I realize that my chapters are growing shorter, and so I have adjusted my goals to 1200 words each. Therefore, there will be a lot more chapters than I planned. (Heh, there hasn't been much planning.

Read and Review please, and enjoy.

A Different Reason

Chapter Three

On a second glance, it really wasn't that bad. The entire face resembled a poorly made paper mache dog. The eyes were abnormally large and protruding from the head and the tongue was lagging out several feet. It was not normal looking â€" the tongue was an uneven spread of black with some boils ruining the otherwise smooth surface. The fur was matted and missing in places and the ears were of different lengths.

"Hiya darling." The monstrosity drooled onto the windowsill. Kagome kept as calm as she could under the circumstances, and punched it in one eye. It howled, and fell backwards. Kagome leaned out to see what had happened, and promptly shut the window a second later. The dog had been blocking the presence of many other apparitions, each uglier than the next. When it fell, it had gone straight through some of the others. Perhaps their substance wasn't really there.

Debating with herself whether to close the curtains or not, she finally just turned out of the room, and looked in the rooms for a handy weapon. Finding none, she turned to the stairs.

Thundering down the stairs, she burst into the party room.

"We have to get help or something! There's something outside, and it doesn't look friendly! Or, should I say, they don't look friendly!" Kagome shouted into the murmur of voices. She got everyone's attention. Several boys, Hojo included, peered out the window.

"I don't see anything." Kagome rushed to the window and jumped back immediately. Another face was pressed to the glass, smiling unpleasantly.

"What! Are you telling me that you see nothing?"

"Nope, nothing. Not even smoke or something. Kagome...is this some kind of joke?" Hojo answered patiently for them. They looked at her as if she had gone insane, or was playing a horrible trick.

Her mother looked out casually.

"Honey, the only thing I see is..." she shook her head, "well, they would be heat waves, but at the moment, there is a lack of heat." She looked out again. "Well, I guess that was my imagination. There's nothing now."

"Where's Souta?" Kagome asked. She had by now realized that she was the only one who could see the monsters clearly. They were pressing in, and she needed to know if they were real or not.

Mrs. Higurashi frowned, and thought. "I think that he's outside, in the well house again. He's been there a lot lately..." before she could interrogate Kagome, Souta ran in, panting and scared.

"Kagome, they're coming, they came from that pot, they're scary,-" Souta gasped. He was cut off by an incredible crash of glass and wood. They all saw his mouth moving, but the crash had deafened them. Suddenly, above the clamor a shriek pierced the atmosphere. It had come from their grandpa.

Kagome ran to her grandpa, only to find that he was bleeding at the throat already. As she looked around, horrified, the guests were butchered one by one by the unseen forces. As one headed for her and Souta, she grabbed a plate of candies and hurled it at its head. It went straight through, and the demon grinned evilly as it advanced.

It soon became obvious that Kagome and Souta were the objects of the attack. Whenever they passed by another unfortunate victim, the demon mutilating the person would turn and begin following them. In this way, they accumulated quite a mob following close behind them.

Their legs failing, outside seemed to be a better place than inside.

Kagome and Souta ran to the well house and jumped down the well, pursued by many demons. They headed for the small 'cave', the only sanctuary they could comprehend at the moment. A dark blue light flashed several times, and their pursuers were disintegrated. Somehow, whenever they tried leaping down after them, they were destroyed. Soon, they grew a bit smarter and stopped trying. However, just because their main prey was inaccessible, didn't mean that they couldn't have fun.

A brutal massacre followed.

They huddled there together, for an endless span of time. Now and then, screams could be heard. Each time, they silently comforted each other.

After a time, Kagome grew bold enough to search for a light. When she couldn't find it, in a surge of courage, she climbed back out of the well. It was dawn, and the ground was as red as the sky. Human body parts were scattered around. She identified her mother's body, and began weeping again. Strangely, the monsters seemed to have left a while ago. There were no signs of living creatures, not a cricket chirped in the deathly silence.

When a soft clank sounded before her, she whipped around, eyes already searching for a weapon. She relaxed when she saw what it was.

Souta had climbed up after her, and she hurried to cover his eyes. However, he pushed her hand away, and stared with dry eyes. Kagome worried about this lack of tears, but decided that now was not the time to wonder why.

Kagome picked up a fragment of a once antique chair, and broke it in half. It was still as long as her arm; and she gave the other half to Souta.

"Kagome? Shouldn't we be scavenging or something?" asked Souta suddenly, picking up a candle and a packet of matches. Kagome looked back, and nodded. She headed upstairs to her room.

'The well is the one place they weren't able to get us...in that case, we better stow our things there.' Kagome thought as she began packing general clothing from her and Souta's rooms into a few bags. As she staggered down the stairs, she was shocked once again when Souta popped in front of her with a toolbox filled with potential weapons.

"Ummm...Souta? Since when do we keep an archery set in the house?" she asked uncertainly. He looked down at the bow and arrows, and shrugged.

"I found this under the power bench." He said emotionlessly. Kagome looked­­ into Souta's unblinking eyes. She looked away first. Who was this stranger?

They decided to stay in the well house, since it was obvious that they couldn't be in the open. Kagome had decided to walk along the street, and she had peered into some of the houses. Each had contained an array of butchered people. It was enough for more than a lifetime's worth of nightmares.

As night approached, the darkness spread all around. The streetlights weren't on, and neither were the traffic lights. It was as if the world had died-which was a pretty likely possibility. Or, if not, it had faded into a ghost version of itself. It was vaguely comforting that the city had not been shrouded in a dense fog, as so often happened in times of mass death.

They had tried to turn on several of the electric appliances. None worked. They had tried to use many things, but quite obviously, none worked.

"Let's call it a night, Souta." Kagome said tiredly.

They crawled back down the well, and into their sleeping bags. Surprisingly, they slept soundly...at least until the next day. From then on, a good night's rest would last for 4 hours at the most.

School's starting, and the computer is drifting away...not many frequent updates, for those of you who follow. Perhaps once a month for each of my better stories (which are like non-existant).

Another editing comment-these paragraph things I used to use DON'T WORK ANYMORE!

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