Editing Ghost Hunt:Volume4 Chapter2 (section)

=== 4 ===

In the school where lessons continued as though nothing had happened, everyone set out.

I was the only one who stayed in the Meeting Room. To be left alone was a little lonely, and perhaps a little scary; somehow I could not calm down. Quietly fuming, I organized the reports we collected the day before.

The strange stories and their locations. The contents of eye-witness reports. I used a very large cardboard and sorted them by type, and could not help yawning.

Ah… that won’t do. I’m sleepy. Last night I stayed up so late, and also did physically demanding work. And now I’m so bored… I must not sleep. I have to be more stimulated. If I was to be caught napping by Naru, I wouldn’t know what he’d say.

I was struck with a strong bout of sleepiness.

For no reason, my throat felt very dry. I craved for a cold drink.

I recalled there was a vending machine at the end of the building…

I stood up and walked to the corridor.

I gazed blankly at my surroundings. 

The corridor was wide and empty. Was it because I was spacing out, or because the sky was darkening, the vision in front of me was a strange and flat scene. Weak sunlight permeated the windows at the side of the corridor. The far end of the corridor was shrouded in mysterious darkness. It was covered by a dull black color; it looked like only there, dusk had already fallen. In the midst of the darkness, there was something white moving.

“… …?”

The white was the face. Only the face was visible as he wore black colored clothes.

What the… it was actually Naru. Don’t scare me like that.

Naru walked slowly towards me. As though in sync with his footsteps, the corridor gradually darkened. In the opaque blackness, only Naru’s silhouette could be seen clearly.

“What’s up?”

Did anything happen?

Naru smiled. A slight smile. Then the smile immediately tensed.

“This place is very dangerous… Mai, you’d better not remain here.”

“How can it be?”

“It’s true. There are spirits floating all around here.”

“Are there that many?”

I recalled the previous night’s dream: spirits blanketing the school like snow.

“Yes. Although everyone is conducting exorcisms, there is practically no effect.” He said, frowning slightly. Then, “Look.”

He extended his pale fingers and pointed to the floor. Following his fingers, I looked at the pitch black floor.

“Ai…?”

When I regained my focus, I found that the floor had turned transparent.

Beside my foot, it was like white lines had been drawn on the black floor, like the square outline of ceramic tiles. Beneath that, through the transparent floor, the second floor’s corridor was visible. There, too, was shrouded in darkness. The floor there was also transparent, and I could see the first floor corridor beneath it. 

“Ai?!”

I nearly fell down on my bottom. It felt like being suspended high in the air. If it wasn’t for Naru’s hand holding me, I might have plummeted straight down. 

“It’s nothing, calm down a little.”

“What has it changed into now?”

I scanned my surroundings. The sky was black. The school which was originally grey was now black. Contrastingly, the things that were originally black had changed into white - the windows of the next school building, the trees that were bare due to winter. 

The floor and the walls everywhere had turned transparent. Just like the negatives of photographs stacked together. The only people remaining in this negative world were Naru and I.

“Hey, this is…”

Naru interrupted my speech.

“Look closely. There are a lot of spirits hovering.”

I looked beside my foot. A dark, empty space. The lines of the floor, the lines of the walls, and the outlines of the buildings – only these were white. Like it was drawn with white on black paper – a transparent school compound. Beneath my feet it was transparent - the second floor, first floor, corridors, classrooms. 

Over there, floated translucent objects that gave off a wan glow. They looked just like spirits illustrated in books with their white tails, and moved like they were flowing. 10, 20… they were countless. In the second floor right in front of me, there were 8 of them. 

“So many… Are they all spirits?”

“That’s right. Look…”

Naru raised his hand and pointed towards the window. Opposite the white outline that remained of the wall was the building containing the Gymnasium. The Gymnasium, too, had turned transparent leaving only a white outline. 

At the front of the Gymnasium was a small room. That was the Locker Room. There were 2 figures inside. It was Masako and Ayako.

Masako approached a huge spirit next to some storage shelves and stopped. That spirit looked larger and blacker than the other spirits. 

Masako pointed at that spirit, and Ayako started brandishing her jade rosary. The pale black spirit floated weightlessly to escape, and floated out of the window. Neither Masako nor Ayako noticed any of these.

“How could that be?”

“It escaped. It escaped to somewhere else… look.”

The escaped spirit continued flying, and escaped to the East Block we were currently in. It floated to a small room at the end of the second floor, and closed in on a white spirit straying in a corner. That was the Broadcast Room…

The large black spirit and the smaller, rounder white spirit circled each other. Their tails became intertwined. Soon, the smaller spirit was engulfed by the larger one. It felt like the larger spirit grew a little larger, and a little blacker.

“How disgusting…”

“Yeah. It’s a really nasty sight: spirits devouring other spirits. That’s why I said… this place is very dangerous.”

“But…”

“Just like that they grow… then…”

Naru’s fingers descended as he pointed beneath his feet. Through the transparent floor, I looked at the room in the first floor. There were spirits in that room too. While I called them spirits, perhaps they are more suitably called will-o’-the-wisps. Quite a distance from my feet, was a darkening, swamp-like patch of an ominous color.  And it was immense. It was like a huge pit had opened in the center of the room.

“That is evil… do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Looking at the color alone would make your skin crawl. It had an extremely evil will.

I stared, unmoving, at the clump of black. The white spirits floating around the school – some of them went beside the black will-o’-the-wisp. The will-o’-the-wisp pulsated rhythmically like a heart. The burning flames stretched out, ensnaring the smaller spirits, engulfing them. It was just like a carnivorous plant trapping weaker insects and devouring them.

“You had better go back.” Naru said to me.

“But, I’m unable to do it, to return by myself.”

Naru looked at me worriedly.

“Then you need someone to teach you to reverse the spell.”

“Is someone like me capable of doing it?”

“If it is a weaker person… you have to be more cautious, and not go near to dangerous places.”

“Okay.”

I looked about my feet. The never-ending strange scenery. Black, large will-o’-the-wisps were dangerous. I confirmed its locations. In the first floor of this building there were 2. In the East Block there were 5. The South Block had 4. When I was looking at these, the area beside my feet grew dimmer. The previously visible scenery beneath gradually grew fainter, color returned to the ground beneath me. Slowly the floor came back into sight. 

“… …?”

The floor. Brown colored plastic tiles. There was flooring everywhere.

“Mai!”

Ah!

I raised my head and saw Naru. He looked severe.

“If you are tired go and sleep. Your stumbling is a hinderance.”

“How fierce you are, all of a sudden.<!-- きついんだね、急に-->”

“… …? Are you awake?”

He looked at me suspiciously. Am I awake? I definitely am…

Ha-

I looked around me.

The meeting room. The long table. The messed up pile of papers in front of me. The floor plans of the school stuck on the white board. And in the doorway was Naru, staring at me. 

… … … …

“I’m sorry. I was spacing out over here.”

Crap… I’m in trouble.

“How is the organizing going?”

“Not done yet.”

“Has there been any communication from the others?”

“I think there should not have been any.”

“You think?”

Naru looked at me coldly.

“Are you trying to help us? Or are you trying to get in our way?”

This… this fellow – 

But for me, the lazy investigator who was caught napping, there was no possible reply.