(A/N: Massive filler chapter ahead.)

Chapter 7: Darkening

The girl spirit wasn't sure at all how much time she had spent doing this, walking and walking and walking and walking through all the bloodied, echoing halls without stop and without any apparent intent. She figured that this would be her destiny, to forever wander the empty, lonely halls while constantly carrying the pain, the sensation of having the hardest time in the world just to draw vital oxygen into the lungs, every waking second spent as if choking, again and again…

Wherever she turned her gaze, there were either one of two things she could see; it was either the recently deceased corporeal forms of new arrivals, or the faint outline of other spirits who had suffered a similar fate, their poor souls imprisoned and tortured for all eternity, having fallen to the dark presence in the halls and roaming aimlessly, killing all they could get their ephemeral hands on.

She tightly pressed her eyes closed, ghastly tears threatening to break out through her eyelids. Her body should not still have been working, but it happened nonetheless, and the grief lied like a heavy blanket over her shoulder. She wasn't as sad for her own part, that she herself had died, but rather of those she had left living upon her departure into this torturous afterlife. She could only pray that they would still remember her, and not let her memory sink into the deep abysses of despair that had been left behind by their deaths.

Seiko Shinohara always held the face of that one girl close to her heart, always thinking about her and the joy she had given her by just existing in her life. They had been so good friends, so close, and Seiko had loved that girl dearly and deeply, even in the very last dying breaths of her life.

She had died by that girl's hands.

But Seiko couldn't ever possibly find it in her being to hold anger or grudge alike towards this action, how unjust or brutal it may have been perceived as. As her poor spirit still came to terms with her death, she could both see and sense all the grief, sadness and anger that was practically radiating from her still living best friend's body, like a glowing flame in an ice cold cave.

Seiko had of course been completely taken off her guard when she had encountered her friend Naomi somewhere between where they had split up and the lavatories on the third floor. Seiko had immediately seen that there was something wrong with her hot headed companion, but the happiness that walked hand in hand with their reunion unfortunately made Seiko push that notion to the very back of her head.

It became her doom.

Things had started going downhill when Naomi, who hadn't responded to Seiko's calls, started grabbing Seiko violently by the arms, possessing a strength that Naomi would have deemed close to inhuman. Her hands and fingers had dug so hard into the clothing and skin of her arms that she suspected she would get a few nasty bruising. Not knowing at all what was going on, Seiko had started freaking out as Naomi grabbed her, trying to fight off her grip but finding strength faltering, and she was powerless as Naomi started literally hauling her off.

After a while, they had reached the lavatories. Seiko had very dim memories of what had happened from that point onward to her death, but she knew there had been a lot of screaming from her own accord as she was powerlessly being shoved into one of the stalls of the girl's lavatories, and then how the dreadful noose had been wrapped around her neck, already squeezing some of the air out of her lungs, before she had even begun hanging. Then, Naomi, still in her completely silent, transfixed state of being, had neatly put her shoes, just beneath her, before having kicked the bucket she had stood her up on out from underneath her feet, immediately making the rope seize her neck, sending waves of pain and panic and confusion all throughout her body. She was kicking and thrashing, but she couldn't bring herself to use her arms to try and do something about the situation. During her final moments, everything she saw was the face of her murderer, hearing in the distance a voice screaming in despair.

And then, she had, against all that she would have thought, become calmer and calmer the closer death came.

Finally, when the darkness wrapped around the last active parts of her consciousness, she found herself praying that Naomi would be safe and make it out of here alive, even though her own life would now be permanently lost the dark recluses of death's void.

Seiko found herself thinking about her more than anything else. She at least knew that Naomi had indeed made it out; despite the fact that she had so unfortunately fallen in the halls of the cursed machine, her soul restless and filled with sorrow, her spirit was still roaming the empty halls, unperceivable to the naked eye alone, but still with the ability to reach out and touch the consciousness of the still living beings. She would do anything to ensure Naomi's safety and survival, even going so far as to contact the awake and alert mind of Satoshi Mochida, telling him that he needed to make haste to find Naomi, for his presence would surely be the only cure compatible with the madness and insanity that was dawning on the girl in question, due to her so very close friend's death.

