The weekend had gone past in the blink of an eye and Mai had just finished her classes on this Monday in mid-October. As usual Naru was waiting in his car for Mai to exit so they could go to the office, however today she was late coming out. More than half of the students had already walked past the school gates and were heading home.
He thought about calling her phone but decided against it. Time was passing by and soon less and less students were coming out that didn't belong to after school clubs or sports teams. Just as Naru was about to dial Mai's phone, he saw the brunette girl running towards him.
"You're late Mai hurry up and get in," Naru voiced, his irritations evident.
"I'm sorry Naru I got caught up with talking to Keiko and Michiru. It's been so long since I spent time with them and I lost track of the time," Mai got in the car and closed the door.
"You can talk to them on your own free time not when you have work to get to," Naru pulled out onto the street and drove to the office.
"Technically after school is my free time you jerk. It's not like there is much for me to do at the office anyways. It's almost been 3 weeks since out last case," Mai chirped back.
"Well then it's a good thing I'm good at finding you tasks to do. There is a new article I can give you to start reading and we have a potential client meeting with us this afternoon," the raven haired boss stated.
"Oh really who is the client," Mai asked sounding excited to get a new case.
"He is a gentleman on the board of directors at a psychiatric hospital. Apparently they report odd phenomena that's been happening over the last year and have since moved their patient's to their sister hospitals until they can get this situation handled," Naru explained.
Mai tensed at the prospect of being in another hospital so soon even though she was not going to be a patient at said hospital.
"I see," was all Mai said.
Mai wondered if her recent dream had anything to do with this hospital and the thought made her nervous. She hd the dream again last night and when she woke up at 2am she refused to sleep again and went to studying for her test. To say she was tired was an understatement, she only that hoped Naru wouldn't catch on.
"How did your test go today," Naru questioned her.
Mai never heard hin speak since she was so focused on her thoughts.
"Mai," Naru spoke a little louder.
"Huh, what was that Naru," Mai looked at him hearing his voice the second time.
"I said how was your test," he spoke slowly and clearly so the girl's brain could catch up.
"Oh that, yeah it went better than I thought I scored a 90. I was still pretty confused mostly with some of the dates. The state's names and capitals weren't a problem but once they threw numbers in there my brain had a hard time matching everything up," Mai explained.
"Well considering how slow your brain is sometimes I would say that you scored pretty well," Naru spoke in his usual condescending tone.
Mai could feel the irritation rising inside of her.
"Well not everyone can be a super genius like you," she said crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"So you think I'm a genius then," Naru smirked.
Mai was getting ready to argue back when Naru pulled in front of the SPR building and parked the car. Mai grabbed her things and made her way inside the building with Naru following right behind her. Upon opening the doo Mai noticed a man standing in the main room talking to Lin.
"This is the person you would be speaking to," Lin stated referring to Naru.
Naru hung his jacket on the rack and made his way to the main room while Mai went to the kitchen to perform her assistant duties after hanging her bag up.
"My name is Kazuya Shibuya, I am the owner of the company. You contacted the office the other day correct Mr. Miyazaki," Naru said giving the introductions.
"Yes my name is Hiro Miyazaki, I am on the board of directors for the Shibuya branch of the Japanese National Psychiatric Hospital," the man bowed.
The man appeared to be in his late 40s with light grey streaks of hair peaking out through his jet black hair.
"Have a seat and we can listen to your case," Naru said making his way to his usual spot.
Naru had grabbed his black notebook that Lin set on his chair for him and opened it up to take notes if needed. Lin took his seat on the sofa to Naru's right opening his laptop to document and the client sat in a chair across from Naru. Mai returned from the kitchen with tea and distributed cups to each of the three men and stood to Naru's right.
"Alright Mr. Miyazaki please explain to us what has been happening," Naru told the man and went into scientist mode.
"Yes it all began about a year ago you see. We have been having patient disappear from our hospital. At least one or two a month as of 2 months ago that number changed to one or two a week, I know it seems impossible but it is true. We have security at every exit and patrolling the perimeter at all times, plus at least one member of the nursing staff at the nurse's stations at night. At first we thought it was a simple case of negligence on the personnel but after extensive interviews and reviewing the camera footage at the hospital it was determined there was no logical explanation as to how these patients disappeared.
