"Sooooo, why do you have an American brand car?" Sayaka mused as she sat in the back of the car with Madoka and Homura squished in with her. Even with the size of the vehicle they were forced to sit close, though of course, it was no different from the busiest times on the city trains.

Ryoko smirked into the rear-view mirror.

"Back when I . . . realized that I needed to stop obsessing over Yui-" she stopped for a moment and seemed to struggle with herself. Sayaka felt a bit bad for making her remember her old friend, even it was only accidentally. After a moment however, Ryoko seemed to take a deep breath and gather herself.

". . . after . . . after that, I may have made several . . . extravagant purchases. A car of this sort seemed like a way to treat myself. If needed, I reasoned that I could pull the seats out and use it to carry supplies as well."

Her voice was a bit embarrassed. Sayaka took another look around the interior of the vehicle.

"Yeah, I think I can see the appeal."

Key snorted from where he was sitting, in Nagisa's lap staring out the window at the passing countryside. They had gotten out of the city and driven past Dr. Ogai's house/laboratory property. They were searching for a driveway that a map had told them was a good few miles down the road. They were hoping that the apparent vastness of the property they needed to search (which, in some ways, seemed like an utter oxymoron in Japan) would allow them some room to snoop without getting caught, and even if it seemed like they might be, they had Homura's ability to stop time to cover them.

While she drove, Ryoko glanced over at Fuminori periodically. As agreed, he was in the front seat and had his arms restrained to his sides with Mami's ribbons. She had wondered if he was going to cause problems by complaining but to her surprise, he had been very quiet. Not in a way that implied he was planning something, on the contrary he seemed constantly distracted. He was looking every which way as they drove. He gasped at trees and other people as they sped by. He blinked at neon advertisement signs and all in all, just seemed to be having an incredible experience looking at the world around him. She supposed it wasn't surprising, she wondered how appreciative she would be of the world if she had thought it was gone beyond her ability to experience it. Still, she was keeping an eye on him as much as she could. She also caught glimpses in the rearview mirror of Mami (seated in the middle along with Nagisa) and Homura also taking sidelong looks at the man in the front seat.

Finally, the back road they had been traveling on seemed to come to an end. Branching off the end was a driveway that snaked off into a forest. Large hills rose up around them as they trundled down the road. The sun was moving downwards, though they hoped to get a good amount of searching in before it set. However, as they came to the end of the road where it met the driveway and widened a bit to give room to turn around, something happened.

The tires of the van squealed as Ryoko applied the brakes. The car stuttered to a halt and everyone looked forwards. There was a tree lying across the gravel driveway, in a near perfect position to block a car coming in. Indeed, it had already done so seemingly, for another vehicle was parked on the side of the driveway. The driver of said vehicle had apparently not seen the fallen tree at first and had tried to drive down, only stopping right in front of the object itself. They had apparently left their car behind as well, for nobody was in the vehicle.

Ryoko pulled to the side of the road and they all got out and walked up to the other car. Fuminori's bonds fell off him, though a single ribbon stayed tied to his wrist. It vanished after a second though, so he put it out of his mind. After a few moments, Homura spoke with narrowed eyes.
"Whoever left this vehicle did so not too long ago."

Ryoko nodded, "I agree."

"How do you know?" Sayaka asked curiously.

Homura did not respond, so Ryoko did, "no leaves or branches have fallen on it, and its paint isn't faded from the sun. Plus-" she gave a small smirk "-can you still smell gasoline from the engine? It was running recently."

The other's found they could smell it. They all stood still for a moment before Key spoke.
"Well, we do still need to look for Saya and . . . whatever else may be out there, so let's go."

With that, he walked forward down the driveway and, after a moment, everyone followed.

"If we meet someone," Madoka asked in a bit of a worried voice, "what are we going to say? I mean, we're trespassing, aren't we?"

"Perhaps we can say that we believe that our dog has gotten loose on the premises" Ryoko mused idly as they walked on.

Sayaka rolled her eyes, "yeah, sure. Four teenagers, a Doctor and a mental patient, plus a weird cat thing they can't see. I'm sure that screams 'oh please sir, my dog ran away and our whole family just decided to run around the woods to find it!'"