This had been enough for Seiko to get her to feel like her death wasn't the most horrible thing that could occur. However, she also felt so, so stricken with guilt; she often pondered on whom of the two had been the most affected by her death. Clearly, though not walking longer among the living, Seiko was at least content with knowing that Naomi was safe and sound, and she'd rather have Satoshi as her closest friend than anyone else, any day of the week given.

Seiko wasn't at all sure that Naomi was anywhere close to content.

She dragged a pair of two heavy as lead feet along the ground, one hand pressed tightly to her chest. She let the ghostly tears fall in a cascade, sad at herself for letting Naomi down, and sat because she had left so many in the living life, and angry at the school for what it had done and angry at the spirits who had clearly seized hold of the girl's fragile mind, angry at everything for being so cruel to them.

Was it required, Seiko would have given her own life to protect Naomi's any day of the week, so long as she was guaranteed that this action would have Naomi safe.

Seiko guessed this was as close to safe she was ever going to get.

As she continued gasping for air in what felt like a sea of personal guilt and sorrow, Seiko could not even notice the dark, purely evil mist-like substance that had begun snaking her feet, seemingly having appeared from out of thin air, ever so carefully starting to wrap itself around her ankles, extremely slowly but surely working its way up her calves, along with every step the girl took.

For Mayu Suzumoto, she had experienced nothing but fear and despair the moments before her gruesome death. She had always been a kindred, compassionate soul who never judged, and always did everything she could to help someone, friend, acquaintance or even stranger.

This had, too, been her doom.

In the cursed machine, Mayu, one of the nine that had entered the place, had very unfortunately run into a couple of the so called "engineers" of the horrible dimension, for it was upon their anger and their desire for vengeance this place was founded. Though evil, they were highly deceptive, because they appeared as poor, innocent souls when they, in truth were nothing but. They would ravage and kill and destroy any they could get their hands on, no matter who it was that were in their paths.

Mayu had found the two inside the cursed school's infirmary, and since she had always had a soft spot for both children and people in need of help, she had decided that she would sit down, take a breather, and see if she could help any of them.

Her memories of what had happened between that point and up until her death were still decidedly hazy. She remembered two of her friends charging into the room multiple times, and she remembered they had tried to… Maybe save her, save her from a malevolence that was still unknown to her up until it happened. After that, she could recall being sent flying through a dark tunnel, eventually crashing into a wall. Mayu had barely felt any pain at all; what hurt the most was the ephemeral grip the two ghost spirits somehow had on her, without even touching her. Even this didn't hurt more than having someone forcefully squeeze your legs as hard as they could with their hands.

She had almost died too quickly to feel any exceptional pain.

Almost.

The split second of a split second before her life ended was more than horrible. She crashed into a wall, she recalled once more, and literally was pulverized. However, just before her body was turned pretty much inside out, her already overactive nerves sending pain to her brain, she experienced a pain that was so different from any other pain she had ever felt in her entire life before. It hurt so badly that she couldn't even describe it, but it felt like it hurt more than every other injury she had sustained combined in her life.

And that pain was now going to follow her throughout the rest of her days, for the rest of eternity, contrary to what many would believe, that death would end said pain.

Shortly after her body had transformed into a bloody, gut-ridden mess, her still somewhat intact spirit had emerged from the empty shell that was now the remains of her body, and the very first thing that she reacted upon was the very same pain she had felt just fractions of moments before she died. However, her spirit didn't appear quite as grotesque as her corporeal body had. Her entire front was completely splattered with blood, and it looked as though all her inside was gone, as if her entire thoracic and digestive cavities had been dug and hollowed out. Her broken spine was visible, though not to the naked eye. Still living souls could not perceive their spirits.

Her face was completely smashed in, as if someone with a glove crammed with spikes had punched her square in the node. Her jaw, and everything below it, just like her mid-body, was completely obliterated, and the only still apparent trace of who she had been in the living life was one dull green eye. Her skull was also completely cracked open in the back; most of her brains had even spilt out through the massive cavity. She looked like her entire head had been smashed, and the only surviving parts had been one of her eyes and a little bit of her upper jaw.

She could still walk, against all odds. She had felt thirsty, hungry, and really, really, tired the last minutes before she had died. Now she was just tired. Neither hungry nor thirsty.

