DM: OMG! I love you people!
Kaiba: Is she okay?
Aerith: More than likely... no.
DM: I would love to thank Freak09 for reviewing!
Kaiba: I knew it! She got a reviewer!
Aerith: Shut up. /Shoves Kaiba/
DM: So this chapter is dedicated to my only reviewer!
Aerith and Kaiba: Noooooooo!
DM: /faints with shock/
Kaiba: Is she dead? /Peers down at DM/
Aerith: No, she fainted... and I thought you were smart.
Kaiba: I almost forgot, the disclaimer. DM doesn't own anything except her story, the idea for it, and Aerith./ignoring Aerith/
DM: /drowily/ and my lappy top.
Kaiba: That too. /smirks/ ...lappy top... /sniggers/
Aerith: All right, next chapter.
Chapter 2- Separate
"How do we know that it doesn't separate on the other side?" Aerith asked Kaiba, looking very pissed off.
"We don't. That's why we are going to split into two groups." Kaiba told her, looking very ready to knock her to the ground.
"So one group can scare the other?!" Aerith shouted back, her hands balled into fists.
"If someone gets scared, it's not my fault." Kaiba said as Yugi and Téa came up, Joey and Tristan not far behind.
"This is just stupid! You want us to split in-" A third terrified scream stopped Aerith. Her eyes darted to the twin hallways, trying to figure out which one it came from. The rest of the group starred at them, also trying to figure it out.
"Do what you want. I'm going down here." Kaiba said before walking down the second hallway. Aerith glared at him before following.
"You're gonna get yourself killed with that attitude..." She said loudly as she stomped down the hall. The rest of the group shrugged and took the other hall.
"I hope they'll be okay..." Yugi said, listening to the footsteps on the other side of the stairs before they started to fade.
"As long as Aerith's not 'urt, I'm happy." Joey said, grinning slightly.
"I'm not surprised at that..." Tristan muttered and Joey glared at him. They came up around the back of the stairs and saw a wall to their right greeting them with old pictures. They continued walking until they got to a larger room. They stared, looking around at the huge area. A bookcase stared at them from their left and front, a path winded to the right.
"Wow... This place is huge..." Téa said. Her eyes were wide as she looked around.
"It's a library, isn't it?" Yugi asked, trying to look through the shelves.
"I suppose..." Joey gawked openly. Dis is somethin' dat belongs in Kaiba's mansion... he thought. He managed to tear his eyes away from the detailed ceiling before saying, "We'd better get surching." He walked off to the right with Tristan behind him, Yugi and Téa followed soon after. They split up after the right hallway, a direction led to the left, one forward, and one to the right a bit more.
"Who goes where?" Téa asked, looking around.
"I guess we could all split up, there's enough room probably..." Yugi said, shrugging.
"Just in case," Joey started, "Me an' Tristan 'ill go dat way and split; you and Téa go dat way and don't split." He smiled.
"Uh... Didn't understand a word of that Joey..." Tristan said, grinning. Joey glared at him.
"Ah, shad up!" Joey said back, rolling his eyes, his hands stuffed into his pockets. Tristan laughed. Joey glared at him again, "You're as bad as Kaiba..." Tristan shrugged and started to the right pathway. Joey shook his head and started down the forward isle. Yugi and Téa went to the left. After a long while, a gasp was heard from towards the left.
"Oh... my... God..." Téa said; her hand over her mouth. Yugi blankly stared down the hallway, rubbing at his eyes a couple of times to see if it was real.
"Uh... Joey! Tristan!" He yelled, turning around. The other two came running but they stopped fully as soon as they saw the hallway.
"Am I actually seeing that?" Tristan asked, starring.
"I'd think so..." Joey whispered, as if someone would hear him and attack.
"Slow down damn it!" Aerith yelled at Kaiba. He glanced coldly over his shoulder and kept his pace up.
"Hurry up." He replied emotionlessly. Aerith glared at his back and jogged slightly to catch up.
"Bitch." She said sharply.
