Restless Dreams: Chapter Three

Ginji shook his head and groaned.

I learned something new today, he thought. Falling through three floors of old wood hurts really damn bad. Ban-chan would think I'm a wuss.

His brow knotted with worry at the thought of his partner. He wondered where he was now, if he was in danger in the dark, alone. He cold take care of himself, sure, but... there was something just not right about this place. Ginji couldn't help but worry.

He stood, pushing thoughts of his partner away. Suddenly pain shot through his ankle and he bit back a cry. I musta twisted it when I fell, he thought. Shit.

It was disturbingly quiet. Aside from the faint glow of his own body illuminating the broken bits of ceiling, there was an unsettling blackness around him. Usually Ginji could sense electrical currents through the walls, but the pagoda itself was so old he sensed nothing. He felt blind.

A hideous moan from above snapped him back to reality. The monster, his brain registered. It must have been too big to fall through the Ginji-sized hole in the ceiling. The fall had probably knocked it unconscious, since it hadn't run away yet.

The ceiling shuddered violently as it howled again.

But no, he thought. It couldn't be out cold if it could make such awful sounds. Ginji's stomach knotted. From up in the framework he heard the horrible crack of wood splintering and the scrape of metal grating against metal. Above him, something snapped. The belt he'd snagged it with must have gotten caught. Its struggling grew louder and more violent, reverberating off the walls, and Ginji slammed his hands over his ears as something above him jerked free and fell closer.

It smelled him.

Ginji's eyes widened as the thing thrashed wildly above him and he looked around frantically in the infinite dark for help he knew wasn't there. It was going to fall and come after him, he realized. His heart pounded and his ears rang as the monster screamed above him.

He darted.

He ran blindly, wanting nothing but to get away. He had to go find Ban-chan; he was lost without him in the dark, and his chest was about to burst as he limped wildly away, wishing his partner was there with him.

He smashed into a wall and stood there for a moment, panicking. His thoughts were clouded with fear as he grabbed blindly as the wall, feeling hysterically for a room or hallway or something to hide in. The pain in his ankle seared, but he ignored it. Pure terror drove him on. His breath was ragged and harsh; blind fear fueled his steps.

The hardwood gave way to thin rice paper beneath his sweaty fingers.

Ginji jerked the sliding door open, dashed inside, and slammed the door shut. Outside, something slammed into the floor, shaking the wood under Ginji's feet.

It was deadly silent.

Ban sat in the silence, eyes closed and legs crossed. He would remain calm. There was nothing to fear in this old pagoda. He was going to find his partner, get the damn wineglasses, leave, and become a very rich man.

He had panicked at first, left alone in the dark, not knowing where or how his best friend was. All he could then hear were the fallen monster's screams and crashes. All around him was black.

His watch beeped 22:00.

Ban patted himself down out of habit for his cigarette pack, annoyed that he couldn't find them. He badly needed a cig.

Cig. Cigarette. Lighter. Duh.

He could have kicked himself in the face. Not wearing his usual shirt with cigs in the chest pocket had made him forget that he had a lighter on him, so quickly withdrawing the lighter, he flicked it open and on. Orange light sparked to life, and shadows danced across the wall surrounding him. Ban felt some of his fear ebb away.

Ban took a few more calming breaths before rising, the flame of the lighter flickering as he stood. It was going to run out soon, he needed to find a torch. No, he needed to find Ginji first.

The lighter flickered again in his hand. Scrap that, he would find a torch first, then Ginji. After that, he would get the fucking wineglasses and get out of this shithole a much richer man. He grinned as he thought of the money he'd be getting after this.

He looked toward the room he and Ginji had been in, then down the corridor the monster had also come from. He remembered it being darker than its opposite, but in his shallow light he couldn't really tell the difference.

He racked his brain, trying to remember if there had been any extra paths that led further downstairs. Though he wanted to inspect the hole where Ginji had fallen, he decided it would be better to backtrack on familiar routes. With his dinky light it would have futile to even try to look. Besides, Ginji could take care of himself.

Usually.

Ban backtracked through the old doorway and back into familiar corridors. His flame flickered as he walked, blown back by the drafts of stale air wafting against it. The pagoda seemed different when not lit by a pure, white electricity. It looked older, dirtier. It was almost as if it had collected new dust, dulling the polish on the wooden floor. Floorboards creaked loudly under his feet as he stepped, and golden-cast walls gleamed with greasy monster's splattered blood.

Ban grimaced and left the room quickly.

As he stepped into another, identical hallway, he vaguely noticed that the wood was more blackened with age and rot than he remembered. He ran a hand along the paneling, but quickly jerked it back. "Gross," he muttered, noticing his hand was coated in a thin oily film that reeked of old gas and tree sap.

