Lily and company searched around their new hideout, trying to get a feel for the area. The living room only had a torn-up couch, a broken TV, and a grandfather clock that somehow still worked. It looked straight out of a horror movie.
"kokone, you can let go of me now," Lily said to the brunette clinging onto her.
"No, I can't. Never."
Maika and Yuki checked out the creepy hallway, which led to a series of smaller rooms. One was a bathroom covered in filth and rot, which neither of them enjoyed looking at. Another was a completely barren room with absolutely nothing in it. Seemed like a waste of space. The last room was filled to the brim with garbage. Nothing useful, just torn up papers, wood, wrappers, bricks, and so on. No ghosts, but nothing of interest.
Gumi and Tei checked out the kitchen, which somehow looked worse than the rest of the house. When kokone finally let Lily go, she joined them in the dining area. Everything in sight was dirty and rotted, and all pieces of technology were broken. The fridge was empty, the old-fashioned radio did not pick up any signals, the mini TV resting on the table did not turn on, and nobody trusted the oven.
"Well, this place sucks," Gumi commented.
Lily looked around, trying to see all she could see in the tiny room. Apart from a few spider webs and broken dishes, nothing jumped out at her.
"Well, we're only staying here for the night. When the storm dies down, we'll go find Meiko and the others. I don't think we'll be going back to our own campground."
"I-I don't like this place! Let's go back out in the storm!" kokone poked into the kitchen and complained.
"Nonsense, it's perfectly safe here," Maika came up from behind kokone, spooking her. "Yuki and I just checked the entire place from top to bottom, no spirits anywhere."
"Of course you c-can't see any... Spirits are... i-invisible..."
"Enough of that, kokonut," Lily put her hand on kokone's shoulder. "If there are any spirits here, which there aren't, I could easily take them on."
As soon as Lily said this, an open cabinet in the kitchen slammed shut, causing everyone to jump back and look at it.
"Must have been a draft," Lily shrugged.
Deciding to ignore the possible sign of aggression, the six girls decided to try and get some rest. They retrieved a small blanket from the couch in the living room, but they had one tiny problem. There were six of them.
"We can't all fit under here!" Maika pointed out.
"You're right. This place doesn't have any sort of heating system, so it's too cold to sleep without any sort of coverage," Lily noted. "Maybe there's another blanket in the bedroom back there?"
"You could check. I don't remember seeing any, but maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough."
"I will. A blanket shouldn't be too hard to find in a bedroom."
The bedroom had become more of a trash room, as Maika and Yuki discovered. Regardless, Lily was determined to find at least one extra blanket. The ones they brought with them were still in the tattered tent, since they didn't take the time to salvage their supplies before running off. They had more pressing matters to attend to.
Leaving the others in the living room, Lily set off down the long, dark hallway to find the bedroom. For some reason, it seemed even darker for her than it did for Yuki and Maika. She nearly tripped over a stray brick in the middle of the hall, but she caught herself just in time. After shaking head out and trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness, she kept going.
"This place could use some electricity. I don't think anyone's paid the bill in years."
Lily tried to keep herself centered and kept her distance from the walls. Since several pieces of wood were jutting out, she did not want to risk cutting herself on them. After moving past the undesirable bathroom, the blonde girl finally reached the bedroom. With great anticipation, she opened the door and stepped inside.
Immediately, Lily had a hard time finding a place to stand. Junk littered the floor as far as the eye could see, and if she didn't know any better, she wouldn't have even recognized the place as a bedroom. She stepped over as much as she could, and crunched other objects beneath her boot. She worked over to the bed to try and claim a blanket, but once she made it there, she discovered that it was only a beat-up mattress without any sheets on top.
"Great. Just great."
Ignoring the bed, Lily's next decision was to search the floor for anything that could serve as a blanket. At that point, she would gladly accept a towel or something like it. While she searched the floor, not having much luck with her discoveries, the bedroom door slowly slid shut behind her. When she heard it close, she poked her head up and turned around.
"Hey... What the heck?"
Lily stepped over the garbage to reach the door, but on her way there, a piece of notebook paper blew across the floor and landed on her leg. Curiously, she bent down to take a look at it. It did not feel drafty in the room, so she did not know how it managed to fly at her.
"What's this?"
Lily held the paper up so she could read it. As the room was very dark, she struggled to find a position suitable for reading. A few cracks in the walls provided moonlight, which allowed her to see the words written in red ink. After letting her eyes adjust a little more, Lily read the note.