"Whore." He shot back.
"Why don't we go ahead and stop this? ... Neither of us are going to win." Aerith said, rolling her eyes.
"I beg to differ." Kaiba smirked. Aerith glared at him again and was just about to open her mouth when something stopped her.
"Did you hear that?" She asked, looking around. Her eyes were slightly wide.
"Hear what?" He asked, looking up ahead.
"Listen." She replied. He went quiet and listened. A couple of muffled footsteps were heard before a soft cutting noise, like someone cutting something on a cutting board, was heard.
"What the hell is that?" Kaiba asked, his voice too loud for Aerith and she shushed him. He glared at her.
"Probably someone... or something..." Aerith whispered. She silently stalked down the hall, like a cat slightly. Kaiba stared at her.
"You think you could be even more stupid?" He muttered, walking after her. She glared over her shoulder at him.
"Sweet, sweet one..." Someone said, as they got closer to the room. They looked at each other, exchanging glances.
"That person is probably crazier than you..." Kaiba commented and received another glare from Aerith.
"You're crazier than that person probably..." Aerith shot back, grinning. Kaiba glared at her.
"You little whore."
"Crazy ass bitch."
"If only you were here now..." The person at the end of the hall said, it female in tone. The two teenagers shut up for a second and listened. The woman burst out into psychotic laughter, "Yeah right! You dreadful-" A loud stabbing noise was heard, "hateful-" another stabbing noise, "thing!" A final stab was heard, "You broke my heart, you wretch!" They both stopped fully in their tracks, looking at each other.
"She's psychotic, got a knife, who knows how large, and some dude broke her heart..." Aerith said, "I don't think you want to go in there..." She said to Kaiba.
"What if the man who broke her heart was taken by another woman? I don't think you would fare much better..." He said, taking a step forward, "How about we both go down there and see what the hell's going on, it might just be a tape recording." Aerith nodded and they made their way down the rest of the hall. The room was actually the kitchen, quite large for a haunted house.
"In horror movies, don't the worst things always happen in the kitchen?" Aerith asked, standing beside Kaiba in the doorway. He looked at her.
"I don't even see any-" A woman came out from behind the open refrigerator door, chuckling like a lunatic. She walked over to a wooden cutting board, stained deeply with blood.
"Holy shit..." Aerith whispered. Kaiba didn't answer her. The woman started humming something, dumping what she was holding on the cutting board.
"I'll find you sooner or later, you bitch..." She said in a singsong voice. She lifted up the knife and plunged it down into the item, which looked like liver or something like that. Blood flew everywhere and the woman laughed, "I'll dice you into pieces, Aaron!"
"She's not a ghost, right?" Kaiba asked Aerith. Aerith nodded.
"How about we just walk the other way? Forget she's here?" She asked, looking over her shoulder. The woman stopped all of a sudden, listening. The two teens froze, thinking that she had heard them. The woman slowly looked up from the knife and her eyes focused on the pair in the doorway. She smiled as if she had really lost her mind.
"Hi, what's your name?" She asked, still smiling. The two looked at each other.
"Uh, we just got lost..." Aerith said, smiling back.
"Yeah," Kaiba said, eyes focused on the knife in the woman's hand.
"What's your name?" She asked again, a more commanding tone in her voice, raising the knife slightly.
"Uh... I'm- Aerith..." Aerith said. The woman's eyes widened slightly.
"Wrong thing to say!" Kaiba hissed at her.
"Aerith... Aaron..." She seemed to connect the two. Her eyes narrowed and she started towards Aerith. Kaiba quickly stepped in front of her.
"She gets confused sometimes, her name's Senna." He said quickly.
"Senna!" Aerith whispered sharply.
"Best I could come up with, deal with it." Kaiba muttered back.
"Oh... I understand. I get like that too." She smiled and turned back towards the cutting board, "I'm chopping this up, I can-"
"No, we're not really..." Kaiba started, unsure.
"Just ate." Aerith quickly butted in, coming out from behind him. He glared at her and she shrugged slightly.