Madoka and Mami giggled at Sayaka's tone. Ryoko smirked, even Fuminori and Key's lips twitched.

"We could just be honest" Mami suggested after a moment, "if Saya is about, or other things like her, then perhaps anyone who lives here will have noticed something?"

" . . . maybe we should save that for if we get caught." Ryoko replied.

Madoka suddenly realized that Homura had stopped walking and was standing still. As they two had been bringing up the rear, nobody else had noticed yet.

"Homura, what's wrong," she asked quietly as Homura looked back towards the way they came in.


Homura scowled internally and telepathically tried to send a message again. It went off, but there was no answer and Homura had some sort of feeling that this wasn't because Oriko was simply not responding. Rather it almost felt like there was some sort of . . . static? It was the best way she could describe it. Then again, perhaps she was just imagining it. Though that presented another problem that only made her more uneasy. What did it mean if Oriko wasn't responding to her?

She shook herself and started moving again, "nothing, I was simply thinking."

As they both caught up to the group, Sayaka looked over at Homura.

"Feel up to using your shield tr-, Homura?"

Homura shook her head, suppressing the flash of annoyance that felt oh so common with Sayaka, "as I said before, I do not want to risk the mental strain and Soul Gem Corruption that comes of constant use of my time-stop with so many people."

She was overselling a bit, of course. The real reason she didn't want to use her time-stop just yet was so she could hopefully give Oriko orders to follow and shadow them. Though, with her telepathy apparently not working, that might be a problem. But even so, why wasn't it working. Homura felt her eyebrows constrict. Of course, perhaps Kyubey was behind it, but that didn't make much sense, he had never done anything like that. In fact Kyubey had never seemed that interested in stopping any sort of plan Oriko, Homura, or anyone else had discussed over telepathy. Homura did wonder how much he heard when they were talking to each other, but preferred to err on the side of 'he heard everything.' Key, of course had set up his own network with them, a sort of encoded one that he promised Kyubey had no way to spy on, but still.

"Can you still hear me?" Homura asked. The others looked at her.

"Yes" Key said, the others answered with affirmatives as well. "Is something wrong?"

It sounded clear, though Homura again couldn't tell if there was some sort of static that lurked in the background. But still, at least the telepathy seemed to work with them. She considered bringing up the problem she'd noted, but could not think of a way to do it without making them suspicious of why she was trying to telepathically message someone outside their known group at a time like this.

"No, I was simply making sure we were all connected, just in case" she said truthfully, while leaving out her real reason.


If the others wanted to ask more about Homura's question they never got the chance, because at that moment they heard a sound. Along one side of the driveway, there was a line of large and thick bushes, of the sort that almost looked as large as small trees. There was a soft movement that shook one of the bushes and everyone froze as they stared. Instantly there came to their minds some sort of monster lurking (for those who had seen Saya firsthand, she of course was what they thought of) and after a moment of silence, several flashes of light occurred. A second later, several guns and a small trumpet were pointed at the source of the noise.

The bush shook again, but this time a voice spoke out, and it was clear and human sounding.

"Wha-, WAIT! DON'T SHOOT!"

A hand forced its way through the brush and after it came the whole body of a girl. The girl was rather plain looking, though clearly not of Japanese ancestry. She looked to either be in her very late teens or early twenties. Her clothes were normal and nothing about her suggested at all that she was out of the ordinary. She panted for a bit as she brushed leaves ofF herself, but then she began gaping at them. This made sense, for few people are accustomed to seeing people in strange costumes but carrying very real looking weapons in the countryside.

"Who are you?" Homura asked sharply. The girl still looked rather stupefied at the strange clothes Homura and some of the others were wearing, but after a moment, she spoke.

"I'm L-Lauren. I-I came t-to see what was wrong with my friend K-Kate!" she said in a half-scared, half-awed voice as she looked at Homura.

"You don't particularly look Japanese" Ryoko noted as she looked Lauren up and down.

Lauren's lips came together in a rather thin line and her eyes narrowed imperceptibly, "I've lived in Japan a long time thank you very much. If you want to know, I'm the daughter of an American Serviceman who settled down in this country."

