Victims With Numbers 6

The door slammed shut before they could step out, and they heard a loud crack behind them.
"My game!" A look behind them showed that Yuki had snapped the game system in half and thrown it to the floor. Tokiko was pointing at the door, as if she had commanded it to close. Both girls then raised their hands, and with a simple gesture, Qi felt a force pulling at his collar, dragging him back and up violently. The spirits rose with him as he struggled fruitlessly, and then they took hold of his wrists and pulled his arms out straight. He winced as he felt his arms wrench - if the girls pulled just a little harder or further, both his shoulders would dislocate, he was sure of it. He tried to protest their actions, make excuses, claim he wasn't leaving them. The last thing he said was 'I was just going to the bathroom, I swear', and then he went limp. It was like he'd gone into a trance. His eyes slowly shut and his head lolled forward, and the two little ghost girls held him in place, high off the ground.
"No! Let him go!" Nico yelled, charging forth in his usual foolhardy yet brave way. He seemed to hit an invisible wall, and was thrown back into the very visible and solid wall behind him before slipping to the floor.
"Nico!" Instead of rushing to his side to check he was okay, Upa turned back to the spirits. If ever there was a time his abilities were needed, this was it. If there was any chance he could affect those ghosts, he had to take it!

The only problem with that course of action was that something had felt off since he'd woken up here, and he'd not been able to put his finger on what exactly. As if something was weighing him down. When he tried to use his power, for one moment forgetting about the negative effects it might have on those around him, he found he couldn't do a thing. Perhaps this was it. It was like his qi was just out of reach, like this place had locked away a part of him or somehow strengthened the charm keeping his powers at bay. Impulsively, he reached up to pull the tag away from his own head, but managed to stop himself before he went through with it.

Of course, pulling the tag away wasn't a sure fire way to fix whatever was wrong with his qigong. Increasing his power level would also increase the chances of Qi getting hurt. Then again, if Upa harmed Qi with one blast, he would probably still come out better off than if they let the ghosts hurt him. Removing the tag was something he'd been warned against on many occasions. When they regrouped with the guards, he would be in big trouble, regardless of his reasons. Was it worth the risk? Would it help Qi to remove it? And there was Nico to think about as well. This was frustrating. He didn't know what the best thing to do for Qi's sake was, or the best thing to do for Nico's sake. Or his own, for that matter. What could possibly be the right course of action to take here?

He was angry. He was aware of that, and he was trying not to act impulsively. He was succeeding so far, he'd stopped himself from taking one impulsive action. He'd barely noticed how tightly he'd been clenching his fists, but as he relaxed them, he could feel the deep grooves his nails had left in his palms. Keeping his eyes on the ghosts, and Yuki keeping her eye on him, he backed off until he was next to Nico. It was hard to keep his eyes on the ghosts and check Nico over at the same time. He felt the back of his head, and felt a bump. Okay, he'd hit his head, and hopefully a bump was all it would be, but unconsciousness was never a good sign. He looked away from the ghosts and turned his full attention to the injured party, checking him over for other obvious injuries. He found some blood across Nico's back and felt the anger increase, but he couldn't figure out where it had come from. He didn't have much time to look, though, because another crack brought his attention back to Qi and the ghosts.

Yuki had stopped looking at him. She was now looking at Qi, and no longer holding his wrist, though it stayed suspended where she'd left it. Instead, she was pulling at his hair, digging her nails into his scalp. Upa thought if he looked hard enough, he could see a little blood in Qi's hair. On his other side, Tokiko still had hold of his hand, and was playing with his fingers, bending and straightening them curiously like she'd never seen fingers move before. Sometimes, she decided to bend his finger back as far as she could. One of them was at an abnormal angle. The crack before had been a bone breaking. The spirits were laughing as they messed with the unconscious man's body. Like he was a doll they were only too happy to break. He watched Yuki rip a large chunk of hair from the man's head, and for a moment thought he saw some skin come away with it.

He gave in to his temper's impulse and tried to tear the tag away from his head. He felt his connection to his qi returning, felt power surge. It was like being in this place had increased the power of that charm to the point that it completely took away his qigong abilities, but now it was off, he was at full power again. Like the charm had never been there. Now, using qigong out of rage was never a good thing. You need to be able to concentrate and have a clear head. He knew his temper could be a problem, that was one of the things meditation was supposed to help with, but here he was, giving into it again anyway. The flash of light that accompanied his attack against the ghosts hurt his eyes, a stark contrast from the dark and dreary surroundings, and he already knew it was going to hit Qi as well. At least he was already unconscious.

Only, the blast stopped before it reached him. It hit the same invisible wall Nico had hit before, pulsated, caused the wall to become visible - rotting wood, translucent, pulsating as the ball of energy was. Then, the blast ricocheted back at him. "Ah-" Was all he managed before he was blasted into the wall.

When Upa came to, Nico was crouched over him, his hands holding tight onto his shoulders. "Master? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
Well, truthfully, it felt like he'd been trampled by a stampede, but Upa decided not to say that. "I'm fine, Nico." He managed.
"Oh, good. I was worried there. I woke up and you were just lying on the ground, not moving! I didn't know what happened! I thought maybe if I hugged you, you'd get better, like before-"
"Don't do that." He sat up, biting back a groan, and Nico hugged him anyway. "Nico!" Upa pulled away from the embrace and looked to Qi. He was still in the same place they'd left him, still with the ghost girls either side of him. When they noticed Upa looking, they hissed at him, and Yuki's hand went dangerously close to Qi's throat. The qigong master felt a cold, dreadful feeling pass through him.
"We have to leave." There was just something in his head screaming that if they didn't leave now, there would be hell to pay.
"But the old man!" Nico looked over to the ghosts, and then a look of fear crossed his face. He wasn't a complete idiot. Even he could tell that they had just succeeded in pissing off the ghosts holding the other inmate. Ever since they'd entered that room, they'd just made things worse and worse. "Hey, Master? I think we should leave."
Upa nodded and the two of them got up and fled the room. Great. What else could they mess up today?
"What do we do now?"
"We head back to the classroom and see if Kiji's come back yet, or if anyone else has seen our message."

The two made it all the way back to classroom 1-A without any major incident. There was nobody there, and no response to the note they had left. Nico shifted uncomfortably. "Nobody's been here."
"It doesn't look like it." The note was in the exact same place they'd left it before.
"Should we wait?"
Upa opened his mouth to respond, but didn't say a word as a sound from outside caught his attention. The sound of something heavy scraping across the ground, and of the footsteps of someone large and heavy-set.
"Master? What's that sound?"
Nico had noticed it too. Upa shrugged and went to the door, motioning for Nico to be quiet. He edged the door open as quietly as he could. Down the hall, away from the hole in the floor, a man was walking, dragging something large behind him.

A sledgehammer?

The man was pretty big. Broad-shouldered, probably overweight by the looks of him, but a significant portion of that weight may well have been muscle. He was certainly much bigger than either of the inmates watching him, but if Upa had to guess, he would say the man was about the height of Nico's cellmate, Uno, or the two inmates from Building 3. Not a giant by any means, but certainly decently sized and someone who gave off a definite air of danger and aggression. The man was lumbering away from them, moaning slightly with every heavy footfall. His clothes were grey and black, and unless he was wearing gloves, from where Upa stood it looked like the man's hands were grey as well. In fact, the only real colour he could see came from what appeared to be a doll attached to the man's belt.
"Is that a zombie?" Nico asked from behind, keeping his voice low.
"No." What was it, though? It certainly seemed zombie-like in its movements and the grunting sounds it was making. It was an adult man, and he seemed in some way similar to the three ghosts they'd seen before. Like he was dangerous and deadly, and not really alive. "I can't be sure of this, but he might be the killer."
"The killer?"
"That news report Qi showed us said those children were murdered by a teacher from their school. He could be that teacher."
"So he is a zombie!"
"What? No, he...sure. He's a zombie." He was more likely to be some kind of enraged ghostly manifestation, just like the three ghost children they'd seen thus far. "Keep your voice down. We don't want to attract his attention."
"Yes, Master."
The man made his way towards the stairs leading down to the first floor, and the watching inmates had to consider their next move. Obviously they wanted to avoid the murderer where possible. They couldn't be sure where he was going or what he was doing, but with a bloodstained weapon, it didn't look good. There was also the slight concern that staying in place would mean the murderer would eventually find and attack them, but wandering around aimlessly increased chances of randomly running into him. They'd been lucky to have not encountered him before. Upa moved to follow when he felt the man was a safe distance away.
"We should try and get past him and get to the entryway we saw before. We haven't been there yet, we've only seen it through the hole in the floor, and if we can secure an exit..."
Nico nodded and followed. Upa had already said to be quiet, and he didn't need to be told twice. It was obvious that this was a serious situation. The two moved towards the stairs, not really much choice but to follow the man's path, being careful not to draw attention to themselves.

Then Nico sneezed.

From how close they were to one another, Upa felt a spray of snot against the back of his head. He shot round and hissed "Cover your mouth, Nico!"
"Oops, sorry!" Was the response he got back. "Bless me...I think."
"...Bless you."
Nico smiled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Upa figured he needed to carry tissues with him a little more often, because having someone else spew snot into your hair was irritating at best when you couldn't do anything about it, dangerous at worst, for someone with a compromised and medically suppressed immune system. At the very least, he figured Nico had just inhaled some dust that had tickled his nose a bit and caused the sneeze, so he didn't think he was going to catch anything from that, and certainly nothing serious. He watched Nico's line of sight travel upward and the smile fade from his face. He could already tell he wouldn't like what he saw when he turned back toward the stairs, and the deep, throaty moan confirmed that before he even dared to look.

The murderer was stood right there now, raising his bloody hammer high above his head, preparing to strike the two boys down there and then. Up close now, Upa could confirm his previous thought, that the man had had grey skin. It looked a bit like it was rotting away, so maybe Nico's zombie comments weren't too far off. His eyes were bloodshot and reddened and dull, and some kind of black ooze was streaming from his eyes and nose.

The hammer descended, coming right for Upa's head.

