"This can't be real This can't be realthiscantberealthiscantberealthiscantberealthiscantbereal"

"Please...somebody...save me" Ayumi was gasping for breaths as panic took over her mind and all her rational thoughts and behaviour were buried away.

She had woken up in this horrible place all alone with no one around and it was quickly becoming too much for her. She had always loved stories about places like this, scary stories were her thing after all. Ayumi Shinozaki had always proudly served as class 2-9's horror rep so most would think that she might actually have a fascination for a place like this. ...They would be sorely mistaken.

Talking about scary things opposed to actually living them were two very different things. She wanted nothing more than for this to be a dream that she would wake up from any moment now.

After the initial shock of waking up here Ayumi had barely managed to prop herself against the side of the teachers podium but that was as far as she was going to get. There was no way of standing with her legs as shaky and weak as they were along with her heavy uncontrolled breathing which was making her feel light headed.

There was no chance of her making it anywhere alone when like this.

She thought of Mochida and how much she wanted him to be here, he would know what to do, and exactly what to say.

But he wasn't here and although she was scared she still had a survival instinct and her general common sense.

Ayumi didn't think that passing out from lack of air would help her any, she would just wake up and go through the same thing all over again.

Putting the idea of where she was out of her head she squeezed her eyes shut tight and began trying to calm herself down, starting with slowing her breathing down.

After a few minutes her breathing though still extremely irrational was nowhere near as bad as it was when she first woke up.

With that she made her first attempt at standing up. Her whole body was shaking violently so it wasn't an easy task. Using the podium for support she started to push up. Her body had almost stood up all the way when there was a loud creak from right outside the door. 'God no someone's coming in here' she thought to herself as she dropped back down undoing the progress she had made.

Her breathing became more erratic and she covered her mouth in a futile attempt to quiet herself down. 'Please just pass by'.

Ayumi made no attempt to hide as her body just would not let her move, all she could do is watch as the door opened all too slowly and dramatically, she trembled more, completely frozen in place and awaited her fate.


"Seiko...?...Satoshi? Is anyone there? The silence answered for itself. "Where am I? This isn't...Kisaragi."

Naomi left the classroom she was in hoping the hallways would prove more useful. She was met with more decaying walls and cracked up floorboards.

'I have to find someone else'. She wanted to start looking around but progress would prove to be slow if she was going to keep flinching and looking back every time there was a creak in one of the floorboards.

"If it was at least a little less dark down here I might be less scared to move." Nothing about this place felt safe, it had a sort of sinister air to it that made each step feel like it was ripping at her soul.

"If I don't get out of here soon, I'll surely go mad." Naomi started to walk forward feeling the weight of each step taking its toll on her.

She stopped suddenly gasping as an ear piercing scream reached her ear. 'Seiko...that was Seiko wasn't it!?'

Still terrified she picked up her pace until she was practically running. Her eyes were adjusting well but it would still be easy to trip over almost anything. She stopped near the end of a hall lost on where to go next, she was sure this is the direction the scream had come from but maybe it was further away, or the person who screamed had moved.

"Seiko! Seiko!" Naomi was sure it was her, and so began to shout her best friends name as loudly as she could manage.

Once she realized she wasn't getting a response, she stopped and the deafening silence of the school was set into place again.

She chose a direction and began walking, she passed a few rooms but only one of them seemed to be real. The rest were more like decorations, she wouldn't be able to describe them to anyone they were so out of place.

The door creaked loudly but gave no resistance as she slowly and methodically slid it open. Her heartbeat quickened as she became more and more anxious to see what was on the other side. She supposed it would be like this with every room she came across since the likeliness of there being something unpleasant on the other side stood strong in a place like this.

*Creak*

..."C-class-rep is that you?" What was on the other side of the door was not anywhere near what Naomi had expected...the class-rep was leaning against the teachers podium hugging her legs close to her with bloodshot eyes and a trembling disposition.

