Darkness Falls

By: Dyaoka

Disclaimer: I don’t own the Prince of Tennis and the story has nothing to do with the movie. I just liked the title. :)

Notes/Warnings: Very scary. Boo. Now go read. XD!!! And this is my Halloween fic for the tenipuri section. Wow…I’ve been in the tenipuri section for a little over a year! XD~~~ I remember last year’s Halloween in this section: rather quiet, but nevertheless, there were fics dedicated to Halloween and tenipuri! Now it’s my turn to contribute!



SUGGESTION: BEST TO READ THIS FIC AT NIGHT! XD!!!



~°*PART ONE*°~



“We’re here!” one Kikumaru Eiji exclaimed brightly. Fuji Syusuke, standing besides his best friend, chuckled.



Kaido shivered, trying to back away. Momo was just staring up at the house.



Everyone else had the same reaction as Momo.



A day ago (on a Friday), during morning practice at school, Momo and Ryoma had come to school (late as usual), talking about the most peculiar subject: haunted houses. Not that it was quite an off topic, per se, since (apparently) in the USA, Halloween was coming up. In fact, Fuji believed the whole subject was brought up when Ryoma had asked if Japan celebrated Halloween…but that was beside the point. The two had walked into the courts, chatting about the haunted houses. Fuji was just right there, and so he overheard. Eiji, being who he was, also overheard. Soon, the whole court was talking about it (Tezuka made them all run laps). Well, as things developed from this to that, Momo dared them (being the other Seigaku Regulars) to stay overnight at a house that was known to be haunted (that was near the outskirts of their district). Some how, Eiji reversed the position and had all the Seigaku Regulars going.



So that’s what they were doing, on the gloriously late Saturday afternoon at the giant house. All the Seigaku Regulars (some of who did not know why they were there for) stared up at the giant house that was rumored to be haunted.



“W-well…Fsssh…wouldn’t we be trespassing?” Kaido asked, breaking the silence.



“No one lives here,” Momo shrugged. “It’s not really trespassing…Are you saying that you’re scared, Mamushi?!”



“Fsssh! I’m not scared!” 



“Whatever,” Echizen Ryoma muttered, walking forward and pushed the old, iron gates in front of the house. The metal hinges creaked heavily as force was exerted upon them. “So, are you coming?” he looked at the large group behind him.



“Of course!” Momo and Eiji exclaimed almost immediately and pushed the younger boy out of their way as they strode up to the entrance of the house with their sleeping bags over their shoulders. “Do excuse us!”



Giant, dusty, twin oak doors loomed before them, with brass knockers. It was the very image of a ‘haunted house.’ On the second floor windows, the some of the shutters had fallen while one had collapsed completely, revealing pale, thin wisps of what seemed to be white curtains that now seemed to be stained blood red under the setting afternoon sun. On the third floor, everything was boarded shut and the paint on all the shutters seemed to be peeling away and fading into a different color.



“It might open if you try the door,” Inui quipped from near the back of the group with Tezuka. The two were there to make sure no one ran off. Why and how the two (who were sometimes reasonable) people were dragged into it was completely unknown. From what Fuji had gathered, Eiji and Oishi had pestered their stoic captain into it. Maybe that was why his normally stoic face seemed so irritated.



“I know that, nya!” Eiji snapped, trying the huge doorknob. It wouldn’t budge.



“Here, let me try!” Momo said, pushing Eiji out of the way so he could have a go at the door. Even under his strength, the large twin doors did not budge. “What?! How’s that possible?! Stupid door…”



“You’re not opening it right,” Fuji said. “Try to give the door a push.”



Momo blinked at the shorter youth, but decided to comply with it anyway. Placing both hands on the dusty, oak door, the violet-eyed youth pushed. Both doors swung open with a loud creak. The insides of the large house were revealed to the group of nine.



“Wow…”



Eiji and Momo both stepped into the house, marveling at the sight of it. It was decorated in a quite elegant manner, though one could see that the entrance was unused throughout the years. A heavy layer of dust laid their home atop everything; cobwebs and spider webs wove themselves near the corners and the ceilings. Despite the odd feeling the house emitted, the Seigaku Regulars were held in awe of the elegance of the house.



