"Emil-san, what made you decide on bringing that journal with you?"
I stopped writing and faced the Japanese man, "I just…"I looked back to the journal with an unsure smile, "I don't want to forget any of this. I have no idea why, but just the thought of forgetting an experience like this somehow…hurts me. How about you?"
He nodded, "I brought a journal with me as well during my own investigation. I don't like retelling that time, but I also don't want to forget about it either even if its…hell." He paused, "Are you done writing?"
The more he talks about his own investigation, the more intimidated he gets. I know its not a good idea to get him to tell me his own investigation, but I'm just getting curious.
It made me feel guilty.
"…Sorry, Kiku."
"Its ok."
The moment I finished writing my first entry, the pen in my hand vanished into dust. I panicked a bit but that soon went by.
Since I forgot to bring my own pen, I have to make due with finding a pen in this place to write down my entries.
I packed my journal away, "Let's proceed upstairs, where the little girl guided us to."
The stairs are straightforward to the top, but every step I take the wooden floorboards just squeak unnaturally loud. Its even worse than the time when Mathias had a noisy door in his house, which thankfully Berwald fixed before any of our ears bled out.
I stopped when my eyes are at the floor level of the 2nd floor. I peeked around to see if there's anything that will attack us instantly.
Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I took a few steps further. My heart is beating for some reason, like something's not right. Its a weird feeling, its like I have to prepare for something…
Are my heart beats…connected to the camera?
When I stepped on the top stair, the sound of my heart grew louder. At the same time, my inner emotions are spiralling around me as if an alarm was raised.
My fear is the strongest emotion at the moment.
But what made me feel so afraid is that everything turned darker…like some black fog kicking in the area and made the atmosphere heavy and dark.
"Emil-san, is something the matter?"
I did not look back at him, as I looked to the ground in confusion of my current emotional state, "Hey Kiku, have you heard your heart beats before?"
"Yes?"
"Do you hear them…banging progressively louder? While that is going on, don't you feel like you set off some sort of alarm in your mind? An alarm that raises the feeling of dread? Didn't everything turn darker…?"
"…The camera's link to the user." He interrupted, "Even if we are nations, we are not exempted from the side effects of the camera. It appears that it is already affecting you, in a way where you will feel your fear in an unwanted situation."
I don't like this at all. The camera is the reason why I feel so…hopeless. This is what happened to that Japanese family? Did something like this also happen to Kiku?
I can't think that now, I have to be extremely wary. The 2nd floor of this room appears to be a small attic with its walls covered with white cloth. The only things not covered with the cloth are the celling beams above us and the wooden floor.
This room is entirely a storage area.
However, its hard to ignore the loud thumping sounds of my heart and the feeling of doom inside me.
"Kiku, don't move."
"Emil-san, what're you…?"
I ignored him and proceeded inside the area. When I stepped on what appears to be a dead centre…
Two black ghosts appeared right in front of my face, and they are hanging upside down. Both of them appear to be male ghosts and their limbs are horrifically stretched. Their faces are filled with blood from their wide open mouth gaps.
I can hear those haunting screams again…but this time, the screams are echoing.
"Ah!" I jumped back a bit and I aimed at them with the camera. While the blue circle appears to be charging, both ghosts appear to be swinging from the celling beams. The ghost on the right is much closer to me, so I focused on it first.
The camera charged completely and the right side ghost almost reached me with its swinging. When I felt its arms surrounding me and its face almost in front of mine…
I clicked the trigger.
It then feel to the ground, its unnatural stretched limbs spread out on the ground and its face facing up the celling. It quickly faded away while leaving behind another scream.
Immediately, I faced my left to look for the other ghost but its not there. I looked around frantically for it…
"Emil-san, help!"
I turned around to see the ghost swinging directly in front of Kiku. I immediately ran to his side and snapped an uncharged shot at the ghost.
It swung away from us for a while and I started charging the shot.
However, it immediately lunged towards me and grabbed both of my arms. My eyes widened and I started to panic while flailing my grabbed arms.
"N-no, stay away!" I struggled to release myself from its grip, all the while looking at its black sockets where its eyes should be.
Suddenly, I felt hands grabbing my shoulders and pulling against the ghost. I realised that it is Kiku who is trying to save me from the spirit's grip.
"E-Emil-san! The Shaeiki! Use it, now!"
Without looking through the view, I aimed the camera at the ghost and clicked another shot. It wasn't enough, so I clicked on multiple shots at the ghost, and all of them uncharged. When I felt its grip loosening, I released myself and pushed the ghost away. Like before it swung back, but Kiku pushed me away to the side and we both landed on the ground.