Wait, part of the wood was greasy and the timbers were rotted. Ban grinned and suddenly plunged a fist into the wall, easily splitting through the rotted wood, and ripped out a plank of wood. The loud cracking echoed down the passageway, then everything was again silent.

Ban held the lighter close to the torn timber in his hand. Well, this was probably the dumbest thing he'd done in a while. If he'd miscalculated, then he could accidentally set the whole place alight. It would probably smell like tree sap if he did.

He lowered the flame and suddenly the room became much brighter. Ban held his breath as fire danced and crackled over the piece of wood in his hand. The blaze stopped its spreading and simmered to a small glow. Ban's smirk countered his still fast-beating heart. It had worked; he had a torch. He looked around the corridor that he could now see clearly.

Well, that was kind of weird. The wood definitely hadn't looked this old before. Waving the homemade torch near the wall, he inspected it scrutinizingly, face inches from its surface. After a few seconds, Ban blew gently on the filmy wood. Dust kicked up into his face, and he coughed violently for a minute.

Wait, what the fuck? Dust didn't gather on grime like that.

And it wasn't this dusty before either, dammit.

Ban shook his head in denial, though even then he seemed uncertain. He walked on. Fuck this house, it was time to find his partner.

He searched through corridors and paper rooms, looking for a stairway they might have taken earlier that led farther downwards. He was having no luck. It was as if this wing of the pagoda had no floors below the wing he was in right now, and Ginji had just disappeared. But that couldn't be right, because they had the schematic in the Subaru and there should be about four more floors below where he was now, which was-

He didn't know.

Ban grew numb when he realized this. He didn't know where in the huge, old pagoda just where he was. Lost wasn't the right word for it, because he knew relatively well what path he'd taken earlier in the night. They'd gone east and down. He just... couldn't find his way around this place to save his life.

Fuck, this was bad.

Ginji was terrified.

He limped quickly down the corridor, breath ragged and painful in his chest. Pain rocketed through his ankle as he tried to run through the hallway in complete darkness. A scream echoed behind him, shaking the floor. Ginji tripped and cried out, catching himself and half-crawling across the floor.

He had to get away, he was going to die, oh god he was going to die, oh god oh god he couldn't kill it, he was injured, he had to get away.

Stumbling through the darkness, he caught his balance and kept running, nothing on his mind but escape. Behind him he heard something plow through a wall, shattering wood. He let out a horrified whimper as he felt it gaining on him.

The monster behind him shrieked, and wood collapsed just behind Ginji. He groped blindly at the wall, trying vainly to gain speed. Lungs aching and badly in need of a break, he felt a gush of wind at his back and heard his the rip of vest as the thing swung its spiked arm at him. It missed his body, but splattered blood from the wounds Ban had caused onto Ginji's clothes.

He dashed madly, ignoring the fire in his leg, heart pounding, grunting in pain, exhaustion, and fear with every step he took. It was gaining, but he was not going to die.

Suddenly everything went silent, save his heavy, plodding footfalls. Ginji gripped the wall, trying desperately to catch his breath. He was confused. Why had it suddenly stopped chasing him?

He stood in the dark and deadly silence, bottom lip quivering in fear. Maybe it had left him, but that made no sense. It was chasing its injured prey, hunting him, and now it was toying with him as he struggled to grasp the situation.

Ginji wished he could see, wished he didn't have to control his electricity so that the horrible thing wouldn't find him as easily. But a floor or so below ground, all he saw was black. The only sound was his staggered breathing, reverberating off the empty walls as he gasped for blessed air. He felt very alone.

But he had to keep going. Ban-chan was trying to help him, he was sure, so he had to keep going, if he kept moving everything would be okay.

Suddenly a huge crack screamed through the corridor and he felt wood crumble and shatter beside him. With a strained cry Ginji was flung to the ground, suddenly buried under piles of wood as the monster burst through the wall he'd been leaning against.

He felt the splinters of the floor prickling into his cheek as he lay on his side, trapped under the heavy wood. The weight shifted over him, pressure intensifying; his body was being crushed. Then the pressure lessened and Ginji felt something slamming into the ground near him. He stayed still, so did everything else.

Hesitating for a split second, Ginji quickly heaved himself to his hands and knees, knocking aside the collapsed wood on top of him. He scurried away on all fours as fast as he could, desperately trying to get away before what was probably the monster came to its senses. His hands hit forcefully with the ground as he crawled, crashing against the floor with each vital step he took.

