Yeah...it's been an incredibly long time since I last updated this at all...Sorry. A lot of stuff's been going on lately

But in any case, the wait is over: here's your next chapter

Disclaimer: well....if i owned Ghost Hunt, let's just say i'd have made them real people by now just so i could join them

M..ai's POV

Slowly, I opened my eyes, hoping to God that I had not actually just passed straight through a semi-solid hedge like it was water. Instead, I saw a great deal of impenetrable darkness. Well, almost impenetrable. I noticed that where my body touched the—floor?—a faint light shone underneath it. Everything else, though, had disappeared and left me in a dark abyss.

I stood up and tried walking around to see if I could find anything that even slightly resembled the amusement park that had simply vanished, but I seemed to travel nowhere at all. Muttering, I asked myself, "What is this, some sort of dream?"

Naru's POV

I had volunteered to stay and mark the spot from which Mai had disappeared as Gene found his way to the other side of that hedge. Slowly pacing back and forth between the hedges, I contemplated various possible ways of communicating with the girl, but as I went through and tested each one fruitlessly, I lost patience and decided to contact Gene.

Gene, go back to the base and get Lin and the others down here.

Yes, Master was Gene's sarcastic reply. Noll realized that Mai's disappearance had affected Gene more than necessary—much more than it had affected himself at least. Wearily, I kneeled down in front of the dead end and just stared at it for a moment, analyzing it for any imperfections. Mai's vanishing act could possibly have been exactly that—an act put on by somebody else within the park.

General POV

Lin looked up as Gene stormed in the room muttering angry obscenities—something to do with a maze—to himself. First, Lin noticed that neither Naru nor Mai had followed him in, and second, he noticed the dark look on Gene's face as he headed towards him.

Alice and Rachel watched as an obviously distressed Gene overtook Lin, conversing quietly to him, and shepherded him out of the room. The two girls decided to follow them blindly even though they obviously hadn't been invited to join. Maybe they could help… But really they just wanted to know if something had happened to Noll *cough cough*. Anything happening to either of the twins would be a tragedy in either girls' minds.

The small group followed Gene through the hedge maze straight to where Noll was still kneeling and inspecting a dead end. Lin interrupted the long silence. "So this is where Taniyama-san vanished?"

"Yes. But I've been wondering if she vanished due to something paranormal or something a bit more…staged."

Gene looked at Naru curiously. "Staged? You think a human pulled her through the hedge…or through some sort of hole or trapdoor? What about the strange lighting. It's possible to make a place brighter without making yourself obvious, but how would a person make this one spot pitch black without revealing his 'stage'?"

At this, Naru simply shrugged. Sticking up for his idea—mostly to gain a favor for at least one of the twins—Alice agreed with Noll wholeheartedly, "It's definitely always possible for a very skilled illusionist to create the darkness you mentioned. Maybe it was an effect of a source above you that you just didn't notice…"

"I don't think that's likely, sis. Some sort of spirit must be at work here. Considering all the different types of haunting, wouldn't it be more likely that this is the work of a spirit as well?"

"Be quiet, Rachel! What do you know about haunting anyways?? You're just a researcher. You have no idea what a spirit's presence feels like!"

"As a researcher and a skeptic, any of these so-called 'hauntings' could be caused by a human. Don't be such a know-it-all you idiot medium" if you can even be called that, Rachel wanted to add at the end but didn't because it would only serve to make her look bad in front of everybody.

Before Alice could retort back, Lin glared at the pair of them with an obvious 'SHUT UP!' look on his face. Gene and Naru hadn't even been paying any attention to either of them anyways.

Mai's POV

Whether my eyes had adjusted to the strange darkness or I had created some sort of dream just by thinking about it, I could see particular things going on around me. First thing I had noticed were several glowing orbs of light floating lightly all around me, swaying with an invisible breeze. Next, my dream world revealed the outline of the hedge maze that had apparently swallowed me whole.