She figured dead things didn't need the things that helped them stay alive any more.

After her death, her spirit had started walking, slow as it was, in a direction that wasn't exactly certain. During the entire time, only one thing had been on her mind.

Shige-nii…

Mayu Suzumoto didn't want at this stage, anything more than for her best friend Sakutaro to hold her in his arms, or just pat her shoulder lightly, just like he always did when he was actually happy.

She had wandered the halls endlessly, for what felt like an eternity without end, looking for this very special person. Despite what she did, she couldn't seem to find him. She continued looking and looking for him, but no matter how much time passed (or at least how much time it felt like had passed), she couldn't seem to find him.

This lasted until she stumbled into the other, strange building of the school, when she descended some stairs. She could both hear and sense a presence of a living being, mostly due to the loud panting she heard nearby. Quickening her speed, she went in the direction of the sound as quickly as she could… And there he was, leaning toughly against a wall for support, right next to the bottom of the staircase.

Sakutaro looked awfully stressed, as if he'd very recently done a lot of things in a fairly short time. His cobalt blue hair was noticeably ruffled, and there were visible signs of fresh perspiration. She immediately ran up to him, only to find that he would not acknowledge her presence. Perhaps she needed some way to contact him, to get him to notice her, since she was no longer drawing breath and possessing a beating heart.

The cellphone in Sakutaro's hand, for some odd reason, seemed strangely inviting, as if it could act as some kind of outlet for Mayu's ephemeral being. She didn't have a clue of why it was this way; she was very new to being dead.

She heard Sakutaro whisper something. The words she could not quite make out, but she sensed the ecstatic tone in his voice as he apparently looked at something in the cellphone's screen. Mayu's incorporeal form came ever close, and was now so close that she would have been able to sense the warmth of his skin, had she still had functioning nerve endings.

Peering over his shoulder, she could sense rather than see the screen of the phone. What she saw shocked her to the very core, even more so than when she had died.

In the brightly shining screen, there was a taken picture. It was easily recognizable. The floor, the wall, the massive splatter of blood, the bits and pieces of guts and flesh all throughout the smudgy mess. Mayu immediately understood that her possibly best friend ever was enjoying himself looking at her dead, inside-out turned corpse.

Instantly, she felt an irresistible sorrow sweep over her. Her only remaining eye tightened up as a ghostly tear formed in the now dead tear gland, travelling through its adjacent canal. Mayu reached one trembling arm up and stroke Sakutaro's hair, shivering at the touch. Sakutaro made no indication that he had felt anything, but instead kept muttering ecstatic gibberish to himself about the beauty of a body turned inside out.

Mayu found her own voice act without confirmation from her own will, and she trembled in fear as she could not bring herself to look away from the atrocious abomination that was now her physical body, or what was left of it. She could hear herself whispering words, asking Sakutaro to stop looking at her insides, and at first, she figured that he couldn't hear what she said here either, just like with all the other things she had done to try and gain his attention. However, her entire being seemingly jerked up when she could hear the familiar tone of Sakutaro's cellphone ringing. Surely he couldn't have any phone service in this hellhole, right?

Horrified, Mayu found out that when a greatly spooked Sakutaro Morishige hesitantly answered the call that it was her own voice, saying exactly what it had a few seconds before. She hadn't made any motion or action to interact with the phone, and yet it happened.

Within the span of half a second, Sakutaro jerked away from the wall he was leaning against, emitting a startled grunt of alarm. He stared in confusion at the telephone screen, wondering somewhere in his blood-chilled head how he could receive calls despite the massive lack of service, until he started hearing her voice…

"Please don't look at my insides… Shige-nii…" Came the impossible ghost voice from the telephone's speaker. Mayu didn't understand anything. She hadn't said anything. Yet it was her voice. Mayu's ephemeral form looked up at the terrified Sakutaro, who had started walking backwards in massive disbelief, holding and staring at the cellphone as if it wasn't real. And then, came all the screaming, in that excruciatingly painful moment of realization.

When Mayu thought about it, that scream of absolute despair and helplessness was so feral and frightened that it at times felt like it hurt more than the pain she had felt during her very last second in the living life. Not to mention the brutal "treatment" of madness.

