Title: Haunting
Genre: AU/Supernatural/Horror
Theme: Soul, Week #24
Word Count: 961
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Summary: A ghostly figure breathes down your neck: Do you believe in what you cannot see?
The house was old and it smelled of mildew and mothballs. A rat skittered through the empty room; its tiny claws made a soft scraping sound against the decayed wood floor. The house creaked and groaned like an old man with rheumatism or arthritis. Every creak seemed more prolonged than the last, the tap of a dead tree branch against a dirty window made it sound as if someone were desperately trying to get into the dilapidated old building.
Kohaku hated these kinds of dares, the ones where you had to stay the night in some creepy old house. He shivered as a cold night breeze blew right through the thin blanket he had brought with him. It was strange for the breeze to be chill, for it had been a hot summer day in Tokyo only a few hours before, but Kohaku thought nothing of it as his eyes tried to pierce the surrounding gloom.
Why had he let himself get conned into this by his friends? Well, they had all done it before him; he was the only one that had put it off with excuse after excuse. It wasn't that he was a coward, only that he did not trust what lay waiting in the dark. Sinister shapes grew from simple objects in the moonlight; the stars twinkled in a deceivingly happy manner, calming the troubled spirit of the victim before some unknown creature mauled him. There was simply too much that the darkness hid in its smothering depths, and such secrets made him jittery.
Unable to sleep, he shifted about uncomfortably on the mossy wooden floor. The room he was in was old, considerably old. There were very few western objects in the house – or at least so far as he had seen – and what was about was either broken or so out-of-date that there was no hope of it working correctly any longer. Kohaku wondered to himself how long the building had been abandoned. He could not remember a time when the windows were not broken, when the house did not creak and sigh sadly, when long green vines did not creep up its sides. Hadn't it always been this way? Just this sad, lonely, depressed old house left empty for an eternity?
There was a giggle and the light steps of a child reverberated against the wood. He saw a streak of something orange and black race past the broken shouji door, teetering and giggling merrily. It was a little girl! Kohaku jumped, what was a little girl doing in this place? Didn't she have any sense at all? She could be hurt!
"Hey!" He got to his feet and hurriedly ran after her, forgetting his blanket and shoes still in the room. The girls form raced around a corner and out of sight, in the distance he could still hear her laughter. Taking off after her, he called out again and again, but the child only laughed louder.
He turned corners and dashed through rooms, eventually coming to the backyard. The little girl was still giggling, crouched near some flowers as fireflies danced around her head. Her back was to him still; it was as if she couldn't hear a word he had said.
"Hey, little girl," Kohaku said, gasping for breath as he jumped off the porch into the tall grass in the yard and made his way toward her. "Hey, it's dangerous here, you should go home."
The girl turned toward him with wide, unbelieving eyes, her mouth slightly ajar. Kohaku perfectly mimicked her shock as the hand he had been about to place on her shoulder had slid through her, sending a chill up his spine. His mouth opened wider, his eyes bulging as he stared at his hand, halfway into the little girl's shoulder.
The girl had a different reaction to this though, grabbing his wrist tightly in her chilled hands and smiling brightly. "Are you here to play with me?" She asked excitedly.
He now saw her for what she was, a ragged little girl, her messy black hair pulled into a weird, lop-sided pony-tail on the side of her head, her orange and yellow kimono was dirty and torn and her large brown eyes were shimmering palely. He could see right through her.
Kohaku choked on his words and blinked, not sure if he was seeing things or not. When he opened them again, the little girl was gone, though there was still the cold feeling of some clasping his wrist. Gathering his wits some, Kohaku sped back into the freakish house, ready to gather up his belongings and head home.
He could have handled spending the night in the creaking old house, but that little girl…He shivered, rubbing at his wrist as he came to the door to the room he had been sitting in a few minutes before. Ghosts, he had never really believed in them…
He stopped abruptly, his foot falling with a heavy thud as he saw a tiny white girl standing over his blanket, watching him coolly. Her pitch-black eyes froze him to the spot, they seemed so lifeless. The mirror in her hands shone with moonlight, flashing and capturing his pale, shocked face in its gleaming surface.
"Give me your soul," the girl whispered. There was a flash as a pair of red eyes looked at him from within the mirror, a cold smirk on the twisted face. A harsh cackle filled his ears as he felt something being pulled from his body.
A scream rose through the night, riding on the warm summer breezes. The moon shimmered in the heavens at the sound and the stars giggled knowingly, continuing to soothe those that were frightened by the voices in the night.