"We also haven't had any reports of patient attacks on anyone on the night staff. We thought that was only way for someone to try and leave undetected. Day shift is too well staffed for a patient to attempt an attack on a member of the nursing or doctoral staff or to even attempt an escape. We have determined that these occurrences have been happening sometime between after nighttime roll call and before morning roll call the following day. It's almost as if they vanished from their rooms in the middle of the night. the board decided to transfer the patients to our other sister hospitals last week across Japan until we locate the missing patients and uncover the method in which these patient are escaping.
"Needless to say we have not made progress on either front. We have also been having medications go missing from the storerooms in the different patient wards. For each storeroom either the doctor or nurse is required to scan their badge and enter a code that is specific to that individual employee, so it would be next to impossible for an outsider to enter and take medications. The night staff usually does a pill count and has reported that injections are missing, far more than what has been documented for the day. Again we investigated and interviewed different employees who accessed the storage rooms on the days in question and everything came out clean.
"Also the night staff has reported hearing and seeing strange things. Some have reported seeing a man leaving the patient wards in the middle of the night. Several nurses have tried to approach the man assuming it was a patient but when they got closer it was almost as if he vanished into thin air. also I know this might just be dismissed as typical patient behavior but some have reported voices and screams. But even after all the patients were transferred, the security guards we have kept around to make sure no one tries sneaking in have even reported these noises.
"I know it may not seem like much, but if we can not find the cause of all this the head director will be forced to shut us down and cut his losses, especially since we are much smaller than all the other hospitals. As it is many of the employees have begun receiving less than their normal pay due to our loss of profit while being on leave. I would hate to see anyone forced into financial difficulty because of this, so I beg of you please help us," the man finished his story and bowed in his seat.
Mai only looked to her boss waiting for him to give the final verdict. She peeked towards his notebook and noticed several notes that he had made.
'He must be already coming up with some theories,' Mai thought.
"Mai I would like for you to take down this man's information. Once you have done that call the others and see who is available. Mr. Miyazaki we will arrive Wednesday afternoon please inform the security guards they are not allowed on site for the duration of this investigation as we want to eliminate any outside interference. I would also like the contacts of the employees who have had these odd encounters as well as those you investigated regarding the missing medications. Rest assured my team will use the utmost discretion with this private information," Naru explained.
Mai walked over to her bag and took out a small notepad and pen in order to write down Mr. Miyazaki's contact info and the directions to the location. Naru and Lin took this opportunity to leave the room and convene in Naru's office to make plans for the upcoming investigation.
"Mai once you are finished with the task I need tea," Naru said before he closed the door to his personal office.
Mai began to growl but stopped suddenly realizing she was still in front of the client.
"What did he mean by others is it not just you three," the client asked.
"No sir there are colleagues of ours who are experienced spiritualists that my boss trusts wholeheartedly for their expertise. You should have nothing to worry about we will figure this out," Mai told the man.
The client gave Mai the information that she had asked for and bid her farewell before he walked out of the office. once more Mai went into the kitchen to make tea and placed the notebook in her skirt pocket. With tea preparations completed Mai took a tray with two cups and brought them to Naru's office.
"Naru I'm coming in I have the tea," Mai announced her presence.
Hearing no objections Mai opened the door and brought in the tray and placed it on Naru's desk.
"Here you go Mai this is your next reading assignment you have from now until two days after the completion of the case to have it read," Naru said holding up the papers.
"You can't be serious I'm expected to read these things on a case," Mai complained.
"I will not change how I conduct these lessons if you would like I could guarantee you finish this by this coming Saturday," Naru narrowed his eyes at the girl.
Mai quickly grabbed the papers and walked out of her boss's office and into hers before he took away whatever extra time that she had to do the reading.
'Stupid Naru he always has to act like a hard ass stubborn teacher. Well what is the topic of the article this time,' Mai thought as she took a look at the top paper.