Ryoma, being pushed to the near back of the group, looked around in boredom. It was one of those typical homes one would see in movies, those Victorian styled homes. Glancing around, wondering when would they be able to leave, the golden-eyed gaze looked up. In the only exposed window, there stood a silhouette of a person. Ryoma blinked and the person was gone. With a slight yawn, the youth rubbed his tired eyes.



“Oi! Ochibi! Are you coming in or are you going to stand there all day?!”



Ryoma scowled, but walked into the large house. When he entered, the first thing he smelled was a heavy scent of dust and a faint smell of musk.



“Hey! Look what I found!” Momo exclaimed, pointing at something on a nearby table.



“What did you find?” Eiji asked, walking over to see. However, a sudden, strong gust of autumn wind blew and shut the twin doors with a loud bang. “Unya?!”



There was suddenly very much confusion running around in the dark until suddenly, a light came on. It was a tiny lantern, lit by fire. Inui stood where Momo had stood before the lights went out with a smirk upon his face. “Very useful, Momoshiro, should you have found this before the doors closed on us.”



Meanwhile, Momo and Eiji were clinging onto Ryoma (who had wandered over to them before the door closed) like the world was going to end. Said golden-eyed youth was temporarily choking to death.



“Great job, Inui…” Oishi sighed. To say that the sudden darkness did scare him a bit would be true. The one that really was scared…



“Kaido?” Inui asked, lifting the lantern higher so that the perimeter of the light reached to farther areas. The snake-like youth was nowhere to be seen.



“Mamushi…?” Momo called out.



“Senpai…” Ryoma choked out. “Let…go…”



“Ah! Sorry, Ochibi!” Eiji apologized, letting go. He looked around before saying; “Taka-san’s gone too!”



“…” was Tezuka’s response. In fact, that was the same response that he gave when the doors shut too.



“Well then…should we go look for them?” Fuji suggested with a bright smile. In his hand, he held another one of the lanterns (where he got it from, no one knew).



“Eh…?” was the very intelligent thing that Momo said. Ryoma continued to look bored once he got air back into his lungs.



“We can draw straws,” vouched Inui, pulling them out of his pocket.



“Why do you have that prepared?” Oishi asked, looking at the straws in Inui’s hands. They certainly looked like they’ve been prepared beforehand.



“There was a eighty-five percent chance of this happening; so I took the liberty of preparing the straws. There are numbers written at the bottom; that will be the number of the group you will be in,” Inui said, bringing the straws all around for the regulars to pick.



“Oi, Echizen, which group are you in?”



“One. You?”



“I’m in three.”



“Unya! Ochibi!” exclaimed Eiji as he glomped the smaller youth. “Group one pride!”



“That hurts!” Ryoma snapped and Eiji tightened his hold on him.



As it turns out, those in group one were Eiji, Ryoma, and Tezuka. In group two, it was Inui and Fuji, while group three consisted of Momo and Oishi.



“Unya…to bad we’re not in the same group!” Eiji said, patting Oishi’s arm. The green-eyed youth smiled nervously to his doubles partner.



“Don’t worry; but don’t cause any trouble. Don’t touch anything either, things here are not ours, understand?” Oishi was about to launch into his motherly-concern rant about treatment of other’s homes when Momo interrupted him.

“Oishi-sempai!” Momo exclaimed, flashing the flashlight that Inui lent him in front of the older youth’s face. “We should get going; I think Eiji-sempai would be able to do fine without you there.”



Oishi managed a nervous smile at Momo. “Yeah…” Eiji grinned and mouthed the words ‘thank you’ to Momo when Oishi wasn’t paying attention.



“Nya, Tezuka, Ochibi! Let’s go!”



“Oh yes, should anyone get separated, meet back here!” Inui called out after the disappearing group. “Fuji, we should go this way.” He pointed to the stairs the wound upward.



It wasn’t until everyone was split up did Momo and Oishi realized truly how large the house was.



Or how frightening.



