Mai POV
"Yasu, will you come to the library with me?" I asked him, remembering earlier when Naru asked me not to go anywhere alone due to the previous events that had occurred.
"Of course Mai, but just the two of us alone?" He smirked, whilst looking at me with those eyes. I gave him the evils, grabbed him by his hair and dragged him into the hallway with me.
"We'll be back in a bit." I yelled behind me. I heard the others snigger behind us.
"Have fun guys." Bou yelled, earning himself an audible slap on the head by Ayako. This made me laugh to myself, but then realised it was a bad idea when I felt a searing pain through my abdomen. I let go of Yasu's hair and used that hand to clutch my stomach whilst I leant against the wall. The pain quickly passed; I looked up at Yasu. His happy expression had been replaced with a look of worry.
"You okay?" He asked.
"I'm fine Yasu." I said with a big fake smile on my face. He knew I didn't mean it, but I think he decided to trust me and let it go. He knew I was stubborn.
When we got to the library, Yasu went straight to one of the bookcases near the window. He'd clearly been in here before because he seemed to know where all the different sections were. I had a look around for a few minutes and found the Japanese History section right in the corner at the back of the room.
The book case it's-self looked very antique. It was made out of dark mahogany and had lots of scratches and markings that made it look worn and used, but not in a bad way. It had obviously been around for a very long time.
Yasu came over and stood behind me.
"Didn't know you were in to Japanese History." He said in a surprised voice. Truth was, I hated Japanese history. I'd always hated it. It was just so dull! Wouldn't it be cool if there was a school that taught ghost history, or the history of supernatural occurrences, or something along those lines? I'd enjoy that. When I thought about it, odds were that there were probably classes somewhere on those sorts of things.
"Yeah, Yasu. I've always taken an interest in Japanese History. It's so interesting." I lied. This seemed to satisfy him as he walked away after that, probably to find some books on psychology or philosophy or whatever he was taking at school. I didn't like lying; it made me like I'd done something wrong.
I made sure Yasu wasn't looking before going round to the side of the book case and carefully examining it to see if there was any way I could slide it across the wall. There was no way I could push it over. I'm not saying I'm weak, but I doubt that even Yasu could push it over. It looked really heavy.
I did realise that I hadn't told anyone about the basement yet, but that's not because I'm stupid or dumb (although me and Naru could probably have a heated argument on the subject), it's because I don't want to embarrass myself more than I already have. What if the ghost was lying about the basement in the first place and I had gotten everybody's hopes up about solving the case? Naru will just take it as another opportunity to tease me even more than he already does. There would be no end to the witty insults and sarcastic comments!
I decided that I would have to think about how I would move the book case, so I went over to join Yasu.
"Yasu, do you want a cup of coffee or someth-" My offer was interrupted by a huge bang that made my bones rattle. I turned around to see the bookcase lying on the floor with various books splayed all around it. Behind where it used to be, was a door.
I looked at Yasu, who seemed to be in shock.
"Yasu, go and get Naru and the others." He looked back at me, nodded and ran out of the room towards the base without a word.
Now I was alone, I had a chance to check out the basement until the others arrived. I walked briskly over the wooden door, grabbed hold of the handle and pushed.
It wouldn't open. I tried again, pulling this time, but it still didn't open. This puzzled me, as Shiori hadn't specifically told me to do anything to get the door open.
I examined the door, and realised that there was a lock underneath the door handle. I needed a key, a key that I didn't have and didn't know where to find.
All of a sudden, a cold breeze rushed past me making my shiver and giving me visible goose bumps on my arms. The breeze disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. I took a look around but nothing had changed or had been displaced, but I was almost certain that the breeze was caused by one of the ghosts; either Shiori or Mira.
I was just about to go and join the others, when I because aware of something cold and hard in the front right pocket of my skirt. I didn't remember putting anything in there before. I reached into the pocket and clasped my hand around something metallic and oddly shaped. It was a key.
I ran over to the door, inserted the key into the lock and turned it. I felt the mechanism click into place and slowly opened the door. I put the key back into my pocket.
The door creaked as it swung open and came to a stop when it reached the wall on the other side. I took a step inside and looked around, but decided it was probably best that I waited for the others before I went any further. I was about to turn around and head back into the library when the air in the room began to cool rapidly. I have a bad feeling about this, I thought to myself.
I quickly took in the features of the room. I was in a hallway, approximately three meters long and one and a half meters wide. At the end of the hallway were stairs, presumably leading to the basement that Shiori had told me about.
"Mai!" I heard Naru call out from the doorway to the library from the hallway. I turned to run back to the library when the basement door slammed shut before me, plunging me into darkness. I heard another click, which I knew was the lock clicking into place. I reached into my pocket, only to find the key gone.
I thought I heard a faint laugh somewhere from inside the hallway, but dismissed it as my imagination, considering that it was so quiet.
"Naru!" I yelled as I ran over to the door. It was pitch black in there and the only light that was entering the room was from under the door, but that didn't really help at all. The good thing was that the temperature had gone up, indicating that the spiritual presence from before had disappeared.
I could see a faint outline of the door handle and grabbed it. I pushed it down and tried to open the door, but as I'd feared, it didn't budge even an inch which obviously wasn't a good thing.
"Naru, get me out of here!" I pleaded through the door.
"It's alright Mai, just relax. We're going to get you out of there. Now, is there anything in there with you?" He asked in a calm voice. It baffled me how he could stay so relaxed in a situation like this, but then again, it wasn't him that was trapped in here.
I took a deep breath to calm myself before answering.
"I don't think there's anyone in here at the moment, but there was before. I think it was Shiori."