Upon reading the title Mai's hands started shaking and she could feel herself break out in a cold sweat. this was the article about creating a spiritual shield, the one Mai had remembered reading in her dream.
"No this can't be, there is no way," the girl whispered to herself.
She didn't want to believe that her dream had any meaning to it but so far that was starting to look like the case. The girl decided not to ponder the topic too much and instead started to call the rest of SPR to let them know about the new case that had been accepted. She spent the next hour on the phone mostly because Ayako wanted to just chat with her. while Mai loved talking with the red haired woman she knew if she didn't call everyone by tonight Naru was going to be on her case. She cut the woman off and promised her that she would call her more often in between cases.
By 8pm the two men had finished discussing the preliminary plan and decided to close up the office for the evening. Lin decided he would head home and Naru and Mai left back to their home as well.
"By the way Naru I go ahold of everyone and they all said they could make the case," Mai informed him as they began the drive to the apartment.
Naru decided to stop and get takeout for dinner considering how late it was for either one of them to try and attempt to cook something to eat. once they got home they ate and retreated to their rooms for the night to get some sleep. Mai however was woken up again in the middle of the night from the horrible dream she's been having.
~Wednesday~
The first day of the case had arrived and had Naru not practically dragged the girl out of bed she might have overslept. She had stayed up super late the night before packing her clothes and also was forcing herself not to sleep, afraid of having the dream again. At some point the exhaustion had caught up to her and her body had forced itself to go to sleep.
Lin picked up the boss and his assistant and they drove to the office and began loading the equipment into the back of the van. Mai ran inside the office and grabbed the article from her desk to bring with her. She had done her best to ignore it and its contents, but if Naru questioned her about it and he knew she has read nothing, well Mai didn't want to think about that at the moment. She threw it into her backpack with the rest of her homework from school.
once the van was loaded the trio loaded themselves back into the van with Monk and everyone else following in a car right behind them. The hospital was a 20 minute drive from the office and was much smaller than what Mai had imagined. There was a giant stone wall surrounding the place and a black iron gate which was the only means for entering and exiting the facility's grounds. Lin pulled up the van towards the front gate where two men in uniforms were standing guard. Lin rolled down his window as one of the guards approached the van.
"State your business," the guard said in a deep firm voice.
All Lin did was pull out a card and flashed it at the guard. The guard stared for a dew minutes and waved off the other guard who had walked over to the door on Naru's side.
"This all seems to be in order Mr. Miyazaki has informed us of you arrival," the guard spoke.
"The car behind us is also part of this they will be coming with us," Lin explained.
The guard nodded his head and grabbed his walkie talkie and asked for the gates to be opened. The two cars drove forward and pulled up to the main entrance and saw Mr. Miyazaki standing out there waiting to greet them. The team all exited their vehicles and walked up to the man waiting to be shown around.
"I thank you all again for agreeing to this, please allow me to show you around. Rest assured i will have the remaining guards leave along with myself," Mr. Miyazaki bowed to the group.
"Yes now if you wouldn't mind showing us around," Naru said.
Mai just shook her head at her boss knowing he was never going to ask nicely for something no matter how much she scolded him. Then again she figured that he wanted to hurry and get this done that way they can get started. Everyone followed the client up the stairs to the main entrance and Mai could feel a small wave of anxiety wash over her. Mai grabbed onto Monk's arm which caused the man to look at her.
"Mai are you alright," Monk asked her.
"Yeah I just really don't like hospitals," the girl spoke softly.
They entered the hospital to see another set of double doors in front of them and a small space where one security guard was sitting in. Mai let go of Monk's arm knowing she had to ace her anxieties head on and her team would be there to support her when she needed them.
"Please unlock all the door Watanabe," Mr. Miyazaki yelled out to the guard.
A loud buzzing sound and then a click was heard as the client went and held the door open for the SPR members. The hallway went in two directions one to the right and the other straight forward. The client led the group going down the hallway in front of them
"We only have three different patient wards here at our hospital, patients are roomed based on the severity of their condition. for the most part their layouts are pretty similar. Each one has patient rooms, the nurses stations, and the storage/medication closet, the only different one is our third ward which has a recreation room that is used specifically for those patients. I will show you one of the wards now," Mr. Miyazaki explained.