Suddenly he felt something sharp slash into his wounded ankle and pain jolted through his whole leg. He cried out as he felt hot liquid oozing into his shoe. Fuck, it had woken up, it was still after him, oh fuck.

He kept moving, clambering forward down the narrow corridor, searching for something, anything to help him get away.

And suddenly the floor wasn't there.

Ginji yelped and tumbled down a flight of stairs, landing crouched on his side. He felt the monster just behind him as it leapt off the top of the stairs and landed just in front of him. It sniffed the air. Ginji froze.

Swallowing nervously, he lay absolutely still. The stairs pressed into his back painfully. He held his breath as best he could, because to breathe was to die. He heard the thing sniffing around him, felt its rancid breath on his chest, sensed it prodding with its clawed feet. Deadly still, deadly silent. Sweat trickled down his face and into his eyes, mixing with salty tears of fear.

Ginji tried to calm his breathing to keep quiet. His lungs burned as he inhaled as slowly as possible, nearly suffocating himself... but he couldn't do it any longer. Out of his mouth came a small electric spark, lighting up the room for a split second. Oh shit, he thought. Ginji's eyes widened and he rolled over just as a spiked arm slammed into the ground where he'd been lying seconds ago.

He grabbed at his own ankle, smearing his hands with blood, and flung it into the monster's face. As the blinded thing roared again, he clapped his hands over his ears, then ducked under its legs and scrambled out behind it.

As it fumbled around for him in the dark, the blond crawled quietly forward, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his ankle as blood seeped out the slashed flesh.

He felt his hand hit a wall and gripped blindly at it, trying to regain his bearings in the darkness. The wall seemed to stretch both ways.

Ginji turned left and ran.

A thought occurred to Ban.

When they'd entered, there had been a second path into the west wing right next to the door. Perhaps he could find another path that way?

He walked in silence, torch raised high, for several minutes. The familiar hallways became lighter and lighter as he rose above ground, but Ban noticed they still seemed older than he remembered them to be.

Odd.

He moved through a doorway and up a pair of stairs. He wondered how Ginji was doing, then chided himself mentally for even considering that something was wrong. He'd have sensed it if anything had happened to his partner.

As he walked slowly up the creaky stairway, he remembered a trap door up ahead and fumbled for the latch, lowering the torch so to not set the wood on fire. Pushing up on the wood, Ban heard an audible click as muted blue light from above flooded into the stairwell.

He crawled out slowly, taking his time. The room was dimly lit from the moonlight filtered through translucent rice paper, casting the room in a faint gray-blue glow. Dust danced in rays of moonlight near the paper, thick and wild. Ban sneezed.

Looking around, he spotted the small traditional table in the center of the room that Ginji had tripped over on their way down. A large piece of reflecting glass in the corner, probably used as a mirror, caught his eye, and Ban arched an eyebrow. He was pretty sure it hadn't been there before.

Apprehensively wary, he started towards it. Something didn't settle right.

He caught sight of his reflection in the glass and suppressed a grimace. His hair was still damp and plastered to his face, and blood coated his bruised arms and hands. Ginji would think he was a mess.

"Ban-chan, you're a mess."

Ban froze.

His eyes widened as a silhouette came into view behind him, a shock of bright blond hair vibrant in the dim light. Ginji stood behind him in the shadows cast by the torch, smiling reassuringly at his stunned partner.

"It's okay, Ban-chan. I'm here now. I'm okay, so you don't have to worry," he said, his voice low and quiet.

Ginji reached out, his arm stretching into the light. Ban inhaled sharply. The arm looked dead; skin hung from the exposed muscle of Ginji's arm. His fingers had deteriorated into bone, blackened flesh seemingly burnt away at his palm.

He felt a decayed hand caress his bare arm and his breath caught in his throat. Ginji leaned forward, his face becoming clearer as he stepped into the light.

His warm brown eyes had been gouged out, and pieces of skin looked as if they would flake off from rot. His lower lip had been ripped off, and there were festering remains of bloody blisters on his cheeks. Ban saw the glisten of white teeth behind the shredded lip as blood streamed down his face and onto his neck of melted flesh.

"Don't worry, Ban-chan," Ginji murmured softly. Ban felt rancid breath on his throat.

He whirled around and saw nothing.

Nothing but the dimly lit room around him.

That wasn't Ginji, he thought, that couldn't have been Ginji. Ginji wouldn't let himself get that fucked up.

That had felt real.

"Nice try," Ban said aloud, waving his torch around at the pagoda walls. "But next time, don't be so graphic if you want me to believe ya." His voice was shaky; he couldn't help but worry about the real Ginji's safety. Ban turned back to the mirror and saw only his own reflection.