It was, in a way, lucky that he was used to dangerous situations and could see it coming. He moved back out of the way, taking Nico with him. It looked like they were engaging with this thing whether they liked it or not. With another mournful wail, the man swung his hammer again, and once again the boys were able to move back. The man's movements were big, easy to predict, but they weren't slow, and they weren't weak. When they hit the wooden walls and floors, they caused splintered craters. They couldn't just keep dodging forever, either. They would run out of space to back up, or stop being so lucky. The hammer came for them again, and it came so close to landing its mark this time. Upa could almost feel it against his skin, the force behind the swing. He stumbled and tripped, and landed on his backside while Nico kept his footing.

To prevent his prey from squirming away again, the big man placed his foot firmly over Upa's lower leg, and seemed to press his full weight on it. It hurt enough for him to cry out, but he didn't think enough force had been applied to break his leg. It was enough weight that he couldn't struggle free himself, and twisting the trapped limb in a futile attempt to escape would only serve to cause some real damage. The man raised his hammer again, and this time it would strike the intended victim with little difficulty.
"MASTER!" Nico, in a show of both stupidity and his usual fanboy heroics, leapt into action, levelling a kick at the man's chest, clearly determined to free his friend. The man let go of his hammer and instead grabbed Nico's ankle as the foot made contact. The kick forced the man back a step or two, freeing Upa and allowing him to get to his feet, but the man threw Nico aside like he was a ragdoll. The American hit a wall with a sickening sound, leaving a crater beneath him and crying out in pain. Upa crouched as the man approached him once more, apparently deciding Nico wasn't worth his time. Before he could reach him, a blast of energy hit the man square in the chest. The impact sent the man stumbling back toward the stairwell. With one misstep, the man disappeared from view and went tumbling down to the next floor.

Upa approached the top step and looked down. The man was no longer moving. Nico appeared at his side, clutching his arm and clearly in pain. "Is he dead?"
Well, thought Upa, he certainly didn't seem to be alive. Whether he was truly alive before he'd fallen down the stairs or not was another matter entirely. "He might still move. We should be cautious."
"Okay." Nico went down the stairs. "What's with the doll?"
"Don't touch it." Upa followed him down. He had to admit, his attention had been pulled to the doll as well. It seemed so out of place in comparison to the rest of the man. Upa didn't want to pick it up. Honestly, there was no guarantee the man wouldn't regain consciousness while they were thinking about the stupid doll, and thinking about how messed up everything else in here was, there could be consequences to touching it. Nico reached for it.
"Look, Master, it's so cute!"
"Nico!" He stopped just inches from the thing. Upa gestured for him to move away, and went back up the stairs to tear a piece of paper from the wall. The paper had a messy scrawl across it, likely left by one of the many victims of this school. It was a barely coherent writing about curses in the school. Carefully, he used the paper to pick up the doll.

It was most certainly not cute.

"It looks creepy to me." He admitted. The doll was a simple culture doll, small enough to fit comfortably in his hands. It wore a red dress and a matching bonnet, staring blue eyes and a bit too much make-up on its sheet white cloth face. He supposed the thing might be appealing to young children, or people who were like young children on the inside.
"It has the most kawaii little anime eyes!" Nico insisted, clearly enamoured with the thing. Upa did not like the kawaii little anime eyes. It just gave him an unnerving feeling, worse than he'd felt when he'd been back with Qi in the infirmary. Actually, that bad feeling had never faded out, just gotten worse now they had this doll.
"I am so sorry"
At the sound of the high pitched, tinny voice, Upa instinctively tossed the doll away from himself. It wasn't with much power, more a startled jolt than anything else, which is why Nico was able to easily catch it as it continued to apologise in a slow, rhythmic monotone. He then seemed to start examining the thing.
"What are you looking for?" Upa asked him.
"The button, or the string! Talking dolls have those, right? At least, there were dolls at this one prison I went to that were meant to be for entertainment. One guy tried to use the pull cord on the doll to hurt another guy. The talking dolls were banned after that."
"...It doesn't seem to have any such mechanism."
The doll was repeating the same words over and over.
"I am so sorry
To have killed children so brutally
I was not in my right mind
I was scared too
I did not want them to die
I am so sorry
I am so sorry
So very very sorry
I do not want them to suffer
I am actually a good person
I am so sorry
I am so sorry
So very very sorry"
And then it would repeat again from the top.
"Why is it saying that?" Nico asked, frowning. Upa, seeing his companion hadn't been affected by touching the thing, took it from him and examined it. He found, written on the back of the bonnet, the name Yoshikazu Yanagihori. He assumed that was the mystery man's name.
"I'm not sure. It looks like it belongs to this man."
"To the killer?"
"Yes. It sounds like the doll is talking about the murder as well."
"So...the doll is apologising for the teacher?" Nico suddenly got an 'I have an idea' look on his face. "So he's saying sorry for what he did, right?"
"It sounds like it, but it doesn't sound very sincere."
Nico grabbed the doll back and held it aloft. "If he apologises to the ghosts, maybe they'll feel better and they'll leave the old man alone!"
Upa doubted it was that easy. He doubted the people he'd harmed or killed in the past would forgive him just like that if he gave an insincere apology. Those children had died a horrific death and their spirits were being tormented. On the other hand, closure could be a step in the right direction and exactly what they needed. It was a tough decision to make.

If they made the wrong move, Qi would die.

Upa hesitated. Once again, he wasn't sure what the correct action to take was. Eventually, he asked "How sure are you that this will work?"
It was Nico's turn to hesitate. "I...I'm not. But we can't just leave him! And the ghosts are unhappy too! If this might help them, then..."
He gave a nod. "We can try and see if the apology will make them feel better then. At the first sign of things getting worse, we leave. If it doesn't seem like it's working, we leave. We do not want to make matters worse again."
"Yeah, you're right..."

When they got back to the infirmary, Upa opened the door first, hands raised and palms open to show he meant no harm. The girls were still giggling and still treating Qi as their plaything, but they both showed the two inmates due attention when they entered. Nico came in after, holding up Yoshikazu's doll so they could see her, and gently shutting the door behind him. It was Nico who did the talking.
"Hey, Yuki? Tokiko? We're really sorry we upset you earlier. We were scared, and we wanted our friend back. We thought he was in big danger and we thought we'd be safer with him around too. He can be scary sometimes, but he's also nice, like he was to you, and if he's that nice to you then you don't really want to hurt him, right? I think you're just sad and scared and lonely, too. So we found this for you, and we want you to listen to it! It's from that teacher! It's his thoughts and feelings and we thought it might help to hear them." He was quiet for a moment so the ghosts could hear the doll's words.

The ghosts listened, and then began to cry. They both released Qi, and he stayed suspended in the air and unconscious right up until the ghosts faded from view, at which point his eyes flickered open and he pitched forward. No-one moved to catch him as he fell toward the ground, yelling all the way. Uoa figured it would be fine, he would survive a fall like that easily, and it wasn't like the two of them could easily catch and support his frame without causing further injury to more than one of them anyway. The important thing was that the ghosts had released him for now, and once he got up off the floor they could do a quick emergency treatment for their injuries and get out of there.

He never did reach the floor, though. Instead, it was like his ankles were held in place. He swung until he was suspended upside down, and the momentum even caused his glasses to come flying off and something to fall from his pocket, both items skittering to the back of the room. He was still crying out in pain, likely due to the torn flesh on his head and the broken bones in his arm. None of them were really sure what was happening, but now the two younger inmates rushed forward to help.

Yuki and Tokiko appeared again, each holding an ankle, and just as Upa reached his cellmate, just as his fingers brushed against the idiot's collar, the spirits moved and pulled him away at such speed that his eyes couldn't keep up. It was like one moment, Qi was there, and the next he was gone.

He could register a few things. The spirits had flown to the door, the man held firmly between them, flying low enough that his head was dragging against the floor. He didn't have time to react himself, no time to try and prevent his fate. They crashed through the door, completely wrecking it on the way out, and disappeared from sight. For a very brief moment, Upa and Nico could hear a scream, a raw thing of pain and fear, and in an instant it was ended with a thick sound. Something between a splat, a crunch and a thump. The doll fell from Nico's hands, and Upa took a hesitant step towards the door. He felt sick, like the stress and pressure he'd been feeling from this place was having a physical effect on him. He stepped out, looked down the hall and froze.
"No..."
Frowning, Nico hurried over to stand beside him, and followed his gaze to the end of the hall, where the path turned a corner.

There were no words to explain the sight before him now. The wall at the end of the hall was decorated with the remains of a person, remains that had not been there before. Remains that were barely recognisable as a person.

Qi's remains.

It looked like the impact had torn him to pieces. There were bits of meat and bone splattered wide across the area, the nearby walls, the floor and ceiling...guts were sliding down the wall and collecting in a puddle. It was quite possibly the most horrific sight Nico had ever seen, and he'd seen some pretty bad things in his time. The worst part was that he knew this person, he knew that he knew this person, and he didn't know how to react. A strange squeaking sound fell from the back of his throat, but he couldn't speak. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought he heard a sound, but it was probably just the panic.

"I...I can't take this any more..." Upa managed before running off down the hall, disappearing round the bloodied corner. Nico reached out to stop him, stepped to follow.
"Master, wai-" Something heavy struck him on the back of the head and he felt himself losing consciousness.

Yoshikazu lifted the unconscious boy by his ankle with one hand, the other still gripping the sledgehammer tightly. With a dull moan, he turned and dragged the boy away from the mess on the wall, and away from his friend.

