An overnight stay
Shivers to the spine
"WHAT THE--?!"
When the door is widely open, Naruto and the others saw a strange old man wearing a white polo shirt and wrinkled jeans. He also wears slippers which would really mean that he must have been the owner of the house, err, mansion. His eyes were dull and his face is wrinkled. His hair was so white and some part of his head was starting to bald. No wonder, he's an old geezer. There's no reaction from his face when the group almost shriek in fear, except of course Naruto.
"Welcome, dear guests..." He finally voiced out though his voice was hoarsed.
"Uh...well... we..." Naruto couldn't get out the right words to explain what they're supposed to do in the mansion.
The old man travel his eyes to everybody in the group, even to Naruto, but something caught his attention. A certain pink haired girl with green eyes was trembling behind the raven haired kid. After a minute of surprised, he plastered a sinister grin in his face though the others didn't recognize it.
He turned his attention to Naruto, "What were you kids doing at a time like this?"
"Well you see, it's raining and we don't have an appropriate shelter. If you could--" Neji uttered but was immediately cut by the old man.
"Come in. It's okay, you can rest and stay here for the night." He shoved himself to the side as he invited the teens to enter the dark, cold and creepy mansion.
The kids hesitated at first but as soon as Naruto rise from the ground, he flashed a grin to his comrades and get himself inside the mansion. One by one they entered with a slight tremble and fear inside their bodies.
'I knew this place was creepy, inside out...' Tenten said in her thoughts while allowing her eyes to travel everywhere in the mansion.
'I do not trust this old man... we better stick together..' Being the oldest member of the group, Neji decided what to do next.
The rest of the kids followed the old man until they reached the foot of the large and wide stairs welcoming them, in such strange manner. Sakura, being the farthest of them all, and with Sasuke being the nearest person in front of her, she unconsciously grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer. Sasuke, upon noticing this, felt the urge of holding her closer to make her trembles disappear. But that won't happen, because he doesn't want everybody to know what he feels for Sakura. He keeps it only to himself. In short, he just let her be.
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The old gee--, man, was now walking to up to the second floor and was followed by the kids. The mansion surely was huge and was too much for one person. Too much for him. He was kind, though, letting the six kids have their shelter from the rain. However, since the mansion was a little old and lonely, the place was dark.
When they were stepping on the steps, they could hear some cracks and creaks from it. The railing was broken, but some of it stays intact on the steps. The chandelier that they all saw when they came in, was covered with white fabric and when the wind blows it, it moves like a ghost, flying above them.
The girls didn't stop shivering from what they're feeling. It was really strange and chilly. The boys felt the same atmosphere, but they stayed quiet as if focusing on what they're observing. They all noticed the man walked to the left, adding creepiness, the hallway they were in was darker than the latter path.
"Guys... we better stick together..." Shikamaru whispered hoping that the old man didn't hear him.
In a moment, he felt someone tugged his sleeves. When he moved his eyes, he already saw blonde hair behind him. Oh great, just great, of all of the people...
"Ino! Stop pulling my shirt!" He angrily said in a minimal volume.
Ino just glared back at him, "Be quiet and move on!" She retorted with the same minimal volume Shikamaru did.
"How troublesome..." And he started walking.
As they went deeper in the mansion, they found themselves stopped in another hallway where they thought were rooms. The old man looked at them.
"You can choose your own rooms. I've got plenty of them."
Neji stepped forward to do the talking, "Thank you very much, sir."
"From the way you talk and act, I guess you're the oldest kid in the group." Neji nodded.
"Could we at least know your--" For the second time, Neji was cut off.
"Just call me Wakku. I'm the caretaker of this mansion." He felt all of their brows twitched.
Naruto decided to butt in, "Caretaker of this HUGE mansion? I thought you were the owner of this house."
"The owners, obviously, weren't here."
Shikamaru decided to butt in to ask and received information, "Do they still come back?"
"Yeah, they'd left me a note or a message personally delivered by their messenger, when they would come back."
"Is it really ok, mister, if we stay here?" Shikamaru asked.
"Yeah. I think they wouldn't mind considering your situation. In any case, have you all eaten your dinner or something?"
"No, we haven't." Neji answered.
"Oh, so I'll make you dinner."
"That's too much sir!" Ino embarrassingly retorted, still tugging Shikamaru's sleeves.