~*~



“Unya…Kaido…? Taka-san? Are you here, nya?” the excited voice of Kikumaru Eiji rang through the halls of the gigantic house.



“It doesn’t seem like they’ve been here,” Ryoma remarked.



“How do you know that?” Eiji asked, looking to the smaller youth. Ryoma kicked at the floor, where the dust flew up off the ground.



“Look at all the dust. There aren’t any prints in it to indicate that they have been here,” Ryoma said.



“Not there,” Tezuka spoke up. He directed the lantern he was holding (it was given to him by Fuji on his command earlier) over to a spot closer to the walls. “But here. Look.” There was a trail of uneven footsteps in the dust. Whoever that had been the owner of those footprints was obviously running and had been in a great hurry.



“Then we follow the footsteps!” Eiji exclaimed brightly. “Let’s go, let’s go, nya!”



However, if they had looked closer, they would have noticed that there was a thin layer of dust over the footsteps they were looking at.



They followed the footsteps over to a closed door, where the footprints had disappeared behind. However, the dust around the door indicated that it had not been opened.



“…and there is a half a foot print at the door because…?” Ryoma asked.



Neither Tezuka nor Eiji knew the answer to that. “Unya, what harm would it cause to see?” Eiji asked, reaching for the doorknob. However, just as he was about to open the door, all three heard a soft creaking sound of floorboards. Eiji’s head shot up in the direction the sound came from.



Creak. Creak.



The floorboards were creaking in pace to someone’s very, slow walking.



“Who…is it?” Eiji asked, feeling an odd shiver run up and down his spine. Tezuka raised the lantern to see who it was, but nothing could be seen down the dark corridor.



“Move,” Ryoma muttered, shoving Eiji out of the way and opening the door. He wordlessly pushed both Tezuka and Eiji in and shut the door, locking it in the meanwhile. Images of the silhouette he saw at the window outside earlier came flashing back into Ryoma’s mind. The reasonable side of him told him he should go out there and explain the situation to the person, but another side of him was yelling at him and telling him that staying within the room with the door closed and locked was a good idea. He followed his latter intuition.



Creak. Creak.



It was getting louder.



“Echizen,” Tezuka said, looking down on the younger boy with disapproval. The stoic tennis captain reached for the doorknob, but Ryoma stopped him by pushing him back.



“No…don’t open it,” Ryoma whispered, his hands clasping down onto his captain’s arms.



Abruptly, the creaking stopped.



“Is…the person outside the door?” Eiji asked in a voice barely above a whisper. Everyone in the room jumped when whoever it was started to knock on the door.



“We should open the door,” Tezuka said. Ryoma shook his head vehemently and his grip on his captain’s arms tightened.



Knock. Knock.



Tezuka gave a sigh. “Who is it?” he called out. He received no answer, but continuous knocking. “Kikumaru, get the door.”



The red head, who was standing off to the side, shivered. “No,” he said defiantly. “I…don’t want to, nya. Ochibi’s right…there’s something wrong…” Tezuka said nothing in response, but pulled Ryoma with him as he walked over to the back of the room and sat down, using the wall for his back support. The lantern was placed near them, casting shadows amongst the room.



Knock. Knock!



The knocking got louder, just as the creaking had before. The younger tennis player pulled his legs up to his chest, his golden eyes wide as if seeing something that the others could not see. Tezuka placed a comforting arm around the other, pulling Ryoma close. A moment later, Eiji curled up with them on the floor.



KNOCK! KNOCK!



“Who is it?” Tezuka demanded. There was no answer.



KNOCK! KNOCK!



The knocking seemed like it was going to push the door off its hinges, but the door held fast and still. Then, just as abruptly as it begun, the knocking stopped. Tezuka felt a shiver go through Ryoma’s smaller body. Suddenly, the knob turned, ever so slowly. However, it was locked. The knob rattled as whoever it was tried it again. Tezuka narrowed his eyes; he did not like the situation any bit. If it had been any of the other Seigaku members, they would have answered his question. Since whoever it was did not answer, Tezuka assumed that the person was not part of the Seigaku regulars.



