I wish spell-check actually knew what I was thinking of typing T.T
I just got my hair cut, and it is WAY shorter than I thought. I'm not sure if that's good or bad; we'll see! According to my traffic graph, lots of people actually made it past chapter 1. Awww, you really do care! I have faith that I will actually be able to finish this successfully, so let's do it together one step at a time! So now we're on step 3: get chapter 3 done.
Also, I'm horribly sorry for all the spelling and grammar mistakes. I'm terrible at proofreading.
Arrivederci,
x-LiveFantasy-x
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"Why would your mom have two scraps of paper in her locket?" Mariko asked.
"I think I've seen this before," Tsukiko muttered, turning the scraps over in her hand. "Just regular paper scraps… I don't know, it's like déjà vu or something."
"How so?"
"Well, my mom was big into the occult, especially as a teen. That's what she does for a living, actually: she's a professor at the university who teaches all sorts of stuff about it. The intrigue kind of passed down to me, so I was doing some research on some simple charms and I think at some point came across something similar," Tsukiko explained.
"Similar like they both use paper scraps?" Mariko asked.
"Yeah, if I remember correctly," Tsukiko got up and fetched her laptop. After booting it up, she typed in a few commands and brought up the search engine. "The blog belonged to this girl named Naho. And… here we go."
She clocked on the website, but a pop-up appeared on the screen.
"'This website has been blocked,'" Mariko read off.
"Why would this be blocked on my computer?" Tsukiko's face twisted into a confused look. "I've never come across anything else blocked on here before."
"Can you unblock it?"
"I think so," Tsukiko typed in a few more commands, but everything was denied. She made an annoyed noise and yelled through the door and down the stairs, "Hey Roshi! Do you know how to unblock websites?"
"Uh, yeah," he yelled back. "You just go to your home screen and –"
"What?"
"Hold on!" There was the sound of feet on stairs, then Hiroshi came back into the room. Mariko hadn't noticed before, but he did bear a striking resemblance to his father, which is probably why most of the girls in the school found him devastatingly attractive. He took the laptop from his sister and while it perched precariously on his forearm he typed rapidly and clicked the enter button. "There. That should do it."
"Thank you," she kissed his cheek then pushed him out and closed the door.
She clicked on the blog URL again and this time the page came up. The title read, "Naho's Blog" and the last post was made long before either of the girls was born. The post, being the most recent, was displayed at the top of the blog, so they found it with no trouble.
"That's it!" Tsukiko pulled up the full version. "This is what I found at school! There was no block on the site there."
"It says it's called the 'Sachiko Ever After' charm," Mariko scanned the post. "It's performed between friends. It says that if carried out correctly, the participants will be friends forever."
"Sounds…"
"Awesome!"
"Weird."
"Tsukiko, I want to do this charm with everyone," Mariko exclaimed. "I know it's stupid and maybe I'm too superstitious, but I feel like I need to do this. Why else would the locket have opened for me when it couldn't for anyone else?"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
"Okay then," Tsukiko said as Mariko and her crowded the screen to read for further detail. "Let's do this."
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"A charm?" Raiden looked down at the little paper doll Mariko was holding in her hand.
He knew something was up with Mariko. Ever since they were kids, they always walked to and from school together since they lived on the same block, but that morning she wasn't there. He'd found out from Hiroshi that she'd spent the night at Tsukiko's, but no one knew why.
This must be why, he thought when she came into the classroom.
"Yeah," Mariko looked at her feet and blushed. "You must think it's stupid, but according to the legend of the charm if preformed the right way, the participants could stay together forever. In spirit, I guess, but nonetheless. I mean, we don't have much time left, so… I just wanted you to know I'll always be with you."
"You've always been the superstitious type," Raiden recalled with a small smile, the previous statement sending a chilled spike through his heart. "If it makes you feel better, then I'm in."
"I don't want it to be just us, though," Mariko said. "I want all my friends to be a part of it."
"Of course," Raiden knew she wasn't one to leave people out of things. He turned around to Aya and Yuji who were talking and said, "Aya! Ji! You want to see something cool?"
"Would I!" Aya eagerly jumped out of her seat.
"What are you going to do with a paper doll?" Yuji asked, examining the paper figure. "It doesn't look like anything special."
"It's used in a charm," Tsukiko explained. "If you do the charm then all the participants will be friends forever."