"Okay, now can you see anything in there?"
"No, I didn't have a chance to find a light switch, but I know this isn't the basement. This is the hallway to the stairs that lead to the basement." I told him.
"Well it's probably a good idea to find the light switch. Things are a lot easier when you can see. Meanwhile, Lin and I will try to break the door down. There isn't anything supernatural stopping us from getting in; it's just the lock on the door."
I began to feel my way around the room using the wall. I decided to start on the left side wall. I ran my hands up and down the wall, while I heard Lin and Naru constantly crashing into the door, not making any progress.
"Mai, this isn't working. This door isn't like the others in the house. The wood is thicker and the lock is better quality. We're going to need some tools. Yasuhara, will you please go and enquire about a screwdriver? I think we're going to have to remove the doors hinges and then break it down. The removal of the hinges will make it easier to break down. We should be able to manage when we've done that."
I heard Yasu mumble a reply and him running out of the room to find Hinata.
"Mai, have you found the light switch yet?" Bou called out to me.
"Not yet." I replied.
"How did you even get in there in the first place?" I heard Ayako ask. "Was the door already unlocked?"
"No, it was locked, but I think Shiori gave me the key. I felt a cool breeze and the next thing I knew, there was a key in my pocket." I continued my way down the lightless corridor, running my hands across the wall in search of the light switch.
"Well how did you know that was Shiori?" Naru said. "For all you know, it could've been Mira trying to lure you in to yet another trap."
"Honestly Naru, I can promise you that it wasn't Mira."
"Well how could you possibly know that considering the fact that you-"
"Look Naru, would you please just believe me for on-" My eyes widened and I gasped slightly as I felt myself falling backwards. As it turned out, I had reached the end of the hallway and had just begun to fall down the stairs. I felt my body tilting downwards and didn't even have time to cry out before my head cracked against one of the stairs. I felt a white hot pain in the back of my head, then nothing.
GHOST HUNT GHOST HUNT GHOST HUNT GHOST HUNT GHOST HUNT GHOST HUNT GHOST HUNT GHOST HUNT
Naru POV
I heard a loud crack and some thumping coming from behind the door.
"Mai?" I called out. "Are you alright?" No reply. "Mai?" Still no reply. "Mai, if you don't reply within the next five seconds I'm docking your pay for the whole week." Of course, I wasn't really going to not give her the money she had tried to earn, but if she didn't reply with a crude insult, it meant that something must've gone wrong.
At that precise moment, Yasu came running in through the door and handed me two screwdrivers. I then handed one to Lin and one to Bou, who got to work on removing the screws right away.
They had removed the hinges within minutes. Lin and I the positioned ourselves in front of the door and we continued to crash into the door, knocking it clean to the ground.
There was no sight of Mai in the corridor. Bou pushed past us and advanced into the hallway.
"Mai?" He called out. He walked over to the stairs and looked down. He froze and cursed under his breath. That couldn't be good. I ran over to join him and felt the blood drain from my face as I saw Mai crumpled up at the bottom of the stairs, a small pool of blood surrounding her head.
"Ayako!" I shouted as I ran down the stairs. When I got to the bottom I knelt next to Mai and put my hand over her mouth to make sure she was still breathing, which she was. I then checked her pulse as Ayako came running down the stairs. "Her vitals seem okay, put her pulse is a bit weak, nothing to be worried about.
"Okay. It looks like she hit her head on one of the stairs. Do you think she was pushed?" Ayako mumbled to herself.
Bou was stood at her feet looking as worried as ever, running one of his hands through his hair.
"I don't know. It was dark so she could've just not seen the stairs and just fallen. She could've been pushed, but I didn't sense anything in here with her." Ayako put her fingers underneath Mai's head and examined the bump, although she couldn't move her too much in case of a neck injury.
"Well I think she's going to be fine. There is the possibility of a neck injury, but I'm going to wait until she wakes up to see if anything's wrong. I don't want to call an ambulance if we don't need one."
"So you think she's going to be okay?" Bou asked hesitantly.
"I think she'll be fine, but she's going to have one hell of a headache when she wakes up." As soon as Ayako said that, Mai began to stir slightly.
"Mai, can you hear me?" I said quietly, as not to aggravate the headache that she supposedly had. She groaned slightly in return. She said something very quietly, but it was so soft that I couldn't hear it. "Mai, speak louder."
"I said get your ugly face out of my line of vision!" She said, louder this time. She groaned again before raising her arms to clutch at her head. She tried to roll onto her side but was stopped by Ayako.
"I forbid you to move until I make sure you don't have a neck injury or a concussion" Ayako ordered. Mai groaned once more, her eyes scrunched up in pain.
"Look Ayako, I feel fine. I just have a bit of a headache," she said with a smile.
"I'm sure you are fine, but I still need you to stay still for just a little while. I am not going to get sued for neglecting a patient." This made Mai smile slightly before letting her hands fall to her sides. She relaxed her eyes and let out a sigh. I stood up and left, off to get some towels to wipe up the blood around Mai's head. I'm sure she didn't appreciate lying in a pool of blood, let alone her own blood.
Lin was stood at the top of the stairs waiting for me.
"Is she okay?" He asked.
"I think she'll be fine. Do you know where Hinata keeps her spare towels?"
"No, but I'll go and find some for you if you wa-"
"It's okay, I'll get them." I said while we exited the library. John and Yasu were busy trying to put all the books back into their correct places in the previously fallen bookcase. I assumed that they had returned it to its normal position whilst I was down in the basement. "We're going to need another camera to be set up in the basement." I said. Lin nodded slightly and retreated back to the base.