Rei Sonoda's Story

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It was a bright, sunny day for the children. No clouds were in sight, and the mainstreet was loud as usual. Vendors, students, and workers were minding their own business, whereas a group of children quickly emerged from a small building. Stepping out into the open, the students locked their eyes on to a small building down at the end of the mainstreet, and walked towards the direction, shaking with anticipation.

It was a big day for them. Some of them wouldn't stop speeding up, some would look down at their feet nervous, and some would distract themselves by staring at merchandise in front of the group. Nevertheless, they all went the same way. No one left the group, the urge to discover the mysteries of the 'haunted mansion' truly was irresistible.

*Tense Change

Finally approaching the outskirts of town, a black-haired female student takes initiative and approaches alone in front of the 'haunted mansion'. Staring deep into the old, worn-down door that created the barrier between the students and a world of horror, the leader decides to turn to the students behind her, and nods intensely. She opens the door, and enters into a brightly lit room.

=============={Mansion Entrance Way}==============

The students immediately arrive into a large, massive entrance way. Straight ahead of them is a simple-looking, black door. It's metal door-knob reflects a bright shine of light. To the right of the black metal door, is a staircase going upstairs. Beside the students are corridors, both on the left and right side, each leading to other rooms.

On the floor lies a small dull nail, and a piece of slippery soap. A table beside the doorway holds a handkerchief on top.

~ A low growl quietly echoes through the hallways ~

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Of course Tommy can't take anything seriously. He only came along on this thing to provide a voice of reason. Certainly, there were no such things as monsters and there had to be a reasonable explanation for the disappearances all those years ago. Besides, it gave him something much better to do than sit on the couch and wait for his father to come home.

He looked at the nail on the floor and soap before giving a small shake of his head. ❝Soap in the entrance way? That's really weird.❞ He let out a laugh, but the sound of the low growl reached him and he cut himself off. What was that? Had to just be some wind blowing through a hole in the wall, right? He decided not to let it bother him and continued on.

❝So where do we go from here? Anyone know the layout of the house?❞ He stole another glance at the nail and the soap before taking a few steps towards them and picking up the nail. Maybe it would be useful for something, maybe not. He didn't see the point in taking the soap — he had no plans for a bath while in this house. The handkerchief didn't catch his attention as an interesting item.

❝Oh, fearless leader,❞ he grinned as he turned to Rei, who had gathered them all on this snipe hunt, ❝lend us your wisdom and tell us which way we should go.❞

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As the growl cut off Tommy's laugh, Satoshi began to ponder "Is this area inhabited by some sort of animal? Perhaps a stray dog or two?" After Tommy turned to Rei, Satoshi turned as well. "We're here so uh, yeah, where do we go?" Turning around the room he could see the lighting in the room seemed quite strange due to brightness. Especially since it was abandoned years ago. Feeling slightly disturbed he asked, "Why isn't the lighting off? Wasn't the electricity cut off in this place before, I mean it was abandoned, right?"

Observing the area he turned towards the slippery soap. "How is the soap slippery? Did someone else enter this house as well, I mean why is there even soap?.." After some thinking, Satoshi walked towards the table and picked up the handkerchief. "This could come in handy for my allergies."

Knowing that one day the handkerchief may leave your pocket to blow your nose, you are filled with determination.

Walking back, Satoshi faced the aging wooden stairs and set his foot upon the first plank. The unpolished wood creaked but as his weight went into his foot, it deemed as stable so he went up the first 3 steps and looked back at the group. Nudging his glasses up, he turned to look around the room once more. Thinking to himself, "Huh, should we split up or stick together? I mean there can't be a monster in here, right?" He turned to look towards the group once more, "Y'all wanna head upstairs or split up? Or nah, Rei it's your call."

The brightly-lit room surprised Shin, as soon as the group entered. There was light. He slightly pouted, he had hoped the 'haunted' mansion would have at least been dark.

"...then again, this place was supposed to be abandoned, right?", he muttered to himself.

