fact that she was rather fervently paying homage to the scarcely vacuumed floor.

SLUUURPPP!

Hell, did she just call on that particular guy's name for help? Called on it desperately enough and fervidly enough to drive their old folks into a fatal chain of cardiac arrests were they to hear it? Not to mention it was just after she had vowed to prove her tenacious strength and mature rationality to that certain guy's girly face, and stick the very truth of that up his sorry ass--

DAMN! Where the hell were her muddled thoughts headed to anyway?

SLUUURPPP!

And why was she, in all social disgrace and impropriety, kissing the floor?

SLURP! SLURP!

But, on second thoughts--and given a fair choice between humiliation and death--she would rather have her lips latched on to good earth than have this formidable poor-excuse-for-a-pet canine licking her up to kingdom come.

SLURP! SLUUURPPP!

The nauseated young Fujima's breath was beginning to 'seriously' catch in her throat and numbness was taking full control of her systems. She closed her eyes tight and was soon succumbing to the rush of paralyzing fear, which was slowly destabilizing her crazed heart.

This was the end of her, she knew.

"ARF! ARF! SLUUUURPPP!!"

Where the hell was Kenji when she needed him? To hell with what she wanted to prove to his sorry ass! She knew beyond the darkest shadow of a doubt that she 'needed' him.

Needed him badly…

Needed him like she had never needed anybody in her entire life--

She was in this state of a bitterly sentimental and downright disturbing realization when an all-too-familiar call echoed suddenly in her head.

Kyoko's near-defunct senses kicked back to life almost as soon as a freezing wisp of wind flitted past her and was gone a second before she was able to open her myopic eyes. The measly pug, Kimchy, had gone off to a corner and was whining like he had just seen a beast big enough to gobble him whole. The glass-less lady megane slowly pulled herself up to her feet as she warily assessed her obscured mien--or what little she could see of it.

And she just had to hear that sound again. That eerie and deafening screech of the unworldly noise from last night. The one that filled her head as soon as she caught the most distinct sight of that mysterious entity from school standing on the opposite side of the street--

At the darkened alley where she saw the most gruesome sight that was to haunt her senses forever.

After all, her psychic vision didn't really need glasses to see. And today definitely was no exception.

Kimchy seemed to have gathered up some courage and was now growling and baring his sharp incisors at the entity which had just grazed the gasping mortal's scouring eyes.

Sure enough, it was the same one from school… from the alley…

From hell.

It was posed rather casually behind the couch with its head slightly bent forward, long black hair draped over its face, and old, white dress adding more bane to its ghastly appearance.

It looked like it had just crawled straight out of an untended tomb in the district cemetery.

"Here," she heard it speaking in her head. "Come here, my--"

A strong gush of wind suddenly slapped Kyoko on the face, rattling her senses and garbling the rest of the entity's words. The metallic screeching grew unbearably louder, too, and there now seemed to be words incorporated with each piercing note--

"Shoumon bakkari shite'ru to, boukon ga kuru zo."

It kept on and on, slithering like an infernal threat through her head. It seemed to be a dialect from some strange land that Kyoko had never heard of. Yet, stranger than the fact that she could actually make out this words at all was the reality of her accurately comprehending each as though it was spoken in the very tongue she had grown fond of using--

"If you keep playing in the water, the monster will come for you."

There really was not much threat on the statement as it sounded like any other crappy ones some old folks had woven out to keep kids off the precipice of actual or imagined peril. But the way it was said in a low-voiced chant that seemed to come from the fathomless sea, and the manner with which it was being imparted on Kyoko, was enough to send the shuddering young Fujima glissading off the boundaries of sanity…

The curtain of black hair swayed slightly with the breeze, and though this time it didn't reveal anything aside from the wraith's ashen lips, it didn't make the image any less scarier either.

"Go away," Kyoko mumbled pleadingly as she took small retrograde steps away from that being. Unmindful of the fact that she was gradually closing the distance between herself and another object of her fear. But, hell! She would rather be in a dog pound surrounded by a thousand Kimchys than be in the same place as this… this phantom from Hades's infernal opera!

