CHAPTER 2
The scene was alive with activity; which is strange to say, because life, or rather the loss of life, was the focus of this particular crowd. Amid the crush of police officers and investigators was a young man with shaggy brown hair. He was knelt no less than an inch away from the object of everyone's focus; the unidentified body of a young girl. "Jesus..." he sighed. "Michael, what have you got for me?"
"Hold your horeses," said back another young man with blond hair and glasses. He stood behind his collegue and typed away on a travel sized notebook computer. "Got it. So her name is Rika Shiraki, a student attending St. Hermelin high school."
"Thought I reconized that uniform." The browned haired detective said.
"Apparently she had to cross from one side of the room to the other to get a key that would have unlocked that thing strapped to her."
"And after coming so far..." he pitied. "Anyway, where's Miho?"
"On her way from the police station. She was interigating a boy who gave an account that has a few qaulities similar to this one." Michael said
"You're telling me this isn't an isolated insident?"
"No, it's not," said a new voice from the doorway.
The two detectives turned to the owner of the voice, Miho Karasuma. "The boy had quite an incredible story to tell," she continued. "And it all sounded alot like what we've got here." She crossed the room and knelt near Rika's body. She withdrew a small flashlight from her pocket and ran the beam along the corpse until she found what she was looking for. "Four," she muttered. "Everything syncs up; these cases are definatly related."
"How can that be?" Michael interjected. "All the bodies found on that train had the number 'seven' on them."
"What, is this maniac keeping count?"
"Maybe, Sakaki," Karasuma said. "All we do know for sure is that whoever is doing this, must be stoped."
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"I feel weird." Chihiro came to an abrubt stop in the hospital's courtyard.
Her friend Fuuka walked several paces onward then stoped when she realized Chihiro was no longer following her. "Hey c'mon," she said, tugging Chihiro's arm. "We're just visiting Maki, that's all. Do hospitals give you the creeps or something?"
"It's not the hospital..." Chihiro wimpered. Chihiro always suffered from being shy, at least that's what those around her called it. Unknown to her companions, her "shyness" was more of an an anxiety of crowds; or of people in general. For some reason she really couldn't really bring herself to put her trust in any individual, especially a stranger.
"C'mon, c'mon, you promised me already, remember? You can't back out on me now," Fuuka whined.
"I know. I'm sorry," Chihiro said with a faulty smile.
The two continued walking towards the hospitals main entrance, passing many people on thier way. Most of them were patiants in wheelchairs or sitting on benches. Chihiro hated looking at them. Confined to those aweful metal chairs with bags of some colored god-knows-what leaking into their veins. Did they really think they'd somehow become well just by sitting outside? The faster Chihiro left this place, the better.
They were just about to the entrance when Fuuka's cell phone went off. Chihiro's ears perked up when she recognized the ring tone. "Is that 'welcome home'?"
"My fave song ever." She walked away from Chihiro a little to gain a semblance of privacy, but she could still hear her strained response to her caller, "I told you not to call me that here..." she walked out of range and Chihiro was ignorant to the rest of the conversation. In the few seconds she was alone, Chihiro cast an anxious look around the courtyard. An old women in a wheelchair gave her a friendly smile and a small wave. Chihiro could not bring herself to return either gesture. She instead looked down to the ground at her feet. Fuuka returned and said quickly, "Sorry about that, a friend of mine."
She replaced her phone in her pocket and the two entered the hospital. Fuuka approached the reception desk and inquired about her friend. Chihiro opted to stay back a few paces.
"Okay thank you," She said upon getting her information.
Fuuka lead them up a flight of stairs and down a busy corrider. And that's when a thought occured to her. "Hey, Fuuka, isn't this that hospital with that huge underground facility?"
"Yes, it is," she said back. "But the underground section's been abandoned for years. It was some guy's idea to expand the hospital without taking up anymore space on the land above, or else they'd go over their contract. So they decided to build underground, but the idea was dropped halfway into construction. Great waste of time that was."
"Mmm..."
The two of them arrived at room 362 and Fuuka knocked softly on the door. A nurse answered and slowly opened the door. "Oh good to see you again , Fuuka." she said.
"Hello. How's Maki?"
"She's been doing better lately. Maybe all your visits are doing some good for her."
The nurse held the door open for the two of them, but Chihiro was a little tentative to enter. "C'mon honey it's all right," she said. "Maki already has company, so come in and join the party."
Chihiro braved a smile and stepped into the room.
"Alright. just remember to hit the call button if you need anything" the nurse said on her way out.
She closed the door behind her and Chihiro surveyed the room. Fuuka was already sitting on the edge of the bed talking to a young sickly-looking girl. She had black hair and eyes, which seemed even darker with her skin so pale and ashen. But some of her color seemed to come back while she spoke to Fuuka. She let out a giggle as Fuuka told her something Chihiro couldn't quite hear.
Chihiro's gaze wandered around the room and that's when she noticed another girl in the room. She was seated in the corner of the room on a hard plastic chair. She looked like one of those delinquent types; dressed in all black, a short black dress and long black leather boots. Each of her fingernails were also painted black. Her bright gold-blonde hair seemed to offset her look, Chihiro was suprised it wasn't black as well.
The girl was lazily filing her nails when she looked up and noticed Chihiro for the first time, and her painted crimson lips curved into a smile. "Hey, Fuuka, is she the one you were telling me about?" she said.
"Yep, that's her," was Fukka's response.
The blonde girl laughed silently to herself and continued working on her nails.
Suddenly , Chihiro wanted to be out of that room. "Um...I have to go use the bathroom..."
"Down the hall, fourth door on the left," said the blonde girl. "You can't miss it."
Chihiro dashed from the room. On her way to the restroom she passed more people than she cared to remember, none of them she made eye contact with. she found the door to the restroom and hurried inside, luckily it was empty. Chihiro inspected each of the stalls to make sure none of them were occupied and then entered the middle one. She sat on the toilet and burried her face in her didn't have to use the bathroom at all, she just needed an excuse to be out of that room.
Chihiro's dispairing thoughts were broken by the bathroom door swinging open. She immediatly sat up strait and did her best to remain quiet, why she didn't know, it just seemed like shared bathroom manners to keep the your...business...to yourself.
Chihiro could hear a pair of heels click-clak their way over to the stalls, she could see the shadow of their owner projected scross the room. And whoever the person was, they stoped right outside the stall Chihiro was in. she looked down and in the space between the door and the floor she saw a pair of shiny black leather boots...a pair of familiar shiny black leather boots. "Um, this one's occupied." Chihiro called out. If the person heared her, the gave no inclanation. Suddenly she saw a hand slip under the door and a small silver canister rattled into the stall. Chihiro shot up and and tried to break the door down. The canister emitted some kind of invisible gas that burned Chihiro's throat. The room around her swam and she fell to her knees, and then everthing went black.