(Something about this chapter, it's going to be in both sides of Reiko's and Michiko's occurrences in the mansion. Hopefully it won't be too confusing. At least, not confusing reading wise, the storyline is confusing, yep. But that's how I want it. I want to confuse people. It's fun.)

Enter Chapter 2:

Michiko is helpless. Her sister's missing or worse and she has no way of finding her. No one is alive in the mansion, so how can she get any help? Although there is one ghost willing to help the defenseless girl to get her sister and leave alive. Michiko has to learn to trust someone who's died almost over 20 years ago...

Reiko is lost, far away from her sister. She scolds herself for leaving Michiko behind and with the lady after her; she finds that she shouldn't have done it. And to make matters worse, Reiko can see the ghosts in the mansion, she doesn't know how she can or why, but she can tell they don't want her to leave and will prevent her from trying to...


Chapter 2

Sadly, Michiko continued to look down at the floor, Reiko's note still in her hand. A noise from behind startled the teen. She peered around, but couldn't find the source. Shaking, Michiko stood up weakly and went behind the shade to open the door. A balcony was there. She went outside to get some air. The breeze was nice, not as cold as it was when they first came to the mansion. Michiko leaned lightly over the rail and looked down to the untended atrium. A building was there, two torii gates, and some type of walkway that led to another room across from her. She wiped her face and thought to herself, 'I have to look a mess. Tear stains, dirt and dust, how could Reiko have stayed so clean in here?' She smiled at the memory of Reiko when she waved the key in her face. How she laughed at how Michiko looked like she fell into dirt. 'Don't let anything bad have happened to her. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if anything did.' Saddened again, her head drooped down to her chest.

Just as she felt like crying again, the same soft clicking noise returned. She turned around quickly, but still saw nothing in the study room. She went back in and looked to her right. Another door was there, one that she didn't see before. Half expecting it to be locked too, she was surprised when it slid open effortlessly. Triumphantly she ran back to get her and Reiko's bags and went back to the door. Before going out into that walkway, she peered into a room across from it. The door was ripped and could be easily slipped into. Carefully, she slid through and stared in amazement at all the books. 'Maybe one has a book on the rituals here? Or one could tell me about what's happening here?' Abandoning her search for Reiko, Michiko observed the books in the small room.

In her search, she found four by the author Ryozo Munakata that seemed to be useful. Two were about a ritual of strangling and the other two were about blinding. She skimmed them through briefly and put them in her bag. Deciding none of the others would be helpful, she went through the opposite door. This walkway wasn't in that bad a condition. Nothing was broken or lying in the way to be climbed over. She noticed another large mirror and looked at it. 'What do these mirrors mean?' Michiko saw a small glimmer in the bottom corner and kneeled down to get it. As soon as she touched it, her vision became cloudy and everything was gray tinted, like in a movie from the early 1900's.

"What the-?" Michiko murmured. She looked back up at the mirror and saw the lady in the white kimono. She turned around, but no one was there. Shocked, she got up and backed away. "She's…in the mirror?"

The lady stood there and watched Michiko. She held her hand out and the mirror was tugging away until it finally snapped into many pieces. Michiko screamed and covered her face with her arms. The glass shards struck Michiko and she yelled louder. Then, the room went quiet. Michiko panted and her vision slowly went back to normal. She looked at her arms and saw no cuts or blood, and looking at the mirror she saw that it was how she came by to see it. No cracks, no chips, it almost looked brand new. Having enough, Michiko ran down the stairs and turned a corner. She opened the door and slammed it shut loudly behind her. Michiko stared at another shade that was right in front of her. It had some sort of design on it. The Himuro family's crest. Michiko leaned against the door and wrote some more notes in her memo book on what had happened.

She went behind the shade and saw a long table, filled in rows of some sort of tablets and candles. Michiko turned off her flashlight and sat down against the table and tried to catch her breath. Closing her eyes, the scene with the lady in the mirror replayed over and over. Michiko twitched at the memory and decided to play some music on Reiko's ipod. 'There better be some relaxing music on here,' she thought as she took it out of Reiko's bag. She smiled at that thought. 'Relaxing, right. It's Reiko, not mom and dad.' She searched for a good song and decided to listen to Tsukiko Amano, probably the only artist the both of them liked. The music calmed her nerves and soon after Michiko went to sleep.


Reiko jerked awake. Her eyes were blurry and every part of her body ached. The memory of the lady was still fresh in her mind and she tried to shake it away from her mind. She sat up and held her head. Screams echoed in her ears and no matter what she did they wouldn't get out. 'Why did I leave my ipod behind? It would seriously help now.' Reiko looked around at the dimly lit room. Dolls were everywhere in this room. A table on her left was filled with so many they almost looked squished to make room and a small table on her right had only a few, but they were slightly more beautiful.