Not once taking her eyes off it, she saw it raise an arm toward her in a beckoning gesture, a small smile stretching its lifeless lips. And if she thought that was unnerving enough to suck all rational senses out of her, she was in for more 'wear' and scare…

Kimchy suddenly scurried off to the other side of the room and barked loudly. Not the joyous one he had greeted her with but one that screamed of a warning that should be heeded. That should be acted upon immediately.

"ARF! ARF!"

Kyoko stopped taking backward steps and held her breath. She had just felt another spectral presence. Not as strong as the one before her, but definitely just as vile and evil.

And this one was standing right behind her.

"ARF! ARF!"

The quivering mortal--scared to her wits as she was--slowly turned her head to venture a peek over her shoulder and wished to the gods she hadn't done so when her psychic sight rested upon the very representation of terror staring her straight in the eye.

She spun on her heels and stepped back, away from it. Shrieking from so much fear and lack of air. She could still hear Kimchy yelping in the background, his clipped yet forceful barks embedded in the pernicious intonations grating at her ears. She stepped back… and back again, until--

The supposedly tough fighter was by now totally numbed up that she didn't even hear nor perceive the impact of her calves against the coffee table. In fact, she wasn't aware of its quiet, humble existence even as she toppled over it and sent its glass top shattering to the floor in an array of broken crystal blades upon which she pratfell in a dazed and helpless heap.

It took a couple more seconds for Kyoko's traumatized neurons to relay the gory truth to her brain and for that befuddled part of her system to actually grasp it. She gasped as blood began slinking out of the gaping cut she sustained on her arm as a piercingly eviscerating pain slowly came sipping into her nerves.

With fear and throe now filling up her psyche to bursting point, she finally let loose the bloodcurdling scream she had been holding back all this while.

###

"I heard Maki's flying in this afternoon," Hanagata informed his buddies as they practically dragged themselves in slow, plodding steps toward the locker area. "Ikegami contacted him in Tokyo and he said he's taking a week off school."

The three pale hunks, obviously sleep-deprived and still suffering from the residues of last night's shock, had just gotten out of this morning's second class, which apparently had not been stimulating and engaging enough to keep their minds off the fragments of that harrowing encounter's haunting memory…

"I still can't believe it. I mean, weren't we talking with those guys just a week ago?" Mitsui uttered in sheer disbelief as he opened his locker and gently placed his book among a neat pile of others. For someone of his stature and past reputation as a rowdy gangster, it always struck people dumb how much of a clean freak this guy really was. Well, it could be argued that it was, after all, just his second day at the university, and he had not much time yet to turn his locker into some deadly bedlam of mess and immorality. But seeing as he was showing no sign of doing such in the near future, he should rightfully be commended for the uncluttered way he had been handling his stuffs, as well as his life, ever since he turned his back on delinquency.

A glance into his locker could clearly vouch for that, of course. There were just a set of reference books, a pair of sneakers, and the edge of a picture sticking out from the bottom of the pile--

Seeing this, Mitsui quickly pulled out the book for his next class and shut the door. There was no way he would let anyone catch a sight of that picture and thus give that nosy person a chance to question who he was with in it. For all he knew, it just might take a mere minute for the news of his 'special' and surreptitious acquaintance with that girl to reach a certain feisty creature. And he knew that once it did, there would surely be hell to pay!

"It's really tragic," Hanagata remarked as he shut his own locker close. He then turned a grave look at his sighing friend and added, "I bet you haven't heard what happened in Shohoku this morning."

Mitsui's heart made a terrible lurch at the mention of his old school. He turned a questioning frown at the taller guy, quietly obliging him to go on.

"A couple of freshmen, and a senior," Hanagata dutifully supplied, his face getting dimmer and dimmer with each word. "Judging by the petrified expression on their faces, authorities are saying that they died of the very same reason as Nobunaga Kiyota."

"Which is?" Kenji Fujima finally decided to join in the conversation as they were making their way to the next chamber of boredom.

"They can't tell as of yet," Hanagata replied. "Apparently it's the same strange reason that's been snuffing out teenagers from all corners of Kanagawa--"

"Or the same demented person…" Fujima uttered, pensively.

"A serial killer, you mean?"

