A/N: Yo! This is my first attempt at horror, hope it goes down well! (Even though my Vocaloid fics are always full of fail, but heh, I just really like writing them. ^^)
Oh hang on I must build up the atmosphere first.
*deep, scary voice* This is story is filled with some graphic details of gore. And odd character-placing. You have been warned... (Insert a gazillion other obligator dots to make it seem scarier than it actually is.)
This is a fic inspired by the song "Kakome Kakome" and reading a couple of horror fics on the site, and fueled by my inner evil thoughts.
Now that we've set every thing down, let us begin! Please uh, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloids
*coincidental flash of lightning and thunder*
The cautious tapping of footsteps bounced off the seemingly thin walls. The corridor was gloomy and foreboding, with the only source of light being the dying streams of evening sun seeping through the broken old windows. Piko proceeded along the path with care, fearful and yet running on a bit of adrenaline-induced thrill.
Piko strained his ears to make out any sounds. But other than his own heart ramming against his ribcage, he heard nothing else. The song he heard, the beautiful voices of the choir, where is it coming from?
That was the only reason Pico had ventured into this desolate building he didn't know existed. It was located in the forest near his family's mansion. He had been doing his research in the area, holding his deceased grandfather's beloved pen in hand. Piko aspired to be a great scientist, just like his grandfather was in his prime.
He was lost in his thoughts when his pen suddenly fell from his fingers and ran down the hill. Oh no! That was his grandfather's prized possession, his grandfather will flip in his grave if he ever loses it!
With that, Piko chased the lone pen down the hill, dirtying his expensive silk clothes in the process. "Oomph!" He cried as he landed on his butt at the bottom of the hill. He stood up and dusted his torn and filthy clothes. "The maids are not going to like this... Oh yes, the pen!"
When he finally found it it laid right in front of what seemed to be the entrance to an old, abandoned building rather suspiciously. Piko glanced at the building.
"It looks like it was a grand hospital in its time," he commented.
Dismissing that, he bent down to pick up his pen. Upon doing so, it was as though someone had suddenly unwound the music box.
"Kagome kagome, the bird in the cage,
when, when will you come out?"
The voices were clear as crystals, tinkling like church bells. They sounded like children his age, playing a game of Kagome. Perhaps that was their secret playground?
There was something alluring about those voices; something that is making him want to join them.
"No, I shouldn't," he shook his snow-white head, reminding himself, "The sun's going down, my family'll be worried for me. Especially Iroha-chan. Big brothers don't make their sisters worry!" He nodded for affirmation.
"In the evening of the dawn,"
Piko glared hesitatingly at the old hospital. The cold structure stared back at him, every crack in its body a sign of danger themselves.
"Who is standing right behind you now?"
Step by step Piko's legs moved themselves in the direction of the hospital. He wants to. He wants to play with them. He itches to join them.
He was on what he thought was the third level of the four-storey construction. It was astonishing how the typical smell of antiseptics and disinfectants lingered in the place after so long. There was a slight stench of decay, evident from the large patches of mould in the corners of the ceiling.
Every observations made about this hospital so far reeked of a frightening premonition. But as a man of science, Piko shall not subscribed to these supernatural nonsense!
"Hello? Anyone? I-I would like to play with you please?" He called out for the umpteenth time.
"Kagome kagome, the bird in the cage,"
Finally, a response! It sounded like it was coming from the floor above, so Piko quickened his footsteps excitedly. He turned into a dark, murky corner and climbed the ominous-looking stairs without much thought. The children's singing grew louder.
Their notes started to end with a sharp at the end of the line, giving the song a tint of creepiness. But it didn't bother Piko much, although he was a bit uncomfortable.
When he emerged from the stair landing he was faced with a windowless door, something that was unlike the other doors in the abandoned hospital. There was a sign hanging precariously on the door by one corner. Its words were largely faded with time, but Piko could briefly make out "Authorised Personnel Only".
Ignoring that, he pressed his ear against the dusty door frame.
"In the evening of the dawn,
the crane and turtle slipped."
Indeed, this was where the children were playing! With an eager smile he twisted the rusty doorknob.
He swung the door ajar. The room was blindingly white, as though it was a fresh coat of paint, which was amazing given that it has not yellowed over the years. In the middle stood a group of children, holding hands and turning in a circle. A blue-haired boy was at the center, blindfolded. Oddly enough, they were clad in yukata, which was something Piko thought people only wear at summer festivals nowadays.
"Who stands right behind you now?"
They stopped, synchronised. For the next second no one moved, not even a mild twitch of the muscle. As if they were still corpses. Even Piko's heart didn't dare beat for that second.
And ever so slowly, the children's head turned around to face him. Large, wide smiles hung on their faces.