Ayumi's fear was replaced with momentary relief as the sight of a familiar face. She was slightly embarrassed over her current state but was sure it couldn't be held against her in a place like this.

"Are you ok?" Naomi asked stepping fully inside the room and walking over to her trembling classmate.

Ayumi had a hard time finding her voice at first and had to let out a few coughs before she could say anything. "I'm not hurt...but...Nakashima I don't know where we are. This shouldn't be happening" Ayumi felt tears burning behind her eyes, seeing one of her classmates had made her feel better but she was still terrified beyond belief.

Naomi felt bad looking at her current state, she was clearly having a hard time with this, she wanted to say something to make her feel better but wasn't sure she could. She was just as scared herself. "I...there was...I saw some kind of notice on the wall when I was looking around, I only had a quick look so maybe I read it wrong but...I'm sure it mentioned Heavenly Host..."

"Heavenly host...that can't be..." Ayumi's face became noticeably more pale, as someone who was into telling scary stories she was quite familiar with Heavenly Host.

The two just sat there for a while in silence after this. Nothing could be said or done to make things any better. This wasn't the kind of situation you could wait out or ignore. They had been faced with a real problem far bigger than any they had faced before and Naomi was sure that they had to do something other than waiting around for someone to save them. No one was coming.

"We should go class-rep, no use staying here all day, the others might be here so we may as well have a look around. Can you stand? Do you need me to help?"

Ayumi didn't want to move, she didn't feel like she had the energy to do anything. It wasn't just the fear, something about this place made her whole body feel off and her mind feel vulnerable, but she knew Naomi was right to try and move them. If there were others they had to start looking. "I think I'm ok to stand now, thanks though Nakashima."

Naomi gave a quick smile before standing up herself. Something dawned on her that she had to get confirmation on. "Um, class-rep before I got here did you scream at any point?"

Ayumi was fully standing up now although still leaning back on the podium. "Scream? No I don't think so." She had to think on it cause she might have but just not remembered considering she had been pretty out of it, she had surely being crying pretty loud but she didn't remember a scream coming from her. "Why'd you ask? Did you hear something?"

'So it wasn't her, maybe it really was Seiko then'. "Yeah I heard someone scream earlier, I though it might be Seiko but when I called out I didn't get an answer. I thought it might have been you and I could have just confused your voices but since you're saying you never screamed...maybe it really was her".

"Oh ok then, we'll have a look, if you're sure it was her then she might be close by and that might mean Mochida and the others are here as well." The scream Naomi mentioned made Ayumi feel uneasy since she didn't doubt that bad things could happen in a place like this, she could feel the malice in the air. She just hoped that they might run across Mochida soon. 'Although he'll probably be more relieved to see Nakashima than me' she thought dejectedly.

"If they are I hope we'll run into each other soon, safety in numbers and all."

"Mmhmm, I hope so too"


"Oh god no!" Ayumi yelled out grabbing her head and turning away from the corpse. It was the first one they had came across, it didn't seem fresh so they could assume it had been here for a while, the face was concave and appeared grey with the slightest tint of green. There was bugs crawling all over her including inside her gaping mouth. There was no noticeable wounds showing that would have led to death, so the cause of death could be assumed as dehydration or starvation.

Naomi stepped forward to get a closer look believing that her eyes had to be playing tricks on her. "This is...a real corpse?" For a second she just stared horrified but unable to look away, it was Ayumi's ragged breathing that snapped her out of it. She turned to her friend who was being reduced back to the initial state she was in when she first got here. "Are you ok?" It wasn't the best question to be asking and Naomi knew the answer already, but still she had to say something.

Ayumi turned a little to look at Naomi, trying to avoid glancing at the corpse. "It's ok, i'm just hyperventilating a little...we should keep going I'll feel better once we get away from here."

Naomi nodded and the two started waking, staying as close together as they could.