Victims With Numbers Chapter 5

The two inmates found their way downstairs. "This is kinda like a horror game I played once." Nico commented as they passed through the rotting halls filled with rotting flesh. "Or that anime where all the kids get chopped up by the bad guys, or this movie about a bunch of teenagers at a camp and there's a serial killer...only it's not as fun when it's so real. Horror games aren't so bad, because if it gets too scary you can just turn it off, and nobody actually dies when they're killed."
"I've not played a horror game before." Upa told him.
"You haven't? When we get back to the prison, I can show you my favourite! I have a few scary games on the console Kazari gave me! They're really cool, but sometimes I can't get through them because they're too scary. I bet someone all brave and strong like you can beat them, though, Master!"
"Well, I'm sure they're actually pretty simple. It shouldn't be hard at all."
"Hooray! It's a date then!"
He felt Nico give his hand a squeeze. He'd not realised they were still holding hands, but he didn't let go. If it kept Nico from running off, then that was fine by him. At least, that was fine until Nico shot forward, still clinging to his hand, and almost pulled him off his feet. "Hey!"
"What's this?" He'd pulled them over to a piece of wire strung up across the hall, barely visible from afar, but now they were close he could see it shining in the dim light. It was strung at roughly neck height, for Nico, and it looked sharp. Piano wire, perhaps.
"Piano wire. Don't touch it."
Nico reached out and poked the wire, then pulled his finger back like he'd been burnt. "Ow! That hurt!"
"I told you not to touch it!" Upa scolded, taking the injured hand to take a look at it. Nico's finger had been cut by the wire, predictably. God only knew where that thing had been. If he got tetanus or something from that wire, Upa would not be held responsible. "Duck under it, and don't touch it again." He pulled his hand away and pushed Nico under the wire before following him. As they walked down the hall, he thought he saw the older inmate reaching for his hand again, but brushed it off. Not too far away, they heard another scream. It got cut off suddenly, and the two of them stopped before turning the next corner. They decided to peek round instead of just walking, a decision they both reached without saying a word. Around the corner, between them and another flight of stairs, was a teenage boy lying motionless on the floor. Above him stood another spirit. This time, a little boy, younger than the girl they had seen before. He had both his eyes this time, but there was a blood stain across his abdomen. A deep wound. He also had a pair of scissors in his hand, and it looked like he was about to slice into his victim. The boy on the floor was already dead. "Do we try and circle back round or wait for him to leave so we can get past?"
"What about that guy?"
"He's dead. We don't know what those children are capable of, so it's best to avoid engaging them for the time being."
Nico nodded, and peeked back round the corner. "It's gone!"
"What's gone?" Upa looked as well, and saw what he meant. The spirit was gone, and the teenage boy's intestines had been pulled from his abdomen and spread across the ground.
"Is it safe to go past now?"
Honestly, Upa doubted it, but he nodded and led the way up the stairs regardless.

Upstairs, the boys passed the infirmary. Upa figured access to medical supplies would be useful, or at least comforting, even if they didn't know how to use them. Well, until they did need to use them, at least. When he tried to open the door, he found it locked. Typical. The girl they had seen getting stabbed was just around the corner, and still alive, but barely. She wouldn't last. They went up further, and came to a stop at the bathrooms. The boys' bathroom was boarded up. This seemed to be the topmost floor, and all there was to show for it. Nico strolled forward to the girls' bathroom.
"Supervisor?" Upa called as he followed the older boy in. It was easily clear that the room was empty, though. He watched Nico open the first three stalls, or at least try to. The first two were locked, though he was pretty sure no-one was in them, and the third swung open before Nico even touched it.
"Wow...Master, look at this!"
He did as told, coming to stand beside Nico and beside a dark stain on the floor. He wasn't sure what it was, but he didn't spare it much thought. More unusual than that was the interior of the third stall. In fact, he couldn't see a thing within it. The entire thing was pitch black. It didn't look right. It looked like a solid wall of darkness, if such a thing could exist. He was tempted to reach out and touch it. Nico stepped back and opened the fourth stall, then closed himself inside. Upa reached out to touch the wall of darkness, but stopped himself short. For some reason, he was afraid of it, but still curious. Then he looked down to the stain on the floor. He crouched down to examine it, brushing the tips of his fingers against it. It felt like damp or rot in the wood.

Suddenly, a searing pain carved through his temples. He shut his eyes tight and groaned. Why did his head hurt now? What was going on? And he couldn't breathe either. His throat was constricting. Like something was choking him and everything was going cold.

And then it was warm again. Not unpleasantly so. Like a blanket had been wrapped around him, and the pain was fading out fast. He could hear a voice. A semi-frantic nattering next to his ear.

It was Nico. Slowly, Upa opened his eyes and found with a jolt of surprise that he wasn't in the bathroom any more. He was back out in the hall, and Nico was practically hugging the life out of him.
"...Nico?"
"Master?" He pulled away and held the younger boy at arm's length, looking him over. "Are you okay? Are you back to normal?"
"Normal? What...?"
"You suddenly started screaming and saying weird stuff! It was like you were arguing with imaginary people, it was really scary. Then you ran out here and started shouting at the wall"
"I...did?" That sounded very strange. He noticed Nico's cheek was a bit red, like he'd just been hit quite hard. "What happened to your face?"
"Nothing!" He covered the mark with his hand and flashed Upa a bright smile. "Don't worry about it, I'm fine. Are you feeling better? What happened when I was using the bathroom?"
"I'm not sure." Upa admitted. "Last I remember, I was in pain, and couldn't breathe...I think that dark stain...is where someone may have died. But that doesn't explain my reaction to it."
Nico shivered slightly. "This is bad. It's scary here, maybe we should go back to the classroom."
Upa nodded and reached for Nico's hand again, turning to leave, when he noticed the piece of paper on the wall beside them. It had been there before. Posted neatly between the two bathrooms. It was a page from a newspaper report, but what caught Upa's eye specifically was the picture on the paper. The picture of the little girl with her hair tied in pigtails.
"Reports of another disappearance in Fujiwara." Upa read aloud. "11-year-old Yuki Kanno, pictured right, was last seen on Monday the 14th, at Heavenly Host Elementary school, in the company of friends and a member of staff. This is the third such disappearance in 10 days, leading local authorities to suspect serial kidnapping as the cause. Authorities are hoping for a speedy resolution as they search for the missing children."
"That's the little girl from before." Nico observed, jabbing the picture with his finger. He used the cut finger, leaving a small smear of blood behind.
"Looks like she was victim to a serial killing. The boy was probably the same."
"Now they're killing people..."
It made sense, he supposed. He supposed that if ghosts were real and had to deal with all they felt in death, a young soul could be driven to the edge of insanity or compelled to seek revenge.

Kiji clearly wasn't up here. The two of them decided to return to classroom 1-A, but barely got down the stairs before they heard the teenage girl from before. She had moved now, sat up, recovered a little. She was still bleeding. "H...hel...p"
This time, Upa went to her, crouched in front of her to examine the wound. He was pretty sure she wouldn't survive. "I can't stop the bleeding or take away the pain." He told her honestly while Nico wandered around nearby.
"Where...s...My eye?"
"On the floor, over there." He pointed, and heard a squelch from that selfsame direction. "Nico?"
"Um...I stepped on something."
The girl looked horrified. "M...mmmy..."
"He stepped on some glass. Your eye is fine." That was a lie.
"I'm really sorry!" Cried Nico.
"It's okay." He turned back to the girl. "What's your name?"
"Ruri..."
"Ruri. I can't help you. Neither of us can. The infirmary is locked."
"You could blast the door down, Master! With qigong! It's an emergency so it's okay, right?"
Upa frowned. "That would attract a lot of unwanted attention. And you know I'm not going to carelessly use that in front of you, we've spoken about the risks involved."
"But I've taken my medicine this time! Honest! I had an exam right before we went to the game room!"
"Even so, you're too easily influenced. We're going back to the classroom, like I said."
"Aww. But it would be so cool and heroic!"
"We are going back to the classroom, and that's that." With that decision, they walked back in the direction of the infirmary.

As they turned the corner leading to the infirmary, they caught a glimpse of blue as someone went inside. It was unlocked? Had someone come and unlocked it while they'd been upstairs? The two shared an uneasy look and walked up to the door. Through the wood, they could hear a deep voice.
"I have friends too. I think I'd do a lot for them. They're kind of like family to me, but I know they can handle themselves in a bad situation..."
Upa recognised that voice. It was definitely someone he knew. He pulled the door open and the talking stopped. The man sat on the infirmary bed turned to look at him as he walked in. Kneeling in front of the man, on the floor, were two ghosts. The girl with the pigtails, Yuki, and another little girl. Her head was missing from the jaw upwards. Upa could see down her throat. Her tongue was missing.
"Hi old man!" Nico yelled happily as he bounced in. Qi raised his hand in greeting.
"Hey, guys." He replied, like nothing was amiss. Then he addressed the ghosts again. "These are two of those friends I told you about. Girls, these are Upa and Nico. Guys, these are Yuki and Tokiko."
The children giggled in response to his words.
"Qi, what do you think you're doing, you idiot?" Upa snapped. "Get away from them! They're dangerous!"
The children suddenly went quiet. Qi shook his head. "They've just been through a lot. I'm sure you can understand." He reached for something at his side, and passed them a piece of paper. A clipping from a newspaper. He held it out to Upa and Nico, and the former took it hesitantly, and began reading aloud.
"Four children abducted - followup report. The brutal, shocking murders of the kidnapped youths have now been traced back to the teacher found in the room with them. The bloodied scissors he was holding are confirmed to have been used to remove the victims' tongues, ultimately leading to death through excessive bleeding or asphyxiation. One child even had the majority of her head slowly and methodically removed. The children, pictured above..." Another illegible part. Considering he couldn't make sense of that sentence or anything after it, Upa saw no point in reading on. The picture above the article was of four children, three girls and a boy. The girl with pigtails, sat in the room with them, was labelled 'Yuki Kanno, age 11'. The little boy, the one they had seen before, 'Ryou Yoshizawa, age 8'. The other two girls were 'Tokiko Tsuji, age 7' and 'Sachiko Shinozaki, age 7'. "Qi, you can't let pity be your main driving force here. These children may have been through a lot, but they are dangerous, as is this place. They can and will hurt you, and we have seen them kill people. It may be hard to believe, but you are in more danger now than you ever have been!"
"They won't hurt me now." Qi insisted.
"We have to leave. Come on."
He shook his head like a stubborn child. Ironic considering he was the oldest one in the room. Nico held out his hand now.
"Please come with us, old man. It's scary here. I want us all to be safe."
One of the little ghost girls reached out and tugged at the leg of Qi's jumpsuit, and he gave her a smile. "It's okay, I'm not going anywhere." He promised them. "I'm going to stay here with Yuki and Tokiko."
Upa was considering dragging him out the door at this point. This was stupid. Maybe if he wanted to stay here and get killed by murder ghosts, they should just leave him. It might upset Nico a bit, but that wasn't his fault. It was Qi who was being stupid, as usual. The older man was now starting a story, telling the two little girls a fairy tale he knew.
"Um...Old man Qi?" Nico asked, stepping closer. Yuki was watching him approach with her one eye. "Couldn't you just come help us for a little bit? There's someone upstairs who needs some medicine."
"If you don't come with us, we'll leave you here and we won't come back for you." Upa added as an ultimatum of sorts. The older inmate stopped his story and gave them a look, an almost pleading look.
"I'm sorry, guys. I can't leave them. I really can't."
Ah.
Upa gave a slight nod to show he'd understood, then took Nico's arm again and led him out. All the way, Nico argued.
"Wait, we can't just leave him there! What if he gets hurt?"
Once he'd shut the door behind them, Upa leaned against it and sighed. He dropped his voice so those inside the infirmary wouldn't hear.
"It's not that he doesn't want to leave. It's that he can't. That's what he said. 'I can't leave'. 'I'm not going anywhere'. 'They won't hurt me now'. I think that Qi thinks if he tries to leave, they'll hurt him. Considering what we've seen so far, I wouldn't be surprised if that was right. If he keeps them distracted and entertained, they won't hurt him. If he tries to leave them, they won't hesitate."
"So what do we do?"
He thought for a moment. "If we find a way to distract the children, something else to entertain them, then we can sneak Qi away or give him time to escape. But we might not have enough time to get something we can use."
"What about a video game? Kids like games, right?"
"Where are we going to find a video game?"
Nico dipped his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a yellow handheld console. "It's the one Kazari gave me after the New Years Tournament! It's got every game imaginable, so there's got to be something the girls will like, right?" He looked at the thing with a sad smile. "I don't really want to get rid of it, I really like it and I fought hard for it, and if I give it to them I won't be able to show you that game after all, but if it'll save one of my friends then that's more important! I'd rather have my friends to play with than a game and nobody there."
Upa nodded. "If you're sure, we should try it."
Nico gave a firm nod and flung the door open again, bounding in.