There was a girl with teal twin tails, a pair of blonde twins (a boy and a girl), an older girl with brown bob, a pink-haired girl, another much younger girl with pink wavy twin tails, a boy with long purple hair...
But there was the eyes. There was something about their eyes. He couldn't see any of their eyes. Those with long fringes covered it; those with short fringes were smiling so hard their eyes became crescents; the rest were too far away from the light source and had hence a shadow concealing their eyes.
"H-Hi, s-sorry to intrude..." Piko began, sheepish about barging into their game.
"Would you like to play with us?" The teal-haired girl offered her pale, white hand. She was grinning so wide the tips of her mouth almost touched her ears.
Piko lit up. "C-Can I?"
"Of course, we insist," the girl half of the twin, who had hidden her eyes under her long side fringe, said.
"Join us," her twin said.
Once again ignoring all the warnings his logical head was yelling, Piko took the girl's stone cold palms.
"You shall be the oni," a blue-haired boy announced as he tied his blindfold around Piko's eyes. The cloth stank of antiseptics as well. They must have stolen it from the hospital.
Soon Piko could see nothing but nothingness itself.
The game started.
"Kagome kagome, the bird in the cage,
when, when will you come out?
In the evening of the dawn,
the crane and turtle slipped.
Who stands right behind you now?"
It finally occurred to Piko that he has yet to learn any of their names. "Wait, I don't know any of your names," he said, still blindfolded.
"Of course you do, silly."
"Don't you keep our names in your records?"
Piko was puzzled, "Huh? What are you talking about? What records?"
"Quick, guess who's behind you now." The voice from behind him came.
Piko frowned as he thought hard. That voice was familiar, it should belong to someone who spoke to him just now. He made a wild guess. "Um, the girl twin?"
Light giggles exploded the moment he said his answer. A voice finally responded to the confused Piko, "You guessed wrong."
"You lose!"
Piko laughed along. "Oh well," he said, "It was my fault for not learning your names anyway." His hands proceeded to undo the knot.
"The loser must have a punishment~"
"Huh?" Piko sounded just as he regained his vision.
He took a sharp gasp.
There was a reason he could not see their children's eyes; because they have no eyes. Their eye sockets were nothing but hollow blackness, a stark contrast to their ash-white skin.
"Get ready for your punishment," the girl with twin drills stretched her hand out, only to have her forearm tear itself from the medical seams and was left dangling by its tendons. "Oops."
"Ah!" Piko let out a shout and fell even further backwards. The sight of maggots feeding on the decaying rotting flesh was making him nauseous.
Everything about the room instantly turned eerie. He finally noticed something he hadn't notice before, or rather, weren't visible to him before.
The children's skins were covered in stitches, body parts sewn up every where. Sometimes they don't even have a body part. Like the girl twin who had no left arm. In parts where there were no stitches there was bandage wrapped so tightly around their flesh, the immediate skin was a dark shade of purple. Like the boy twin around his skull. Maggots were literally chewing off their rotting flesh.
And there was red everywhere. The white walls are now a strong shade of faded yellow, its cracks apparent; and even more so its dried and flaky blood splatter streaked across every inch. The children's stitches and bandages were also soaked with burst of red stain. Red tears streamed down the corners of where their eyes once were.
The room reeked of copper, rotten meat and medicine all at once.
Piko was trembling, shaking with fear. What the hell is going on? None of these make sense! The children didn't look like this before, and he swore the room was a pure white when he came in! His breathings got shallower and faster.
"Let us think of a punishment for him." the salmon-haired girl suggested. She had stitches extending from either corners of her lips, making her look like she had an unusually large mouth.
"I know! Let's make him one of us." The teal-haired girl spoke as Piko observed the loosening bandage slung across her neck. When the cloth fell it revealed her throat, sliced wide open. Through the raw gaping hole Piko could see that parts of her windpipe had been ripped out from her throat. The maggots feeding on the upper end of her remaining windpipe occasionally fell to the bottom half. His stomach churned with disgust.
By this time all the anticipation he had earlier on were drained and quickly replenished with pure horror. He was so horrified even his brain stopped functioning; he thought of nothing as he continued staring straight at all the deformity of these young children.
His tight grip on the blindfold loosened as he felt his energy getting sucked out of him. Something moist trail down his palm.
Even the cloth was dripping with fresh, crimson blood. He let out a shaky yelp and threw the cursed cloth away.
"Yes, let's." The boy twin grinned, revealing his toothless and bloodied gums. The bandage which bound one side of his face was slowly unwinding, letting that small chunk of his scalp gradually slide off.
Cold, dirty finger nails dug into Piko's thin skin membrane, almost piercing it. Piko twisted violently to rid the hand on his shoulder, but by then he already had both sides of his arms being stretched taut by the twins on either side. Their grip was so firm he thought his arms were going to be torn off.