I then looked through the camera and I charged a shot. When the ghost looked at me, I immediately clicked on the trigger and it fell down to the ground.
It disappeared in the same way the other ghost did.
When echoes of screams stopped, we both stayed at the ground, looking at where both ghosts were.
In shock, I inhaled and exhaled at the loudest, trying to get my breath back after that attack. I can hear Kiku also breathing really loud.
However, the sound of my heart beats stopped and my heart is pumping in a normal rate again. I can even feel myself calming down.
"Hey Kiku, I think I figured it out."
"About what?"
"When a spirit intent on attacking me is nearby, my heart goes out of control and my emotions spiral around into fear. When I defeated the 2 ghosts, my heart and my emotions go back to normal." I looked at the camera in my hand, "I think the camera is giving me signals of approaching danger or something."
Long silence followed after my discovery. It made me feel uneasy as to why Kiku hasn't said anything about this yet.
"Emil-san, I need to confess to you about something…" I can hear him sigh, "Those effects you were feeling was also what I felt during my investigation a while ago. The camera has cursed me to give me signals that doom is approaching, and after what I have witnessed, I felt scared of feeling hopeless again. So I…intentionally gave you the camera so that I won't have to feel it again, so I can focus on the objective rather than being haunted by malicious spirits. I'm sorry, Emil-san…I just gave you the curse…"
I don't know what to think about this, so Kiku entrusted me with this camera because he was scared of experiencing those spirits again and confronting them. On the other hand, when he clicked a fully charge shot at the ghost in my house, it resisted the attack and attacked back at him with almost no damage done. When I tried to do the same thing, the ghost was defeated in one shot.
He's right to entrust me with the Camera Obscura.
"I…don't blame you." I replied, "You were really trying hard to avoid talking about the events that has happened to you before, and those events made you scared of wielding this camera but at the same time you wanted to find that family and stop this whole thing altogether."
"But I just…"
"I forgive you." I interrupted him, "You are investigating this place, but it'll be difficult to do that if you are only focused on getting rid of the spirits. Plus, I have my own objective…"
"Your own objective…?"
"I won't rest until I save my own family and my people…even if I have to go through hell." I looked at the camera, "The camera is indeed a curse. However, Its a weapon I can use to fight back to the bastards who took them away from me, and I'm curious as to why they took my family in the first place. Forgive me Kiku, but I'm also only using you to figure out the mystery. You are my only lead."
We are only using each other for our own benefit and we both needed to go to this mansion in order to reach our goals. So I only used him so that I can get more info about the mystery, while he only used me so that he doesn't have to deal with the spirits while investigating.
I'm ok with it.
He stood up, "I forgive you as well." He reached out a hand towards me, "Let's see why that little girl led us here."
I grabbed his hand and I stood up as well.
In this area, the only notable thing here are the walls that are covered. So I went through the room to the far end and grabbed the white sheet. Disregarding the amount of dust the cloth has, I pulled it away in one swift pull. The dust went flying around and we both coughed.
When the dust settled down, I looked at the wall and even though I'm not exactly an enthusiast about what I saw, but I'm pretty amazed to see what was covered up.
The was filled with a large amount of firearms, from the small pistols to the large rifles. They all look old style, so they must be here for many years or so.
"Emil-san, I'm going to remove all of the white sheets…so please cover your nose and mouth."
When I did what he told me, he removed the white sheets covering the side walls and the dust doubled in the air.
After a few minutes, the dust diminished and I looked at the other walls. There were twice as many firearms…
Wait…
On the wall to my right, there's a big space with nothing on it.
"Hey Kiku, look." I pointed to the space, "There's a big space there."
He went closer to the empty space on the wall, with me following behind him. There are empty hooks on the wall, meant to hold up a firearm. Judging by the space, the firearm that's missing is a rifle.
"Someone took a rifle." I said, "Must be for self defence."
"Except its useless against spirits. What if-huh…?" He paused and reached out to the rifle next to the empty space, "There's a paper there…"
He reached out to the piece of paper that's stuck behind the rifle and pulled it out. He unfolded the paper and read the contents. After a while, his eyes widened and he gasped. I grew a bit concerned.
"What is it, Kiku?"
"Y-y-you…might want to read this." He handed me the paper and I began reading it out loud.
"I don't know what's going on, I don't know why I'm here, or why that Icelandic sounding ghost attacked us in my house and showed me a vision of this place. We had to run out of my house.