"We're back!" Nico shouted, holding his game console above his head. "Sorry to interrupt story time! Yuki, Tokiko, come check this out!" He went over and showed them the device, smiling all the way. "I really wanted to show you! It lets you play video games. It's got just about any video game you could want on it. I don't know what kind you two like, but there's lots! Here, if you press this button..." The spirits turned their attentions to him, letting him show them how to run the thing. Neither of them were looking at Qi now. Upa, stood by the door, beckoned the adult over, and Qi quietly, slowly edged off the bed and walked over to him, keeping his eyes on the ghosts the whole while. He let out a slight sigh of relief when he was at Upa's side. After a moment, Nico stepped away from the ghosts and joined them. The girls were still holding the console, and Yuki was playing a game on it. Their attention was solely on that thing. Once together, the three inmates turned and went to the door, figuring it would be best to leave now, before things could get any worse. Their priority was to get out of here alive.

Victims With Numbers Chapter 4

Kiji Mitsuba found his gaze pulling upward when he heard the scream, towards the source. Someone upstairs. He took a step towards the door, but didn't leave. A scream like that, when the inmates were scattered all over the place and his own two were god only knew where, was something that definitely needed to be investigated. Well, a scream like that was something that needed to be investigated anyway, someone could be in big trouble, but he couldn't help but think that the voice seemed familiar. If his radio was working, he could at least contact one of the other guards, but every time he had tried to use the damn thing, he'd been met with static and strange, garbled transmissions from unfamiliar sources. Something must have been messing with the signal. He wondered if he would get a better signal from another area. He glanced back over to the two inmates now under his care. They'd woken up in this room together, and he remembered ushering the two minors into a hiding place together during the earthquake before, so he had been with them when they'd fallen. Numbers 25 and 58, if he recalled correctly, were both inmates with significant medical concerns. Their supervisors had to bring the two teenagers to the infirmary on a regular basis and they were both on medication. Kiji didn't know if either of them had any of their needed medicine on them or not, but if not, it would be a big problem.

Number 25 was sat against the teacher's podium, knees drawn to his chest and hands over his ears. He hadn't reacted well to the fall, waking up in a strange place, the screaming or the dead body in the room with them. Number 58 didn't seem as bothered, and was crouched beside him, making sure he was okay. Kiji could already tell getting them to come with him to investigate might be difficult.
"Number 25, are you okay to stand?"
The inmates both looked up at him. "I...think so." The older of the two answered. "I'm not hurt."
"That's good. We need to go check out that scream, make sure whoever it came from is okay."
"No!"
Well, that response wasn't too surprising. "Number 25, we can't stay here. We need to work out where we are, how we got here and how we are going to get out of here. We also need to find everyone else."
"No, we can't go out there!" Kiji looked over at the body in the room, then back to the inmate. It was no wonder he was freaked out. This scene was unnerving to the guard as well. The body in the corner was a teenager themselves, in a school uniform. Obviously murdered. Another thing on his list of tasks would be to alert the proper authorities and ensure a thorough investigation was implemented.
"You don't have to be afraid. I will be with you, and as a Nanba prison guard I'm sure I can face whatever dangers are lurking out there."
58 spoke up, supporting the guard's words. "He's right, Nico. It will be better for us to get moving and get to know our surroundings. We can check the area for any traps or clues as we go, and sticking together is safer than splitting up."
25 shook his head adamantly. He seemed pretty set with the idea that he wouldn't be going.
"Well, I can't leave the two of you here." Kiji told him. "I have a duty towards the two of you, but I also have a duty towards the inmate we heard scream."
58 stood up. "I can go investigate the scream while you stay here with Nico."
"Absolutely not!" Sighing, he just about managed to resist the urge to rub the bridge of his nose in frustration - rubbing off his make-up wouldn't help - and tried to think. The scream had come from just upstairs. If he just took a quick look outside this classroom, he could see if there were stairs leading up nearby. If there was a quick path to the source of the scream, and he could pinpoint it fast enough, he wouldn't leave the inmates alone for that long at all. It would also give him some information about what he was about to face and possibly reassure 25 that they would be fine. "I'll take a look outside." He told the inmates. "I won't go far, and I'll be back in just a few minutes, okay? Stay right here. Do not leave this room unless it's a matter of life or death. Do you understand?"
"We understand, sir." 58 answered obediently. Kiji walked to the door and heard 25 yelling for him to stop as he went. He ignored it and stepped out.

What a gloomy, unattractive place, he thought as he walked through the halls, for now ignoring more dead bodies, all of young people, and walking toward the door at the end of the hall. It was covered in talismans and charms, and wouldn't open when Kiji pulled it. Also at the end of the hall, though, was a corner turn into another hallway. At the end of this one, he could see a staircase leading upwards. Exactly what he needed. There was a large hole in the floor between him and the staircase, but it looked like he could get around it by just entering through the back door of a nearby classroom and exiting out the front. So in the classroom he went, walking a little faster, conscious of how much time this might take and how long those inmates would be left alone in classroom 1-A. As he crossed through the classroom, which was just as unpleasant as 1-A - desks and chairs knocked askew, dust, bugs and dead bodies littering the place - something flared up in the middle of the room. It looked like a floating flame, like demon's fire from ghost legends.
"What on earth...?"
"Earth..." A voice from the flame echoed. "I think this place is far removed from earth. More like hell. A place where we are doomed to suffer until death, and even then..." It, or he, took a shaky breath before continuing in a spiteful tone of voice. "Finally decided to stop shivering with the other two back there, did you? Typical of a grown-up, to go forth on your own and leave the kids behind."
"I will have you know that I left that room to investigate a scream from someone I have a duty of care towards!" Kiji scolded the spirit, frankly offended by what it was implying. "I intend to return to those children as soon as I'm sure he's okay."
"Of course you do." Sneered the spirit. "People like you are so high and mighty, acting like they know what's best and are absolute angels. Well, newsflash, you're not shit! You're just like every other piece of filth who's spent too many years living in our shitty, worthless society! You only look out for number one."
"Get out of my way."
"Why should I? You won't find the man who screamed anyway."
"What do you mean by that?"
The spirit gave a gleeful chuckle. "You don't know how this place works yet, do you? You may all be in the same building, you may all be in the same room, but this hell is separated into different dimensions layered over each other. My friends and I...we could leave notes for each other, but we could never see each other again...and time is warped here. That scream you heard could have happened just now, or it could have happened hours, days or even weeks ago. Or it might not have even happened yet!"
Kiji disliked this spirit. He was getting frustrated, and more time was passing since he had heard that scream. He tried to step around the spirit, but it moved to block his way again. "Move it! I don't care what you say, I have to help my kids!"
"Your 'kids'? Please, your screaming prison inmates are hardly kids. You work at a juvenile detention centre?" It seemed the spirit was only fully aware of the two in classroom 1-A with him. "You're not dressed very appropriately for a prison guard, you know."
"Commenting on my appearance? How petty. My flawless appearance couldn't possibly have a negative impact on my work, however you right now are obstructing a prison officer from performing his duties."
"So arrest me, officer!" The spirit laughed, clearly messing with him. "But okay, I give, I give. I'm being just plain nasty right now, aren't I? I'm sorry. Post-traumatic bitchiness. Here, you know what? Before I died, my friends and I managed to work out some vital information about this place and a possible escape route. I could share that with you."
"You could?" Kiji asked, interested. That would certainly be helpful.
"Sure. Just take a seat and I'll explain everything."
"Why didn't you and your friends use this information to escape?"
"We'd already been here too long. We were starved almost to death, and badly injured. We were too weak to use this information to our best advantage, but you are strong and healthy still."
"Okay. I'll gather the other three here."
"The other three?"
"The two kids in the classroom and the one upstairs."
"No! This is a one time offer!" The spirit insisted. "I don't know how long I can stay manifested for. So make your choice, Mister Guard. Listen now and save yourself, or go on a fruitless search for a man who won't even be there. We all know what would be better for you."
"Are you seriously suggesting I abandon these people?"
"Don't play dumb, Mister Guard. We all know you'd rather survive this ordeal than protect them."
Kiji had had enough. He walked through the spirit, since it wouldn't move aside to let him pass. He hurried to the front door, no longer bothering to keep from looking worried. It had been too long since he heard that scream, so running was completely appropriate at this stage. It very well could have been an emergency, and in an emergency no pace was too fast. Besides, it wasn't like he would slip or stumble. Kiji was an expert at running in stiletto heels without even the slightest wobble, no matter how uneven the ground.