He led them down the hall and to the right and through a set of double doors on the left. The wall in front of them was the nurses station and the storage area, to their left and right were the patient rooms. Mai could still feel the anxiety throughout her body and there was something else too, her head felt fuzzy almost like she was drugged and she couldn't think straight either. Mai staggered a little as she walked and Monk had to steady her to make sure she didn't fall over.
"Woah there, you alright," Monk asked the girl.
"My head feels fuzzy almost as if I were drugged or drunk. It's also hard for me to think straight," Mai explained as she tried to shake the fuzziness away.
"Here you can hold on to me until you feel better," Mink said linking his arm through Mai's.
Naru took a mental note of the conversation between the two and would bring it up once all the equipment had been set up. The client walked them back out into the hall and led them off to the left which led them to a giant area with chairs and tables.
"This here is our cafeteria which would also double as our recreation area for the other patients. If you head this way to the left corner there is an indoor garden and straight forward is the kitchen which its only entrance is from the back of the building on the outside," Mr. Miyazaki explained.
"I would like to see the patient ward with the recreation room I believe this area will serve well for our base," Naru voiced.
The client nodded and took the group back towards the main entrance and took them down the other hallway and into the other ward. This one was similar to the one they were shown, patient rooms to the left and in front of them, and to the right was the rec room, nurses stations, and storage closet.
"Mr. Miyazaki I believe that will be everything, you and your staff are to leave the grounds. Once the investigation has been completed we will contact you regarding our findings. Also do you happen to have the information I asked for the other day," Naru told the client.
"Yes and all the doors have been unlocked so you should have no trouble accessing the areas you need access to. Thank you all once again for taking this on," the client took some papers out of his briefcase and handed them over.
The man bowed and made his way out the building. The team, except Naru who was already walking in the rec room, bowed back to the client. Everyone else entered the rec room and awaited their orders.
"Everyone let's unload the van and get everything set up this will be our base. We can also use part of the nurses station as a sleeping area and here as well. We can pull mattresses from some of the patient rooms, as unconventional as this may be this is our better option aside from everyone sleeping in individual patient room," Naru explained.
The team nodded their heads and got right to work. The men all worked together unloading the equipment from the van while the girls worked on moving the mattresses to the two different areas. In 45 minutes everything was set up and ready to go.
"Mai explain what it is that you felt while we were walking around," Naru addressed the assistant.
Everyone turned to look at the girl and she got nervous suddenly feeling everyone's eyes on her.
"Well I don't know if it's just my nerves or not but this place gives me a lot of anxiety, I was never a big fan of any kind of hospital to begin with. But when we went into the first patient ward my head was fuzzy, it felt like I was drugged or drunk and I couldn't think straight. It was taking me a while to focus and make a coherent thought," Mai told everyone.
"Ms. Hara what about you, have you felt anything," Naru turned to ask the medium.
"I didn't feel what Mai felt, I felt something completely different. It was as if something wrong and inhumane occurred in this place that has led to a lot of suffering," Masako commented as she closed her eyes to focus on the feeling.
Naru paused for a moment taking note of the two different accounts. Mai's instinct was hardly ever wrong when it came to things she felt, however with the growth in her abilities it was possible that she was actually feeling something more than just instinct. Masako being the medium, Naru was more inclined to go with her assessment but he would take both accounts into consideration for the beginning of the investigation.
'I guess I should be grateful that Naru didn't dismiss my experience outright, only time will tell if I am right or not,' Mai thought.
"Yasu begin your research of the facility and also see if you can find a blueprint of the facility. Mai, Monk, and John you three will work together to set up cameras and microphones. Ms. Hara and Ms. Matsuzaki you two walk around and see if you can sense any spirits once you are finished come back here and report your findings," Naru gave his orders and everyone began their work.