"What's going on in here?" There was a rustle behind the door and it opened up to reveal little Aiko at the door. "There's a lot of noise. I can hear it from down the hall!"
"C'mere Aiko," Raiden motioned her over to where everyone was standing. "You want to do something fun?"
"Sure!"
"Osamu, Kioshi, you guys want in?" Yuji asked.
Kioshi shrugged as Osamu said, "I don't usually take part in such trivial frivolities, but if it's from Mariko I guess I can make an exception."
"Oh, well look what we have here!" Raiden cringed as they all turned to see Kairi and Takashi waiting behind their group. "A little dweeb cult. How nice."
"Can it, Kairi," Yuji spat.
"I hope you all weren't expecting to do your little… whatever it is without us?" She pushed herself to the middle of the group. Then, clearing her throat, she said loudly so the teacher could hear, "Because you shouldn't be allowed to do it if everyone can't."
The teacher looked up from his morning paper and murmured, "Let them participate too. Now please, don't trash the room while I'm gone." He walked out and shut the door behind him, leaving everyone huddled in the middle of the room.
"You heard him," Kairi forced herself and Tamaki in, grabbing their sections. "Grin and bear it, losers."
Mariko looked very distraught, so instinctively – like he'd done it a hundred times before when she was sad – Raiden laced his fingers through hers. She gave a meager smile and said, "All we have to do is say, 'Sachiko, we beg of you' in unison, once for every participant. So, eleven times. Is everyone ready?"
"Good to go!" Aiko chirped.
"Okay," Tsukiko said. Then the chanting began:
"Sachiko, we beg of you," Kioshi was expressionless.
"Sachiko, we beg of you," Osamu had his eyes closed the whole time.
"Sachiko, we beg of you," Aiko was bouncing up and down with excitement.
"Sachiko, we beg of you," Aya was concentrating deeply, making sure not to mess up in timing.
"Sachiko, we beg of you," Yuji's hand was twitching, like he couldn't sit still.
"Sachiko, we beg of you," Tamaki was looking very nervous.
"Sachiko, we beg of you," Kairi was looking straight at Mariko with a smug grin on her face.
"Sachiko, we beg of you," Tsukiko looked broken.
"Sachiko, we beg of you," Hiroshi was right by his sister's side.
"Sachiko, we beg of you," Raiden was too aware of Mariko pressed against his side.
"Sachiko, we beg of you!" Mariko looked calmer then she had ever been as the chanting ceased.
R-r-r-i-i-i-i-i-p! The doll tore into eleven uneven pieces, each one going to someone different.
They all stood in silence, holding their own scraps. Nothing happened; Raiden felt no change at all. Did we do it right? Is this how it's supposed to feel?
"Is that IT?" Kairi busted out, shattering the silence. "What a load of bullshi –"
She was cut off by the sudden jerk of the ground underneath them. It was like a rug had been swiped from underneath them; they all tumbled back onto their butts and forward onto their knees as vicious tremors rocked the whole school. Paintings broke, cabinets fell, and the desk began to roll to one side of the room as reality slowly crumbled. It felt like an earthquake, but seemed like so much more than one.
"What's happening?" Aya shrieked as she tumbled towards the middle of the room.
"Look!" Tsukiko cried, pointing madly towards the center of the room where Aya rolled.
The floorboards were dissipating into an endless sea of blackness. The swirls of mixed reality and shadow formed a vortex of chaos below as the whole room began to fall down into it, sucked by an unknown, hellish force. The door flew off its hinges into the black pit and a desk from upstairs crashed through the ceiling, spewing debris everywhere. Raiden covered Mariko's head as the windows imploded and glass rained down on them. Hiroshi grabbed for his sister, but she was sucked into the hole where Aya disappeared, screaming shrilly as she went down. Aiko was holding on to Osamu and Kioshi like a life boat but she too was lost in a flurry of plaster and wind. Yuji and Hiroshi tumbled in, followed by Osamu and Kioshi until finally it was just Raiden and Mariko clinging for their lives onto a piece of the cracking floorboard.
"Raiden, don't let go!" He didn't know if she meant from her or the floorboard, but he wasn't going to let go of either one. The wood began to make little snaps, breaking from the middle out to the edges under Raiden's hand.
"I can't!" he whimpered as the board came out from under his fingertips. "Hold on!"
They both succumbed to the wind and the darkness, tangled together, as the world disappeared behind them.