"Ah" Ryoko said, seeming to move past the brief distraction. "So why were you hiding in the bushes?"

Lauren flushed a bit, "well, what would you do if you heard a bunch of strangers coming down the driveway?"

Everyone stared at her for a second.

"Who are all of you anyway?!" Lauren asked incredulously.

"Who we are is not important," Homura said bluntly.

Ryoko and Mami glanced at her before Mami put her guns down and made a gesture for the others to do the same. They did so after a moment, looking at her and Mami put a smile on her face.
"I'm sorry if we seem aggressive, it's just that we're rather nervous. You see, we're looking for a creature that may be rather dangerous and when you frightened us like that . . . well, our imaginations ran away with us."

"Is this wise?" Homura asked sharply through telepathy.

"She can already tell we're not normal" Mami responded evenly, "I think being honest and kind in this case may be more profitable than threatening."

"But" Lauren seemed still stuck on their strange attire and weapons, "who are you?!"

Ryoko took over the conversation, "I'm not sure you wish to ask that question." Her tone was even, with a slightly apologetic tone to it.

"We are as we said be are, trying to find a potentially dangerous creature. If you want some advice, it might be best for you to go back to your car, and leave. I assume that was your car at the head of the driveway?"

Lauren's brows came together, "Why? I was going to visit Kate because she hasn't talked to-"

She cut herself off, seeming to think she'd said too much. Everyone else glanced at each other, none of them quite knowing what to say. Lauren glanced between all of them. Everyone stood quietly, not quite knowing what to say.

"This Kate is the owner of the property?" It was Mami who had spoken in a mild voice. Everyone looked at her and she plowed on.

"I can assure you we mean no harm to anyone. We're just here making sure that . . . that your property is safe. Would it make you feel better if we got permission from this Kate before we begin searching?"

Lauren looked a bit more amenable, but she eyed the guns that were still drawn with narrowed eyes. Taking the hint, those with weapons stowed them away, Homura last of all, and those who could turned back to normal clothing. Lauren gaped at what they had done, but seemed to pull herself together.

"I . . ." she seemed to be debating with herself over what to do.

"I don't . . . you see . . ."

Finally, she seemed to come to a decision.
"Look, the truth is that Kate hasn't been responding to my calls. Carl, one of our friends, isn't either, so I was going to see if they were alright. It's probably nothing, and it would probably be best if you got permission to be on her property. If you . . . really are what you say you are, then I don't think Kate would have a problem with you. In fact she was always into weird monsters and stuff like that so . . . Anyway, it would probably be for the best if you came with me and asked her. If you promise not to point any guns at her?"

Everyone nodded, "we're only here to protect people," Mami said placatingly, holding out her hands peacefully.'

After another moment of contemplation, Lauren seemed to decide that there wasn't much more she could do, so she turned and gestured at them to follow her down the driveway path. She fell back to walk beside Mami, who was in the front of the group.

"As I am taking you to my friend, would you mind telling me what you all are? I can tell you . . . aren't normal or I would probably tell you to get out."

Mami glanced at the others, none of which gave any direction. Key gave some sort of mental shrug.
"I mean, with all that she's already seen, I don't know that telling her the basics would hurt anything."

Mami nodded and turned back to Lauren. She gave a cliff notes version of how Magical Girls were supposed to Hunt Witches, though she did not tell her all the horrible details about how they turned into Witches. She didn't feel comfortable at the best of times discussing that sort of thing.

"So you're hunting a Witch?" Lauren asked curiously.

"Not exactly," Ryoko put in. She briefly explained about Saya in her own turn. Lauren looked a bit overwhelmed by all this new information, but she seemed to be handling it as well as she could. She shook her head in astonishment and seemed to be trying to parse it all out when Key suddenly spoke up.

"I wonder why that car is just sitting there?"

Up ahead of them, there was a car simply sitting half on and half off the driveway. It wasn't in a condition that gave the impression that it was simply an old wreck that someone had stowed and forgotten about, but neither did it look like it had been used in a few weeks. It was also positioned in a way that suggested that whoever had put it there had been in a hurry and had accidentally steered it off the path and then abandoned it.