Mai carried two cameras, Monk had two cameras and a microphone, while John held three microphones. The first camera and microphone were placed in the corner near the entrance to the ward to cover most of the unit and to also get footage of the entrance to the nurses station and storage room. The second set up was similar to the first with everything placed into the corner to that was to the right as soon as you walked into the ward.
When the trio entered the third ward Mai got the same fuzzy feeling in her head that she had gotten before. This time the feeling however made her so sick she thought she was going to vomit. She pushed the last camera into Monk's arms and ran into the nearest patient room hoping there was a bathroom or at least a sink in case she did lose her stomach contents. Luckily for her there was a bathroom but with no door, but she didn't care about the lack of privacy at the moment.
Monk and John followed the girl into the room once the camera and microphone had been set up.
"Mai are you sure you're alright this place seems to be really affecting you," Monk voiced concern evident in his tone.
The girl was clutching the edge of the sink with her hands and taking in deep breaths to calm her stomach.
"I think so I just felt a little sick is all. Sorry guys just give me a couple minutes and then we can move on," Mai said trying her best to smile at the two men.
The two males waited outside of the patient room for the girl to gather herself. Mai took a small handkerchief out of her skirt pocket and wet it using the wet fabric to dab her face. Once she felt better she met the two outside nd nodded at them signaling that they were good to go. The final camera was placed in the hallway in front of the door coming in from the main entrance.
once the group got the okay for the camera position they made their way back to the base to see if the boss had any other tasks to assign them. The fuzzy feeling and nausea that Mai felt had mostly gone away once they walked back into the base and she made her way into a chair in the corner of the room and placed the handkerchief on the back of her neck.
"Mai tea," Naru called out as usual.
"Yeah I'm going I just need a minute," Mai sighed allowing the sickly feeling to pass more. She was kind of glad that she decided to bring the electric kettle she kept in the office, she wasn't sure if she would be able to handle the long walk to the kitchen right now. Mai plugged in the kettle's burner and filled the kettle and gave it time to boil. along with the kettle there was a bag of plastic cups and Mai took out enough for everyone on the team including herself.
Ayako and Masako had returned from their walk as soon as the kettle beeped signaling the water was ready. Mai filled all the cups and started distributing them one by one, Naru received his last to which he responded by glaring at Mai who actively ignored him.
"Ms. Hara your report," Naru stated.
"I do feel an abundance of spirits here, they don't seem to be coming from one specific area in the hospital they are all scattered around. I still get that same feeling that something inhumane happened here in the past but nothing that debilitates my thinking like Mai was describing earlier," Masako explained and she peered over at Mai as she spoke that last part.
Mai couldn't tell if the girl was making fun of her or if she was waiting to see if Mai would try and contradict her in some way. Syako looked at the assistant and noticed that she seemed a bit paler than usual.
"Mai are you feeling alright you look a little pale," Ayako asked.
"Yeah I'll be alright. I just felt a little sick earlier when Monk, John, and I were setting up the cameras and mics. I got that same feeling again and it just made me a little nauseous," Mai told her.
Ayako grabbed the girl's hand and led her back to the chair Mai had occupied before the boss requested his tea.
"Just sit down for a little while and rest," Ayako told her and handed her a cup of tea.
"John, Monk, and Ms. Matsuzaki take this list of contact information of various employees who worked here. I want you three to divide it up and call all the names there and get their accounts of what has been occurring here while the hospital was still under operation. Once you have completed that, we should be good for the time being," Naru instructed and handed the list over to Monk.
"Got it, let's go the nurses station should have some phones available for us to use," Monk addressed his two partners.
The trio spent about an hour and a half speaking with the different employees on the list and taking note of their account. The sun had set on the first day of the investigation leaving Mai wondering why she kept getting this strong feeling and if it had anything to what was going on in the hospital.
A/N: Thank you all again for reading my story. I really appreciate each and every one of you that has been following thus far. Please continue to support me and my story as I do my best to update for you guys. Please like, favorite, and comment as always and I will be here next time. Also I do not own Ghost Hunt or its characters, the only things I own are the plot and ideas in this fanfiction. Byeeeeeeeeeee~