"A shame... My first love broke my heart..." The woman said and they both looked surprised at her, "He ripped it to pieces!" She pulled the knife up and slit her arm, laughing again. The two teens looked on, awestruck, "He ran off with some little flirt!" She reached up and thinly cut her neck. Aerith started backing away, Kaiba in front of her slightly again. The woman pulled the knife up high into the air, "He put a dagger in my heart!" She shrieked, thrusting the knife through her chest, into her heart. Blood dripped from her mouth. She looked surprised before giggling, showing bloodstained teeth, blood flying everywhere practically, "Nothing- a little- duck tape- won't fix..." She fell to the ground, her eyes open, that psychotic smile still planted on her face.
"Oh my God..." Aerith said, starring in horror, "She's dead!"
"Yeah." Kaiba said, starting back towards the front hall.
"But- she's dead!" Aerith repeated.
"Established that fact Aerith," Kaiba came back up and started dragging her down the hall, "Now let's get out of here before she gets back up!" Aerith kept starring.
"She's fucking dead..." She said again. Kaiba stopped and pulled her around so that she could look at his face.
"Listen, this is a fucking fun house gone wrong." He told Aerith but she still looked off down the hallway. He nailed her across her cheeks and she looked up at him, surprised, "Listen to me." Kaiba said, putting emphasis on every word, "You need to pull it together. She'll get up in a bit. This is an amusement park haunted house. They can't really hurt people. Do you hear me?" Aerith stared at him, holding her hand to her cheek but still nodded, "Good." Aerith seemed to get back her sense of self suddenly.
"Didn't think you cared..." She said as Kaiba started pulling her down the hallway.
"Well..." He started but stopped, hearing someone running down the other side of the stairs. He looked around for something and found a paperweight sitting on a table. He grabbed it up and got ready to slam it down on whoever's head was coming around the corner.
"Aerith! Kaiba!" Yugi's voice cried out and Kaiba sighed, seeing Aerith's face the second he didn't put the paperweight down.
"All right... all right..." He said, putting the almost-weapon back down on the table.
"I can still make you cry out in a minute." Aerith stated as they went down the hallway a bit to meet Yugi.
"Whatever..." He said coldly.
"Do you dye that hair back to brown?" She asked, pulling at a strand of his hair. He ducked away from her and glared. She snickered, "I'll take that as a yes." He looked away from her and saw Yugi coming up towards them. He was out of breath and looked scared.
"What he found couldn't have been worse..." Kaiba said, looking at Aerith. She shrugged and suddenly grinned.
"You know, I think you missed a hair or two..." She reached up again and he pulled away.
"Stop being an ass." He told her and she glared at him.
"Aerith! Kaiba!" Yugi yelled again. He came up to them and leaned on his knees. He looked up towards them, "We- we found... it's horrible..." Aerith and Kaiba exchanged glances for a second before glaring at each other. Yugi started again, "The hallway... it's just... come on!" He ran off and the other two teens took a quick look at each other before Aerith took off running, Kaiba walking behind her.
"Hey, Kaiba!" Aerith yelled from further down the hall and he looked up, annoyed.
"What the hell do-" He started.
"You're a fucking crazy SOB!" She said, waving, "I'm not surprised you ain't killed yourself in a delusion or something like that!" She grinned as he came to a full stop and glared darkly at her. Suddenly, he ran at her and she took off.
"Get your ass back here!" He yelled, passing Yugi in the other hallway and nearly knocking him over.
"You couldn't catch me even if I slowed down!" Aerith yelled over her shoulder. Kaiba was still after her, extremely pissed after all the shots she kept taking at him. Joey was trying hard to keep from laughing, Aerith kept going around the same three bookcases but would double back as soon as she heard Kaiba on the other side and make him turn back around or something like that. She would do it in different orders though and the second he thought he had one down, she would switch to another.
"You're..." He stopped suddenly, behind a bookshelf, where no one could see him. He went dead silent. Joey burst out into laughter suddenly.