"Who said that?" Lauren said in fear before anyone else could speak. She was looking around and everyone was confused before a few of them realized why. Of course, Lauren couldn't see Key, like anyone else who wasn't a Magical Girl and hadn't been allowed to by him.

"Here" Key said quietly as one of his tentacles softly tapped Lauren on the forehead. She blinked and the started as Key apparently came into view. For a moment, she stared at him. Then she put her hands to her mouth and squealed.

The others thought for a second that maybe she was frightened, but then her hands came away and they saw that she was smiling widely.

"Oooooh, you are soooo cuuuute!"

Key blinked.

"Ummmm . . . thank you."

Lauren giggled a bit, then she seemed to realize how she was acting and put on a more sober expression, her cheeks a bit red.

"I um, well . . . let's get going, the house isn't too far away."

"Bout time," Sayaka said gratefully, "this is the longest driveway I've ever seen! Who needs this much land?!"

"Kate's parents were investors" Lauren explained. In part she seemed to want to move past her embarrassing display and perhaps that was why she was speaking more freely.

"They thought that these hills might have valuable metals or ores in them, so they bought up a bunch of land. There were a few other American families who lived nearby, so it was a sort of close community. Though, there was that one thing a few years back where a kid went missing and his family . . . Ah, anyway! They did manage to contract a mine out and they did find some valuable stuff from what I heard. Kate hasn't been talking to me much-"

She stopped short again, but then, with an effort, she went on.

"Anyway, something happened so that the company just pulled up shop and left. I don't really know what's been going on. Kate just sent me a message last week that she wanted me to come over some time soon and that she was thinking about moving out or something. But then I didn't hear from her anymore."

Silence fell at these words as they all continued to walk forward. They were well and truly ensconced in the forest and hills now. Trees rose up on all sides along with dirt and rock. In a more normal time and situation it would've been pleasant, beautiful even. But with their current job and all they'd heard, it felt more uneasy. The wind rustled through the leaves and the shadows of the trees and the hills cast long shadows. It felt like they were in a land where dark things might crawl out of their dens and go on the hunt as the light waned.

Then they turned a bend and found that they were suddenly come on a house. It was surrounded by a brick wall a bit higher than head-height, though there were no gates, just openings where people could walk through. The house was fairly normal, having a garage and being painted white from what they could see over the top of the wall. As they walked towards it, they found themselves squinting, for it suddenly occurred to them that darkness was starting to fall.

Fuminori glanced up at the sky and muttered something that Madoka, Sayaka, and Homura (who were right behind him) managed to catch.

"Sun's setting a bit fast."

They blinked, and looked up. While they might've excused it being dusk, it made sense after all they had done in the day, a short glance showed that the Sun was already low in the sky, getting near to the hilltops. They couldn't quite tell, but a part of them almost felt like dark was falling a bit too quickly.

Before they could observe this aloud, they heard Lauren say.

"That's weird, why's the door open?"

She had just turned the bend around the wall entrance, passing a "for sale" sign, and was looking into the yard at the house. Everyone joined her and saw that she was right, the door to the building was still open. Lights were showing in the house, now lit up against the falling darkness, but something about it war rather unnerving. Perhaps it was that, apart from the rustling of the trees, there was absolutely no sound to be heard in the gathering darkness.

For a bit everyone stood, as if held by some unseen force. No sound came from the house. Then, with a sudden movement, Lauren walked forward. As if this had shaken them all out of their frozen state, they all followed. Lauren stopped in front of the slightly ajar door. Coming up beside her, they saw that she looked nervous. They couldn't blame her, did Saya lurk in the house and that was why it seemed so quiet?

"We should have our weapons ready. Just in case" Homura said.

A few nods later and everyone who could had transformed and drawn their weapons out. Sayaka had produced her trusty bat, which Mami had enchanted. Lauren had started a bit at this, but had calmed when Key had explained their intent. With a deep breath, she reached out her hand and pushed on the door.

Soundtrack: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince OST – Malfoy's Mission

The door creaked open fully, the red light of the sun revealing the landing of a staircase with two other doors to either side and a hallway running on the ground floor alongside the staircase. Lauren hesitated a moment, then poked her head in.

"Kate" she called softly, "are you home?"

