Chapter 4: Mujou
Everyone split up to search the cabin for T.K. After several minutes of looking, they began drifting back to the living room empty handed.
"Any sign of him?" Cody asked when Yolei walked in.
"No. I looked all around upstairs. I even looked in the closets."
"Maybe he went outside."
A distant rumble of thunder seemed to counter this supposition. The rain began to fall harder.
"I don't think so," Yolei stated.
Kari and Tai returned to the room. Kari's hair was wet. "I looked around outside. No sign of him."
A burst of lightning and louder clap of thunder shocked the room. A moment later, the electricity went out. The only light in the room came from the window and the low orange spits of flame from the dying embers of the fire, which flickered threateningly in the wind blowing down the chimney.
"Oh great. This is just what we need," Yolei complained.
Ken and Mimi came back and reported finding no trace of T.K.
Tsukiyo and Izzy came in a minute later with a box of warped candles and miscellaneous jars and teacups to use as candle holders.
After a few minutes, those in the room began to look around nervously. Tai was just about to ask where everyone was when Davis walked in.
He looked around in confusion. "Where's Tora?"
"He isn't back yet," Yolei answered.
"We were looking around in the kitchen when I decided to look outside. I thought he was right behind me, but when I came back in he wasn't there."
"Matt isn't back, either," Mimi pointed out.
Izzy frowned. "One person missing is understandable, but three indicates something strange is going on here."
"They have to be somewhere," Tsukiyo reasoned. "We should look for them again. They could be out in the woods, or they could have come back and are somewhere we've already looked. Someone should stay here in case they come back."
"Are you sure that's a good idea? Maybe we should stick together," Tai suggested.
"We'll have a better chance of finding them if we split up."
"And a better chance of whatever happened to them happening to us," Tai argued.
Tsukiyo looked unconvinced, but nodded. "But someone should stay here. Would you do that, Cody?"
"Because I'm the youngest?"
"Obviously," Tai said.
"That's age discrimination!" he protested.
"You have a point," said Tsukiyo. "Davis, you stay."
"Why?"
"You're the digidestined of courage, aren't you? If someone is going to stay in an empty cabin alone with the power out, it should be you."
"Okay," he agreed.
So Davis stayed in the living room as the others went outside to search the woods. After a few minutes in the dark, quiet house, he began to regret staying behind. It was creepy. Not that he wasn't used to creepy, but usually he had Veemon with him. Veemon always made things seem brighter.
He heard something, a scratching sound. He looked out the window, but there was nothing outside. It sounded like it was coming from inside the house. He looked around, took a candle into the hall, looked through the kitchen, but found nothing to explain the noise. He decided he imagined it.
The group walked through the woods, shivering in the cold and trying not to think about the lightning. Every half minute or so, they called out the names of their missing friends. After about fifteen minutes, they decided to check back at the house. But when they got to the living room, Davis was gone.
"Davis?" Tai said. "Where are you?"
They began looking around the house.
"Davis, this isn't funny. Come out," Kari called.
They heard the stairs creak and ran into the hallway.
Davis was coming down the stairs. "Chill, guys. I just went upstairs for a minute."
The relieved searchers prepared to go back outside when they noticed another absence. "Has anyone seen Mimi?" Tai asked.
"She was with us when we came in," Kari said.
"Did anyone notice her leave or hear anything?" asked Tsukiyo.
They looked around the house for her. As they made their way up the stairs, Yolei suddenly stopped. "Did anyone hear that?"
"Hear what?" Tai asked.
"I thought I heard a...rustling sound, like crinkling leaves."
They all paused to listen. The house became eerily silent.
"I guess I imagined it." They continued up the stairs. "I wish we could rule out monsters like normal people could," Yolei said. "This whole region is supposed to be a weak point between worlds. Maybe something came through."
"Do you think it could be Daemon?" Kari asked.
"Maybe not Daemon. How could he know where we are? Besides, he can travel between the worlds whenever he wants, and he would probably attack us all at once."
They found nothing upstairs, but when they gathered to go back downstairs they noticed Tai was gone.
"What is going on here?" Tsukiyo wondered aloud.
They went out the front door to look on the terrace. There was no one there, but Ken lingered behind when the others went back inside. He noticed a pair of shoes by the door. Judging by their size and style, he concluded they were Tora's, and they were dry, which meant Tora had never left the house.
Davis returned to the living room. Cody chose to stay with him to keep him company. Everyone else went out the kitchen door to search the woods again. Ken would have joined them, but in the kitchen he slipped, landing hard on the cold wooden floor. He fumbled around in the dark, trying to find what he slipped on. His hands found a patch of water on the floor. At first, he thought someone must have spilled something, but he couldn't imagine why someone would have been carrying water. Then he realized the floor was colder at that spot, which had caused water in the air to condense on it. Air, he knew, lost heat faster than ground, which was why roads over bridges could be icy even when the rest of the road wasn't. He hypothesized that there was air under the floor at that spot. He slid his fingers over the floor until it came to a crack, then followed along the crack until the crack widened enough for fingers to fit; he found a handhold carved into the side of the floorboard. He lifted away the trap door, revealing a hatch. A dull light glinted off metal ladder bars. After a moment's hesitation, Ken began to climb down. He pulled the trap door over the hole to prevent someone stumbling into it in the dark. Then he continued his descent.