Their encounter with that corpse was not their last as after it more and more seemed to appear, some were fairly newer with visible wounds and uniforms still fairly intact while others were nothing but bones save for a few scraps of clothing. Each time they saw one Naomi felt herself become more used to the sight and it made her sick, it wasn't something you were supposed to adjust to. Even Ayumi although the sight made her stomach turn had become better at controlling herself around them and the sight no longer sent her into any uncontrollable panic attacks.

Ayumi stopped walking suddenly as they were searching a classroom.

"Something wrong?" Naomi asked halting her own search.

"I just got an idea." Ayumi answered seeing Naomi's curiosity spike. She pulled out one of her trademark candles. "Everyone in class 2-9 knows about these candles right, even would recognize them wouldn't she?"

Naomi lit up a little at the sight of the candle, the familiarity of it calming her nerves. "Of course, there isn't a person in our whole grade who hasn't seen one of the horror rep's famous ghost story candles."

Ayumi smiled at her answer reveling in her reputation. "Good, then how about we leave some around the school as we go, then if any one of our friends see's them they'll know we're here too and that we're alright." As she spoke she pulled out her match box easily using it to light up the candle and using the wax to place it firmly on the ground.

"That's a really good idea, at least then our friends will know they're not alone."

"Exactly." Ayumi said smiling and lighting another one for them to carry with them.


The two tried not to lose hope as they spent more time searching only to be met with no sign of their friend's, they had covered as much ground as they could coming across various different notes and warnings written by the dead, corpses and newspaper articles detailing the brutal murders of 4 young children. It seemed this place had an affinity for death long before it became a literal ghost house.

Eventually they found themselves on the east second floor hallway where they both stopped dead in their tracks as they noticed a wall splattered with blood all across it. The whole hall was a mess, as well as the wall there was blood on the floor, the ceiling and some had even found it's way on the door of what they could make out to be an infirmary. It was well spread out across whole wall, there were thick parts blotted all over as well as parts that had only light red smear marks.

What was worse was the blood seemed wet and fresh indicating that someone died here in some horrible way not too long ago. On the other side of the hall directly facing the biggest area of blood there some sort of black stain on the ground, possibly in the unkempt shape of a person.

"Oh god...this is horrible I wonder what could have happened here" Naomi said unable to tear her eyes away from the red on the wall. "We should just get away from here." Naomi looked over at Ayumi waiting for a response but was met with her face contorted into an uncharacteristically cold expression.

"Huh...something wrong class-rep?"

"Oooouuughhhh"

Naomi gasped a little as all she was met with was some type of unintelligible moan. "W-what is it, are you alr- aghh."

Ayumi took of suddenly pushing Naomi away. Still in shock Naomi hurriedly followed behind trying to keep up with her class-rep's new pace. Ayumi didn't go very far before stopping in front of a wall and just...staring at it.

"Class-rep what's wron-"

"NO ONE IS SAYING THAT!" Ayumi suddenly yelled loudly, her voice not sounding one bit like her own.

"Eek" Naomi took a step back not sure how to react. 'Maybe...it's exhaustion or the pressure of being in a place like this too long' she told herself trying to put rational thought into the situation.

Naomi felt no more at ease as Ayumi started to scream more erratic and irrational line's all with a wide smile on her face.

"Hey, what are you saying? Snap out of it." Naomi hesitantly put a hand on Ayumi's shoulder and shook lightly. She tensed as Ayumi's head turned to face hers.

"Hmm what's wrong Nakashima?" Ayumi's voice and facial expression in an instant turned back to their regular disposition.

Naomi was a little taken aback by her sudden retraction. She debated saying anything about or now. Would it really do any good to bring it up? 'It's probably just nerve's anyway, no reason to draw attention to it' Naomi thought hesitantly as she answered. "Um no it's nothing let's keep going."

Ayumi didn't say anything as they started walking again. They didn't get far before another outburst ensued. This time Ayumi started laughing hysterically before going back to moaning and then yelling seemingly different random words and phrases.

Naomi stepped away from her she was concerned but she was also scared more than anything and not at all sure what to do. She turned at the sound of an unfamiliar voice. There behind them was a red flame...they had been warned about these.

