Disclaimer: Eerie Queerie (Ghost!) belongs to Shuri Shiozu, Shinshokan & TOKYOPOP. Rally owns Emma Blair.
Author's Note: AAC stands for Anime Assassin Corps. It's the web personalities on the Anime Hit List, one of my alternate websites. On that site my personality is Kawaii. Here I'm just using the name as a prop, but if you'd like to know more about the AAC and the Anime Hit List click here.
Hasunuma was startled to his surroundings. There was nothing but darkness at every angle. And it was hot, searing hot. The heat pressed in, forcing the air out of his lungs.
"She's not here," the voice insisted with a bit more fervor.
"Who isn't?" Hasunuma whispered past the gagging atmosphere.
"She's supposed to be here!" This time the voice took on a tone of barely contained outrage and the temperature shot up tens of degrees.
Hasunuma took an involuntary step back before the pain crawling up his legs cemented his feet in place. "Who is?" he tried again past his fear.
"You're keeping her from me, aren't you?" The heat, fueled by rage, engulfed Hasunuma like a wool blanket wrapped around his head, choking the life out of him. He swatted at it, but it just grew tighter and tighter, until he couldn't breathe at all.
"Give her back," the voice hissed in the most terrifying tone yet.
"No!" He came awake all at once, batting at thin air and sucking in great gasps of sweet, cool air. He wiped away the sweat on his face with the sheet, almost hitting Mitsuo's dangling foot. The site of the foot, just inches from his face, strangely calmed him down a little. Hasunuma slid across the floor to lean against the far wall.
The chill of the wall pressing into his back sapped more of the burning fear out of him. Crap!, his mind cursed. Here I was, worried about Mitsuo's peace of mind and I'm the one having nightmares over a stupid ghost story. I wonder if I realize that's not like me at all? He shook his head. Now, I'm talking to myself. Great.
"Hasunuma? What's wrong?" Mitsuo had managed to sit up while Hasunuma was rambling.
"Nothing," he tried, a little too cheerfully. "Why do you ask? I didn't mean to wake you up. You really should just go back to sleep."
Mitsuo tsked, sitting up all the way and placing his feet on the carpeting of the floor. "You can't lie to me. It's four a.m., you're awake, cowering against a wall, and covered with sweat."
There had to be a good eight feet between the two of them. "First of all," Hasunuma began as reasonably as he could manage given the circumstances, "I am not cowering. I'm using the wall to hold me up. I am trembling, but that's probably due to dehydration from the aforementioned sweating and how the hell can you see all of that from there?"
Mitsuo slowly walked toward him, pointed at the floor and then dropped to his knees next to his friend. "You're also sitting within a patch of light from the windows. The only patch of light." Hasunuma checked. He was. "So, I want to know what's wrong."
When did Mitsuo get so observant? Normally, a Mack truck could practically run him over and he wouldn't notice. "I told you it was nothing." Hasunuma couldn't tell him that he was afraid of the Big Bad Nightmare. He wasn't a child, to be shivering, terrified of the dark. Movement attracted his attention to the border between the light and the darkness. It was breathing. How the hell could shadows breathe? Each breath grew in strength, rhythmically squeezing the light out, letting the dark in. A macabre heartbeat of anti-light.
"...numa?"
Beat, beat, beat... The borders were closing in.
"Hasunuma?"
Beat, beat, beat...
"Mitsuo?" Hasunuma asked. Mitsuo nodded. Hasunuma latched onto Mitsuo's wrists and pushed the smaller boy away. "Get out! There's something here!"
Mitsuo just managed to regain his footing before plummeting to the floor. He took a moment to sense the room around him. It was completely devoid of any spiritual power, as it had been since they'd arrived in the States.
"What are you still doing here?!" The panic in Hasunuma's voice only accentuated the crazed look in his eyes.
Mitsuo switched tactics again. He flipped on the overhead light and turned back to his friend. "Hasunuma, you have to calm down. There's nothing here."
"But-"
Mitsuo had to maintain his own calm. "Don't you think I'd know if there were?"
"But-"
"But what?" Mitsuo asked quietly.
Hasunuma froze for a few seconds and then shook his head. "What happened Mitsuo? What are you doing on the floor?"
Mitsuo leaned back in relief. "You tell me what happened. You were freaking out."
"I was?"