A crash like glass shattering to pieces shook the silence, and Ban left the room bandaging his hand.

He walked into a hallway that looked unfamiliar and wondered if he'd taken a wrong turn somewhere. He could have sworn the main entrance to the pagoda had been in this area.

He slid open the nearest paper-windowed door and looked around, torch high in front of him.

The room was fairly bare and old, and here and there flecks of blood were splashed across the wall, which seemed to almost glow with oil from the aged paneling. Against the back wall hung a shelf that had fallen from half its rusty nails, and a few yellowed books littered the floor. In the corner stood a corroding brass coat hanger. Molding imprints on the floor suggested long-gone furniture.

Ban's eyes narrowed. "Wait one goddamn second," he muttered to himself. This room looked familiar, but he was sure they hadn't seen such a decrepit room before and there definitely hadn't been any blood--

Ban bolted back into the hallway. There had been a door here, he was certain of it. His breath quickened as he saw stains on the floor from where he and Ginji had dripped water on their entrance.

He pounded on the solid wooden wall and felt it start to give under his fist. Score, it must be the real entrance! he thought. He grinned smugly and drew back his fist. "Snake Bite!"

The wooden splintered, cracked, and gave completely. Ban rammed his side through the wall, taking down the rest of the wooden barrier to escape.

He looked around.

"Dammit."

The room around him was completely dark.

His ankle was beginning to go numb from the pain. Ginji stumbled through another pitch-black hallway, trying to catch his breath. He'd bandaged his bleeding leg with a strip of fabric ripped from his shirt, and his vest was nowhere to be found. His neck was chilled with the familiar feel of dehydration, skin cold and clammy. He was sweaty, hot, and felt ill.

Ginji felt like crying. He probably was, but didn't notice. He was too busy trying to stay alive.

His electricity wasn't working, he wasn't safe. He needed to get back upstairs, he knew, back where Ban-chan was, because Ban-chan could protect him. They just had to find each other first. He needed to be upstairs. He felt dizzy.

Ginji was jerked from his nauseous trance when he heard a creak of wood some meters behind him. Eyes wide, he began to stumble hurriedly through the hall again.

There was another scrape over timber from closer behind. Pain flared back up his leg as he tried to move faster and faster.

Ginji looked ahead of him and saw a very faint light in the far distance. A staircase! That had to be it, it had to be stairs, why else would there be light in this forsaken, desolate place?

He hurried towards it, like a moth drawn to a flame. Realizing that the faint light was shining through a ricepaper door, Ginji wrenched it open, ran inside, and slammed the sliding door shut behind him.

He turned around and froze.

"Oh my..." Words were lost on Ginji as he stared at the scene before him.

He was in a small room.

Against the back wall was a man sitting on a narrow wooden bench. A dead man. Beside his head was a small candle, balanced on a little metal platform. Pallid orange shadows danced across he room, illuminating carnage.

Ginji stepped closer. He smelled rank death and gagged.

The man's bare chest was thin and pasty, and his arms were severed messily, dripping congealing blood from frayed flesh beside him onto the seat. A gaping hole in his chest contrasted harshly with his deathly white skin, and Ginji could see broken fragments of bone hanging just out of the wound. A few large veins appeared torn from their sockets. His heart had been ripped out.

Ginji's lip began to tremble.

Tight strings held the man upright, twisting and coiling around his neck and torso, cutting into pale tender skin and dribbling blood with their razor-sharp edges. Blood seeped slowly through white slacks, the same severing threads fixing his splayed legs into place.

Something glinted near him, and Ginji realized a huge web of threads stretched around the room. He felt a twinge of pain in his arm as a taut string bit into his skin. He was standing in an absolute death trap.

There was a small jingling and Ginji saw a tiny golden ball attached to one of the strings. Several long brown hairs were tangled in the bell's cover.

The corpse's head hung limply, light ash blond hair falling in front of his face. Ginji could make out a blood-soaked white gag binding his mouth. His pale eyes were wide in death.

Ginji choked.

Smeared across the wooden wall above the poor man were brilliant crimson English letters, the light just bright enough to illumine them.

THE GODS PAY HOMAGE TO OUR MIGHT

It was written in blood.

"Ka- Kagami-san...?"

-tbc

Author's notes: Whooo, I do hope you all like it XD I believe this chapter earns the R rating I gave it. I sincerely hope everyone is enjoying my fic so far, so leave me feedback and tell me what you think?

As always, many many thanks to Mar, who is absolutely invaluable to me

a/n '04: Edited for your bettered reading pleasure. Man, this chapter is cool.