"That poor girl, she's lost her mind and she'll never get it back." It mocked them almost cheerfully.

Naomi looked back at Ayumi who she now noticed was staring dead at her with the look of pure rage on her face. Naomi flinched slightly but did not move until she felt a sharp sting on her right cheek. Ayumi had slapped her...hard she could already feel her cheek turning red.

"YOU BITCH, YOU THINK YOU CAN GET WHATEVER YOU WANT! HE DOESN'T BELONG TO YOU!" Ayumi screamed this so loud Naomi stumbled backward's more than she did from the slap. With nothing left to do she turned and ran only making it a small way away before tripping over some sharp wood sticking up from beneath the floorboards. Ayumi didn't fall far behind and at the sight of her angrily charging towards her Naomi couldn't stop herself from screaming as she tried to scramble to her feet.

Just as she stood herself up Ayumi threw herself towards her. Naomi barely managed to thrust herself to the side instead causing Ayumi to fall through a rather large hole in the floor.

Naomi let out a scream as she looked down the hole her class-rep had just fallen into quickly realising that she hadn't fallen all the way down and was still hanging on.

"Ah, hold on I'll get you up!" She may have not had the most strength but her adrenaline fueled mind combined with Ayumi's natural light structure she managed to pull her back up unintentionally pulling her into a sort of embrace as she hastily tried to get her away from the edge.

"Huh." Ayumi was confused as she came back to, seeing she was on the floor with a panicked Naomi. "Wh-what happened?!"

Naomi was still panting from all the action but glad to see Ayumi was no longer out to get her. "You're back?"

"Back? What does that mean?"

"Possession."

Naomi and Ayumi both simultaneously gasped and turned their heads at the sound of someone else speaking. It was a girl around their age with short black hair and cold blue eyes. She stood motionless observing the two.

"Possessed that's what that was?" Naomi asked the strange girl.

"It would appear so...it's not unlikely in a place like this with so many lost souls that some unlucky people would become the victims of possession. Maybe you have a connection with the spiritual world and that's why you were targeted and taken so easily." She said looking at Ayumi.

"You're Naho Saenoki, are you not?" Ayumi asked standing up. Naomi followed her lead brushing of her skirt as she did.

"Yes I am. You're familiar with my work?"

"Yes I'm quite the fan, I've been following you and your work for a while now, although the last I heard from you was on your blog. There's been no posts for a quite some time now." Ayumi's mind had been taken off the fact that she was just possessed at the sight of her idol. She had always hoped she would meet her...albeit under better circumstances.

"Thank you but I'm afraid you won't be seeing any more updates from me."

Ayumi looked at her questioningly as if to say 'how so?'.

"You see I've been dead for quite a while now."

"You died here?" Ayumi asked thinking she might have some how misheard her. If even a professional paranormal investigator and her own idol couldn't get out of here alive...what chance did the stand. "So there's no way out."

"Actually that's what I came here to talk to you about..."

Ayumi and Naomi hung on every word as she explained to them her theory of appeasement and how it could lead to the breaking down of these closed spaces and ultimately escape.

"Here take this." Naho held out a strange looking antique doll in her hand that Ayumi barely hesitated to take. "It belonged to the murderer, and I believe it's the key to this."

"The murderer?" Naomi repeated.

"Yes he is here too...I think that finding his remains is a good place to start, if you find them and return the doll to their side...everything'll be juuuuust fine."

Naho seemed to twitch slightly as she spoke and Ayumi became hesitant at following her words. But it seemed as good a place as any to start. "Ok, the quicker we get started the better then." With that Ayumi got ready to leave.

"Wait one more thing." Ayumi looked back at Naho. "If you come across any of the ghost's...don't try giving them the doll." Her eyes grew more sinister and her voice darker. "That won't work." And with that Naho disappeared leaving the two girls alone once again.

It wasn't long before the significance of this strange doll was uncovered. "Nakashima, do you hear that?...I think the doll's saying something somehow..." Ayumi held up the doll in front of her.