If the dream world was showing me what was really happening in that maze, then some time must have passed because Naru and Gene were no longer alone. Lin-san, Rachel-san, and Alice-san had joined them as well. They were discussing something that I could neither hear nor see since I was standing far above them for some odd reason. I wonder if maybe I could float down to the ground…or what at least appears to be ground.

As she thought the question to herself, her dream-self seemed to float closer to the ground, almost as if her willing it to happen had made it happen. As I touched down on the ground, I noticed that Naru seemed a little strained—probably due to the fact that he'd watched her vanish into a dark oblivion—but Gene looked particularly frightful. Worry and fury etched his face into a mask beyond recognition. The twin's obvious contrast in personality showed through in their opposing expressions.

Even so, I knew that both were worried about me. My disappearance was obviously what the group was discussing. I'd hardly noticed the other three people that were trying to fit between the hedges of the narrow maze.

Lin-san's expressionless face showed no apparent disquiet due to the situation. The two girls, Alice and Rachel, didn't even seem to care. They were locked in a silent glaring contest. I wished that they hadn't shown up. They didn't seem to have much more purpose in being there than to obtain Naru and Gene's attention.

They probably didn't care about the case except to prove themselves worthy of one of the twins.

In any case, I had no idea how to get out of my dream state and return to the real world, so I decided that as long as I was there, I would try to figure out where my body was and what exactly was going on.

The longer I walked around the maze, the more obvious it became that I wouldn't find any trace of myself there; therefore, I decided that leaving the maze was the best course of action.

I concentrated on rising off the ground just enough to see over the top of the hedges. As soon I had cleared the maze, I let myself float back down to the ground and walked around the entire park searching for clues.

I wished a great deal that I had help from somebody, anybody, in searching the park for my body and the culprit who was hiding it.

After a while, as I headed back to the maze, I realized that the entire group except one person had dissipated. Sitting on the ground leaned up against the hedge, either Naru or Gene—it was hard to tell which—appeared to be asleep.

Close to the sleeping twin, a strange ripple in my dream world appeared, revealing another twin standing very close to me and actually in the same dream existence.

He stood there for a few long seconds just staring at me before any recognition lit his face up. He took a few long strides, closing the small distance between us and enveloped me in a smothering hug. "Gene!" I managed to only mutter into his jacket just before he pulled back. "How did you manage to find this place?? I thought only I could be in my own dreams."

"Mai, this is definitely a normal dream. The question isn't how I found this place; it's how you found it. Right now, we're in a dimension called the spiritual plane. It's difficult to explain why this place even exists."

Gene's POV

"In any case, do you have any idea where your body is in the real world?"

Mai shook her head slowly. "I was hoping that since I couldn't find it here—considering I have no idea how this place works—somebody in the real world would find it." I sighed lightly.

"It would be a lot easier for you to just wake up and try to figure out where you are…maybe even find a way out or who's behind this unless it's something paranormal after all." At that, Mai looked at me curiously.

"You don't think it's really a spirit?" As he shrugged, she continued, "I didn't particularly think that whatever staged my disappearance was paranormal. Other things here may be, but that wasn't."

Contemplating this, I turned my attention back to the maze where Naru was suddenly standing over me saying something I couldn't hear. Even so, I had the feeling he was trying to wake me up. Turning back to Mai I asked her, "Can you wake up and figure out where you are?"

"I don't know…I don't even know how to wake up."

"I can probably help you with that, but once I do, you have to do whatever you can to figure out any way to return safely to us. I'll help you wake up, but the rest is pretty much up to you. Even if you can't do anything, we'll find you. That, I promise."

Mai nodded solemnly, obviously not wanting to be separated from her only line of communication so soon.

Even realizing this—I was just as reluctant to leave—I concentrated on pushing Mai's psyche out of the spiritual plane—a place he knew only existed for a person with some sort of spiritual abilities.