I went to Iceland to check what that vision meant, but I can't tell Emil. He'll just be curious and come with me, but I know he'll get hurt and I can't risk it if a ghost attacked him. I can't even tell the rest of the Nordics, even Berwald.
We found this mansion inside Heiðmörk and we decided to check it inside. We were locked from going out, so we can't turn back even if we wanted to.
We spent a long time exploring this place, and we even avoided encounters with the other ghosts. It felt like such a long time passed since we arrived, but the night sky hasn't moved an inch…
We found this room, a room filled with covered furniture and I saw a little girl who's already dead. She lead us up here, and when I peeked through the cloths, I saw a rifle. I grabbed the rifle and slid this note behind the rifle next to the one I took.
If anyone is reading this, I'll let you know that I'm still alive. We are still alive. Hanatamago and I are still alive.
-Tino Vainamoine"
"T-Tino?!" I yelled out of instinct and shock, "Tino…passed by here!"
"There a chance that Tino-kun is still alive, even if he went missing for two months!" Kiku yelled out, "Its only a matter of time before we see him!"
I felt happy to know that Tino is really hanging on to his own life for such a long period of time, but I'm a bit surprised that Hanatamago (His dog) went with him. Then again, Tino loves that dog very much.
I placed his letter inside my journal.
"The other branching pathway back at the hall." I said as I headed for the stairs, "If the same little girl led Tino here before, and led us here now, then I think she led him to the other branching path."
"Plus, she came from that other path. There's a chance that Tino might be somewhere past that path. Let's go."
We headed back downstairs to the area with the covered furniture, and something changed about the area. All of the furniture are uncovered, and probably the most grotesque sight I ever had in life just happened.
All of the furniture pieces…have faces on them. Not simple faces, but the faces similar to the spirits that I fought. The faces are covering the furniture, and some of them are moving their mouths. From the faces, they made housing noises of pain, and Its chilling me to no end. I felt Kiku pushing me to move forward quickly.
"H-hurry, take a picture…" He muttered.
Before we went though the door, I faced back to the howling furniture and snapped a picture with the camera. When the image formed, the faces of the furniture faded away, and another image faded in.
It appears to be a location outside, with the subject of the picture being a large white sheet hanging on a clothesline. Its a picture of laundry hanging outside.
Finally, we left the room and leaned against the wall. I slid down to the ground, looking at the camera and thinking of the image that I saw.
"Kiku, when I took a picture of those faces, I saw another image." I faced him, "It appears to be location outside, where laundry is drying."
"Hmmm…for those faces to show an image like that…" Kiku pondered on, "I think the other branching path leads to a part of the backyard."
I stood up, "We won't know unless we check it out."
I continued on my way with Kiku following behind me. When we reached the other branching path, I almost expected another ghost to pop out of me like what happened when I passed by here earlier. However, nothing happened.
Through the other path, we walked slowly through it with my camera prepared to protect us. We reached the dead end of the path and a single door lies there.
I slowly opened the door, and I can hear the sound of a machine running. Its not a modern machine, but it sounding like a sewing machine.
Right I was.
The room is filled with clothes. In the middle is a table with the running sewing machine, with some clothes next to it. In the walls are paintings of some people wearing different types of clothes, from the Japanese style to the European style. They must be models for whoever is creating these clothes here.
There are mannequins here wearing some completed outfits, and some mannequins that appeared to be destroyed. There are clothes on the ground, and and of those clothes are ripped apart.
Whoever lived here must be a talented tailor and fashion designer.
I went to the sewing machine since it caught my attention entirely and I was careful of touching it, since it was running and I can hurt my hands there. Underneath the machine is another piece of paper, and it has the faded yellow color unlike Tino's letter from the storage room.
I took the paper and unfolded it. I can't read it at all, its in Japanese. It looks very short.
"Kiku." I handed him the paper, "Can you read this out loud in English? Its written in Japanese."
He took the letter from my hand and began reading it out loud.
"I decided to take my career of fashion designing here. Even though I don't want to see anyone, I need to make a living here. Since I'm a bit known back in Japan, I might as well work incognito." He stopped reading it, "That's all."
"So whoever lives here has a career in fashion…" I commented, "It could be anyone, as even fashion designing is not totally geared towards women."
"Are you sure? Fashion designing is sought after by a lot of women…" Kiku said.
"But there are also a lot of successful male fashion designers too. Michael Kors, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein…in fact, most of the richest male designers are Italian men. Why do you think Feliciano and Lovino both have a seriously good sense of fashion? Alfred seems to have a good sense as well, if we disregard his loud personality…"
"Yes, I should know about Feli-kun and Lovino-san…" Kiku laughed, "I'm surprised that you know much about the business."
