"Premonition"

…!

"What was that?" Hanyu's words hollowly bounced off the walls of the once quiet room, splitting the silence of the otherwise bright and silent morning that now replaced the maddening darkness that had engulfed her in what seemed like moments before.

"Hanyu what happened?" The words coming from Rika who now sat up next to her with obvious concern on her face, any hint of tiredness hidden in her stern expression. "Why did you scream just now?" The question piercing the stupor that she could feel herself slowly falling into.

"A dream…" her words quiet and unemotional. "It was a dream…" more like a nightmare, she thought to herself. She could see it so clearly. The blood covered Keiichi, the thing that had seemingly killed her, and the laughter. She couldn't forget such heinous laughter.

"You had a bad dream?" Rika asked with the still stern look plastered on her face, obviously upset by what had happened to her friend.

"N-Not just a bad dream," fear making her words quake, "It was unlike any dream I've ever had before."

"Hanyu, you need to tell me exactly what happened in this dream." Rika's eyes now looking into hers with an unusual softness. They took away from the cold ones that she was so use to seeing in serious situations in the past.

She thought for a second. She decided that if she was going to tell Rika what happened, she would leave nothing out and tell her in great detail what happened. It really didn't matter anyways. Rika was used to the horror that constantly unfolded before her eyes in the past. Yet she regretted having to put forth more after putting behind all the horror of the past. It was truly a sad thought, but it didn't last long. She began to talk about the darkness at the very beginning.

"I don't know when it started but I found myself in total darkness at the beginning of the dream." She recalled how she couldn't see anything or where she was. "Before I could get a grip on what was happening I heard laughter coming from somewhere…"

"Laughter?" Said Rika, the confusion evident in her tone of voice.

"Yeah, I heard this person laughing and I started following the sound. As I kept walking the laughter kept getting louder… and more sinister."

Rika nodded for her friend to continue.

"Then there was a light, I was sure the laughter was coming from there so I stepped into it, and then…" she let her words trail off from her sentence.

"And then?" Rika said, urging her to continue.

"And then the laughter became so intense, deafening even. I looked around for the person but I found something else…" a shudder ran through her body.

"What did you find?" The question came out robotically, devoid of expression.

"I found Keiichi, except he had been hurt badly, really badly. He had holes in him and was covered in blood, but that wasn't the worst part."

"What was the worst part?" said Rika, unsure but desiring the answer more than she feared it.

"There was…This…Thing…Standing over me." Her words were now completely hollow.

"Thing? It wasn't a person?"

"It might have been at some point, but it didn't look like any person I could believe existed. He…Or it was torn and bloody, and it kept laughing."

"What did it do?" Rika was now making a prediction of what was going to happen next.

"It killed me." She said in the most deadpan voice she could imagine existed.

Rika scoffed, having seemingly but regrettably predicted the outcome of her story. She now focused hard on her and asked her a question she had not expected.

"Did you recognize it in anyway?"

She thought for a second, "No. Definitely not." She couldn't remotely tell if that thing resembled any person she had ever seen in the village.

"That's strange," she could hear the distaste in her voice, "I would have expected it to be someone from the past murders, or the Yamainu, or someone."

She could understand her friends concern. Wouldn't it be someone they had seen kill or be killed in the past. It was a strange thought for both of them.

"Plus," Rika said, putting forth another question for her, "The timing is weird."

Timing? She thought. What was weird about the timing of her dream, and then it hit her.

"It's been almost a year since our victory in this world." They both said in unison.

"Exactly," Rika said. "Why now and why not eleven months or so ago, right after everything ended."

She remembered that they still a week to go before the Watanagashi Festival came again.

"Maybe it was something that might have happened in another world," she said hopefully.

"I doubt it," said Rika, "I think it's an omen." The last word hitting her like a punch in the stomach.

"You don't think that what I saw is going to happen, do you?" The question leaving an unsettling silence in the room.

"I hope that it's not true, but we better be on guard if what you saw does start to happen." Said Rika, a self-assuring demeanor coveting her voice.

"Yeah," she said, but it didn't feel like she was entirely sure about it. She didn't want another horror story to be written and added to the shelves of their pain and suffering.

They both became aware of someone stirring beside them.

Satoko. She thought at once. The entire time they had been talking she had been totally unaware of the girl that had been soundly sleeping beside them.

With that they both stood up and nodded to eacother.

"I won't allow this world to be consumed by death and insanity again," said Rika. She could tell from the expression her face that she meant every word.

She gave her friend a nod of approval and proceeded to start the day by getting ready for school. Hoping to temporarily rid herself of the horror that she could feel approaching.

Author's Notes

Wow! Scary stuff. I wonder what's gonna happen?

Will Keiichi and Hanyu be killed?

Will someone else be killed?

Or will the dream that foresees all this remain just that. A dream…

Once again if it suits you send me a review, if not…meh.