Just as he reached the door, a force hit him straight in the centre of the chest and he was thrown back. He hit the ground hard and rolled gracelessly, landing sprawled out on his front with his head towards the door, one arm trapped under his torso. He gasped for breath, and felt a stabbing pain through his chest. His ribs were shattered from the impact, he was sure of it, and he was sure it wasn't the only fracture that he had sustained. How hard was he just hit? He coughed, and tasted blood. And then the spirit appeared before him again. It was red in colour now. It was forming into something other than fire. A body. A teenage boy.
"You damn corporeals piss me off. Get out of your way? Who the hell do you think you are, you selfish son of a bitch?" Kiji heard an ominous creak, and looked over just in time to see a large cabinet fall on him. He cried out in pain. The cabinet itself was heavy, much heavier than it looked. The weight on his body...he actually doubted Hajime would be able to lift this thing by himself, and people often said he was the strongest guard. Additional to that, it felt like a lot of sharp objects had been on those shelves, and they were now embedded in his back. He could feel himself bleeding badly. "You're a liar." The spirit continued. "You don't care about anyone but yourself. None of you do, and you know what? I'm glad I never got to your age." He saw the spirit move and sit on the cabinet, and felt the pressure increase. He was coughing again, and this time the blood he brought up made it past his lips. God, it hurt so much...he couldn't move, couldn't even struggle against it. "Well, how about this? Each and every one of the inmates you pretend to care so much for, each and every one of your 'kids' is going to die here. They're going to die a painful, horrible death, just like me and all my friends, and they're going to feel the pain of that death for the rest of eternity. They will panic, they will struggle, and they will all die meaningless deaths that no-one, especially not you, could ever do anything about." The spirit was rocking back and forth, shifting his weight on the cabinet as he spoke, and each shift worsened the pain and the damage. "And they won't give you a thought as they die. And that's that." He was kicking one leg cheerfully, happy to see the guard suffer. Kiji gave one last groan as his vision began to grow dark and he felt his consciousness fading. He just hoped the inmates would be okay.

Time passed, and back in classroom 1-A, things had been quiet for a little too long. Nico decided it was time to fill that silence. "That big bird guard's been gone a really long time. I'm getting worried. Should we go looking for him?"
Upa had been meditating by this point, but opened an eye to acknowledge the older boy's words. "He told us to wait here."
"But he's been gone for ages!" There was a loud thump somewhere in the distance, and the unease on Nico's face increased. "What if he's in trouble?"
"Then it's more dangerous out there than he thought. He might be held up because whoever we heard scream has been badly injured, or trapped, and it's taking longer than he expected to help him."
"Then...he'll be right upstairs, right? We can go find him!"
Upa stood with a sigh. "The biggest problem with going to look for him is that he might come back here while we're gone. If he finds we left against his specific instructions, we'll be in big trouble, and if he goes to look for us again, we'll keep missing each other."
"But-"
"We can leave him a message explaining." Upa continued before Nico could argue. "It might not stop him from looking for us himself, but it can signal to others that we've been here. If we find people, we can designate this a meeting room. Others might wait for us or the supervisor here if we leave a message." As he said this, he walked to the chalkboard, looking for something to write with. Preferably chalk, but there wasn't any by the board. The supervisor may have had a pen on him, but obviously that wasn't much use to them now. The body on the other side of the room had a knife sticking out of her ribs, and as a last resort he supposed he could take the knife and carve a message into the teacher's podium. Then again, it was a school girl in a school uniform. There was a bag near the body, presumably her school bag, so there was probably a pen case in there. He opened the bag and started to rifle through the belongings within. Typical school supplies, he supposed. He didn't notice Nico opening the door behind him and step out. He picked out a pen, tore a page from a work book and scrawled a message.

Kiji
Nico was worried about you, so we've gone to find you. If we miss each other on the way back, and if any others from Nanba find this note, we should make this classroom our designated meeting point.

That seemed good enough, and he was pretty sure he got the supervisor's name right. Satisfied, he placed it on the podium and turned to look for Nico. That was when he'd noticed he'd wandered off. "Nico?" He called, stepping into the hall.
"Hey, Master! Come look at this!"
"Don't wander off! We have no idea what we'll be facing here!" Upa followed the voice and found Nico standing at the edge of a large hole in the floor. Down below, he could see the first floor. An entrance hall, with more dead bodies. To the left of the hall was a line of windows, suggesting a room on that side, but the nearest door was clearly not one that led to that room. It was on the same wall, but further behind them and covered in strange charms. It didn't look like there was any way into the side room at all.
"Wow...that's a long way down."
"The supervisor probably went to find another way around the hole."
"Where do you think we are?"
"I don't know. We'll need to figure that out." Upa went to turn away, deciding to head to the other end of the corridor when a scream pulled his attention back to the staircase on the other side of the hole. He looked over just in time to see a girl run down the stairs. She caught sight of Upa and Nico.
"Help me!" She screamed. "Please, help me!"
Nico stepped toward the hole, but Upa put a hand out to stop him.
"Master?"
There wasn't anything they could do to help from all the way over there. Plus, they didn't know for sure they could trust this girl. Upa didn't want to voice that thought though. She, for all appearances, was a scared teenage girl, about the same age as them, and she was wearing the same uniform as the dead girl back in classroom 1-A. That girl had been murdered, so the murderer was probably after that girl as well, by the looks of things. If, by some nasty twist, it turned out the girls had tried to kill each other, which at this stage he doubted, they could defend themselves from some dishevelled civilian. He pointed down the corridor and called across to the girl.
"We can't help you from here. If someone's chasing you, find somewhere to hide or try and get downstairs, we'll find a way over to you."
"Yeah, don't worry, girl! Injustice will meet my boot!"
The girl gave Nico a weird look, and hesitated for a moment, possibly because she'd noticed how the two boys were dressed. Finally, she nodded and turned to run, but someone else was standing behind her now.

He'd not noticed the little ghost girl appearing, but he assumed that had been what the teenager had been running from. The ghost girl had her hair in pigtails, and a pair of scissors in her hand, and only one eye. The other was just a bloodied socket. Before any of them could react, the ghost had plunged her scissors into the girl's own eye. The resulting scream was horrendously loud, a thing of pure agony as the spirit tried to dig the girl's eye out of its socket. Upa heard Nico gasp, and part of him expected him to run off again, but he didn't. Both of them stayed and helplessly watched the spirit pull the girl's eye out and try and place it in her own empty socket. After deciding the replacement wouldn't fit, it dropped the eye down and left the girl to bleed out.
"That was awful..." Nico breathed.
"The ghost knows where we are." He took Nico's hand and led him away. "Unless you happen to know some very good first aid, there's nothing we can do to help her."
"Could your old man friend help?"
"Qi? He specialises in medicines, not open wounds, but he does have some medical knowledge. He might be able to prolong her life. But he isn't here right now, and I doubt he could keep her alive and safe until we could find her a more qualified doctor."
"If he’s not here, where is he? He was with us back in the game room, with everyone else...where do you think everyone else is?" He didn't respond. He didn't know, after all. He didn't even know where they were. "We'll find them, right, Master?"
"...Right." It was probably wrong to say that, but Upa didn't doubt his words. They would at least find someone, whether they were alive or not. After all, they at least knew Kiji was in the building with them.

Victims With Numbers Chapter 3

Honey wasn't sure how far he'd walked before he came to his senses. He'd known from the start, of course, that it was stupid to split up. Heck, he'd not even wanted to say half the things he'd said, he'd just been angry and afraid. And now here he was, alone in a place where weird shadow creatures wanted to kill him and human hair suddenly held doors closed. How unsettling. And he didn't really want to be alone here, especially not while injured. He didn't really want anything attacking Trois, either. There wasn't even any guarantee that anyone else they knew would be here. Sure, they thought they heard Uno earlier, but that was so far the only sign of another person they knew. They'd been through every inch of this place and hadn't seen a single living person. Once he'd calmed down, it didn't take much thinking before he decided he would much rather be with Trois than by himself. The idiot hadn't been being positive because he was a psycho (he was a bit of a psycho, but that was beside the point), he'd just been trying to keep their spirits up in a situation that seemed bleak. Honey couldn't fault him for that, as annoying as it was. Maybe they both needed a little positivity in a situation like this. A situation where they may well die...

Trois had just said he could tag along, didn't even need to apologise. Of course, an apology was probably still a good direction to take. Honey would see how he felt when he caught up with him, and at least he had time to rehearse what he wanted to say.

Meanwhile, Trois had taken to wandering aimlessly, not sure which direction to take. After all, they'd searched every part of the school they'd been able to, or at least he had. There had been plenty of doors that simply wouldn't open. Some wouldn't even rattle, like they weren't locked, rather that they weren't even real doors. Honestly, though, Honey could get so unattractive when he went off on one like that. All that screaming, his face twisting in anger...he needed to be more careful, or he would end up with a major frown line problem. Although, to an extent, Trois did understand and did feel just a little bit bad - if Honey really had been attacked, and really had narrowly escaped death, of course he would be upset. It still didn't totally excuse that outburst, but it did make it a bit easier to understand. Still, it wasn't worth dwelling on it. They'd separated now, Honey's choice, and at the very least that meant they could cover more ground. There was a chance that while they'd been wandering all over the place, they'd been walking right past other people from Nanba, and splitting up gave them a bit more of a chance to run into someone. Trois was tempted to call out, just to see if anyone was nearby, when the next earthquake started.

This one was probably the strongest he'd experienced so far. The shaking was too violent for him to have any chance of keeping his balance, and he landed hard on his backside. His instinct was to brace himself, put his arms out, find something to hang on to, but there wasn't anything nearby that he could grab. He settled with bracing one hand against the floor so he could at least sit up straight, and throwing the other protectively over his head. After all, if something fell, better that it broke his arm than his skull. Turns out he needn't have worried. It wasn't the ceiling above him that was about to give out.

Not for the first time that day (or, well, he assumed it was all the same 24 hours), Trois felt himself falling. The floor just seemed to shatter beneath him, cracking until it was in pieces and he was falling in a rain of splinters. He couldn't see what was below him, and for some reason, the first coherent thought his panicked mind gave him was 'it's like the fall reflex when you're about to fall asleep', followed by 'this will break my spine'. He didn't have time to consider anything further, because it was at that point that he hit the water.

Water?

There was a pool of some kind under the floor! He kicked to the surface, eyes shut the whole way, and took a breath of fresh air. When he opened his eyes, he found he'd fallen right by a wall. A mud wall, and the floor he'd fallen through was about as far up as he expected. He couldn't climb up a featureless wall all the way up there, and...and this wasn't water. It obviously wasn't water. It was black, and thick and heavy. It actively felt like it was dragging him under. He'd not been treading water for that long at all, and he was already awfully tired. It was like this was clinging to him, and it was moving independently to his own movements. Like it was alive. And as he was taking time to figure out what it was and how he was going to get out, he was sinking lower and lower!