"You can take me on?"
Lily gulped upon reading the note. She recalled what she had said earlier when kokone mentioned a ghost in the cabin. "I could easily take them on," she said. Could this have been a coincidence, or was there a ghost willing to accept Lily's challenge?
Lily did not have much time to think it over, because as soon as she put the note down, the room began to shake. Lily staggered to keep her balance as every object on the floor trembled all around her. She stood back and watched, trying to pace over to the door, but a piece of wood flew at her and forced her to shield herself.
"AH! What's going on?!"
A sinister, feminine chortle echoed through the room, as more objects of varying sorts were thrown at Lily. A book, a cinderblock (which she luckily dodged), a teddy bear, an old telephone, and even an anime figurine.
"Time for a pillow fight!" the feminine voice said, seizing Lily by the legs with an unseen force.
"H-hey! Let me go! Let me go!"
The force flung Lily onto the filthy mattress, then proceeded to bombard her with pillows. She shrieked and cried for help, but pillows continually flung in her face as a young girl's voice teased her. "Pillow fight! Pillow fight! Pillow fight!"
Once the pillows let up, Lily shot up from the bed and tried to catch her breath. Before long, her own hand balled up into a fist and swung itself at her cheek. She yelped as she punched herself in the face, then did it again, and again, and again.
"Stop hitting yourself, you silly goose!" the voice teased again.
Once the unseen force finished punching Lily, it pulled her hand off the bed and dragged her to the floor. It dragged a screaming Lily across the junk-filled ground and rammed her headfirst into the door. Lily tried to get back up, but her hand seized the figurine from the ground and proceeded to smash it against the top of her head. It then picked up the teddy bear and repeatedly slammed it into her cranium.
Using her other hand, Lily finally stopped the spirit's terror by grabbing her wrist and pinning it to the floor. Dripping with sweat and hurting from her semi-self-inflicted pain, Lily cried out.
"You monster, you dirty monster... give me back my hand... GIVE ME BACK MY HAND!"
Hearing Lily's cries of distress, someone finally came to open the door. When the door opened, Gumi and kokone rushed in.
"Lily, are you okay? We heard scream-"
Lily threw her fist forward and punched kokone in the face, knocking her back into the hallway.
"Lily, what the heck is wrong with you?!" Gumi shouted.
"I can't control it! She's got me!"
"Who?!"
At the same time, the force shoved Gumi and Lily out of the room, throwing them across the hallway back to the living room. It then tossed kokone back to them, placing each of them in a tidy little pile.
"What in the name of Leon is going on here?!" Tei came running with her knife, but quickly had it stripped from her grip. "What?"
The knife levitated beside Tei, then made for her. Tei shrieked and ran from the flying knife, dashing through the living room and dramatically leaping over the couch. The knife flung itself into a wall and stuck there, which attracted the attention of Maika and Yuki.
"This place is haunted! We have to get out of here!" Yuki screamed at the top of her lungs. No one had any qualms with that idea. Maika hurried over to the door and tried to open it.
However, it would not open.
Maika tried to turn the knob as best as she could, but the door was stuck in place. Nothing she did could get it to budge.
"It won't open! What's going on?!"
Once again, the feminine giggle Lily heard from earlier returned. Everyone stood up and gathered in the center of the cabin, ready to fight their invisible assailant.
"Come out, you coward! Show yourself!" Tei threatened.
"If that's what you want..."
In that instant, before the camper's very eyes, the invisible attacker made herself known. Out of the darkness, the silhouette of a young woman appeared. She had long, light-colored twin-tails that hung close to the ground, her face gave off a youthful demeanor, and she wore a short skirt with long leggings. She seemed oddly familiar.
"Miku?" Gumi asked out loud.
"No. My name is Ring. I am the spirit that resides inside this cabin," the twin-tailed spirit giggled. "I, too, was once a lost traveler like you. I wound up here, trapped in this forest long ago. Now, it is my destiny to trap any hapless wanderers here with me. I've been so lonely for so long... it's so good to have friends again. You girls won't leave me, will you? I can't let you... I can't let you do that."
Lily, Tei, Maika, Yuki, Gumi, and kokone were frozen in fright. None of them knew what to say or do. This was beginning to resemble the events from Tei's campfire story, which made for an odd coincidence. The forest really was cursed, and they were about to fall victim to it! They needed to get out of there, and fast.
"H-hey, we have a couple other friends out there," Gumi tried to reason with the spirit. "If you let us go for a bit, we can go and get them and you'll have even more friends!"