"It's crying...?" Naomi wasn't sure what to make of this. She looked at Ayumi who appeared to be thinking things over.

'There might be a reason it's started doing this now, I have an idea but I should at least get some kind of confirmation'. "Nakashima let's keep walking in this same direction for a bit and see if the doll does anything."

"O-ok then." Naomi said following behind Ayumi.

Surely enough just as Ayumi had suspected the doll started to weep louder. Ayumi stopped again explaining her theory without any preamble. "I think we may be able to use this a sort of tracking device, it might lead us straight to the murder's body! Or at least it's the best I've got...so either way we should keep moving."

"Alright, it's a start." Naomi answered just glad to have some direction.

It was when they were walking along the first floor that the doll done something other than weep.

from red door

six steps horse

thirteen paces rooster

The two girls shared a look at each other and Ayumi was sure she knew what it meant.


After following the dolls instruction's they came across what appeared to be a slightly raised and loose floorboard. "Nakashima look I think something's under here." Ayumi said getting down on her knees and grabbing hastily at the jaggy planks of wood. After a bit of fidgeting Ayumi managed to pull up some sort of small bloody hemp bag. She shivered a little expecting it with a look of discontent on her face.

Naomi looked down at the bag and read the name tag attached to the front. "Ryou Yoshizawa" she said slowly. "It belongs to one of the children! ...but what is it?"

Ayumi held her breath hesitantly opening up the bag. "Ahh" she screamed throwing it down.

"What is it!?"

"It...It's a tongue...a human tongue." Ayumi answered trying to erase the image of the blood soaked and dried up severed tongue from her mind.

Return it

Return it

The doll could be heard repeating this weeping in between words.

"It's a boys name." Ayumi said as she started to cough, the sight of the bag itself was making her sick.

"Are you ok class-rep?" Naomi stared at her and then the bag which she wasn't willingly going to be looking into any time soon.

"I'll be fine thank you Nakashima, let's just do what the doll say's and return this to its rightful owner."

"I suppose that our best bet, but where do we find him? Naho hinted to the fact that they were here when she said don't give them the doll, but...we haven't even come across one yet. Where would we look?"

Ayumi thought on it for a second. "Honestly, I think we should just do what we've being doing here from the start, which is just look until we find."

"I guess...we better get started then...but um who's holding the tongue?" Naomi asked looking wearily at the blood soaked bag.

Ayumi followed Naomi's eyes to the bag that she had threw down and sighed. "...How about...we just take turns."

"That seems fair" Naomi hesitated a little not sure if she should continue with what she was about to say next. "I don't mind taking it first since you were the one who had to look in it." She wanted to play her part as well even if she didn't like the idea of having a severed child's tongue in her possession.

Ayumi smiled gratefully, relieved. "Thank you Nakashima, if you really don't mind then."

After that both of the girls had no trouble finding the next tongue, which proved easier to find than the ghost boy. The second one was located under another raised part in the floor at the bottom of a wall situated in between the science lab and the infirmary.

"Two down already" Ayumi said the exhaustion in her voice apparent. "My guess that it's another tongue in here" she pointed at the second blood soaked bag. There's probably four of them, one for each child killed which means we're halfway there."

"I think you're right, let's see this one says...Yuki Kanno, one of the girls although i'm not sure I remember which one." Naomi handed the bag to Ayumi since they had both agreed that they'd hold one each now that they had two.

"I'm not sure either, we should try to find that article again before we return them to be sure...that is if we have any luck finding the third one." Ayumi then looked over at the infirmary door which still had blood splattered over it. "Nakashima we haven't been in there yet."

Naomi looked at the infirmary door, they had been turned off of going in mostly because of the blood and last time they were around here Ayumi was possessed so it wasn't like they had that much chance. "You think we should?"

"I'd rather not but, we might be missing something, I don't want to risk that."

Naomi sighed and braced herself. "Alright let's just do it quickly."

