Sephiroth and Ansem came down to breakfast late, stretching to work the kinks out of their backs.
"Well, look who's up," Yuffie said nastily, hunched over her coffee cup, which read 'Shut up and pour!' "Morning, Sleeping Beauties." Ansem glared at her as he and Sephiroth sat down between Marluxia and Namine.
"Nothing much left," Leon said, tossing some slices of toast at them.
"Why didn't you save some for us?" Sephiroth grumbled, munching on the toast. "Or at least wake us?" Leon shrugged.
"We were gonna wake you, but Axel and Zexion said not to," Riku said, almost apologetically. Ansem glared at them.
"Why were you guys in their room anyway?" Aerith asked. Ansem didn't reply, but Sephiroth promptly said, "Drafts." Aerith shrugged and returned to her book. Cloud started lobbing bits of cereal at her.
"Quit reading at the table," he said. Aerith glared at him, and chucked bacon rinds at him. The others left the table before it developed into a full-flung food fight. (1)
Ansem and Sephiroth headed up to their room, wary of the thing that had suddenly started appearing to them. They found their room empty, and sighed. Ansem sank down on the bed.
"What is this thing, Sephiroth?" he asked.
"I have no idea," Sephiroth said mournfully as he sat down next to Ansem. They remained silent for a few minutes. Then the sound of crashing plates resounded, but they didn't do anything, expecting to hear Yuffie yelling at Zexion for dropping a plate. What they heard instead was a scream.
"Yaaaahh! What the hell is that?"
It was not Yuffie's angry voice, but Aerith's frightened one. Ansem and Sephiroth sprang up and raced down to the kitchen, fearing the apparition had put in a return appearance. They arrived to find Aerith back up against the sink, a horrified expression on her face and several shattered dishes next to her. Ansem whipped around in the direction she was staring in, but saw nothing. Cloud arrived then and wrapped his arms around her as she started sobbing.
"What happened?" Vexen asked. By now everyone had crowded around her. She was still on the floor, and Cloud still held her.
"I don't know," Aerith sniffled. "I was putting dishes in the sink when I heard someone say my name. I turned, and this horrible thing was standing there! I don't know what it was. It looked like a monk with his hood pulled up. It raised its arms, but it didn't have hands! Just bloody stumps!" She broke down sobbing again. Vexen, Ansem, Sephiroth, Yuffie, and Leon all moved into the dining room. The others were still trying to comfort Aerith.
"Well?" Vexen said.
"Well what?" Yuffie replied.
"What the hell happened?" Vexen snapped.
"Aerith saw something that scared her. Badly," Leon said.
"Yes, but can she be believed?" Vexen questioned. "Have any of us seen anything? No."
"Are you saying she made it up?" Yuffie snarled. "Why would Aerith make that up? And don't say she's mad," she warned as Vexen opened his mouth to speak. "Aerith is very sane, which is more than we can say for you."
"So what did she see, then? A ghost?" Vexen scoffed. The three began arguing heatedly. Ansem and Sephiroth looked at each other.
"Hey! HEY!" Ansem yelled. The others stopped arguing and looked at them. "We've seen something too."
Vexen snorted, but Yuffie gave him a look and he didn't say anything.
"I didn't see what she saw. It probably disappeared when she yelled. However, I did see something in our room yesterday. A sort of foggy thing, with no real shape. Then, last night, both Sephiroth and me saw something that resembled a human torso with no arms or legs in Axel and Zexion's room. Sephiroth saw something as well, but he hasn't spoken of it," Ansem said, looking at Sephiroth.
"It was the same thing we saw in Axel and Zexion's room," he said.
"Ridiculous!" Vexen cried. "You all honestly think this place is haunted? You're all mad!"
And with that, he stormed out of the room.
After that, things quieted down for about a week. Then, on a Saturday evening, Larxene heard an earsplitting whistle down in the basement. Hands pressed over her ears, she ventured down to the basement. She flicked on the light. Numerous cloth-covered furniture items sat where they had been left. Nothing was different. Larxene frowned; then realized the whistling stopped.
She took her hands off her ears and moved farther into the basement. She looked around, and saw something out of the corner of her eye. She turned, and saw something flitting behind a shelf. She moved over to investigate, and saw a pair of eyeballs floating in midair. She screamed, and raced back upstairs. She promptly collided with Marluxia, who got the story out of her.
Sora, Riku, and Sephiroth all headed over to the shelves in question, gripping their respective weapons tightly. Sephiroth heaved the shelves back; the others braced themselves, and saw…
…Absolutely nothing.
Nonetheless, everyone was tense, wary of a high-pitched whistling. No one ever went down in the basement. Ansem and Sephiroth started keeping logs of the strange activity. However, nothing more happened for some time.
A month later, Namine went to feed her hamsters. As she went to turn on the light in the room she shared with Larxene, she heard a high-pitched keening. Warily, she flicked on the light and screamed.
Three of her four hamsters were dead, necks broken and abdomens torn open. The remaining one had a deep gash in its side and was bleeding profusely. The cage was locked, and only Namine knew where the key was, as she hid it in different places all the time.
Namine hurriedly grabbed the surviving hamster, and rushed downstairs, demanding that someone drive her to the vet. Aerith instantly got up and grabbed the keys to her Chevy. Even Vexen looked shaken as he examined the dead hamsters.
"Someone must've… must've killed them," he said uncertainly. "Someone in this house."
Larxene slapped him. "Who would've killed her hamsters, you oaf?" she shrieked. "None of us had anything against her! None of us know where the key is!" She and Vexen didn't speak for some time. Ansem and Sephiroth wrote it down.
Aerith and Namine returned a few hours later. The hamster was sleeping, via sedative. It had stitches in its side. However, a few days later, Namine found it flopping in the cage as though something was strangling it. She screamed, and the hamster squeaked as its neck snapped.
She raced downstairs and flung herself into Larxene's arms.
"I'm not sleeping in there anymore!" she proclaimed after telling her story. Vexen had remained silent throughout the entire thing.
The next day, Ansem found Marluxia lying in a heap at the floor of the stairs. He hurriedly called Sephiroth over, and the two got him to the hospital in Sephiroth's pickup.
"I saw this light, and I tried to catch it to see what was it was. It moved down the stairs, so I followed, but something tripped me and I fell down the stairs. I hit my head on the floor, and that's all I remember," Marluxia said once he regained consciousness, sitting up in his hospital bed. The surgeon had diagnosed him with a mild concussion and a cracked skull, as well as a sprained ankle.
"It's like something grabbed his ankle and twisted it," the doctor said, shaking his head. Marluxia remained at the hospital that night.
The next morning, Vexen volunteered to bring Marluxia back, after admitting he had no idea what was causing these occurrences.
"I never found Marluxia prone to extravagant tales," he said. "I don't doubt his word. That, coupled with the doctor's report, leads me to believe something is happening in this house. But I do not think it's ghosts, and I will hold firm to that until proven otherwise!"
The next day, something unseen dislocated Vexen's arm by pulling on it.
-
Hehehe… this is just too much fun to write… Wow, they have funny cars. Sephiroth has a pickup, Aerith has a Chevy, and Leon has a microbus! XD
(1) Say that four times fast!