Then, there were no more sounds. They heard no creaks, no knocks, and no rattles from the doorknob. It was hard to tell if the person was still there or not.



“Unya…what…was that?” Eiji spoke after who knows how long. He was the one that broke the silence.



“I don’t know,” Tezuka answered truthfully. He looked at Ryoma, who seemed to have become a permanent fixture to his side.



“Don’t go out there…” Ryoma whispered, his eyes wide. “I still hear it…It’s still here…”



“Ochibi…are you ok?” Eiji frowned, rubbing Ryoma’s back up and down, trying to give the younger boy some warmth and reassurance. “I don’t hear anything…” Nevertheless, Eiji curled up next to Ryoma, wrapping his arms around the younger one.



Several more minutes passed in silence and finally, they heard a creak in front of their door.



Creak. Creak.



This time, the floorboard creaks diminished down the other end of the hall.



Creak. Creak…



~*~



“Momo, stop looking through the pantry!” Oishi scolded. He and Momo had gone separate ways from the others; they ended up in the kitchen. Inui and Fuji must be upstairs, since there was the occasional creak and squeak from the floorboards above them.



“I’m not!” protested Momo. “I’m looking for Taka-san and Mamushi!”



“What makes you think that they’ll be in the pantry?” Oishi asked with a sigh. He could almost feel a headache coming on. Sometimes, trying to handle Momo was even worse than handling Eiji. “Momo, come on,” Oishi said, leading his lower classman out of the kitchen in to the dining room, which was conveniently conjoined with the kitchen. There was a table, completely cleared of everything except a tablecloth and a tiny vase, which contained a single, dead rose. There was a large fireplace near the table, which was probably to keep the occupants of the room warm. Above the fireplace was a large portrait.



Out of curiosity, Oishi flashed the flashlight onto the portrait.



“Wow,” Momo commented from the side. “She’s really pretty!”



Indeed, as the portrait was of a beautiful lady. She definitely looked Japanese from the portrait, but the way she was dressed suggested that perhaps she grew up with English or American customs. “How old are those clothes she’s wearing…?” Oishi asked, suddenly realizing that they could be in a house that was abandoned for perhaps centuries! Meaning there might have been people (homeless, thieves, bandits, any sort of people) that would be using the house as a hideout. It was dangerous!



“Don’t know…but they look like early twentieth century clothes…” Momo said. “Maybe around the time of nineteen-o-six?”



Oishi shivered, suddenly feeling eyes upon him. “Sure. Let’s hurry and go find Taka-san and Kaido.”



Momo shrugged, but complied. But as they were leaving the dining room, he caught sight of a shadowed figure in the room. However, when he blinked, it was gone. “Must’ve been some hallucination…” he muttered.



~*~



Inui and Fuji, in their search upstairs, had found nothing fruitful. “This house sure is big,” Fuji commented.



“Is your house not large?” Inui asked with a raised eyebrow. Fuji chuckled, but did not answer. “Oh…?” The pair stopped in front of a rather strange looking door.



Within the large house, all the doors were painted a deep mahogany color to match the floor and walls. However, the door they were looking at was not the usual color. It was a faded color of blue; on the brass doorknob, there were splatters of the paint. Obviously, someone had painted it in a rush. The paint job did seem rather muddled.



“How strange,” Inui commented.



“Isn’t it?” Fuji asked with a smile. He peered down at the floor, where the dust should have been. Rather, there was no dust near the door at all, but there were no footprints that lead to the room on the thick dust-laid floor. “Shall we see?”



“Of course,” Inui said. Fuji placed a hand on the knob and turned it. He frowned, when he found it locked.



“It’s locked,” Fuji announced. He knocked on the door. “Anyone in there?”



There was a muffled sound from within.



“Hello?”



In the silence of the house, Inui and Fuji heard a click, as the door was unlocked. Slowly, the large blue door swung open.



~*~



“Did you hear that?” Oishi asked suddenly, turning to Momo. The two had gone upstairs as well, but there was no sign of any of the Seigaku regulars. It was quite disturbing, really.