They walked over to the door, only a small amount of blood had made its way onto the handle but it was still enough to put them off touching it. They looked at each other expectantly and just stared waiting for one of them to open it.

Naomi pouted a little before finally taking it upon herself to be the on to open the door which gave no resistance luckily since they hadn't actually considered that it might not even open. Stepping inside she felt her body temperature drop. She shivered breathing in the tainted air. Ayumi was hesitant but walked in quickly as she heard a gasp from Naomi.

"What is it?" She looked around spotting what it was Naomi had seen. There were two curtains seemingly in front of a bed, they couldn't make out exactly what was behind them but an unearthly blue glow was clearly visible.

Ayumi stepped around the curtain laying her eyes on one of the ghost children. He was crouched on the bed staring forward, he had blood coming from his mouth and although he was clasping his legs close to him some kind of large stomach wound could be seen from behind them. "Nakashima don't look into his eyes." Ayumi didn't know why she said this she just felt it as soon as she looked at him. Something bad would surely happen if they did. She then stretched her hand towards Naomi visibly quivering even as she spoke, "Give me the bag we need to make him notice it somehow."

Naomi shakily pulled out the pouch and handed it to Ayumi who slowly got up onto the first bed and shifted closer to the ghost boy who still hadn't moved an inch. 'Here goes nothing' Her whole body tensed as she held out the tongue bag in front of the boy's face, "Ryou Yoshizawa!" The ghost as if just noticing that he wasn't alone flinched as his eyes became wider. "I may not be able to sympathize with what you're doing, pulling innocents into a place like this...but this belongs to you...it's a part of your body so I'm giving it back to you!" There was a few painful moments of silence as he just stared at it before eventually holding out his hand and taking the bag. The tongue was returned to his mouth in an instant, faster than the human eye could see.

"Thank you." He said and with that he disappeared.

There was a sudden earthquake, it wasn't the biggest one but it still gave the girls a need to grab onto something to steady themselves.

The air, even if it was only the slightest change felt a little lighter. Ayumi exhaled holding onto her shaky arms. "It's not over there's still more of these we have to return" she said stepping off the bed.

"I know...class-rep...you did good, not most people could pull something like that off."

"Ha, thank's I was scared out of my mind you know, but if it means getting back to everyone..."

"Yeah I know."


"Yuki Kanno, that's this girl" Ayumi said pointing at the article they had went back to retrieve.

"Ok, now we just have to find her" Naomi said opening holding the door open as she waited for Ayumi.

Naomi stopped suddenly as she looked down the hall causing Ayumi to almost walk straight into her.

"Ehh, Nakashima what is it?" Ayumi looked down the hall to see the same girl they were just talking about standing there walking back and forth. "How coincidental." She then pulled out the tongue bag and held it front of her as they both without even having to confirm with each other walked up to the ghost a step at a time.

This one was a lot less catatonic and took notice to them quickly letting out different pained sounding gurgling noises. Just as she came over to them Ayumi suddenly yelled her name holding the bag right in front of her face. "This is yours, I'm returning it to you." The ghost girl stopped and stared just like the last one did.

'She's missing an eye as well...is this going to be enough?' Ayumi thought as it occurred to her.

...

They were both beyond relieved when she accepted the tongue placing it back inside her mouth. "Thank you...very much." There was a sudden flash of light before the girl simply disappeared.

"Thank God" Ayumi said feeling a weight being lifted off her. Her relief was cut off abruptly the start of another earthquake, heavier than the last one. The girls instinctively grabbed onto each other running over to a nearby wall for support. It only lasted about 30 seconds but by the end of it they had barely managed to keep themselves up.

"Is it over?" Naomi asked quietly steadying herself.

"I think so." Ayumi looked around, "Don't things feel different now...like changed maybe?"

Naomi looked around feeling the difference, thing's just weren't as heavy. Far from pleasant but it was an improvement. "Yeah they do...maybe we really are making progress...maybe we have a chance.