Turn. He had to turn. He was only facing the closest wall. There had to be a way out of this pool on the other side. He pulled his arms out, pressed them against the wall to push away...and as he turned, he saw the bugs on his arm, on his hand. Felt them crawling over his skin.

As he screamed, he went under. This was the worst. It was worse than the bodies. The bodies were bad, but he wasn't submerged in them, and he hated bugs. This was a nightmare, and they were all over him. He kicked back to the surface, panicking now. Hyperventilating. Still screaming. They were on his glasses, blocking his vision, they'd dragged the remains of the floor right under. And he was next. They were all over his limbs, it was hard to swim. It was hard to kick, hard to pull, every time he lifted his arm out, a mountain of bugs came with it. He'd turned, in the distance he could see a shore. A floor, a rope ladder, something to aim for that wouldn't pull him down into a sea of noisy, chattering insects. He couldn't stand the sound, the feel, their legs crawling over his skin. He couldn't keep his mouth above the pit. He needed it open to breathe, but now it was full of these little beasts. He spat, tried to breathe again, started to cough and choke as he inhaled them. No, no, he was going to be sick, if he even survived this. Scream, breathe, kick, pull, dip under and kick up again. His fingertips brushed against something wet, but he didn't have enough brain power to spare to consider what it was. Everything was focused on the bugs and the possibility he might die being drowned in bugs, actual living bugs. They were biting him and crawling all over him and he could feel it and he was screaming, he couldn't stand it, he could not begin to describe how much he just hated bugs! It wasn't getting any shallower as he neared the edge, either. Desperate, he reached for the shore. His fingertips brushed against the dirt and he went under once more. Just one more stroke and he would be there. One more stroke and he would be out. He was under still, couldn't breathe, they were crawling up his nose! And then he kicked himself head first into the wall, scrabbled upwards, feeling his way until he grabbed hold of the ledge. His hands were bleeding where the masses of bugs were biting at him, but he gripped the edge as hard as he could and hauled himself out with all his strength. They stuck to him, weighed him down, tried to keep him in, but he had enough strength to pull, pull until he could hook his knee over the ledge and roll himself out onto the shore. Trois wanted to take a moment to get his breath back, but he really couldn't. He shot to his feet, brushing the bugs off him as best he could, frantically batting at everything he could reach and getting as far from the pit as he could. He threw his tool belt and his glasses down - his vision wasn't too bad without them, and he would rather not have them on when they were covered in flesh-eating insects - and when he was sure he was as clear as he was going to get, he ran to the ladder and heaved himself up as fast as he could. Trois got just a few steps from the ladder before his legs gave out. He was tired and freaking out, he couldn't do this any more. He couldn't take any more.

After a while of just sitting there trying to pull himself together, his ears tuned into a sound. It was someone calling his name. It was soft, and distant, but it was his name! It was his name and in a familiar voice!
"Honey?" He called back, slowly getting to his feet. "Honey? Is that you?"
"Trois!" The voice called back, as if he'd not been heard.
"Honey, stay there, I'll come and find you!" He promised, heading off in the direction he was certain the voice was coming from.

When Honey had gone back to find Trois, he'd quickly found himself met with a dead end. Near where they had split up, the floor had fallen out. Down below, he couldn't see the next floor down, and there was no way he'd be able to jump the gap - Not even a 7" 5 time long jump champion could clear that gap. So he had to find another way around. Only, the hole he left behind carried a smell of death with it. He couldn't see inside it, and he was sure Trois had already walked beyond that point, unless he'd come back searching for Honey himself, so why was he worried? It wasn't like all the people who died down that hole fell to their deaths, and it wasn't like Trois was down there.

The next period of time was a bit of a blur. He was rushing, trying to cover as much ground as he could, calling for his cellmate. He had no idea how long this happened for. He could have been searching for seconds, minutes, hours...and he didn't remember any of it properly. He'd been in such a panicked, irrational rush that he must not have been taking in his surroundings properly, and when he came to his senses, he was standing on the third floor, right outside the bathrooms. For a moment, he just stood, confused, and then he saw a flash of silver on the ground. A small metal plate, no bigger than his palm. It had some threads stuck to it, as though it had been torn quite carelessly from someone's clothing. Honey flipped the thing over, and saw a number engraved into it.

0303

That was not a good sign. Trois' jumpsuit had been torn. Was this sign of a struggle? The plate was between the male and female bathrooms, but closer to the female's. Placing the plate in his pocket, Honey edged the door open and slipped inside.
"Trois? Are you in here?" He asked, walking over to the third stall. The third specifically, because just outside the stall sat one of Trois' shoes. He'd definitely been struggling against something. Hesitantly, he knocked, and called again.

Still no answer. Well, he could hear something, but it wasn't a yes or a no. It sounded like...ugly crying. Or an asthma attack. He pushed the door, and found it wasn't locked. It opened a little, then caught on something. He pushed harder, and finally got the door open. The sight that met him was worse than he could have expected.

There was Trois, hanging by his neck. The noose holding him went all the way up to the ceiling, and more rope was wrapped around his wrists. His face was coated in tears and drool, but he was still alive. He was gripping the rope around his neck, kicking and struggling in a fruitless attempt to pull himself up and release the pressure on his windpipe. When he saw Honey in front of him, he tried to speak.
"Srr...srrrghk...srr...hee..." Was...was he trying to apologise? For what, the fight? But it had been Honey in the wrong! Was he panicking because someone had attacked him and put him in this position?

Honey needed to get him down. "It's okay, Trois!" He shouted, echoing his cellmate's words from earlier as he tried to move in closer. "It's going to be okay! Don't say any more, it's going to be okay!" When he got closer, Trois' struggled seemed to get more frantic, but he managed to get a grip on those flailing legs. "I'll get you out of here!" It was a promise. There was no way he was going to let Trois die. Not a chance in hell! He braced his shoulder underneath the body and tried to lift him, but his injured ankle and burnt hands protested the touch, the weight, the motion. Pain flared, and his ankle gave out. He tumbled to the ground and flinched at the sound from Trois' throat as he accidentally pulled him down again. The rope was cutting into his neck, he couldn't breathe...Honey couldn't lift him, he had to do something else. Anything else!

The bucket outside the classroom they woke up in! Trois could stand on that, or on one of the chairs from a closer classroom! "I'll get something for you to stand on!" Honey promised, hobbling out of the room as fast as he could, trying not to listen to the horrible sound of someone getting the life choked out of him.

Honey went into the first classroom he came across and grabbed the chair closest to the door, trying to drag it to the door. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to drag it up the stairs in time, but he had to try. Only...the damn chair wouldn't budge an inch! No matter how hard he pulled, it wouldn't move! It was like it was completely stuck to the floor! "No! Come on! Please!" This wasn't going to work. He had to go for the bucket. He should have gone straight to the fucking bucket!

The bucket contained a yellow, congealed liquid. It probably was urine, but Honey frankly had more important things to worry about. He picked the bucket up and dumped the contents, pulling a face when the probably piss touched his hands (and god did it sting) and shoes. It was disgusting, but for the time being, it was necessary. He could worry about the hygiene aspect of things and freak out over the fact that he'd touched someone else's piss after he'd saved Trois. He ran back up to the bathroom, or he tried to run, holding onto the bucket for dear life. This disgusting thing really was a lifeline now, after all. When he burst back into the bathroom, he made straight for the third stall, planning to lay the bucket straight at Trois' feet.
"Here! I got something for you to stand on, just put your feet on it! It's going to be okay, you're going to be okay now!" He looked up to his cellmate's face, and realised he wasn't struggling any more. In fact, he wasn't moving at all any more. No. Nononononononono, this couldn't be right, he couldn't be too late. The bucket slipped from his grip and he tugged weakly at Trois' leg.
"Hey...wake up...this isn't funny! You have to be okay! Wake up!" His eyes were open and unseeing. This wasn't right. This wasn't fair! He couldn't be dead. He just couldn't be. Not after all of this. Not after all they'd seen here and been through, because they were going to get out of this together, because Honey had promised he would get Trois out of there. He'd promised! And he'd still not apologised for freaking out earlier. He didn't want to be alone, and he didn't want to see anyone die, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. Trois was dead. He was really dead, right in front of him, hanging from the ceiling and beyond help. Nobody else was here, either. Nobody except the person who had tied him up and decided to kill him.

Honey was going to die here. He was going to die alone and scared and miserable, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was going to be murdered, just like Trois had been. He didn't know what else to do, couldn't think straight any more, and just...screamed.

It was a scream that was heard some distance away, in one of the classrooms, by another group from Nanba Prison.

((Please note - further chapters may be delayed due to a problem with my internet router))

Victims With Numbers Chapter 2

Something seemed different when they got out into the hall. Like the holes in the floor were in different places now. Weird, but Honey figured he was probably imagining it. Besides, it still smelled of piss and mould. The two set to finding an exit, heading out to look for some stairs. The view out the window told them at the very least that they were on an upper floor, so the front entryway was likely down a flight and hopefully not too far. The halls they passed by were each as old and decrepit as the last, and there wasn't a pretty thing in sight, besides the two of them, of course. It took a few minutes of mindless wandering, but finally they managed to get downstairs and to what appeared to be the entryway. Well, there was a big door, shoe cubbies arranged in neat lines with abandoned footwear lying here and there, and an umbrella stand as well. It looked like the entrance, so the boys stepped over the shoes, clearly children's shoes, and made their way to the door.
"See? I told you we'd find it!" Trois chirped happily as he reached out to tug the door open. Immediately, he frowned. "It seems to be stuck."
"You have got to be kidding." Honey muttered, reaching out himself to help pull. It wouldn't budge even slightly. "The door's locked?!"
"Don't panic. Even if it is locked, there's probably a key around here, or an emergency exit that we'll be able to open from inside. Failing that, like I said before, according to building code at least one window here needs to open. We'll find a way out easily." A smile on his face, Trois went to lead them both away before spotting something in one of the cubbies. "Are these candles?" He asked, as he reached out to grab them. They were short, stubby, white objects partially wrapped in newspaper. At a glance, they did look like candles. "If we find a lighter or matches, we can use these to help light our way. I believe the supervisor of Building 13 smokes, so if we find him, if he's here-" He cut off with a disgusted noise and dropped the candles.
"Trois?"
"Those aren't candles."
"They aren't?" Honey looked down to where they had fallen. Trois had unwrapped them as he spoke, and now he could see that each of them had a little red on one end, and a little pink on the other. The pink was glittery, and looked kind of like nail polish. "Oh god! They're fingers!"
"Human fingers. I was holding severed human fingers. That is so unsanitary."
"Those are a girl's fingers, aren't they?"
"I think so."
"Why are there some girl's fingers in the shoe lockers?!"
"I don't know, Honey. We shouldn't stick around here, though. We need to find somewhere for me to wash my hands, and that emergency exit." With that, they wandered back up the stairs, opening classroom doors as they passed. None of them had any obvious exit in place, and they didn't find anything but classrooms until they got to the top floor, where they found the bathrooms. Trois was delighted, at least. In he marched to wash his hands, and Honey reluctantly went with him. At least if there was running water, he could get something to drink.