Using the small table as leverage, she stood up heavily and leaned against it. Reiko looked at the ground for her flashlight, but remembered that she had dropped it in the rope hall. She had nothing with her now, how could she expect to get out of here? 'And what about Michiko? She has to be worried sick…if only my curiosity hadn't been piqued. I would have stayed with her. None of this would've happened.'

Reiko's eyes were still cloudy and it felt like she was colorblind. Everything was grainy. "Great," she muttered. "…I have no flashlight, no bag full of food or music, my head hurts like hell, and I'm blindish. Could this get any worse!"

Laughter reached her ears. It was better than hearing screaming, that was true, but it was a strange, high laughter, shrieking, childish. Reiko turned around to see a shelf and a worshipped white doll in a small alcove. The doll brought memories of the lady and Reiko shook her head to get the sight out. The laughter was louder now, and she held her hands to her ears to try and stop it but it still filtered through. A ball dropped from the highest shelf and tapped her boot. The laughter stopped, to Reiko's relief but that relief didn't last long. A small closet door opened underneath the shelves and a young child crawled out. Reiko backed away in surprise, but was even more surprised to see the color of the girl. Everything else was gray, white, or black, but this girl had on a red kimono, black hair, and normal color skin. The laughter came back and scared out of her wits; Reiko ran to the door behind her and slammed it shut.

The girl continued to laugh from behind the door. Reiko, confused and frightened ran away from the room and stopped at the entrance to the atrium as something caught her attention. In the upper left corner was a type of balcony. She edged forward slightly onto the first step and saw the bottom of a pale peach fabric above her.

"The malice," a voice echoed. "I have to…get away."

A quick silence and the voice screeched as the kimono swirled about her body, falling to the ground with sickening crunches and snaps. Reiko screamed again and saw in horror that the lady who jumped was rising to her feet, with her head held behind her. Reiko was frozen in horror, she tried to urge herself to move but her feet wouldn't obey. The woman came closer and Reiko could see how mangled her neck was. This sight made her come back to life again and she hurried to the nearest door, once again slamming it behind her. She put her hands on her knees to catch her breath. 'I'm never saying, 'Could this get any worse?' again,' she thought.

She looked around this room. A set of stairs was near the door, but there was a path beside them that she could see in another mirror. 'Stairs or the walkway? Would either of them be safer?' Reiko walked in front of the stairs and looked up. She didn't want to go there, she didn't know why but her mind was screaming at her to not go up there. At this point she didn't want to disagree with anything she felt. So she went around and pulled at the door nearest her. It was locked.

Reiko sighed. "Why can't every door be open here? Who even locked them? It's not like there's a keeper or something." She slammed her hand against the door in anger. "I hate this place. I frigging hate th-…" her voice trailed away as she heard someone else talk beside her.

"Tell Mr. Takamine…the way…to break the curse…"

Reiko turned to her left and saw a brief flash of a lady in a red blouse and black skirt walk down another turn in the hall. She hesitated after the image vanished, but where else could she go? She followed the way the lady had gone and, surprise, she reached another door. As she reached out to open it, the door swung back almost smacking her in the face. Reiko jumped back and fell to the floor.


Michiko yawned loudly and stretched her arms. She took out the ipod earphones she forgot were in her ears. As she took them out, they emitted a loud static. Michiko stared in wonder at the ipod. The static slowly changed into talking, but it was too low to hear even turned up all the way. Michiko put one piece into her ear and listened to the low murmuring.

"The ritual has failed…the Shrine Maiden could not fulfill her duties…Malice will come to the earth…if only there were another…"

"Ritual? Which one?" Michiko asked, remembering the books she found in the study. She latched the ipod onto her skirt with its small clip and put the other earphone in her ear after turning the small music player off. "This might help a bit. Now I can hear those…things. Maybe even that lady too so she won't surprise me like that."

"We're not things," a voice said. "And you won't be able to hear Kirie. Maybe her thoughts from the past…" his voice trailed.

Michiko looked up at the voice. A young man stood in front of her. His outline was a little blurry but he could have almost passed for human. She stared at him. 'Why does he look familiar?' The white shirt, black pants, messy hair…it reminded her of somebody. But she didn't care about that now.

"Why can I see you!" Michiko shouted. "Reiko and I, we don't have powers! Why can I see you!"

"Your sister doesn't have powers?" the man asked calmly. Michiko shook her head. "Maybe…that's not important now. You two have to get out!"

"No duh. How? The entrance is locked and I don't know where Reiko is!"