There was no answer, there was no sound other than the wind blowing past the house. Lauren took a step inside, a few steps in however, she stopped suddenly, staring at something.

The rest came in after her, crowding through the door. They all followed Lauren's stare and saw, against the left wall, opposite the stairs, pictures had been scrawled. Very simplistic ones, yet somehow no less disturbing for that. Mostly it was several groups of spiky trees, obviously representing a forest. But one pictogram stood apart as it seemed to portray a man, but a very oddly proportioned one. Even with the limited medium of the stick figure, this man had oddly overlong arms and legs. Something about the figure made them feel uneasy. Something prickled on the backs of their necks as they stared at the simple, yet unnerving figure.

Then Homura shook her head.

"If we want to find out what happened here, I suggest we investigate the house."

Mami nodded, then she turned to Lauren.

"Where was Kate's room? It would probably be good for some of us to start there."

Lauren nodded, seeming a bit distracted. She turned and began walking up the stairs. The creaks they made as she put her feet on them sounded unnaturally loud. Ryoko (who gestured to Fuminori to come with), Mami, Nagisa, and Key followed behind her. Madoka, Sayaka, and Homura stayed behind to look around the rest of the house.

There was a backpack propped up against the stairs, as if it had been thrown there in a great hurry. Sayaka knelt down and opened it up. Inside was canned food and fire starting equipment as well as other survival gear.

"Maybe Kate was trying to prep to walk back to civilization," she hazarded. "I mean, if the car we saw stopped working and she had to walk all the way, she'd probably have had to spend at least one night in the woods, maybe more."

Madoka shuddered, "if something like Saya were lurking around here, I wouldn't blame her for wanting to leave as quick as possible." The looked around a bit more. Oddly enough, windows and doors seemed to be open and shut in an almost random order, and those that were shut were locked as securely as possible. They also found other strange clues. A whiteboard, written as through it were a reminder, told the viewer to get extra lighting material, but most strongly it compelled the reader to lock up the house. More strangely, when Madoka picked up a phone, of an older kind that was meant to stay in the house, the line appeared to be dead or cut. The answering machine provided a message in English that appeared to be from a boy or a young man (possibly the Carl that Lauren had mentioned) who talked about something involving moving and Lauren. One last thing was a note that, much like the recorded message, they couldn't understand too well, as it was in English. It seemed to be from something of an old friend of Kate who had signed with his initials. It also seemed to be the same person who had left the message on the answering machine, though it was signed in the initials "C.R."

"Does anyone else get the feeling like we're in a crime scene?" Sayaka mentioned, trying to sound blasé. They could tell however that she was getting rather nervous at the empty house.

Madoka nodded, "yeah, I get what you mean. Nothing about this is really adding up. It feels like someone was trying to . . . to . . . to get out of here."

"This Kate was obviously trying to sell her property" Homura stated matter-of-factly, "as Lauren stated. But perhaps Saya came around today and scared her into the woods."

Sayaka nodded and gestured around, "maybe. I mean, look at all the stuff that's been knocked over."

It was true, a large amount of small furniture and even a few lamps had been knocked to the ground as though someone had run by them in a hurry.

"But that's the thing," Madoka said slowly, sounding like she was trying to put things together.

"When Saya attacked you Homura, she was aggressive, right? She just came after you with nothing held back?"

Homura nodded.

"So why" Madoka gestured around, "is everything just knocked over? There's no sign that anything broke down a window or a door. No residue, nothing is really broken, just knocked down. If something as big as Saya came tearing through and around the house, wouldn't it probably have left marks around? Everything here is in pristine condition!"

The three stared at each other, each contemplating this. Nothing came to them, so they were forced to keep looking for clues. After a few minutes however, they found nothing else, so they turned and went up the stairs to join the others.


Meanwhile, up on the second floor, the others looked around but had found nothing out of the ordinary. Just more rooms, a bathrooms and some closets. One odd thing though was that the bedroom they had been making for had been locked. Lauren had knocked and tried to get an answer, but there was no reply. The girl was obviously getting pretty nervous as she suggested looking for a key that Kate apparently kept around. Luckily, it wasn't difficult to find, as it was in plain view on a bed in another room.