The bathrooms stank. Stale urine, clogged drains full of murky water and hair, bugs skittering over the dirty porcelain. When Trois saw the bugs, he backed up from the faucet, looking strangely pale. Well, Honey was always in charge of getting rid of any bugs that made it into their cell, so he was at least a little bit aware that Trois didn't like the nasty little things. Honey turned the tap. It was stiff and rusted, but it turned. Only, no water came out when it did. Not a trickle, not a drop. It looked like all the water that had ever been in the plumbing system was now in the nasty brown puddles in the basins. He tried the other taps as well, to no avail. God damn it, he was thirsty!
"We could collect rain water from an open window." Trois suggested helpfully.
"Right." Honey muttered, stepping back and letting him support him again.
"We ought to check the classrooms in more detail. Actually go inside them and search around. Of course, a lot of them were very dark, so some actual candles would be useful...and we haven't been to the east side of the building yet. There could be something useful over there."
"Right." He repeated. Trois was being oddly positive, and for some reason it was starting to tick Honey off. Before heading back down, Trois suggested they tried the taps in the girls' bathrooms, but of course they didn't work either.

The first classroom they stepped into was darker than the one they'd woken up in, and something about it felt wrong to Honey, but Trois could see a cabinet in the corner and wanted to go check it out, certain there would be something helpful inside. They crossed about halfway to the cabinet before Honey saw something that made him freeze. It was a body, slumped in a chair, nothing but bone and a school uniform. His sudden stop and the intake of breath caught Trois' attention, and he followed his gaze.
"Is that...real?"
"I can't tell. I hope not. It can't be, can it?"
"The fingers were real." Trois went over to get a closer look. "It's real."
"How can you even tell?!"
"Just trust me on this. She couldn't have been much older than fifteen." He seemed to examine the hole in the girl's skull, and Honey looked away. After a moment, he heard Trois cross to the cabinet and try and open it, and then a sound of disappointment. "I can't see anything but hair and dead insects. It's disgusting." And then, he gasped. Honey's head shot up, and Trois was looking back at the body. Only...no, he wasn't looking at the body, he was looking past it, at the opposite corner of the room. Honey followed his gaze, and saw the little girl, no older than seven, crouched in the corner and staring right at him. She didn't look well. Her eyes were dull, and her skin had a grey tint to it, and it looked like there was a blue light around her. "What the fu-?"
He didn't get another sound out before Trois grabbed him by the collar and yanked him hard to the door.
"Trois, what the hell was that for?!" He snapped, as soon as he could breathe again.
"I just got a really bad feeling from that ghost."
"Ghost?" Honey didn't really believe in ghosts, but he had to admit, looking at that girl, he had felt a cold chill down his spine. It hadn't felt right in that room, after all.
"Ghost, yes. I think if we see another one, it's best to avoid it."
Honey nodded uncertainly. "Who do you think the girl was?" He asked as they limped towards a flight of stairs.
"I'm not sure, but I got a bad feeling from her."
"She was a kid."
"A dead kid."
"What the hell is wrong with this pl-" Honey cut off with a shriek as his ankle gave out with a snap. He went pitching down the stairs, only to be caught by his companion before he could go for a hard tumble. "Fuck, fuck, god!" He managed, clinging to Trois for support.
"It's okay, Honey. Sit down. Let me see your leg."
"It fucking hurts!"
"I know. Hold still." Trois removed Honey's shoe as gently as he could. "It's quite swollen. Hopefully that crack wasn't the bone breaking. If we get to another classroom, you could sit at one of the desks-"
"What if they have bodies in them?"
"You'll just have to deal with it. A dead body can't hurt you."
"What about the ghosts that you have bad feelings about? Trois, I am not going into another damn room with a kid's corpse in it!"
Trois scowled. "Fine. Maybe we can find an infirmary or a nurse's office, or a teacher's lounge. Somewhere for you to rest, anyway."
"Body-free."
"I promise." He stood and helped Honey up, continuing to support him as they went to explore the rest of the school.

True to his word, Honey refused to enter any other classrooms, despite Trois' complaints that he was impeding their progress. The longer they stayed in this place that was filled with death, the more anxious and angry Honey felt himself getting, and his companion's complaints were definitely not helping. He could feel his short-fuse temper getting closer and closer to blowing, and the bodies made him feel worse. What if there was someone abducting all these people and killing them? What if that was how they ended up there? Sure, a lot of the bodies were old and bleached, but some were fresh, recently deceased, just like the one they found in the hallway.

They first noticed the smell. Of course, all the bodies had smelled, but there was something really strong about this smell. A metallic smell. If you'd ever had to dissect a body part in a science class, you might know the kind of thing. The smell of the bucket of hearts or whatever else that the teachers wanted you to cut open, giving an overwhelming bloody stench. When they turned the corner, they saw it. The remains of a person, decorating the wall right before them. Honey gagged, covering his mouth and nose as Trois stared at the body in shock.
"This was a person." He whispered in what Honey hoped was horror. "An actual human body." The whole thing was a red mess. Blood, bone and guts splattered over the wall, ceiling and floor. The person it used to be was unrecognisable. No face, no recognisable features of any kind. Wet and dripping and wretched. It was the most gruesome thing Honey had ever seen. Retching, he stumbled back as far as Trois' hold on him would allow. The Frenchman tightened his hold and tried to urge him forward.
"Come on, Honey, just don't look at it and keep walking."
"Stop, I don't want to go this way!"
"There's an infirmary through here, I can see the sign! Just a little further and you can rest your leg. We might even be able to find something to splint you."
After a moment's thought, Honey gave ground, and heard a squelching sound. Trois looked down, and found his foot planted firmly over the body's intestine.
"Oh..."
"You stepped in it!"
"There's blood on my shoe. Honey, do you have a tissue?"
"No."
"That was disgusting. It was like...the way it gave way, the squelching sound-"
Honey retched again. "Stop! Shut the fuck up!" He managed when he was sure he wasn't going to throw up.
"Sorry...come on, let's get your foot seen to."

The infirmary itself was okay. No dead bodies or blood stains. Two beds, some cabinets full of medical supplies, an old space heater they couldn't light and some matches (if only those 'candles' had actually been candles). Another sink was in one corner, and as with all the others, it didn't work. Trois made him sit on the edge of the bed while he rifled around the cabinets. He came over a moment later with some bandages and what looked like a stick of wood.

"There." Trois chirped happily. "All better."
Honey had to admit that he'd done a pretty good job at stabilising his ankle. It actually did feel better. "Thanks, Trois." Was all he said before lying back on the bed.
"Shuffle over a little. I'd like to lie down as well."
He did as told, and the two lay side by side, staring at the ceiling.
"How long do you think we've been here?" Honey asked after a moment.
"I'm not sure. I think dinner's been and gone though."
"Yeah. M'hungry."
"Same. And thirsty."
Honey shifted in place, placing his head near Trois' shoulder. "Do you think anyone else is here? Anyone from the prison, anyone alive..."
"I'm not sure. We haven't seen anyone, have we?"
"No."
"I don't know if we're completely alone."
"I hope not. But, I don't want to be in here with some utter psycho. Plus, people like Uno will just be freaking out."
"I get what you mean. Poor guy."
"Mm." They went quiet for a bit, staying there, side by side.

Then they heard the scream. Trois sat bolt upright. "Was that Uno?"
"It sounded like Uno." Honey muttered, frowning. "I mean, we know what him screaming sounds like."
"It was from upstairs." He got up off the bed. "I'll go look for him." Only, a hand around his wrist stopped him.
"Wait, I'm coming too."
"No, you're hurt. Just stay here and look after yourself. I'll just be a moment, I promise. I'll look around upstairs, but if I can't find him within a few minutes, I'll run right back here."
"You sure?"
"Trust me, I don't want to be alone in here any more than you do, but I doubt Uno wants to be alone either. Maybe he's just seen one of the dead bodies."
"Probably."
"I'll be back before anything bad can happen."
"You'd better be."
Trois nodded and gave him a wave before leaving the infirmary, shutting the door gently behind him. Honey placed his hands behind his head with a sigh. At least having Uno with them would be useful for something, if Trois could find him. He shut his eyes, allowing himself to relax a little. Trois was right, he needed to rest.

Somewhere in the distance, he heard a bell toll. It sounded like a clock. The first sign of the passage of time, beyond his grumbling stomach and growing fatigue. Damn it, this sucked. They'd better find that emergency exit soon, especially before they ended up like that body just outside...actually, maybe it was a good thing his stomach was empty. The thought alone of that body could have him throwing up profusely if he was full. That would be embarrassing. It was colder here as well, now Trois wasn't right next to him. Not that he would ever express that thought out loud.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of laughter. Children's laughter. Only, unlike the bell, this sounded like it was right beside him. He turned his head to look, or at least he tried to, but he found he couldn't move. All he could do was strain his eyes trying to look around. The laughter continued, but he couldn't see any children nearby. He did see a flash of red to his other side, and when he looked that way it looked like blood was oozing down the wall. This was actually terrifying. Well, it would be one thing if all this was happening around him and he could move, but no matter how much his mind screamed at him to get out of that bed, his muscles didn't so much as twitch. He couldn't even open his mouth to call for help. The next sound to assault his ears was the sound of scratching, like pen on paper. There had been a notebook on the desk, he remembered, but they'd not given it much thought at all. They'd been preoccupied with Honey's worsening injury. Was someone in here with him? He'd not heard anyone come in, but he may have dozed off after Trois left. He couldn't see anyone, and he couldn't speak to ask. It was so cold, and he had no idea what was going on. He just knew he had no way to defend himself against whatever was in here with him.