“Did I hear what?” Momo asked, his eyes darting around in the dark nervously. He was starting to shapes in the shadows of the strangest of objects. Everywhere he and Oishi went, Momo could have thought he felt eyes upon them. Oishi was, of course, just as jumpy.



“That,” Oishi said. He motioned for Momo to be silent, to which the violet-eyed youth complied with. At first, all they heard was silence, but then nearly silent laughter reached their ears. They sounded like giggles of girls.



“Wh-which way is it towards…?” Momo whispered. Oishi motioned towards the completely dark end of the hall. Momo gulped, but stepped towards it.



Down the darkened hall the two traveled in complete silence. With every step they took, the giggling got louder and the air got cooler. They finally arrived at a door that was not fully shut. Oishi gulped, and placed a sweaty hand onto the door and pushed onto it, ever so slowly. The door opened to reveal a room filled with dolls. Other than that, there were no giggling girls in sight. Momo whistled at the amount of dolls in the room; each of them a different size and shape, color and condition. Glassy blue eyes to a plastic black stared back at the two tennis players that had intruded into the room. The giggling had vanished and was replaced by a stony silence. They sat in rows upon rows, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. There was occasional spots between two dolls of which seemed that there was one missing.



“I wonder how many of them are in here,” Oishi wondered aloud. “They look so old…”



“And somehow in top condition too,” Momo said. The violet-eyed boy’s gaze landed on one that seemed to have been played with often, which sat alone in the center of the room. Unlike the other dolls whose hair would be perfectly neat and done, this one’s hair was tattered and stained. What probably use to be a blue dress was now blemished with a different color, a dark sort of liquid that Momo could not identify. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach that told him that he did not want to find out either. “Except that one…”



Momo couldn’t help but brush off the dust on the abused doll’s head, having been use to cleaning up his younger siblings toys. Seeing one in such a tattered state brought a pang into his heart; he hated to see old toys become broken and tossed away. However, the fact that the particular doll sat with the others in the room meant it had not been thrown away. Momo smiled a bit at the doll; it certainly wouldn’t do to throw away past play toys despite the fact that you’ve outgrown them.



“Momo,” Oishi’s sharp voice called out in the near-darkness of the room. “Let’s go. There’s nothing here. Besides, we’re looking for Kaido and Taka-san, not a couple of dolls.”



“Yes, yes…” Momo said, eyeing the room one last time before leaving and closing the door behind him.



~*~



A gun barrel was aimed at Fuji’s head as it opened. A rough man got out of the room, aiming the gun on Fuji. “Better not do anything or I’ll shoot,” the man growled. He walked out the door and forced the two tennis players into the room. “So there were more of you kids running around,” the man grumbled.



“Yeah…I think I heard nine of them earlier,” a higher pitched voice said. Fuji’s brilliant blue eyes darted around in the dark, trying to discern how many people there were in the room. Apparently, there were six; two of them were on the floor.



“Taka-san! Kaido!”



“Shut up!” someone shouted, hitting Fuji in the back of the head with the butt of the gun. Fuji fell to the floor with a grunt and his backpack was removed, along with Inui’s, from their backs. “Someone tie them up and gag them!”



Whoever bound and gagged them was a quick worker. It seemed to only take a second for them to tie them down and throw them next to their lost companions; Taka and Kaido. They were bound and gagged in a similar way.



“Don’t do anything stupid or I’ll shoot you,” one of them whispered dangerously. Fuji glared menacingly at them. “Someone get out there and take care of the rest of the brats! We can’t have so many of them running around!”



“Alright, already,” one of them muttered. “We’ll go and take care of them. You stay here and guard the room and make sure those kids don’t do anything. Got it?”



“Yeah, yeah. Just go.”



With that, three of the masked men left the room, closing and locking the door behind them; leaving behind one, who held a gun in his hand. Moments passed in silence and the tension in the room became ever thicker.