"Welcome," the blonde boy said. By then a part of his head was gone and replaced with an army of maggots crawling all over his hair.
"Are you the Trapped Bird this time?" his sister asked innocently.
"This is going to hurt a little," the teal-haired strolled towards him, a blunt and rusty scalpel in hand. "But there's no need to be scared."
"That's what you always told us," the boy with purple hair said as he held Piko's shoulders still with incredible strength.
Desperate, Piko kicked his legs savagely. He twisted and struggled with every drop of energy he could muster in his frail 13-year-old body. But the children's grips seem as sturdy as ever. His hopes were killed when the blue-haired boy held his legs tightly and tied it securely with the bloodied blindfold. The blood seeped into Piko's pants.
By then a crowd of the remaining children were looking over him, occupying his entire field of vision. Without backlight, their faces looked even more sinister than ever.
"It was a lie." the girl with brown hair spoke. Her head looked as though it was slowly drooping to the effects of gravity. A sickening tearing sound could be heard.
"It doesn't hurt a bit, it hurts a lot!" the youngest girl in the group said. She waved her detached arm about.
"That was your punishment for us when we lose the game," the mature-looking pink-haired informed, her seams splitting apart.
It ended with a chilling warning, "Guess who lost this time?"
Piko's breath got hitched in his throat as he finally woke up from his slumber. It was too late when he finally realised what his senses had been telling him all the while: he was bringing himself to Death's door.
He shook violently, large beads of sweat drops running down his skin. His breath were shallow and hurried; his heart smashed frantically against his ribcage as though this is the last time it can ever do so.
The group parted to let the twin tailed girl approach him.
"It's your turn now, Piko-chan. Aren't you excited?" she muttered. As she spoke white foam of larvae poured out of her foul-smelling mouth.
She knelt down and crawled towards him. Her face was so close to his he could feel the icy chill of her skin and smell her pungent decaying flesh. Her hair was no long luscious and silky but dried and frayed. Some maggots dropped to his stomach. One or two stray larva squirmed out of where her eyeballs once were. He squinted his eyes shut to avoid look at it, gulping rather loudly.
Cold hand ran feather light touches along the skin of his cheeks. Fear consumed him.
"If you're a good boy you'll get sweets~"
The tip of the blade kissed his lower eyelid.
Make a circle, make a circle,
just so that you can't escape.
Make a circle, make a circle,
would you like to drink some, too?
Would you like to
play with us forever?
Kagome, Kagome,
"Who stands behind you right now?"
"Mou, where could that mischievous brother of mine be? Fancy being gone for one entire night and having the whole household worried about him!" A foot stepped onto the grass blades dripping with morning dews, stepping on an old, exquisite pen.
"Hn?" the baby-like girl with flaming red hair bent down to pick the pen up. "Isn't this Piko-nii's pen?" she wondered.
"Kagome kagome, the bird in the cage,
when, when will you come out?
In the evening of the dawn,
the crane and turtle slipped.
Who stands right behind you now?"
She finally noticed the tall building in front of her. The pen fell from her loose grip. The bird walked into her cage.
(A really long, feel free to skip) A/N:
It follows the PV of the song loosely, although I'm sure my weird style of writing confused many of you. For those of you who do not understand the story (and I'm sure that's a large number), here is what it is:
The children are experiments of the scientists long ago in a hidden corner of the hospital, one of them being Piko's grandfather. For some reason the experiments finally ended and the scientists went to live their separate lives, and the hospital having served its purpose, closed down. The patients were sent elsewhere for treatments, but there remains one room that was forgotten. The room Piko went into.
Piko's grandfather's pen made the children think that Piko was his grandfather himself, that's why they sought revenge on him. You could say the children were some sort of spirits. (Oh no I typed this word out I'm not sleeping alone tonight.)
"I'll give you sweets later", "It's your turn now aren't you excited" and so on are the words often used carelessly by the scientists before they perform their cruel experiments on the children.
The choice of Piko and Iroha as the characters who are not part of the group who were experimented on was some sort of representation of the two Vocaloid's late addition to the family. And hence, the later Vocaloids were chosen, although Piko and Iroha were honestly random choices.
Actually, this just gave me an idea for making this fic multi-chapter... Hm.
(Side note: OMFG My phone suddenly switched off by itself and I literally jumped. I need to shout a bad word so badly right now.)
Anyway, that was an awfully long A/N! I congratulate you for reading thus far! And thank you very much for reading the fic! I really appreciate it! Please review or drop me a PM to tell me how to improve writing horror/gore! (Actually I'm not sure whether I'd want to improve that. But reviews make me happy, so meh.)