Slowly easing into the atmosphere around him, he began identifying the room carefully. A light-bulb dimly lighting the entrance with an unfamiliar radiance, thin and broken paint on the walls, a surprisingly clean hardwood floor, and three hallways branching off of the entrance, including a staircase heading upstairs. Everything made him feel uncomfortable, nevertheless. Nothing should have been like this if this mansion was truly abandoned. Did someone restore this building? How was it possible to be in such good shape, being left alone for potentially tens or hundreds of years?

"Something....doesn't seem right", Shin noted. He hoped everyone else agreed. Surely, at least one other would have felt the same way he did. The club entered a space, in which, they did not have the right to trespass. And if discovered, they could have been in for an even more dangerous punishment than they could expect.

Suddenly, a low growl passed through the hallways. Shin heard it instantly, and turned to the direction in which it came from. The left hallway. He didn't want to approach it alone, but he was curious. He held an urge in which he wanted to investigate the sound, but he didn't want to separate from the group either. Something was definitely not right anymore.

Then, Shin eyed a certain white piece of....something, near the table. On the floor, was a triangle-looking substance. Closing in on the strange material, he knelt in front of it, and carefully sniffed it. "Soap, or at least, something like it", he thought. He then, touched it carefully, and nodded. "Definitely soap", he recalled. "Could be useful". Perhaps it was only him, who thought that.

Pocketing the small piece of soap, he stood up quickly, and turned to Kousaka.
"You have lots of questions, don't you?", said Shin. "Why don't you come investigate another question with me, perhaps the low growl?".

Shin pointed down the left side of the hallway, and gave Kousaka a little nudge. "How about you stop asking and start investigating, huh?".

Yuu was still not entirely certain about this. Whether or not she believed in the story behind this place, she didn't think they'd taken precaution enough, though admittedly the limited resources of a school club such as the HIC were not exactly extensive enough to support the care she'd have liked to take with the matter. Even so, there was still more that could have been done even with their budget, had there been more time to research before setting out. The girl did not blame whoever had decided that they should set out with such haste, they had good reasons she was sure, but rather her own inability to accomplish all that she might have as the club's unofficially designated researcher, and this irritation with herself nagged at her.

So it was that, when the barely audible growl of, well, something, she was in truth kind of hoping that was just the sound of the old house settling, echoed down the hall, the first thought that she had was that she should have looked into bringing along something to ward off any animals that might have wandered into the abandoned building.

Ah, but speaking of preparations...

"Excuse me. Terribly sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to make sure everyone had these before we move from the entrance." She spoke softly, truly not wanting to intrude upon the others' conversations and being entirely certain that she was not dong so, but if they were going to split up, something she found to be a bad idea but not one that she was going to argue against until her opinion was asked on the matter, it was especially important that this be taken care of now. As she spoke, Yuu drew from her schoolbag a stack of papers, photocopied maps of the second and third floor of the mansion, one of each for each club member, and began passing them out to those who would take them, starting, due to his inquiry, with Tommy.

There hadn't been a map for the ground floor, nor for the basement if the building had one, a fact that she'd mentioned to the club leader before coming here, along with the fact that the building might have undergone additions and alterations since the time these floor plans had been drawn up, but it still made her wonder. Satoshi had a good point as well, regarding the lights. Not the fact that they were on, that they were able to be on. The incident that turned the club toward investigating the mansion occurred eight years ago, and supposedly the place had been abandoned years prior even to that, so even if the electricity had for whatever reason been turned back on for the police investigation, it surly wouldn't have been left that way all this time. Furthermore, even if they had, there was the matter of the lightbulbs. Unless someone had come in and replaced them at some point, they should have been burnt out by now. Unless they had been left on with the power off, and the power had only recently been turned back? No matter what, it indicated some sort of active attention on this place on the part of someone besides them.

Unless of course it was just supernatural, but that would sort of throw any logical deduction out the window.

Regardless, something was indeed, as Shin had said, not right.