“You know what, brats? You chose the wrong day to come explore this house,” the man sneered, playing with the gun’s safety lock. “If it was any other day, we wouldn’t have been here to bother you. Well, I can’t say what will happen to you guys, but we’ll probably use you as target practice.” He aimed the gun at Kaido’s head and made a sound, as if pretending to shoot a gun. He missed the glares that the rest of them shot at him. “Didn’t expect kids like you to come to places known to be haunted either. I don’t believe in that crap…though, you do know the story about this place, right?” The man paused, as if waiting to hear an answer as he looked at his gun. “They say that a long time ago, a wealthy American family owned this place and several other mansion along the country side. This was the smallest of them, apparently.” The man snorted, but continued with his tale. “The head of the family had three daughters; they were full blooded Americans and rich to boot. When the mother died, the guy came here, to Japan. He took in another wife and had another daughter. Well, he gave her this estate.”



The man got up from his seat and walked around the room, as if inspecting it. “I bet it was real grand back then, to have a house this large. But you know what? That girl, his youngest daughter, was not considered part of the family. So she lived here, her entire life, just hating her family and the people around her. She was not a real Japanese, but nor was she a real American. Especially when World War Two started; she was abandoned here. She died, all alone in this house. But you know what?” he turned back to the four captives on the ground. “She was the last surviving member of her family and managed to work her way into the official documents. She inherited all the money from her family, including her late mother and father and sisters…and somewhere in this house,” the man’s eyes darted about in the dark, as if looking for something. “…is that money.”



Inui gave a soft snort of incredulity, causing the masked man to glare at him. Fuji turned to look at Inui, who had been quite busy when the man was rambling on about the tale of the house. Inui had managed to find a way out of the binds that held him, but was holding up a pretense. He knew when to act rashly and when not to.



Creak…creak…



Soft creaks down the hall were heard. The man perked up.



“Oh? They’re back rather quickly.”



Creak. Creak.



The creaks were increasingly slow and dragged out. It certainly didn’t sound like anyone’s footsteps, since no footfalls were heard. The creaks abruptly stopped when it got to the door.



Knock. Knock.



The man walked over to the door, opened it and stepped outside with a smirk. Inui seized the chance and got up from the floor and dashed to the door, slamming it shut and locking it. There was a shriek and a loud scream before desperate banging on the door started, incoherent babbling running through the door and to the occupants of the room’s ears…and then, all became silent.



Knock. Knock!



The brash knocking interrupted the silence of the large house. The knocking came again as Inui went and untied his companions. “Don’t open the door,” Inui hissed, though everyone already knew not to.



Knock! KNOCK!



“If they break through, what do we do?” Fuji asked. Inui looked at the door, lifting one of the flashlights that the thieves had left in the room. He examined the hinges and bolts around the door and shook his head.



“They won’t break through; the door is very stable, despite the age. You know…I think this room was made for keeping people from going out and coming in…”



“But…it has a window…” Taka said, pointing to the boarded up parts of the room where the wood was nailed to the wall; it made a stark contrast to the room’s wallpaper, which had probably used to be a deep, rich red and gold. It was faded and starting to fall off.



“Fsssh…” Kaido hissed. “This isn’t a window…”



“It’s a portrait behind that…” Fuji realized. They jumped when the knocking resumed.



KNOCK! KNOCK!



The fierce banging on the door ceased after a while; then, the knob turned. It was stopped short, since it was locked. The knob was rattled violently as whoever it was tried to open it. Then, it stopped, just as abruptly as the knocking.



Creak…creak…



The creaking disappeared down the hall as whoever it was moved away.



“I wonder how the other’s are doing…we should get out of here quickly,” Inui said, looking over at the door. “But we should wait a while; there is a seventy-five percent chance that someone may still be outside of that door just waiting for us.”



“Fsssh…then how do we warn the others?” Kaido asked.



“Well, in this situation…” Inui trailed off.



~*~



“Tezuka, what do you think is wrong with him, nya?” Eiji asked in a near whisper. His arm had gone numb, since it was where Ryoma had leaned on. Right now, the younger youth had fallen into a slight doze, but his breathing was shallow and irregular.



“Fever,” Tezuka replied. “We’ve never should have come here in the first place, least of all him.”