"She's not far. And for right now…she's alright." Michiko opened her mouth, but the man cut her off. "If I were you I'd be more worried about yourself. She can see them, you can't and the both of you are defenseless. With Kirie looking for both of you…it's only a matter of time before she chooses one of you."

"You're not making sense. Chooses one of us?" Michiko said, standing up. The man couldn't have been much older than her when he died. "Look, can you tell me what's going on here? This is very confusing."

"If you had time, I would. You need to get away from here…go to the moon shrine. It'll be safer there. For a little while anyway," the man stopped as if he had just remembered something. "Damn! That door's locked and Kirie's broke the seal. Where could you go?" he paused again in thought. Michiko wanted to yell at him, but he was helping her. She couldn't complain that much. "The anteroom. Go there."

"Anteroom? I have no idea where that is." Michiko groaned. Her wrists were starting to hurt for some reason. She looked down at them and saw the burns were coming back. The man looked down to see the problem and frowned.

"You already have the mark. Not good."

"Mark?"

"Look, follow my directions. Go to the anteroom. Go through that door," he pointed to the door behind Michiko. "…go across the walkway to a door at the end. There'll be stairs in that room, go up them. You'll see half a wall with bars in the center, go around there and open the small door. That's the anteroom. Got it?" Michiko nodded. "Don't worry about your sister; I'll try to get her there too. Now go! Now!" the man vanished.

Michiko scratched her head. 'Should I trust him? After all…' Her thought was interrupted when the ipod clicked on automatically. This voice came in louder; it was nearer than the other one.

"There's no one here…"

Michiko felt a chill. Deciding that anywhere was better than here, she ran to the door. The voice could still be heard outside, so Michiko kept running. She paused at the entrance to the atrium and looked around briefly. 'I saw this place upstairs.' With that thought she ran to the door across from her, up the stairs in there, around the wall, and she went through the small door. Michiko snapped it shut behind her and sat on the floor. She waited patiently for the man to come back, and tried to remember where she had seen him. 'He said that he'd bring Reiko back with him. That's good. I hope she's alright…'


Reiko stood up carefully and rubbed her thigh. 'That's going to leave a bruise,' she thought. She almost went through the door when she heard another door slam. It had to be the entrance door. Panicking, Reiko closed the door as quietly as she could and held it shut. When she faintly heard another one close, she let the handle go. She tuned around and saw the strangest room, by far, in this house. It reminded her of a huge aquarium. The whole room dripped and creaked. Reiko looked at the ground. It was slippery and the only way to the other islands was a thin strip of wood that could have been there for ages.

As fast and careful as she could, Reiko went over the first board. This was the only time she was glad her vision was grainy. The water below her smelled terrible, she was afraid to find out the actual color of it. She crossed the other two the same way she had done the first. Only when she reached the door did she feel something was nearby. Without hesitating she went through the door, not wanting to see another ghost. Reiko walked into some sort of garden and for some reason she was able to relax here. The air was nice; the only problem was that it had to be night because it was even harder for her to see clear outlines. She stumbled a few times before finding a door at the end by some stones that must have marked graves.

Reiko walked forward again, stumbling and once hitting a tree. She was glad to see some stairs, a minute later, which led to a small building at the top. She walked carefully up the stairs and reached the doors for the building. She pushed them open, stepped back in case they would swing back and try to hit her, and glanced inside. Here it was far harder to see, it was pitch black.

"Don't go in there!" a man shouted.

Reiko turned around just in time to see an outline before she was pushed into the dark room. The door slammed shut behind her, locking her in. Reiko gasped and pushed against them.

"Hey! Let me out!" she shouted, pounding on the door now. "Hey! Are you still out there? Help me out!"

Reiko kept pounding on the doors while the man outside tried to open them. "I can't!" he shouted to Reiko. "Kirie must have locked…!"

"Kirie? Who's that?" Reiko asked, she felt that the man was gone but she still called out. "Hey! Come back here!"

"He won't come back…"

Reiko turned around, dreading whose voice that it belonged to. She saw the lady in the white kimono standing in front of another mirror. 'That's Kirie?' Kirie walked in front of Reiko, stopping inches away from her again. Reiko was frozen in place again, terrified of what the lady was going to do to her. 'She has to be the one who gave me that power to see those ghosts,' she thought suddenly. 'When she grabbed my arm…' At the thought of when Kirie grabbed her arm, the sudden pain came back and she whined. Kirie smiled at her pain and grabbed the other arm.

"You'll suffer…just as I have…"


Ta-da! End of chapter 2. Told you I'd have it done by tomorrow! That's how much free time I have. Well, I'm not sure if any questions were answered in this one. scratches head The next one should definitely answer some.