Me and my big mouth…
"L-let's say I-I…got bored, and did some research…" My face grew red and I looked away from him, "Plus, I'm sort of interested in it as well. I designed my own clothes and had them tailor made. Can we move on to the real topic now?"
"Right, sorry about that." He observed the paper again, "So we can't tell if its the mother, the son, or the daughter who has a career in fashion, and its obviously not the father since I already handled that. But at least we know how the person who lived here made a living." I grabbed the paper he was holding.
Calming down a bit after that fashion designing talk and placing the note in my journal, I observed some of the clothes next to the machine. The clothes here, appear to be kimonos, as I recognised an oriental style in some of the patterns, as well as the obi-sash (I was incredibly bored that day…).
That's when I heard something rattle.
It took us both by surprise and started looking through the camera to prepare myself for an attack.
"Emil-san…" Kiku pointed to our right, "Over there…"
Where he pointed at was a large wooden closet, and its shaking really hard. I can't hear any other noises from inside the closet, but I feel as though I should open it.
"I'll open it." I walked closer to the closet slowly, "Stay far away, ok?"
Kiku nodded, and I am now standing in front of the closet. It continued to shake, and I can hear loud bangs on the closet doors. The handles of the double doors are tied together by what appears to be a red scarf.
I breathed in as I started uniting the knot. However, I don't have this sense of danger within me, like I really should untie the scarf and release what was banging around in the closet.
When I completely removed the scarf, I threw it to the side and opened the doors.
Something small jumped at me and pushed me to the ground, landing on my back. I closed my eyes in the pain of falling hard to the ground.
"H-hey! Get off me!" I yelled out, trying to move aside whoever pushed me down.
Not being able to see anything, I used my hands to try to grab it. However, I felt like I was holding something soft like fur…and I can feel a tail wagging at my hands…
When I opened my eyes, I saw Hanatamago's face in front of me.
"H-Hanatamago?!" I yelled out as I sat up. Hanatamago looked at me with her dog face, and I saw tears in her eyes. She looked so afraid…
I hugged the dog, "Its ok Hana…Its me, Emil…I-I came here to save you and everyone else…"
It has been a long time since I felt so…happy. Seeing Hanatamago alive and with me is a hopeful feeling.
However that hopeful feeling went away quickly, when my heart started beating its loudest and my fear ran in. At the same time, the sewing machine stopped working and everything became eerily quiet…
"K-Kiku!" I handed Hana to him, "Take Hana and get to the door!"
When he and Hana ran to the other door that leads to another room, I stayed by the closet and looked through my surroundings with the camera. I desperately tried to find what made me so fearful, and not knowing where the ghost is, is making my breaths louder and louder.
I looked through to see two headless and limbless mannequins and they started to distort. Soon, a head popped out of the mannequins and the limbs went out as well. They appear to be women with a mannequin's body.
They aimed themselves towards me slowly while howling out grotesque sounds. The blue circle in the camera started to charge. When the circle is fully charged, I clicked the trigger and I caught those two ghosts in my shot since they were in sight of the camera.
Instead of disappearing immediately, they just stood back and covered their faces in pain. The mannequin bodies must have made them resist the shot a bit, but when they were covering their faces in pain, the circle in my view turned red. Almost on instinct, I took another picture again and they writhed even more in pain.
They didn't disappear yet and since the red circle is still there, I took the picture again. They both then broke down and disappeared, leaving behind the mannequin bodies they possessed. My heart returned to normal.
"Oh god…" I muttered. I then went to Kiku's side, "Are you both ok?"
"Yes, we are." Kiku looked down to the dog in his arms, "However, I don't know about Hana-chan…"
With my free hand, I rubbed the dog's head and she looked at me. She must have cried again when those ghosts appeared.
"i don't think those ghosts locked Hanatamago inside that closet…" I said, "I think it was Tino."
"But why would Tino-kun lock her inside?"
"I don't know if I'm right, but I think at this point they were being chased. When they went to this room, he decided to lock Hana inside the closet so that the ghosts won't go after her." I felt my face frown, "But that also meant that he's their main target…"
Immediately after I said that, my heart started to ache and the beating came back, but it became louder. It hurts so much, I grabbed my chest in an attempt to ease the pain but nothing happened.
"E-Emil-san! Emil-san!" He yelled out. Hanatamago then jumped out of Kiku's arms and started to push my feet away from the door. Slowly walking and enduring the pain, I walked away from the door and to the sewing machine. Soon, the pain stopped.