“Unya…Ochibi should have known if he was sick or not…” Eiji muttered. The red head looked up from the sleeping face on his shoulder to peek around at the room. Even at moments like these, the red head couldn’t help but feel curious about his surroundings.



The room was quite large, actually, and the walls were covered in a faded grey pink color; some places on the wall sported odd colored stains of a dark brown. There was a dusty shelf at one corner of the room, which held a series of old, children’s books. Next to it was many dust-littered stuffed animals while the occasional doll was lying here or there. A music box laid there in the room also, dusty and old. Tezuka noticed Eiji’s darting eyes and said; “This was a children’s play room.”



“A children’s play room with no windows?”



“There is one; it’s boarded up over there.”



Eiji looked up to where Tezuka had motioned to and saw, indeed that there was a window, on the far side of the room. Moonlight filtered through the cracks of the hastily boarded up windows.



Ring! Ring!



Eiji nearly had a heart attack when he heard his cell phone go off. Tezuka only raised an eyebrow at him. With a slight grimace, Eiji answered the phone.



“Kikumaru Eiji, nya. Yes?”



He couldn’t hear anything but static on the other end.



“H-hello?”



Fzzzt. Fzzt. Fzzzzt…



“…be careful…”



Eiji immediately hung up. Tezuka looked at Eiji’s pallor and asked; “Who was it?”



“I don’t know, nya…” Eiji whispered. “But I wanna go home…”



Creak…creak…



Eiji’s breath hitched at his throat and Tezuka stiffened. To the older two tennis players, they did not notice when the youngest one of them opened his eyes. His pupils were slightly dilated and his face a tinge of pink, all of which were pointing towards the signs of a fever. A cold chill ran through his body and he tried his best not to tremble.



Creak…creak…



“I don’t like this, Tezuka…” Eiji said. “When that thing leaves…I wanna get out of this room and leave this place!”



Knock. Knock.



The knocking increased in the silence and became more desperate. Just like before, it just kept knocking until Eiji thought it would blow the door off of the hinges, but then, it stopped and all became quiet again. This time, it didn’t try the door handle. There was the sound of something entering the keyhole.



“We should hide…” Eiji whispered, but none of them could find the strength to stand, much less hide.



The doorknob turned, making small metallic sounds as it did so. The door opened, slowly, but only exposed a tiny part of the darkness of the hall outside. There was a sound of a clatter and something being dropped onto the floor with a small ‘thud.’ Then, all became eerily silent.



Moments passed by and not a sound was heard; not even a creak. There was a sudden gasp from Ryoma, as his breath hitched at his throat, his golden eyes wide and wild with fever. The boy pressed harder against the wall of the room, using his feet to propel himself backwards—but he could not go back anymore.



“Echizen!” Tezuka frowned, but something caught his eye. From under the door, was a trail of liquid streaming down slowly. It was too dark to tell what it was, but the faint grotesque smell already indicated to what it was: blood. It moved slowly, but surely; almost moving at an impossible pace down towards them. “Kikumaru, let’s go,” Tezuka ordered, having taken enough. His top priority at the moment was their safety; and getting them out of the building now was the way to go.



Helping the other two tennis players to their feet, Tezuka walked towards the door, uncertain if he should open it and expose whatever it was behind it. Eiji gulped, but swung the door open; he had obviously been prepared for it and wanted to get out of the room as soon as possible no matter what was behind the door.



However, nothing would have prepared themselves for the sight in front of them. Behind Tezuka, there was the distinct sound of someone gagging and throwing up; it had to have been Eiji. The scene in front of them was not a pretty one.



A mutilated body was thrown in front of the door haphazardly, a trail of blood coming down one end of the hallway of which the body had been dragged down from. One half of the body was disfigured beyond recognition; blood bled down from the body, running under the door. Parts of the skin hung off of the body, leaving quite a mess. Huge gashes marred the body’s back and the head…



The head was missing.



“Ignore it,” Tezuka said, taking in a breath and steadying himself. He turned around to face his companions. “Let’s go.”



…To Be Continued…



Frightening? Hehe. Part One of two (or three?). Do tell me what you think of this Halloween fic…