An overnight stay
The RoomsDwelling somewhere in the darkness, a shivering voice could be heard. Matching the cold breeze coming out of the window, all chills might struck anyone who could feel and hear it. When it stopped, a sound of a lifted object was heard. Then there was another sound of a lifted object, but the difference would be a sharp, piercing sound as if the object just slid from something hard, smooth and solid... like of a metal.
Out of nowhere, a low succession of breathings could be heard. The period was too short that you would recognize that the person was in state of either nervousness or excitement.
Soon after a thunder lightning crackled outside...
And a demented laugh could be heard.
------------------------------
Walking in the center of a small hallway, Shikamaru lead the group of boys to find out the mystery of both the mansion and the caretaker. Holding his own flashlight to guide his way, he narrowed his eyes as if focusing only to one direction. Just right behind him was Neji. The oldest teenager have his own eyes focusing not only to one place, but to the whole place. He, too, has his own flashlight to observe everything in the hallway.
Marching at Shikamaru's left side was the black haired boy. As curious and protective he had been, he brought himself with them to find out why the man was staring to his friend... or his 'something else'. He disposed the fright that he should be feeling at this moment just to find out the real reason. After all, he had been protecting Sakura and it was natural for him to feel so angry from what he had just heard from Neji. He knew Neji wasn't playing pranks on him, that boy never did, so he decided to come.
Naruto, who only came because he knew any minute that they will be coming down for the dinner the old man offered to them. However, this aim was changed only a little after figuring out what his comrades had been feeling. One of his friends would be in grave danger if they didn't find the reason of why he was looking at her and why he was too friendly to them. Although frightened because of the total darkness, he held out his flashlight and struck the floor to see where he was heading.
They had been quiet while walking the corridor. Only the rain could be heard from the other side of the walls and also the thud sounds of their feet against the floor. Other than those, everything was silent.
After some walks, Shikamaru stopped. And the rest did so. Shikamaru tilted his head a little for them to see some view of his face and to know that he's about to tell them something.
"There's only one room in this corridor. Aside from it, there's another small corridor on both sides." He pointed to his right by his index finger, then to the left. "I don't know if there would be other rooms. So, which one should we open?"
There was a short silence but sooner, Neji had finally came up with a decision.
"Why don't we separate and look for the other rooms? We can save time by doing that." He said.
"If so, I'll check this one." Shikamaru decided, leaving the three to decide where they would go.
Neji wheeled his head to the right where he could see only darkness. "Then I'll go that way."
Shikamaru turned around to talk to the remaining two boys, "Sasuke, you go to the left. And Naruto--"
"I'll go with Sasuke." Naruto grinned.
Sasuke glared Naruto for choosing to accompany him, "Scaredy cat. Just stay here."
Naruto glared him back, "Bastard! I'm not scared! Besides, it was just an assumption that there would only be three rooms in each end of the corridors!"
Shikamaru butted in to stop the argument, "We have fifteen minutes to observe, after that, we'll meet in this area. If something happened, just give a ring." (Yes, they all have their own cellphones. This is the modern time.)
After hearing the instructions, Sasuke started walking to the left, to where he was destined to go.
Shikamaru started walking straight to approach the door and Neji, to the dark corridor where he would have to search for something. So as to this moment, Naruto was standing at the intersection -- alone. He flared up.
"Hey Sasuke!! Don't leave me!!"
------------------------------
Tenten stiffened in her place.
"What's wrong Tenten?" Hinata asked.
She looked at Hinata and back to the door, "I think I just heard the other door opened and then closed."
"Might be the boys' room. Probably they went out without us." Ino declared while combing her hair as she was sitting comfortably at the bed.
"They're mean if they did. I mean why would they go without us?" Tenten countered, sounding a little annoyed.
"I don't know." Was her reply.
And again, Sakura had been so quiet the entire time. The rest of the girls decided that maybe she was really thinking something so deeply and that she doesn't want anyone to mess up with her during that time. However, deep inside Sakura, the odd feeling did not even left her. Something's not really right...
For example, she felt that she's been watched from a distance. The heavy feeling of being watched was too intense that she had finally found where she's going to look at. Slowly wheeling her head to the old dresser mirror, she noticed the blurry and foggy vision of a young version of herself looking back at her. Although there wasn't supposed to be an image of herself since the mirror was far from her (not even in front of her), there was the image... of 'her'.