As they opened the door to Kate's bedroom, they didn't know what they were expecting. What they were not particularly expecting was to find the walls near covered over with paper stuck to it. Drawings alike to those in the entryway were scribbled both on the paper and on the wall proper. More papers with drawings on them were scattered all across the floor and furniture of the rooms.

The notes left were strange. Some were of the tall figure, and some were covered with words. One large piece of text, scrawled on the wall in red, asked the question"can you see it?" Above it was what seemed to be a radio tower of some sort.

They all stared in a confusion, before they stepped into the room. Not sure what to do, they milled around a bit, each person trying to figure out what it all meant. Lauren leafed through a couple of the papers, using a flashlight she'd found to see while Mami surveyed the room. Key leapt up onto a dresser and began his own scan from the vantage point. Fuminori was staring at a drawing on the wall of the tall man-thing with narrowed eyes and Ryoko was perusing a piece of paper left on the desk. It seemed to be something of a crude map that indicated that the reader should go to the woods.

"Why would Kate draw all these?" Lauren asked confusedly as she kept flitting through the papers, each one seeming more strange and panicky than the last. She was using a flashlight she'd picked up somewhere in the house to get a good look at each drawing. "I mean, if she was in trouble, why waste so much time making them, there must be dozens and dozens."

No one answered. The air was tense as they all continued looking around. The sun had gone behind the hills and the only source of natural light was the moon, which was itself covered by clouds. The wind continued to blow and the trees rustled, making them feel as though they were surrounded by some sort of watchfulness. Something that was waiting on them to leave the comfort and relative safety of the house.

"Hey, look" Key suddenly said.

They turned and saw that he had jumped down from the dresser and had strolled over to the one window in the room. They had thought that it was open, but as they looked closer they found that it was in fact shut. The lower window pane was broken though, which was why they'd assumed it was open.

"This glass, it wasn't broken from the outside" Key said as he looked at it. He nudged a few of the shards that littered the floor.

"How can you tell?" Mami asked.

"There's only a few shards on the inside," he leapt up onto the windowsill (taking care not to tread in the broken glass) and stared outside. "The rest is scattered across the lawn"

He continued on methodically, "something was thrown through the window, something alive." He pointed a patch of dried brown liquid that had splotched the shards at points, which the girls realized with a start, wasn't brown paint, but dried blood.

"And judging by the distance that glass is scattered on the lawn," Key continued on grimly, "she, assuming it was Kate, was thrown hard. Harder than any but possibly the strongest humans have the ability to throw."

There was silence as they all contemplated this. Some footsteps were heard behind them, but as they turned, they found that it was just Madoka, Sayaka, and Homura entering the room. Sayaka and Madoka stared in bewilderment at the state of the place while Homura simply looked passively around.

"Did you find anything?" Mami asked.

"Nothing helpful," Homura said blandly. She recited off the few things they'd found.

"What happened to her?!" Lauren said, sounding a mixture of scared an annoyed. "Like I said, C.R. was a friend. More her friend than mine. He and Kate always did stuff together, but now they're both missing!"

She glanced around the room. She seemed to be supremely unnerved by all that had happened, first the group of supernatural strangers that she had run into, and then the signs that pointed to her friend going insane before vanishing.

"I think . . ." Key trailed off. He remembered Marethil's warning, about how they might face things beyond mortal ken. He shivered, trying to keep his courage as the darkness outside seem to press in on them.

"I think something had gotten into her head," he continued. His eyes narrowed as he turned to stare at the tall thin figure on the wall. He turned back and he peered around the room, "and maybe she was trying to get it out."

Silence reigned as they all peered around at the increasingly frantic scribblings that coated nearly every surface in the room.

Then suddenly a piercing shriek broke the silence. It was shrill and high, like a banshee's wail, conveying a feeling of utter fear and despair. Everyone whirled around, the cry had come from the direction of the woods further off in the property.

"Kate!" Lauren yelled.

She sprinted out of the door and towards the exit of the house closest to the woods. She ignored the calls of the others to wait, her flashlight waving as her arms pumped. After a moment's indecision, they ran after her. They thundered down the stairs and out the back door, half in a panic themselves. They had no plan, no time to think of anything but following Lauren in the direction of the scream.