Wakku just smiled back at the girl, "It's ok, little one. It feels good to help kids like you. After an hour, maybe, you can all go downstairs, then right. Ok? Now feel at home while I take care of the dinner." Without being stopped by the teenagers, the man started to walked off.
They watched the old man's back retreating in the darkness. Now that they're all alone in the hallway, being surrounded by four doors, they're yet to decide how to separate the group to occupy all the rooms. But like Neji and Shikamaru said, they should stick together. They were strangers in this house and the man was their stranger. They haven't give him their full trust.
"...What do we do now?" Tenten asked after a full five minutes of silence.
Neji looked around. Other than the hallway, the whole place has turned into darkness. There were windows to receive light from the lightnings outside the mansion. The place was dull. There were no paintings suspended in the walls, nor small chandeliers to aid anyone in the place. Just said earlier, the house was abandoned, only the caretaker himself was living in this place.
"Why don't we look at each room and decide if we're gonna separate or not." Shikamaru finally suggested as he received nods from his friends.
Ino started walking to the door with Tenten in tow. She felt her hands shivering while reaching out the doorknob and she knew that Tenten could feel her troubles...perhaps, fear. She looked into Tenten's eyes and to give her the signal, Tenten just nodded and drew closer to her. Finding courage, she gulped all her fears and rotated the doorknob...
Naruto was about to approach the door, meters away from where Ino and Tenten were standing, when a tug made him paused. When he turned his head over his shoulder, he saw his short blue-haired Hinata shyly standing behind him.
"Hinata-chan?" Naruto turned around to face her.
"Na-Naruto-kun... I...ah.. I'm a little scared..." Hot cheeks started to show on her cheeks.
"Don't worry, Hinata-chan." He flashed his foxy-grin, "As long as I'm here, there's nothing to fear!"
Felt relieved from the encouragement that Naruto provided for her, she smiled at him and let him opened the door in front of them...
Neji and Shikamaru started walking towards the door just the opposite direction of where Ino and Tenten walked to. Shikamaru was walking ahead of Neji. Neither both of them have spoken after the group's conversation just a minute ago. They were observing the whole area with slightly strange feeling. They both have seconds thoughts on this area, but still, they proceeded, well, they don't have choice, do they?
"Hey Shikamaru." Neji suddenly spoke when Shikamaru was about to rotate the doorknob.
"What is it?" Shikamaru lazily answered, with his back still facing Neji.
"Are we really suppose to stay in this place?"
"Where should we go after we get out of here?" Neji didn't answer him so Shikamaru thought of adding something, "Besides, we're lost, are we not?"
"That seems strange. Don't you agree?"
Shikamaru nodded and rotated the doorknob slowly...
Ever since they've saw the mansion, Sakura was acting strange. She rarely spoke though before, it was either she or Shikamaru who does the talking. She didn't pound Naruto's head when he started banging the door and throwing foul languages at the door not minding if there was an occupant or none. And most of the time, she was just trembling behind him. What's wrong with her?
Sasuke started walking to the opposite direction of Naruto and Hinata. He didn't mind whether he was going to check the room all by himself but on a second thought, he knew that Sakura would follow his tracks. While going to the door, he came to a stop, knowing that nobody was walking behind him. He turned around only to see Sakura standing absent-mindedly in the middle.
"Oi, Sakura." He called out but the girl didn't move as if it didn't reach her senses.
"Sakura." He called once again but with slightly annoyed tone. Still the girl didn't move.
He decided to walk closer to her and shake her.
"W-what?" Finally coming back to her senses, she was rather startled when she realized that Sasuke was holding her shoulders.
"You're acting strange." Sasuke spat when he pulled back his hands.
"H-huh? Me?"
He sighed in defeat and maybe doesn't want to give her explanations about it, "Come with me, we're gonna check a room."
"Ah. Okay." She followed Sasuke's trail.
Now that Sasuke was facing the door, he reached out for the doorknob, slowly rotating it and they heard a click sound...
[To be continued]
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[SDA]
A/N: I don't think I'll be able to put some humor stuff here. Well, in that case, I'll have to renew the Genre . I have watched The Phone, so to add a shrill horror in this fic, I've finally had another idea. About the mansion... well you should just imagine the mansion as big as the mansion at the Haunted Mansion movie, or maybe the Zaoldyeck's mansion except the whole territory ok? I said that there wouldn't be an OC, but as you may see, the OC here was the caretaker, perhaps for now. And... the chapters are surprisingly short... isn't it?