"Who else would go around killing innocent people for a hobby?" There was a trace of resentment in Fujima's voice as he scoured the half-filled class for a good seat. He spotted three adjacent ones at the back and was making a sluggish beeline for them with the two other guys at his heels when Mitsui suddenly asked:

"Who was that Shohoku senior who died?" He felt really numb and knew he was turning pale already, but was still as resolute as ever to find out the truth. He prayed, though, to all the gods that the anxieties swirling in his heart would not accumulate into it.

"I think his name was Yasuda," Hanagata replied, settling himself on the seat beside Fujima. "Yasuharu Yasuda, the basketball team's vice-captain."

###

Toru Hanagata looked closely at the ex-Shohoku basketball player who had just slumped weakly on the seat beside him. "Are you well, Hisashi?"

"I guess so," came the curt reply. He closed his eyes tight and took a deep breath. So deep that he almost hurled his intestines through his nostrils when he breathed out.

"He was your friend, right?" Hanagata's voice grew soft with sympathy, echoing with the hint of remorse he felt in being a little too casual about such an upsetting matter.

Mitsui barely shook his head and sighed, releasing every bit of the tension that had built up within him as though it had never really mattered in the first place. "I'm good," he mumbled shortly afterwards, his face a picture of stark relief.

Hanagata regarded his friend closely, letting a subtle frown settle upon his perusing eyes. He had been holding Mitsui's shifting emotions under scrutiny for the past few minutes. In the locker area, he had caught a trace of alarm flit pass the other guy's face before he slammed his locker door close. Had looked on as the said guy let out a deep sigh that seemed to proclaim he had just successfully hidden all the secrets of the world inside some hollow cube of concealment. Saw how that same ex-gangster blanch with utter fear and anxiety when he told him about what happened in his old school this morning. How he asked for the name of that senior who died as though he was too afraid to hear the answer--

And now look at how suspiciously fast the colors were coming back to the other guy's face. It was like watching a young kid who thought he's lost his toy and was totally relieved to find it sitting in a corner, safe and in one piece.

He never knew Hisashi Mitsui valued someone this much in Shohoku.

"What time did it happen?" the guy in question asked, his voice calm yet still lacking its usual cocky bearing. Well, he should rightfully be concerned, after all he did use to play with the recently deceased.

"Around half past seven," Hanagata replied as dispassionately and factual as though he had just gotten out of medical school. "He, along with the captain and the other seniors were cleaning up the gym when he…" The glassman broke off, seemingly unwilling to make that excursion further down such a perturbing incident that he himself was finding hard to believe, yet was fearing the very idea of. He lost the medical air and continued with the broken cadence of someone who didn't know how exactly to say what he wanted to say but just went about saying it anyway. "He just began choking and… and… when they all turned to his direction he… he was already sprawled on the floor… It was like some unseen force had snuffed the life out of him… and… and he died just like that… with… with the same terrified expression as the others…"

"Shit," Mitsui muttered under his breath, his eyes zoning out into nothingness.

"Weird, if you'd ask me," Hanagata remarked with as much cool as was left for him to consume. "If it hadn't been for last night, I wouldn't have thought it possible myself."

Mitsui gritted his teeth in both restrained anger and suppressed fear. "Fucking shit."

###

From the moment he lodged his rear end to the chair, Kenji Fujima had remained oblivious to his companions' conversation and had instead kept his unfaltering focus on the extraordinarily alluring cover of his psychology textbook. Well, it was merely an assemblage of circles in different sizes and colors looped together to form an intricate and seemingly hypnotizing pattern upon a black background. Not exactly the kind of view a sane guy would spend this much time staring at, but it was the only way he could keep his mind stalled enough to preclude entrance of some disturbing sentiments.

The same ones that had kept him awake all night and were now threatening to occupy the greater part of his day… Of his still frazzled mind…

Of his very being.

But no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't succeed in pulling out this utterly straining and sanity draining task. And no matter how airtight he thought he had locked his ears to the world without, he just kept on catching scraps of the other guys' reverberating yammerings. Their seemingly endless discussion about a topic they didn't really know anything about--

Well, why wouldn't he when practically everyone in the class was already talking about this morning's bizarre, yet undeniably appalling incident.

There were, of course, some biles of skepticism thrown about, which were quite understandable for people with limited views of life's most offbeat phenomena.

"That's one big stupid hoax those kids are playing," one haughty guy who thought he knew any better said quite assertively.