"What was that…?" I muttered.
Kiku walked to me, "What happened there?"
"I don't know. My heart started to hurt and those heart beats were like a drum in my ears…I think whatever is through that door must be something powerful. I wasn't prepared for that…so I guess that's why it hurts so much."
I then saw Hanatamago growling at the door and barking loudly. She then ran to the door and scratched it, trying to open it.
"Hana-chan!" Kiku scooped up the dog in his arms, "I think Hana saw something go through there earlier…"
"Where are you…?"
When I heard that voice again, I saw that same ghost girl, and she is standing right next to me. She seems different now, as she is glowing much brighter than when we saw her before.
She then pointed to the door, leading me to go there. But instead of disappearing, she…
She gave me an innocent smile.
"Y-you…found…her. Please…save…him. Find…where…are…you?"
You found her? Please save him? Find…find who she is looking for?
She then pointed to the camera. I think…this is the actual ghost, not just fragmented spirits. I aimed my camera at her and she still showed off that innocent smile. When I clicked the trigger, my sight grew white and I found myself having another vision.
A little girl is hiding in a closet, shivering as she held her legs closer to her and hiding her face.
"Where are you…? Where are you…? Save me…!"
The closet door opened and a ghost possessing a mannequin grabbed her neck and started scratching it deep, with a lot of blood oozing out.
"A-ack…g-ga…W-where…are…you…?"
I blinked when that vision ended. Ignoring the concerning eyes of Kiku and Hanatamago, I looked at the now open closet and went closer to it. I looked inside thoroughly, and I saw what I was afraid of seeing…
It was a corpse, the corpse of the little girl who has been guiding us up until now. The corpse's neck has many open scratch wounds that look deep and the blood dried into an ugly brownish red, her eyes rolled up to her skull.
In sadness, I took a step inside the large closet and closed the lids of the girl's eyes.
"Rest in peace, lítil stúlka…"I said to the corpse before closing the closet.
"Emil-san." Kiku grabbed on to my shoulder and I looked back at him, "That girl…I think she said that you finally found Hana-chan, and when she said 'please save him' I think she meant that we have to save Tino-kun. Her last words…meant the person she was looking for."
"I thought the same too." I said, "On the way, let's find whoever that girl is looking for, so that she can rest easily."
We then heard Hanatamogo growl again at the door and she's barking louder than ever. I think she's telling us to go through that door, but my heart ached when I went near the door…
I grabbed Hanatamago into my arms and handed her to Kiku. He looked confused as he took the dog.
"Kiku, I think I'll be battling something at the other side of that door. I feel as though its going to be very dangerous, so I want you and Hanatamago to exit this mansion."
"What? But Emil-san, what about you?"
"I'm going to fight. if Hana's going to continue growling at the door like that, then I have to stop her by going through it." I gave Kiku and Hana a smile, "So please, get out of this mansion first. Once I'm done, I'll go out of this mansion too."
Kiku gave me a long stare, telling me how extremely worried he'll be, and he nodded. Then then exited the room, but not before giving me a sad face and Hana looking at me with those large puppy eyes.
Now I'm all alone here. I felt scared but I have to go through that door…
However, I saw a pen next to the sewing machine suddenly. I decided to write down my next entry.
Entry no. 2
We found a room filled with firearms…and there, we found a note from Tino, indicating that he's alive. We then ended up inside a tailor room, where we found out that the owner of this place is a fashion designer(Which begs the question of why a fashion designer has a ton of firearms in one room. Kiku did say that they are collectors of antiques and the guns do look pretty old.)In this room, we found Hanatamago trapped inside a closet and she kept growling at the other door. My heart ached when I went near that door, so I sent Kiku and Hana outside of the mansion, because I knew somehow that whatever I'll be facing is going to be powerful.
While all this is going on, we were attacked by hostile ghosts and my heart beats become loud, and my vision became darker when one is near. I could use this to detect hostile ghosts in order to avoid any casualties. Kiku said that its a side effect from using the camera. I also took a picture of the ghost girl again and she disappeared, leaving behind a vision on how she died. It was horrible to see her die like that.
When I finished the entry, the pen once again faded away in my hands. I placed the journal back in my bag and stood in front of the door. My heart ached, but now knowing what's going to happen at the other side, I can tolerate the pain.
Tino, hold on. I'll save you.
I don't think this story will have a lot of chapters, but only time will tell.
So please leave a review if you want to say something!