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Dialogue Color : #8b4789
Thought Color : #cd96cd
Health : 100%
Stamina : 100%
Fear : 0%
Status : N/A
Location : Mansion Entrance Way

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Rei let out the breath she was hoarding as she opened the mansion doors. She had done it, she had gotten to the mansion with intent to crack the case about the famous Ao Oni monster. In all honesty, she was surprised the club had shown up, none of them really seemed as if they had the guts to enter such a place, especially the adorable tiny Yuu. Rei adjusted her jean shorts and brushed the hair off her black tank top and green sweater. It was finally time to get this started.

The lights in the mansion were on for some reason, making it more ominous than if they were off. Rei had brought a little satchel of snacks and a flashlight just in case they were necessary. It was positioned snug on her back. Guess the flashlight is unnecessary. Rei looked around to see some miscellaneous items that were quickly snagged by the other club members. She wanted them for herself, but she figured the members were capable of holding their own. The low growl had been concerning, but Rei shrugged it off as old floorboards creaking.

The first member to speak was Thomas, with a sarcastic grin. Rei gave him a dead stare, as if she was unamused. Before she could answer Satoshi started berating everyone with dull questions. The lovely Shin quickly cutting him off. Yuu finished by handing out maps to the crew. Rei quietly snagged a map and looked it over. She then spoke herself.

"Hmm. According to most horror movies, splitting up is a bad idea. However it might be difficult to maneuver this mansion with the whole group at once. I suggest if we do split up, we do it half and half so the groups are still rather large."

She examined each crew member, trying to deduct rather they wanted to split or stay together. "How bout we do a quick vote? Those in favor of splitting, raise your hand and say 'I'." Rei then thinking it over raised her hand and said "I."
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Finley could already feel butterflies that started to bloom inside her stomach, both out of excitement and anxiousness. Even though she was excited to finally be going into the abandoned house, there was always the threat of something dangerous being there, no matter how slim. Though house itself truly didn't look abandoned, or haunted for that matter, which only added more worry rather than excitement, which in turn supported the growing idea in her head that it would best to just leave now.

She was exactly sure of she was ready for this, but then again was anyone in the club truly ready? And with that thought, she decided to just shrug off her worry and only leave space for the excitement that she had. Finley observed everything, from the ugly peeling, chipping paint on the walls to the metal door in front of them, rather curious to see exactly where they would lead. Stranger still, there were objects lying on the spotless wooden floors, objects in which her other group members didn't hesitate in the slightest whenever they picked them up.

Finley was zoned out and had barely overheard the others talking until Rei had brought up the idea of splitting up. While it was a good idea in theory with the goal of covering more ground, it wouldn't exactly be the best option if there was, in fact, a dangerous threat here. But there was also the good point in the fact that they would be in groups. "I'd be up for splitting into groups, but we should probably stay on the ground floor, so that if something does go wrong we can get the group back together quickly."

At least, that was her initial thought before she remembered that they only had maps of the upper floors of the mansion. "Actually, it would probably be best to stay on the second floor instead since it's a floor that we do have a map of."

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As the group ponders on their answer to the leader's question, another growl echoes through the hallway. A louder, menacing groan. Worried, each members begin to turn and observe their surroundings. Where was it coming from? It no longer sounds like wind, neither any sort of machine. It seems much more realistic. At this moment, the teenagers knew something was wrong. They were not all given chances to vote in the poll either.

=============={Mansion Entrance Way}==============

Suddenly, a door at the end of the left corridor bursts open. A cloud of dust builds up quickly as a loud, appalling shuffling is heard. Crawling out of the room, is a large, purple creature. Then, rising and growing in height, it stares and targets each and every one of its preys. Its humanoid body emerges from the messy cloud, and stands upright. It towers above all the humans, and it begins to step towards the group. Thump. Thump. Thump.

It takes three steps, closer to the group of people. Thump, thump, thump. Its mouth opens into a grin, and reveals a large row of razor sharp teeth. Its jaws opens, then snaps shut, as an attempt to show off its magnificent power. It stares more eagerly towards the bodies of flesh in front of it, then stomps faster towards the closest human it could reach. Thump, thump, thump, thump!