"Yeah. People don't snuff out and die just like that!" another guy from the same cynical bunch piped up. He sighed and further added, "The things idiots do to get attention!"

Fujima had half the heart to stomp over to that dogmatic circle and tell them what he knew. But, of course, that would then mean he was ready to acknowledge the nagging and subtly alarming suspicion coiling around what little was left of his sensibilities.

And that was exactly what had been bothering him for the past few minutes. He had been having hints of it since last night, but it was only after he heard the manner of Yasuharu Yasuda's death that his mind began opening to the possibility he had been denying to himself all this while. His earlier conjecture about a serial killer got ruthlessly blasted to some unknown cosmic universe in his mind, being immediately replaced by the unearthly truth he had been trying hard to block off his head.

It wasn't much help, either, that he was getting snippets of the past he had also been attempting, though in vain, to wipe off his memory.

After all, how could he possibly deny a truth he had seen for himself for the second time around?

The sight in that alley last night--of Nobunaga Kiyota's corpse sprawled on the ground, painted distinctively upon his pale features was the terror that had cut off his breath.

And that of Soichiro Jin, sitting in a corner, laughing and crying at the same time. The expressions on his face were unspeakable. The words he was mumbling, indiscernible. He looked utterly cracked up, insane.

And the way he had looked at the sobbing Kyoko as though seeing the devil itself… He and Mitsui had to actually use all their remaining strength in restraining the cranked up guy from running away in a terrified hysteria while Hanagata went in search for help.

But these were all beside the point. What happened last night was just brushing the tip of a cryptic iceberg. It was nothing compared to what he had witnessed in the past… About a decade ago--

It was with this thought that he found himself helplessly falling into the pit of an unwanted retrospect. Back to the very first time his rationality was challenged and taunted by the abstruse mystery that was Kyoko Fujima…

And it was with this as well that he suddenly remembered one utterly substantial thing about his sister that--in his mental stupor--had most inconveniently slipped his mind.

"God, Hisashi," he muttered under his breath, his eyes wide with abrupt realization. "Your dog… I forgot…"

"Forgot what?" Mitsui's voice echoed with apprehension at the mere mention of his most beloved canine in such a manner that seemed to say something as equally bad as being squished by a ten-wheeler truck had happened to him.

"Kyoko," the brunet gasped out. "Kyoko's terrified of dogs!"

###

She could sense the kid's fear as though it was her own.

It was the same kind of clutching emotion that had often overwhelmed her when she was still a human being. An unsallied soul trapped in the carnal reserves of mundane existence, condemned and accursed by everyone and everything around her--

Kyoko…

The kid kept on running while she kept on calling to her. Kyoko-chan…

She had almost succeeded in taking full control of the kid's corporal being. Of her ephemeral thought and sensibility. But, as with her earlier attempts, there had always been something--or someone, keeping this kid from wholly surrendering to her ethereal irruption.

And always did that something-or-someone triumph over her. Win over her overwhelmingly and intensely enough to challenge her to another fight…

Of course, she accepted each challenge tirelessly and determinedly… Again and again she came back to claim what should rightfully be hers--

Let go…

But the kid kept on running, her earthly side kept on fighting.

Let go…

The kid had been unconscious even before she left the house. She was merely running on blind impulse. Her eyes were open, yet wading in a lifeless abyss. Her mind was dead and she had no idea where her legs were taking her in their desperate flight.

To this moment, the only thing that had kept that puerile form physically operative and mobile was… HER.

LET GO!

###

Kyoko could hardly remember what happened after she toppled over the coffee table and the last piercing burst of scream escaped her constricting throat. The next thing she knew she was standing in some strange, open place with the sun's parching rays licking at her skin. There was a painful throbbing at the back of her head and behind her was the hollow sound of rubber bouncing against asphalt.

Through squinting eyes she caught sight of a ghastly figure making its way toward her in a rather casual stride. She would've scurried off like a headless chicken as warning signals went off inside her head, but her body felt numb and heavy and her senses were slowly slipping off the pit of an overpowering syncope.

Before she completely succumbed to such deluging peace, she heard the specter's monotonous voice utter one curt yet distinctly profound word that was the last to linger in her memory of that morning's fateful encounter…

"Do'ahou."

###TBC###