'How in the world...' She would asked while narrowing her eyes to be able to sharpen the image in the mirror.
However, the image disappeared as fast as it appeared.
And she was stunned with her obviously shocked expression.
"Sakura?" One of the girls asked, looking very anxious to her friend.
But Sakura didn't answer nor looked back at them, instead, she bolted out of the room... extremely terrified.
"Sakura!!"
------------------------------
Entering the forbidden room in the mansion, Neji still couldn't resist himself to explore what's inside the mansion and what was really going on. When he separated himself from the boys, he immediately walked off to his chosen exploring area. However, before he could open the door right in front of him, he felt a very very strange feeling creeping around the atmosphere that he needed to pause every minute to observe what he was feeling. Not so soon, he would resume walking until he was standing right in front of the door. He observed the wrecked wooden door with a rusty doorknob.
He trusts his instincts very often that he immediately entered the room by turning the doorknob and pushing the door very slowly.
'Why do I have this feeling that there's something going on in this house?' He thought nonetheless entered the room anyway.
The sound of his slow footsteps against the floor could be heard every now and then. While holding his trusty flashlight, he didn't miss all the things he wanted to see. He would thrust the flashlight from left to right to see everything inside.
Not so long that he stopped observing what was to his left and to his right when something caught his white-pearl eyes.
He stood there for a couple of seconds with his flashlight almost thrusting what he was looking at.
Maybe he needed to collect courage before he could straighten the level of his equipment to lighten what he was really looking at.
And when he did, he froze.
There was an old huge portrait of a family consisting of a mother, father and girl. But he wasn't really focusing to the parents, but was really stunned when he locked his gaze to the daughter.
'No...way...'
------------------------------
"Damn it. This place gives me the creeps." Naruto would comment as if trying to hide the nervousness inside of him.
"Shut up, dobe." Was Sasuke's counter to keep Naruto's voice down so that the caretaker won't hear them.
They've been walking for about three minutes until they ended up in a dark dead end. It was not a dead end actually, there was a door the thing is the door won't budge. And this made Sasuke frustrated. He thought that they would just go back and tell Shikamaru and tell him they couldn't open the door. But remembering what Neji said to him made him broke the urge to go back. And so, they ended up experimenting how to open the door.
Prying as if trying to end all this things, Naruto examined the door and found out that there's a keyhole underneath the doorknob. He walked until he was standing in front of it and bowed down to level his eyes to the keyhole.
'Idiot. You won't see anything from the other side.' Sasuke commented and smirked at his' friend's actions.
However, he noticed that Naruto had been crouching too long. It turned out that there was something from the other side. He could, somehow, feel it, too.
"Oi Naruto, stop peeking from that keyhole. Let's go back."
Naruto didn't answer, instead, he slowly regained his posture and turned to Sasuke. His eyes were wide as if surprised, shocked or whatsoever.
"What?" Irritated because of his' expression.
"Sa...sa...S-sakura."
Through her name, he immediately crouched down and peeked from the keyhole.
There was nothing in the room, however, as the lightning struck outside the room, giving a little light inside the room... Sasuke froze.
'This cannot be.'
------------------------------
Observing everything inside by the use of his flashlight, Shikamaru assured that he had entered the master's bedroom. It was just too big and too elegant but everything was covered with white fabric.
'There's nothing here... So I guess...'
When he was about to leave, there was something from the dresser mirror that caught his eyes. The drawer was slightly pulled out and then there was a silver thing peeking out from it. Without second thoughts, he went to it.
Flashing the light to the things he could see, he saw an open notebook tempting him to read it's content. When he lifted the notebook, he immediately saw the date from the upper right page.
This must be a journal.
He took the journal to his left hand while fixing the flashlight from his right hand. He placed the journal to the desk and started reading the page where he saw it open.
After a full forty seconds of reading, he froze.
"Shit."
[To be continued]
-------------------------------
[SDA]
A/N: I'm sorry for the late..yes very late update! I have tons of plates to be done and right now, I have to steal my own time to entertain you guys... (hey thanks for reviewing huh? I am so happy!! I do hope I could reach 20 reviews from here... wahhh) Anyway, this story wouldn't take that long I'm almost at the end of it. I'm so guilty when I get back online (pRO)... I really wanted to go back writing!! As in ONLY writing and reading fanfics! Oh well, after a month of suffering, I could, FINALLY, focus to my stories (the unfinished ones). Better wait for the next chapter ok?