A heavy heart and a mysterious, black mist-like substance tugging at her ankles, as if eager to climb her legs later, the recently deceased Mayu Suzumoto continued along the empty hall, trying to find someone close to her heart, despite dead.

There had been few things that mattered to Sakutaro Morishige when he had still been in the living life. There was his family, and then his acting career. While he usually kept to himself, even at home, his parents had always supported him, and he did appreciate them for that. He had once indirectly heard his father say to his mother that "acting was in his blood" and that they should do whatever they could to help him reach his dreams. While Sakutaro had never directly confronted his parents about this statement, he often kept it in the back of his head, since his father was an actor himself, even though retired, so he would know what he was talking about.

There weren't really any need for having acting in your blood if you didn't have any blood left.

Sakutaro's death had left him surprisingly intact. His ephemeral form was almost identical to his former living one and the only big difference was the fairly large crevice running down the midst of his head, exposing some of his brain and cracked skull, from repeatedly bashing his head against both hard, wooden walls and sharp windows of glass. Then again, bashing your head into said materials multiple times did hurt a lot.

Sakutaro could usually cope with the pain. It was pretty rough, but he had always seen pain as just another emotion, really. He had accidentally hurt himself several times in his past, like everyone else, but even if there was pain involved, Sakutaro mostly just shrugged it off without many second thoughts. Moping over being in a painful state of being wouldn't grant much, except for possibly an annoyance of one's own incompetence.

However, coping with said pain would be a lot easier if she had just been around with him…

Ever since he met her, which at one of the sessions of their school's drama club, he had immediately found her interesting. He wasn't sure what to call it, he was certain it wasn't any kind of physical attraction; Sakutaro didn't very often think about that kind of thing, but she had seemed so intriguing and different from all the other almost kind of boring people.

And of course that she was fantastic at acting.

Sakutaro wasn't certain, he guessed he did sort of like Mayu… But their current relationship was and always had been just fine being close friends for his part. And so, being forced of being in her absence made him feel lonely, a feeling he shouldn't have been experiencing since he was used to being among people, not with people.

A black mist-like substance started tugging at his ankles as he walked up a stairwell sluggishly.

The second thing that made the teacher assistant Yui Shishido's days worth experiencing was her cat, Monet. How he would always eagerly wait for her return from work, immediately rushing to the front door from wherever he was at the point he heard her unlock the front door, and how he would lovingly rub the length of his body along her ankles, purring audibly with a want for his owner to reach down and pet him behind the ears, the way she always did.

The first thing that made the teacher assistant Yui Shishido's days worth experiencing were the students of class 2-9, Kisaragi Academy. She always looked forward to seeing them, and to spend a normal full day of both teaching, but also general time, such as lunch breaks, or of she was lucky enough to run into any of her students on her way home from the school, or maybe even days when the school was closed, like on weekends. Like that time she had met Naomi and Satoshi sittingat a bus stop in the city. When she had first saw them, she had cheerfully said hi to initiate a conversation, and then made a comment that made both of them go red as tomatoes. However, it turned out that Satoshi had met up with Naomi at her house to get some help with some homework, and when they were done, Satoshi took a bus home, and Naomi had decided to follow him to the bus stop, just to keep him company until he got home.

Yui Shishido had always thought that Naomi and Satoshi would make a great couple. Just like Ayumi and Yoshiki. How they always messed along with each other yet still remained good friends.

Yui Shishido spent many hours In the ephemeral form thinking about her students, especially those she had found huddled up in the classroom, after scaring the living soul out of them. Had they all gotten out alive? If so, then why did she have such a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach? Apart from the feeling of being dead, of course.

Seeing the empty classrooms of Heavenly Host Elementary school tore at her more than she expected. It reminded her of what she had just lost in her life, one of the few things that mattered.

But surely they couldn't all have fallen, right?

Yui Shishido found herself praying every day for the safety of her students. Just as she had done in the living life. But if even one of them were harmed or worse, Yui knew that she had failed her task, that she had failed to protect them.

That was an unforgivable mistake.

Black mist settled in on the floor around her as she sat with her head buried in her arms.

(A/N: Will be a rewrite of this, probably.)