"Whoops..." He didn't hear anything out of Kaiba, although he was seething with anger.
"Come on! Where are you? You're a-" Aerith came around a corner and came face to face with Kaiba. Her eyes widened, "a... uh... Hi?" Kaiba smirked.
"Hi." Kaiba reached to grab for her arm when Aerith shrieked, in a very high-pitched voice. He covered his ears, backing up a step. Aerith started off again and he leapt after her. She didn't get that far though because he practically tackled her to the ground. Her hand whipped out for anything and she managed to pull a book off the shelf. Something went flying past the two of them and they stopped their fight. A javelin had come flying down out of somewhere and landed right next to them.
"What the hell?" Aerith said, staring at it. They both quickly got to their feet.
"You're sick of leading me around bookcases so you sick someone with a lance on me?" Kaiba retorted, glaring at her.
"I didn't do shit!" Aerith shouted back.
"Like hell you didn't!"
"Hey! I don't sick people with javelins on other people, even if those people are annoying!"
"The books are probably-" Yugi started but both Aerith and Kaiba yelled at him.
"Shut the hell up!"
"You're a fucking bitch!" Aerith started back at Kaiba.
"Stupid little whore!" He shot back. Aerith reached over and pulled a book off the shelf, preparing to whack Kaiba on the head with it. A dagger went flying past her head, nearly taking her ear with it. She dropped the book in surprise. A couple drops of blood dripped down from her ear and she reached up to make sure it was still there.
"I tried to tell you!" Yugi yelled at them. They stared at him for a second before he continued, "The books are booby-trapped. You pull one out; you get the trap set on you." He plucked up both books and placed them back in their original spots. The javelin disappeared along with the dagger. Aerith rubbed at her ear a little, obviously unsettled by what had just happened. Her eyes scanned the spines of the books on the shelf.
"They can't be all booby-trapped can they?" Aerith murmured, looking back at Yugi. He shrugged back at her.
"I wouldn't know, I just saw what happened there and figured that probably most of them are." Yugi replied after a second, "Now you've got to see this. It's just..." He shook his head, his eyes wide with fear. Aerith and Kaiba exchanged glances for a second, not revealing what had happened in the kitchen. Yugi led the group over towards the hallway he and Téa had first seen.
"That can't be- what I think it is..." Aerith said, in shock for a second. Kaiba was silent but it was evident that he was shocked too.
"So you see it too? Then we're not all imaging it?" Yugi asked, his voice weak. Suddenly a scream echoed down the hallway, cut off after a second or two. Everyone stared down the hallway.
"That was that scream from earlier..." Kaiba stated, his voice devoid of all emotion, even the usual coldness, in it. Aerith gulped and took a nervous step forward. A hand was immediately on her shoulder and she nearly screamed out in fright. She turned to see that it was Kaiba's hand.
"No wonder why it was so cold..." She said and he ignored the obvious shot.
"I don't think that's a good idea." He told her.
"Like you said before, this is an amusement park haunted house. What's the worst that can happen?" Aerin said, faking cheeriness to hide her fear.
"I've got the feeling that it's turning out not to be what it first seemed..." He said, nervously looking towards the hallway but covered up for what he was feeling by taking another shot at Aerith, "Anyways, we can't have you with a knife wound in both arms. I'll go." Aerith was taken aback by this as he started towards the hallway before the shot sunk in. She glared at his back for a second.
"Not without me, you get yourself into more trouble than I do." She stalked after him, focusing on his back instead of the blood on the walls. She held back her revulsion, following. He turned and she saw on his face that he was also sickened by it. Aerith whispered, "It's real blood, isn't it?" He nodded and she shut her eyes for a second.
"Maybe you should-" He started but she stopped him.
"I'll be fine." She opened her eyes and managed to focus them on him. He nodded and turned around, leading her down the hall. The footsteps of one more person came down the hall and they stopped again. Joey came running up.