Night had fallen completely, and the darkness closed in around them as they left the house. The echoes of the scream had died off, but it seemed to stick in their minds. Something about it chilled them to the bone and almost seemed to drag them along into the trees. For a minute or so they ran hard, but the feeling of waiting malice and dread only seemed to increase as they ran. It almost seemed a part of the air around them, and it sapped their strength, slowing them down. None of them had any thought to keep track of where they were going or trying to keep a map in their heads about how to get back to the house.

Soundtrack: Doug Maxwell – Lost in the Forest

Now, the darkness of the forest seemed to close in on them, as if they had stumbled into a sunless twilight with no dawn. Even the stars and moon shining overhead seemed to be faded, as though a dark film lay over the land.

None of them were running anymore, Lauren, who had been in front was now stumbling. Their breath came in short gasps as they each felt a chill in the air. Key, who had somehow managed to get atop Mami's shoulder, was ramrod straight, his back poker stiff. He was darting his gaze around, his eyes narrowed and his ears twitching. Homura was, as when she and Key had first encountered Saya, forcibly reminded of an animal that sensed danger and was tensed for a spring. The rest of them were sticking into a group, as though afraid that anyone who strayed would be set upon and savaged by some sort of wild animal. Homura heard Madoka and Sayaka panting, drawing in air as though an oily substance was obstructing their throats. Ryoko and Fuminori sounded a little better, but both were also obviously stressed and alert, veins sticking out on both their faces. The tension was overwhelming.

Then the dark presence that had followed them ever since they had entered the property, but had grown so slowly that they hadn't noticed until they'd entered the woods, seemed to bend over them. Lauren seemed to gasp slightly and tripped, falling onto her hands and knees. Mami and Nagisa immediately moved forward to help her up. As they helped her to her feet, suddenly, they felt something behind them. Almost as though they could feel a malevolent, darkly amused gaze upon them. Slowly, ever so slowly, and with shaking shoulders, they turned and looked.

There, through the trees, far off so that it was hard to see it, but at the same time far too close, stood a figure. At first glance, it looked almost normal. But as they took in more details, the few that they could see, there were subtle differences to be found which only made it look more uncanny. The arms and legs were overlong, making the figure far too tall to be natural, with a thin and rail-like appearance. It's fingers were also thin, as though its hand simply gave way to bone instead of flesh and blood. It was clad in an appropriately sized black suit, which on a normal person wouldn't have looked out of place for a bank manager. Here, the inappropriateness of putting such a normal human thing on something so clearly inhuman only made it more off-putting. And the face, no human alive had a face like that. Specifically, there didn't seem to be one. The proportions and even basic shaping was all right, but chalk white skin stretched tightly over a skull without break in it. No mouth, no nose, no ears, not even holes for eyes. There was simply a blank, an eldritch, inhumane blank.

The thing tilted its head, only slightly, as it stared at them.

"RUN!" nobody was sure who screamed it, but it caused a chain reaction as everyone turned and sprinted, only one thing on their minds, to get away from the seemingly Slender Man who they had sighted through the trees.

They ran, heedless of the obstacle, heedless of anything that came up in front of them. Their only goal was to get away!

After a minute or so, the immediate presence of the creature seemed to, not vanish, but at least lessen, and many of them stopped to rest for a small bit. It was only after they each looked around that they discovered their mistake.

None of them could see each other anymore. With a thrill of horror, they realized that, in their panic to get away from the monster they had lost sight of each other.

They were each alone in a dark forest.


Author's note: Fun fact, a large chunk of this, where they arrive at the house, has been sitting on my computer for potentially YEARS now. Been waiting a long time to get here, and I'm glad we finally did.

As I'm sure that if you didn't get the new crossover we're in, I'm sure you'll catch on real quick.

Someone actually managed to guess a chapter or so back what sort of character was going to be showing up.

You all wanted to know what sort of thing Saya was running from, and what sort of creature would drive Dr. Ogai insane, here he is. Hope I managed to make him intimidating so far. Rest assured that this arc is going to push these characters to their limits, who knows how they'll come out on the other side.

Remember to comment, I can't wait to see all your reactions to this.