Chapter 1 - Stumble

Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Hunt, if I did the series would never have ended and Mai and Naru would have little paranormal grandbabies for Martin and Luella running around by now.

Author's Note: This is based off of a dream I had while falling asleep to the dulcet tones of Ghost Hunt the other night. I wrote down the basics I could remember as soon as I woke up and decided to try to write it out to share with anyone interested enough to read this. Some of the details were hazy, but it got me thinking…what if? I think the premise is interesting, and I have no intentions of turning Mai or any of the other cast into a MarySue, so if you see that happening or have any comments or suggestions let me know! =) (Also, I know the beginning might seem overly familiar, and a mix of the anime and light novels, but I think it is needed to set the stage for what is about to happen.) Edited: 9/25


The petite auburn haired girl woke up early that morning without the aid of her alarm, and was even early to school – a feat that was virtually impossible for her. Other than these easily ignored anomalies the school day started out for Mai Taniyama as it typically would on any Thursday in early April. Still, there was a niggling insistence in the back of her mind that something, and she wasn't sure yet what that was, was off but Mai had absolutely no indication that her life was about to change from a small misstep and the fleeting touch from a stranger that afternoon.

After lunchtime, the skies outside darkened and the clouds became heavy and oppressive with rain. Glancing out the window of her classroom, Mai noticed the change in the weather and her cinnamon colored eyes brightened visibly as she thought that the atmosphere would be very favorable for their afternoon club activities. School itself often bored Mai, causing her to never put in very much effort. It wasn't that Mai didn't understand the coursework, but it was more that she didn't have anything to prove, and no one to push her to believe in herself more. Instead, Mai spent most of her energy being cheerful and trying to turn any problem she encountered into something positive. That's why even when the weather turned dismal, the endearing first year student enjoyed the idea that a stormy afternoon would add ambiance to their weekly ghost story club. Mai cheerfully met with the other girls that afternoon after her final class of the day ended unknowing of the wonders that would soon be set into motion.

It was completely dark inside the audiovisual room except for a slight blue glow from weak penlights held by each of the three girls gathered inside. The rain outside gained intensity as it provided a buffer for the voice of the young girl, Keiko, telling a tale of her uncle and a friend lost on a lonely mountainside as they were accompanied by a manifestation of a disembodied voice, and the eerie feeling of another presence throughout the long night. The uncle's friend was an amateur spiritualist and began to chant a quiet mantra for their own peace and protection as the two men waited for dawn to break. In the morning they realized that near the camp there was a cairn about an average man's height, something impossible to miss yet they still didn't notice it the day before.

"A cairn," Mai asked with interest.

"Yeah. When a man died in the mountain, they piled up some stones at that place instead of a grave. The dead person probably felt lonely and tried to invite them...or something like that," Keiko explained as she finished her story, quietly turning off her light.

The sound of the pattering rain and the soft breathing of her companions were the only sounds in the room as a small shudder made its way down the back of the third member, Michiru. The soft blue glow of two more penlights was now the sole illumination that remained inside the room as Keiko glanced over at Mai and told her it was time for their resident expert to begin her own tale.

Mai, with a devilish twinkle in her soft cinnamon hued eyes began her story, "...It's a story I heard when I was a grade student. On the street, on a chilly autumn night there was a woman returning home from a long day at work. As the temperature of the day began to drop she started getting chilled, and decided to stop at a nearby park she passed every day on her way to and from work and use the restroom." Mai smiled at her companions sheepishly and added, "A public bathroom at night doesn't feel right, does it? Because it's dark and all... and although she didn't want to, she went into the restroom. Then, the woman heard a softly menacing voice calling out of dark corners of the restroom in a way that seemed to surround her on all sides."

Mai adjusted the timbre of her voice to a lower pitch that quavered as she asked, "do you want a red coat?'

'No-o!' both of the other girls exclaimed in unison as they let out small squeals of fright.

Mai slowly shook her head at her friends as she continued her tale, "The woman was frightened and tried to leave the restroom but the door wouldn't open even as she began to pound on the door until her fists began to bruise. The door seemed to jolt on its own and again she heard the same voice, 'Do you want a red coat?' The frightened woman once more hit the door with all her might, but it still would not open. Panic began to overtake the woman when she heard the voice for the third time asking the same question as before and she vehemently answered, 'No! I don't want it!' Right after her denied exclamation the door opened as if it was never stuck."

Neither of the other two girls listening in the room dared to speak as Mai paused to smile sweetly at them, her face both eerily illuminated and shadowed by dim blue glow of the penlight in her hand at the same time. The petite auburn haired girl slowly finished her perusal of Keiko and Michiru's faces and continued with her story, pleased by her friends' reactions to her theatrics and mimicked the volume of the rain outside to cause her audience to lean in to listen more closely. "The woman left the restroom with great haste and was so fearful that she felt unable to go home by herself. Then it felt to her like her luck had changed, she then saw two patrolmen passing by. She enthusiastically greeted the two policemen and told them about what happened to her in the park restroom just moments ago. They told her, 'That was probably a molester who has hidden himself somewhere inside the bathroom, we can't catch him by ourselves and need you to draw him out,' and the officers talked the already frightened woman into returning to the restroom alone for them. Before she entered the facilities again the policeman told her 'When the voice asks you again, please say yes. We will be waiting outside for you to call us when he comes out of hiding.' Then the woman re-entered the restroom alone and she quickly heard the disturbing voice say 'Do you want a red coat?' The woman shaking in fear, her bravery only slightly bolstered by the presence of the officers outside, answered the voice as instructed in the affirmative, yet soon as she spoke a piercing scream filled the midnight silence. The two officers rushed into the park restroom, only to freeze in horror. The woman was dead."

