Anon is referring to this post!
-Neon
Staring at the little slip of paper, Momoi read the address on it for what had to be the umpteenth time that hour. According to all the signs she’d passed by and all the placards stating the building numbers, she had the right place. Her eyes scanned the dingy, decaying walls on the outside of the inn, noting that the paint had begun to peel off in large chunks that slapped against the wall with each blow of wind. The wood looked as if it were rotting, little bugs that just had to be termites crawling through crevices.
“This looks nothing like what I’d pictured,” she murmured to herself.
The lights that illuminated the porch flickered, giving an ominous glow to the already darkened area. Glancing down at the screen of her phone, Momoi checked the time; she was already a few hours late. If she was lucky, the boys would already be asleep and she could easily sneak into her own room without them being none the wiser.
The front door to the inn creaked like it hadn’t been opened in years. Judging by the dust that kicked up simply from her entering, Momoi could only guess that the place saw very little business. She found it odd that Akashi chose a place like this for their training getaway.
“Hello?” Momoi called out at the front desk, ringing the little bell that sat on the counter and listening as it echoed. “I have a reservation under Akashi?”
When, even after five minutes, nobody answered, she took it upon herself to find where the boys were staying herself. Under her breath, Momoi grumbled about what little help she was getting settling in to such a run down place, blaming its appearance and lack of life on the bad service they provided.
Her shoes clacked against the wooden floor as she walked herself up the stairs. Shoulders aching from carrying a backpack filled to the brim with all the clothes and supplies she’d need for the trip, Momoi looked forward to finally settling down into a bed. As she walked down the upstairs hall, she made note of the paintings that decorated the walls. They all seemed to be of flowers, some in bouquets and others in vases, all of them looking as if they had been painted ages ago.
So distracted by the paintings, Momoi hadn’t even realized she’d been walking through the hall for quite a while. “Geez, how big is this place?” Glancing behind her, she looked back the way she had came.
The stairwell was only a few feet behind her.
Something kin to a tingling sensation ran along her spine as she turned fully to look back toward the way she had came. That couldn’t be right. She had been walking for what had to be close to five minutes, constantly moving past paintings and making progress down the hall. Not a single floorboard had looked the same. Yet, she was only a few feet away from where she had originally began.
“Big sister, what are you doing?”
Momoi whipped around, having not expected the voice. Looking down the hall, she saw nobody in front of her; everything was just as void of life as it had been when she originally looked down the hallway. An eerie feeling overtook her and, against her better judgement, Momoi decided to hold off on finding the boys and settle herself into the nearest empty room she could find. She could deal with the inn keeper in the morning.
Luckily the first door she tried is unlocked and, upon opening it, she realized that nobody seemed to be living inside. Closing the door quickly behind her, she dumped her bag onto the floor and made her way to the window. The smell of dust is tickled her nose as she walked through the room, so shoving the window open as wide as she could get it allowed her to breath in a little more fresh air. From her room, she could see the front of the inn where she had been standing earlier.
“Great view,” she muttered sarcastically to herself, noting the gray fog that had began to settle in the air.
Moving away from the window, she sat down on the only bed in the room and puleds her legs up onto the mattress. The stress of whether or not she’d make it to the inn on time was finally taking its toll on her and, with heavy eyelids, she let sleep overcome her before she could even think about texting any of the boys her current location.
It’s a few hours later when Momoi wakes with a start, her body going rigid as her eyes snapped open and she sat up in bed. Her eyes scanned the little room she’s in, finding it strange that they hadn’t adjusted to the abnormal darkness that seemed to blanket the small space.
“Is anybody there?”
It had been laughter that woke her up; or, at least that’s what she had thought it was. The same voice that had spoken to her back in the hall had woken her up, its laughter sounding like bells tinkling in the wind. Thinking it had been only her imagination, Momoi glanced back to her open window and noted the sun just peaking out from the horizon.
“Why is it still so dark?”
Momoi stood from her bed, naked feet touching the cold flooring and causing a chill to spread throughout her body. She walked over to the window, wondering if years worth of dust was really prohibiting the sun from entering her room. Before she could closer than a foot to the window, a loud bang on her door resounded through the room and startled her. Momoi jumped as she whirled around to face her door, wide eyes taking note that it was still as closed as she had left it earlier than night.
“What are you looking at big sister?”
Her eyes snapped down to the floor, immediately going to the dark space under her bed. There, she saw two eyes, brighter than normal and absolutely shining through the darkness. A hand crept out from under the bed frame, followed by a second one only a moment later.
“I want to see, too.”
Momoi was aware of the scream before she felt it ripping through her throat. She stumbled backward as whatever was under the bed rushed out at her, scuttling around on all fours like some sort of animal. She felt the back of her head smash through the thin glass of the window and felt gravity pulling her downward as she fell backward. Whatever had been under her bed grabbed at her ankle, leaving three deep gouges in her skin before letting go completely. Momoi fell.
And then she slept.
Creepy!!!
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