It opens its wide mouth and quickly scoops up a tiny, fragile body. With a gasp, the brown-haired girl screams in immense pain. She immediately begins to hit the monster's face as resistance. Yet, the monster destroys every rib in the student's body, and crunches in satisfaction. The girl, still alive, continues to yell and gasp in a high-pitched voice. Blood begins to drip, and soak the creature's teeth, as it watches the student writhing in desperation. The student then, stops, and lies still. Hibiki Nakajima is dead, killed brutally with the crushing of her insides. A quick but ghastly death in a mere 7 seconds.

The students stare in horror. Their one thought:

'Run'.

~ An ominous atmosphere has been built. There is 6 of the living left ~

Run. That was the thought this thing invoked. No, not invoked, projected. An innate, instinctual understanding that it was imperative to her survival to not be anywhere near this thing. It wasn't intellectual in anyway, not knowledge of any kind, and that threw Yuu off significantly. Perhaps that was why it was took her so long to react, perhaps that was why it was only after Hibiki had gone limp in he thing's jaws that it occurred to her to actually move.

Satoshi was already gone, and she wasn't sure if, were she to follow him, since running really seemed like the best idea right now, she would be able to catch up. She almost bolted for it herself, but she didn't want to be alone. The thought of that thing cornering her all on her own was even worse than the reality of it before her, and enough to make Yuu delay just long enough for her reason to reassert itself in force, not replacing or even stifling her panic so much as giving it direction, and instead grab the arm their leader as she started away from the monster. She wasn't strong enough to actually run off pulling Rei behind her if the older girl decided to stand still, but hopefully the tug would be enough encouragement to get her to run along with her.

Why the club president specifically? There were a few reasons for that, the first of which being perhaps the most practical; she was the closest to Yuu's size, and thus the one that Yuu would be most noticeable pulling on the arm of. Second, to her knowledge, Rei would be the most likely to try something besides just running, like distracting it while the others got away, or something like that, and Yuu didn't want her dying, particularly not while she herself ran away. Finally, and definitely the most practical if the first was not, she was closest, and it would be difficult to try and move more than one person..

Shin was devastated. A grotesque humanoid suddenly appeared before the group. It was huge. It was monstrous. It was everything but cute, kind, fun, and small. It was a skyscraper that towered over Shin's fragile body. Around the monster was an ominous aura, threatening everyone to 'Run'.

He was afraid. He didn't know what to do. He stood, shocked for a brief moment, then back to reality. He stared at the limp body. She was killed easily. The monster's jaws cut through her body like it was cheese. Blood dripped from his jaw with such viscosity, that it was clear it's mouth radiated with intense heat. It could melt ice cream in two seconds flat.

As soon as Kousaka shouted obnoxiously, Shin jumped to alert, and fled the scene. His steps were very heavy, as if glue stuck to his soles and the floor. His breathing pattern became abnormal, as if a stick of glue entered his trachea and jammed his lungs. This was fear. Fear in it's absolute form. Something Shin did not experience in a long time.

His steps rang out in the long hallways. He ran up-stairs, the same way Kousaka fled. He suddenly stopped.

He slowly turned around, and noticed the monster stomping its way towards the limp body. It wasn't done with her yet. He looked and discovered Yuu and Rei were still standing nearby. Yuu was...tugging Rei's arm. But the leader wasn't moving. Frightened, he stood by the stairway. He watched in horror. He couldn't decide anything. Yet there was barely any time left until the monster began targeting them.

Shin heard Kousaka's quick steps, then a short 'click'. "He must have hidden inside a room...", he muttered. He slowly began moving towards the second floor. Step, by step. Shin continued to watch Yuu and Rei in both wonder, and worry.

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The end.

=============={Nothing.}==============

The end has approached. Due to severe inactivity, this roleplay will be closed tomorrow. Thanks for playing.

~ An ominous atmosphere has been established. There is none of the living left ~