A chair moved. He saw it out of the corner of his eye, and then he heard the voice. A woman's voice.
"Let's all go on a trip over the summer vacation." She said, to which a chorus of children's voices agreed quite happily. There was someone here in the room with him, definitely, but he couldn't see her.

He at least hoped she would be hot.

The chair moved over to his bedside, and he watched it approach. No-one there. And the woman's voice again, closer now, like it was coming from the chair. "Sacchan...have you come to find me?" This was so freaky. He couldn't see her at all, and of course had no idea who 'Sacchan' was...though Tsukumo's story had mentioned a female staff member who died and her missing daughter, hadn't it? Was this the murderous teacher ghost?

No, of course not. Honey didn't believe in that sort of stuff at all, it was ridiculous to even think it as a possibility. This was all some kind of sick prank that Building 13 was pulling on them, and when it was over and done with, they would be hearing from his lawyers. They were probably watching from somewhere and having a good laugh. Only...that didn't make sense either. Unless this place really was underneath the building, but then what about what was out the window? He couldn't make sense of any of this and now his mind was going a mile a minute and he had to admit at least to himself that he was panicking.

Then the spirit appeared. It wasn't a hot lady, it wasn't even recognisable as a lady. It was a thick, black smoke in a vaguely human shape, with shining red eyes, sat calmly in the chair. It reached out one creepy arm towards him, and called out that name again. 'Sacchan'.

Upstairs, Trois still hadn't found Uno. He didn't think he'd been gone that long, but he had to admit, being alone in here was unnerving. He was doing a quick sweep of the upper floors, jogging but not running, keeping his eyes and ears peeled as he called out for Uno. He had to be somewhere nearby, this had to be where he'd heard that scream coming from. He was considering turning back and returning to the infirmary when he turned the corner and saw the figure slumped in the chair. It was mostly in the shadows, and they had their back to him, but he could just about make out the long, blond braid trailing down over the floor.
"Uno?" He called uncertainly as he drew closer, slowing to a walk now. The body in the chair was very still, unnaturally so. That wasn't a good sign. Plus, it wasn't even Uno to begin with. The person's hair was blonde, just blonde, no other colour in sight, unless that was a trick of the light, or lack thereof. So why was he still walking towards them? "Are you okay?" He heard himself asking as he reached out to tap the person on the shoulder. His touch caused the body to overbalance and fall. Well, the top half, anyway. The person's top half had come away from the bottom, and it looked like the body had been there for a while. There was something oozing from it and he didn't think it was blood, but whatever it was, it was on his hand now and he needed to find somewhere to wipe it off, urgently. His clean hand, or relatively clean, anyway, since he still hadn't been able to wash up after touching the severed fingers, came up over his mouth and nose as he backed away, only to step on something hard. A bone. No, there was still flesh attached, but it looked like it had been eaten away. It took a lot more effort than he'd have liked to swallow back the scream bubbling up in his chest. They needed to get out of here, and soon. He jogged back the way he came, aiming to get back to the infirmary before anything could happen to him.

Honey couldn't breathe. The smokey figure was thick and heavy, and baring down hard on his chest. His lungs didn't have any room to expand, and the smoke flowing into his nose and forcing open his jaw to dive down his throat meant there was no way he'd be able to get any air. He was choking. He couldn't see past the smoke. His consciousness was fading out and everything hurt, everything burnt. This was it. This was how he was going to die. Hadn't Trois promised he would be back before anything bad could happen? Where was he? Why was he about to die alone and scared in this nasty old room? He'd said they would get out of there together, so where was he?

Why was he just giving up? Why couldn't he move? Why couldn't he even twitch? Was it fear locking him up like this, or was it something about this room, about these spirits? This thing that was attacking him...

Another scream filled his ears, and suddenly he found his limbs obeying him. It was like he had been pinned down by something, and the scream had attracted its attention. Perhaps he really had dozed off when Trois left and that had all been a nightmare, but once that weight was gone, he sat up, coughing, spluttering, trying to take great gulps of air. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to get his breath back, call out for help, but his throat was so sore now, he could barely raise his voice. But it was fine now, right? That shadowy thing had left him alone. It was all a bad dream.

He wiped his eyes dry before opening them again, and saw the thing right next to the bed still. And he screamed. It reached for him again, and he scrambled off the end of the bed, running right for the door. He had to get out of there before that thing grabbed him again. He managed to get there without falling flat on his face, but the door was covered in something black. Like it was covered in thick, black hair, criss-crossed all over the place. He couldn't even see the handle. He tried to grip the edge of the door and pull, but the hair held it in place. He couldn't open the door. He was trapped in there with that apparition. How the hell was he supposed to get rid of all that hair?

The matches. The matches next to the space heater. He could burn it. He pushed away from the door, and ran right through the ghost, which at least told him it wasn't solid enough to stop him, but even passing through that smoke briefly was awful. It was cold and thick and had him gagging and coughing again. He staggered and fell, gasping as he felt his insides freezing and churning, and crawled towards the heater. His path was blocked by a sudden shoot of what appeared to be flame, but dark. It gave off the heat of a real fire, but at the same time it was like the shadow of a flame...if flame could give off a shadow. He had to get around it, get around to the other side without burning himself or going through that ghost again. As he scrambled up, he at least noticed the damn thing was moving slowly. Sure, with the panic, the obstacles and his injury, he couldn't exactly move at speed himself, but it made it just a bit easier to scrabble past it. He almost knocked over one of the dividing curtains in his rush to get past the desk and cabinets, to get to the small box of matches. It never crossed his mind to search the cabinets for anything else he could use. He wouldn't have had enough time anyway. As it was, in the time it took him to get down and pick up the box, the spirit had moved to follow the path he took, meaning that when he went to pass the desk again, it was right there in the way. With a shriek, he jerked back, and backed right into one of the cabinets.

The sound of the bottles hitting the floor had him looking down long enough to make sure he wouldn't step on any glass or end up flat on his back, and long enough to spot the word 'alcohol' on one of the bottles. Long enough for a thought to spark in his head. Alcohol had more of a chance of catching alight than the dry hair, right? At least, it would burn faster, right? With the fire blocking one path of escape, and the deadly ghost lady blocking the other, and the assumption that neither the alcohol nor the matches would get rid of either threat, he had to think fast, and thinking fast brought him to the conclusion that he could charge through the partitions, use them as a path. When he knocked the curtain over and tried to cross it, another flame erupted, bursting through it and causing him to veer to the side at the last minute. The ghost happily stepped on the curtain, but seemed to speed up as he tried to get his balance back, almost as if trashing the infirmary was pissing it off. Well, good. Screw the stupid thing, as long as its angry, ethereal ass didn't catch him and choke him to death. As he dashed towards the door, he fumbled with the lid of the bottle. Once it was open, he threw it at the door and tried to light a match in a panic.
"Come on!" He yelled, "Light! Just fucking light!"
There! A flame! The hair was alight, the smell just as foul as any other in this building, and as he felt the spirit draw closer, Honey gave in to the panic and grabbed the door, heaving it open. The burning hair gave way as the ghostly hands made another grab for him, and he screamed as the flames seared his flesh, but the door opened and he went sprawling in his rush to leave. He scrambled away from the door, and glanced back to see the spirit hadn't left the infirmary. It stood just past the door, staring at him as he tried to get his breath back.

"Sacchan..."

"...Sacchaaan..."

"...Sacchaaaan..."

"I'll kill you"

Not wanting to be near that thing any longer, Honey forced himself to his feet and ran down the hall, only to meet with a sight he didn't want to see again. The body on the wall. He dropped to his knees in front of it and threw up. He threw up until he couldn't bring up any more bile, and continued to dry heave even after that. And then there was a hand on his back and a soothing voice by his ear.
"It's okay, Honey, it's okay." Trois was back. "Take a moment. It's going to be okay."
"How...how can you say that?"
"Hmm?"
Honey shot a glare at him and pushed him away. "How can you say it's going to be okay? The doors won't open, the windows won't open, this place is full of dead bodies! We can't find a single living person! We are alone in here, and we are never getting out of here alive, you realise that, don't you? Don't you? We're going to die, and nobody will ever find our bodies! They won't even think to look for us! What will we be to them but a couple of escaped convicts? It'll never cross their minds that we were abducted!"
"You're overreacting." Trois assured him with a gentle smile. "I'm certain we'll find a way out of here, and you know the others. They wouldn't just assume we escaped under such suspicious circumstances."
"Bullshit. We wouldn't be a priority. And as for you, where the hell did you go?!"
"I was-"
"Looking for Uno, I know. Well? Did you find him? Obviously not, or he'd be with you now! You said you'd be back before anything happened! You were gone for hours, you stupid ass! That thing in the nurse's office could have killed me! Would you even care? I doubt it, you'd probably pass some stupid snarky comment."
Trois was clearly getting tired of this. He sighed, but plastered another strained smile on his face. "Okay, I won't take this personally. I understand now, you've experienced something traumatic. You're very stressed out. I'd rather you didn't take it out on me, but just take a moment, try and calm down."
"Stop talking like that! You're being so freaking positive, it's creepy! It's like some sick part of you is enjoying this, and you're pissed that I'm not having as much fucked up fun as you are!...You are enjoying this. You must be even more of a psycho than I thought! I bet you wouldn't even care if someone here did die! You'd just find it fascinating, or something creepy like that! Just get away from me!"
Trois let the smile slip away from his face, and Honey knew he'd gone too far. Somewhere in his ranting, he'd managed to strike a nerve. Trois was right. He was spewing venom at him, and it was by no means his fault that he was in such a pissy mood, or that he had just been attacked. He needed to apologise.
"You don't know anything about me." Trois told him in a warning tone. "Besides, I thought you didn't want to be alone."
"I...I...I don't care any more! I'd rather be on my own than with a freak like you! Just get lost!"
That wasn't what he meant to say. His companion nodded and got to his feet.
"I see. I'll go this way, then, and see if I can find anyone else. If you want to come with me, I won't stop you. You don't even have to apologise, just follow. If you really do want to split up and be by yourself for a bit, so be it. Just walk the other way."
Honey listened to his footsteps fade away, then cursed under his breath and walked in the opposite direction.