"I'm not gonna leave you two alone after wat happen'd last time!" He exclaimed but suddenly came to the same conclusion as Aerith, "That's- real blood- on da walls?" He gasped. The other two teens nodded. Joey gulped and tried not to look. The three started back down the hallway, turning around a corner and seeing the door at the end of the hall.
"Do you think they'll be okay?" Téa asked, watching the three disappear around a corner. She had been too sickened to follow them but if she could have, she would have probably. Yugi had stayed behind to watch over Téa and he nodded in answer to her question. Tristan had stayed to watch over the other two.
"They'll be fine, I'm sure of it. They do have Aerith to watch over them." Tristan said confidently.
"Aerith's got a knife wound in her arm." Yugi pointed out and Tristan frowned for a second.
"She's still probably more than a match for anything that comes after the three of them and Joey's over-protective about her and Kaiba... I can't figure out Kaiba for the life of me. Usually he's like ice but... he's just confusing now, since when has he given a damn about Aerith? He's acting sort of weird." Tristan shook his head, "Although, he'll probably help in the protection department just to save his own skin... They'll be just fine other than either Joey and Kaiba or Aerith and Kaiba or all three arguing." He shook his head again.
"I hope you're right." Téa said, still watching the hallway intently for any sign of the three teenagers.
Kaiba reached out and turned the doorknob. It gave away easily and he opened the door. Aerith stood beside him, ready for almost anything, Joey behind her. The three looked into the room, seeming to have called a truce for now. A bloodied sight met their eyes and Aerith held back a gasp. Someone sat at the bathtub, doing something.
"Wat da hell's she doin'?" Joey whispered and the person stopped all of a sudden. They looked up and grinned at the three teens. Aerith and Kaiba recognized the woman from the kitchen. She raised up a knife that was probably a more a machete than a kitchen knife.
"You're next aren't you?" She gave a homicidal laugh and stood up, blood dripping from the knife tip. Their eyes widened to see a nearly dismembered body in the tub.
"Next for- dat?" Joey asked weakly, pointing at the tub, afraid of the answer.
"Of course!" The woman answered, laughing again.
"Run!" Kaiba shouted, pulling the door shut. The other two teens took off down the hallway as he slammed the door shut in her face. He also took off running down the hallway, managing to catch up to the two before they hit the corner. Aerith slipped and Kaiba caught her, Joey out front. He lifted her up and ran down the hall the rest of the way with her in his arms. The others were staring at them.
"What-" Téa started but didn't finish, Kaiba started shouting at her.
"Run you fucking god-damned idiot!" He shouted and the whole group tore off through the maze of books, Kaiba and Joey at the head of them although Kaiba still carried Aerith. As they reached the front hall, Joey yanked at the doors.
"No use! They're still locked!" He shouted in a panic. Kaiba set Aerith down on the ground.
"Up the fucking stairs!" He said and he and Aerith started up them, skipping at least a step or two along the way up. The rest of the group was at their heels, adrenaline pumping them on.
Aerith: /pulls DM to her feet/ Don't faint again...
Kaiba: Sometimes... /rolls eyes/
DM: All right, please review for this story's sake... Wait, did one of you do the disclaimer?
Aerith: Yeah, stupid did it. /points at Kaiba/
Kaiba: She would've killed me if one of us hadn't.
DM: All right, /rolls eyes/ Thanks again for reviewing Freak09 and if you like this chapter too, and this goes for everyone, please hit that shiny, little review button on the bottom of the page if you guys want to review too!
Aerith: Sugar-high again?
Kaiba: More than likely.
Aerith: And the review button is not shiny. /rolls eyes/
Kaiba: You might not want to talk with such sass to her like that.
Aerith: Why not?! /glares at Kaiba/
Kaiba: Cos she's still got the frying pan. /points at DM/
DM: /raises frying pan above her head and runs at Aerith/ Good for nothing, OC of mine!
Aerith: Yipe! /runs away as fast as possible/
Kaiba: Just review before DM kills Aerith./watches with enjoyment as DM chases Aerith around/