"Nice try, but I'm not falling for that," Ring said with pride.
"N-no, we really do! We promise!"
While Gumi tried to strike a deal with the vengeful specter, Lily took a look around. No windows in sight. From her earlier search of the cabin, there weren't any other exits. They weren't getting out of there through the front door, and she didn't know if they had any tools for tearing the walls down.
Then, it clicked. Much of the wood was rotted away. If they could find a hole in the walls big enough for them, they could crawl out with little difficulty. As she looked around for a possible way out, she uncovered a tiny hole in the wall behind the couch. Only one problem: it was much too small. Then, Lily thought of a solution.
"What if you only let one of us go?" Gumi continued to argue with the captor.
"Not a chance. I don't trust you in the slightest."
"Why don't you go and we'll stay here? You should leave the door unlocked so you can get back in."
With Ring distracted, Lily pulled Yuki aside and whispered something in her ear. Yuki nodded, but did not say a word. As she scuttled off, Lily returned to Gumi's side. Ring was about ready to unleash havoc.
"None of you are leaving, and that is final! I've waited for so long, and I finally have you here! I can't let any of you escape. I'm sure you understand."
"I guess so. I'm all outta arguments," Gumi threw in the towel.
"Now, if you would be so kind," Ring surveyed each of her captives, but stopped when she noticed a discrepancy. "Uh, wasn't there a small one with you?"
"Beats me," Lily responded.
Ring glanced around the room to locate the missing prisoner, but did not find her among the others. At last, she looked behind the couch and saw the small opening which Yuki used to escape.
"NOOOOO! She's gotten away!"
"Hey, if you let us out, we can go after her!" Gumi came up with a new argument.
"Not a chance."
"Eh. It was worth a shot."
Outside, in the stormy wilderness, Yuki sprinted as fast as her tiny legs could carry her. Lily had given her simple instructions: Find Meiko's camp and get help. Yuki wasn't so sure they would believe her if she told them the truth, but she figured she would cross that bridge when she got there.
Even while panting and struggling to breathe, Yuki did not slow down. If anyone happened to be chasing her, she would not give them an opening to catch her. She tried to remember the exact path she took to reach the cabin, but her memory was hazy. After all, she could hardly see a thing.
Following her instincts, Yuki continued down the dark path, bent on reaching Meiko's camp by all means necessary. She almost forgot to keep track of her trail, which would have made it harder to return to the cabin. "I gotta save them..." Yuki told herself under her breath. The fate of her friends rested in her hands.
Meanwhile, from atop a tree branch, something watched Yuki go. Once it saw her zip by, it leaped to the nearest branch and trailed her. Watching her every move, the beast waited for the right moment to strike.
After several minutes of nonstop running, Yuki started to slow down. She stopped to catch her breath, allowing the beast to inch closer. Luckily for her, the storm was beginning to let up. Her path became clearer, and she wasn't quite as drenched from the rain. She could see the damaged tent that once acted as a treehouse, and she knew from that sight that Meiko's camp must have been nearby.
With a new sense of motivation, Yuki sprinted once again. The beast lunged for her just as she darted out of the way, causing it to miss its target. Even so, it collected itself quickly and continued following her. Yuki did not slow down the entire rest of the way, and although she did not know exactly where Meiko set up camp, she had a pretty good idea of what direction she went in.
After leaving the clearing, Yuki faced trees, trees, and more trees. She jumped over fallen branches, ducked under low-hanging ones, and even tripped once or twice. This did not distract her from her goal. She needed to save her friends by any means necessary.
At last, Yuki finally reached her destination. She stopped running to catch her breath, amazed at herself for how far she managed to travel. She did not know how far away she was from the cabin, but she still made a great effort to get from there to the campsite. As soon as she caught her breath, she looked up to see what she had come for.
Nothing.
All that remained of Meiko's camp was a torn-up tent, broken supplies, and pawprints in the mud that resembled that of a cat's.
"Oh my gosh! What happened here?!"
Yuki tried to find any indication of what might have happened, but apart from the footprints, nothing helped her. Her friends from the other camp were gone. Either they ran off, or something took them.
"This isn't happening, this isn't happening..."
Yuki tried to keep herself from panicking, but in doing so, she failed to notice that the beast had finally caught up with her. While she did not hear it at first, her needless meandering around the abandoned campsite gave it ample time to close in on her.
By the time Yuki turned around to see what had chased her, it was too late. Nobody could hear her scream.