Mai stilled as she let her words trail off to merge with the sound of the rain against the windows of the classroom. She shifted slightly in her seat as she leaned just a bit closer to her two friends, and nearly whispered the rest of the story to them. "...She was dyed in deep red blood. A deep gash across the woman's throat shimmered with a deep ruby red as her life's blood flowed out of the gaping wound and pooled over the woman's body. Just like the voice asked she was covered in deep crimson giving the casual observer the idea that she was wearing a red coat as she lay there motionless on the floor."

Keiko and Michiru screamed at once:

"No!"

"Waah!"

Hearing the screams, Mai turned off her light. Only one tiny beam of light was left. Only a single dim blue light was still shining.

Knowing it was her turn Michiru started her story; the blue light in her hand shining on her hair as it hangs around her face.

"It's a story about this school. Mai, have you heard the story of the old school building?"

Mai shook her head before tilting it in interest as she watched Michiru.

"Strange. At the ex-school building there is a wooden building at the opposite side of the sports ground. The half-collapsed building. But it wasn't collapsed! That's where the reconstruction stopped because of the curse." Michiru attempted to smile ghoulishly as she said this, but the effect was not quite as potent as when Mai uses the same expression and Michiru simply looked cute instead.

"C-c-curse," Keiko questioned in a barely audible tone.

"Yes," Michiru responded and continued with her story, "That building was cursed... a lot of strange incidents happened there. Every year a teacher and a pupil died there... a fire or an incident, only bad things happened there. I saw that right after I entered this school. The old building had half-collapsed. It was full of broken glass and sagging walls. Really, that building is a scary place. When the new school building we are in now was built ten years ago, they tried to demolish the old building to start the construction of a new gymnasium, strange things happened. A machine stopped and workers got ill. But still they tried to break the west wall, and the roof fell down! All the way down from the second floor! All of the workers on the first floor died."

Mai shivered in her seat as she thought about all of the issues involved with the old school house. "Diseases, injuries, incidents," she murmured, turning it over in her mind, and whispered to herself, her voice so low that no one else heard "something isn't right, none of that seems right."

"Thereupon the construction was suspended. It was left like that, with the west side collapsed, for a long time. After that unpleasant things continued to happen. A child from the neighborhood was found dead in the ex-building, three days after that a teacher committed suicide there. The demolition was restarted last year in order to rebuild the gym. But again only the half of it got demolished, before the work got suspended, for the same reasons as last time. Machines broke, a truck went out of control and drove through the sports ground during class. Two students died and seven were severely injured. It was even in the newspapers too!" Michiru kept speaking excitedly in a low voice with more details. "My senpai's friend saw a man's ghost at the ex-building...A person's white shadow was looking at her from the second floor, she said. The road around the school fence isn't a place to walk at night, and when I was walking my dog at night on that street I felt someone looking at me. When I turned around, from the window of a half-collapsed classroom a white silhouette was..."

"It can't be," Keiko raises her voice.

"It's true. ...and that person was waving his hand like he was inviting me. I got the feeling that I shouldn't go inside the old school so I left staggering on my feet."

"A-and..?" Keiko asked.

"That's all. When I started walking, my dog burst out barking with great energy, so I got back there. I looked again at the window, but the person wasn't there anymore."

All three girls squealed in delighted terror as Michiru moved to turn her light off as well, signaling for the participants to complete the ending ritual of their weekly ghost story fest.

"...I'm turning it off," Michiru said quietly. The room got quiet again. With a weak sound Michiru's the ghostly blue glow of the last penlight disappeared. The vicinity was wrapped up in the darkness and the sound of the rain.

Keiko says with a hazy voice from inside the darkness, "One...". Her voice trembling in anticipation; after they tell the ghost stories and turn off their lights each girl has to count upwards from one. The last one's response would be a ghost if they decided to join the girls.

"Two...," Mai said from another corner of the shadows.

Michiru said, "three...,' in a soft whisper as she darted her eyes around the darkness as if seeking another person hiding there.

There are three girls in the room, each one waiting with baited breath to see if they are about to hear a fourth voice? The sound of the slowing rain and the quickened breaths of all three girls are the only noise for several seconds, and then…

"FOUR."

The three girls shrieked at the unexpected voice counting with them, and grabbed onto one another in fright. At that instant, the dark room was illuminated as a stranger flipped the light switch near the door to the classroom.

All three of the girls turned towards the door with renewed courage as the lights cleared away any lingering shadows in the room. A tall, ebony-haired boy with deep indigo eyes stood smirking slightly inside the door frame to the room and looked upon them all with interest.

Keiko and Michiru, both noticing the teenage boy's attractive form, squealed now in delight rather than fear. The young man was the owner of an impressively beautiful face, his slightly disheveled jet black hair falling softly over his forehead into his eyes, giving him more of a brooding and mysterious aura as his intelligent dark blue orbs occasionally peeked through the raven-hued fringe. Mai took note of these details, as well as the fact the boy was exceptionally pale, a feature that was intensified by the severity of his all black clothing, which, she noted, was not a uniform. She thought to herself, could he be an exchange student?

Keiko asked, "W...was that you?"

"Yes... did I do something wrong?"

A smooth tenor voice answered and Michiru exhaled slowly and sat down relieved before replying, "Ahh! That surprised me! I thought I was going to die!"

"Excuse me. The lights were off so I thought there was nobody in here, but suddenly I heard voices... so I just…," the boy said in what appeared to be a sheepish manner.

"That's... it's alright!" Keiko says joyfully and then asks, "Are you an exchange student?"

He paused a little. What's with the pause, Mai thought?

"A first-year," Keiko inquired again.

"...I'm seventeen this year," the boy replied.

A strange way to answer, Mai thought to herself.

"So, you are our senpai!" Keiko says that excitedly with her lively voice. Mai knows that Keiko is the kind that is attracted only by looks, and actually this guy is really handsome. He has a tall and slim figure, appears strong and has long legs too. Not to mention a beautiful face.

Michiru gazes at the boy with a smile. "We are sorry to have surprised you too! We were telling ghost stories."

"Would you mind if I joined you?" he said and smiled at the girls.

Everyone but Mai screamed in delight. She stared at him, noticing that his smile did not reach his eyes. She notices she feels something off about him, something weird. It's just another one of her unexplained feelings, but to Mai something about this boy just doesn't add up.

"Please, please... Sit here beside us," Michiru pulled his arm to get him closer to her, and asked, "what's your name?"

"Kazuya Shibuya..."

Keiko's eyes formed a heart at that moment and gazed adoringly at him, "Shibuya-senpai, do you like ghost stories too?"

He smiled. Another smile that did not reach his eyes, Mai noted but the other two girls screamed happily again at the sight. There is this feeling of unrest coming from him, and Mai couldn't shake her instant feeling of mistrust.

"Shibuya-san...," Mai said, and he turned in her direction, his smile faltered a bit as he saw the petite auburn-haired girl nearly glaring at him.

Mai noticed his façade waver slightly even though his face was still showing a bright smile, but she knew, she felt it, this guy had something hidden under the surface. His eyes are cold and impersonal even with the smile plastered on his lips. While she had his attention, Mai asked, "What are you doing in a place like this?"

"I had something to take care of," Shibuya-san stated, speaking more coldly to Mai than the other two girls. Mai nearly snickered at his change in attitude and told him, "Then do it faster, because we're going home now."

"Eeh!" Keiko and Michiru both exclaimed, dissatisfied and Keiko turned to look mournfully at Mai, as Michiru pulled on Shibuya-san's arm again saying, "That's just Mai...Don't worry about it senpai. What is it that you have to do here? We will gladly help you!"

"...Ah, it's only some tape dubbing..." Shibuya-san dismissed as he once again forced a smile for his audience and remarked, "The truth is, I'm in a hurry right now. How about, next time you tell ghost stories, you let me join in?"

"Then, tomorrow after school!" the overly excited duo exclaimed.

"Alright, Shibuya-san said, and asked, "Where?"

"Right here," Keiko and Michiru exclaimed in unison once again.

He smiled, bowing his head in assent.

Michiru stood in an unusually graceful manner, and waved at the boy, saying, "Okay, then we are off. Bye now senpai," she gushed with hearts nearly visible in her eyes. Michiru grabbed Keiko to pull her out of the room, both girls ignoring Mai, annoyed at how rude they felt she was to their beautiful senpai! Michiru may have been overtly graceful as they were leaving but unfortunately Keiko was too distracted at the boy's handsome countenance to pay attention where she was heading as her friend pulled her from the room squealing at their plans for the next day. Unnoticed by both Michiru and Keiko her inattention caused the school bag on Keiko's shoulder to knock into Mai's back, forcing the last girl off balance while she was already leaning over to pick up her belongings.

Mai felt the push on her back and inhaled sharply as she completely lost her balance, and the boy, Kazuya Shibuya leapt into action attempting to halt her fall only for an anomaly befall him as well, and the normally stoic and agile young man stumbled with her. He still managed to twist both of them, so the girl would hopefully land on top of him, and would not be crushed. The only problem with the two of them twisting as they fell is that her bared arm came into full contact with his hand; as the two met skin to skin for the first time a feeling of static hovered in the air surrounding them that had nothing to do with the atmospheric ozone caused by the storm raging outside. Both of these strangers, the skeptical girl and boy who appeared to be hiding something under a fake smile continued their descent to the floor completely unconscious as the light in the classroom tinted blue once more that day, but this time without the aid of any penlights or shrouding darkness to hide in.