I was really certain that whoever, or whatever, was lurking outside was going to come and kill me. I had sensed it following me all the way from school, and as the sky turned yellow while everything else turned dark, it had yet to leave.
But even though its feelings of wanting to kill made me sick to my stomach, literally, and made my legs jelly-like, I couldn’t just lie down and do nothing.
Fighting against the crushing weight the monster's killing intent had on my shoulders, I slowly sat up from the floor and went to lock every door and window in the house. I also turned on all the lights and the TV in both the living room and my parents' bedroom, setting the volume to high. I hoped that would trick the monster to think that I wasn't alone in the house and make him go away.
When I was done with my set up, I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and went to my parents' room. I huddled inside their walk-in closet and closed the door. After that, I predialed 110 on my phone and set it beside a shoebox full of trading cards that my dad's saved since he was a kid. Using the vent-like gaps in the door, I peeked outside while keeping a firm grip on the knife's smooth wood handle.
Thanks to the TV playing the news in my parents' bedroom, I could more or less keep track of the time. I've been hiding in the closet for hours. My stomach growled from hunger, but I dared not go outside. Not even for a light snack. I could still feel the monster's presence outside.
My patience and my endurance were stretched, and my mental state eventually reached its breaking point.
"Why here?" I whined softly. "Why me? Why? Why? Why?"
Just go away, I silently pleaded. Just go away and never come back.
Of course, the monster didn't hear me. Nor would my pleas be answered by a higher power. The monster stuck around, his thirst for blood as strong as it was in the afternoon. Actually, it was getting stronger and that scared me because like me, it was reaching its limits.
And then it started.
I heard a loud crash of glass breaking come from downstairs, which shocked my heart and electrified my nerves. There was no mistaking an intruder breaking into my house through the window. The monster was here.
I quickly pressed the call button on my phone, but the call wouldn’t go through. The reason, I saw, was there was no signal.
“How!?” I wanted to scream. This had never happened before. It shouldn’t have happened. This phone was top of the line, as was the network plan my old man helped sign me up for. But there was no use complaining, I needed to call the police.
There was a wireless landline phone by my parents’ bed. If I could just grab that, I could call for help. But I couldn’t get to it. The monster had already reached the second floor. I could hear it kicking the doors one by one with only a few seconds pause between each bang.
It wasn’t long until my parents’ bedroom was next. With one swift kick, the door flew open and in walked a man dressed from head to toe in black, wearing an unmarked motorcycle helmet with a darkened visor that completely hid his face. In his hand was a long pipe that he let drag across the floor. The pipe was a dead giveaway of his identity.
He was the Piper, and he had come for his next kill, me.
*****
Hisao
*****
It was past midnight when I was awoken by my phone vibrating. I left lying next to me on the bed after some last minute grinding on a game.
With a groan. I opened my eyes and squint against the bright light coming from the phone’s touch screen. After rubbing sleep, tears and crust from my eyes, I grabbed the phone and swiped my finger over the green icon.
“What is it, Mirai?” I asked sourly. His name was on the caller I.D. I didn’t appreciate being woken up so late at night.
“GET UP!” Mirai shouted. “HURYY UP AND GET!”
My drowsiness was instantly blown away, and I was startled.
“What?” I accidentally asked loudly. I quickly clapped my hand over my mouth and glanced at the door.
“JUST HURRY UP AND GET UP!” Mirai screamed. I had never heard him scream like that before, and it kind of scared me.
“C-calm down,” I stammered. “What’s wrong?”
“DAMN IT, OOTA! IT’S THE PIPER! HE’S GOING TO KILL HOMURA!”
Saying that I was stunned and puzzled would be an understatement. I was struck frozen in shock. But then Mirai started sobbing.
“Please, Oota,” he begged. “Please save Homura. She’s going to die. Please!”
“Die? Omoyo is?”
A horrible image in my mind resurfaced of the man we all saw in the river. Omoyo suddenly replaced the man and I leaped out of bed. I threw open my closet door, grabbed the wood sword leaning against the wall inside it and then raced out of my room. After hurrying down the stairs and reaching the front door, I slipped on a pair of black flipflop slippers laid out on the floor and rushed out. I paused only to lock the door before departing.
*****
Yuna
*****
I had heard my cousin’s voice from next door through the wall and opened the door just as he ran by. I stood at the top of the stairs with light spilling out of my room and watched him as he ran out of the house. After he was gone, I heard a door open behind me and turned around to see my uncle, Hisao’s dad, poking his head out of his and Auntie’s bedroom.
“What was that?” he asked.
In response, I typed “Restroom” into my phone and showed it to him.
*****
Omoyo
*****
I watched, quivering from head to toe while biting my lower lip to keep from squealing. The Piper turned his head from left to right. He ignored the TV playing the news and walked over to the bed. After taking a quick peek beneath it, he straightened up and slowly approached the closet.
I held the knife in front of me tightly in my sweating palms as he reached for the handles. I was poised to thrust the kitchen utensil into his gut the moment he opened the closet. But when he did open the door and I did lunge forward, he jumped out of the way and I fell onto the bed.
I turned around just as the Piper lifted his pipe over his head. He swung it down, but I rolled away before it could hit me and scrambled out of the room. After tumbling down the stairs, I ran out of the house and screamed as loud as I could. My long shriek should have been loud enough to wake the entire town. But no matter how much I screamed and shouted, no one seemed to hear me. No matter how loud I shrieked, the lights in people’s houses remained dark. No matter how much I begged for help, no one peeked out their window or looked outside to see what was going on. It was as if I was the only one left in the entire world, except for the Piper who casually emerged from the house like he was going on a leisurely stroll.
He stopped just before the front gate and stared at me. I stared back. We both had a weapon in our hands, me and my knife, and him and his pipe.
I wanted to fight back. I wanted to end his reign of terror once and for all. But I knew that I would be no match against him in a fight. Normally, I could handle my own in a fight, having learned self-defense alongside Toshiro and Aika. But I was in no shape to put up much resistance thanks to the Piper’s killing intent which continued to nauseate me.
So I ran. I ran, and I ran, and I ran. I ran left, and then I ran right. I ran barefoot over rough concrete, ignoring pebbles jabbing into my feet while screaming for help. I screamed for someone, anyone to wake up and call the police. But like my neighbors, none of the houses I passed woke up or heed my pleas.
Why? I asked myself. Why won’t anyone come out? Why won’t anyone notice me?
I continued to run, making my way to the shopping district, the nearest place I knew to have a police box. But I never made it, not even close.
Halfway through another street of residences, I felt a sharp force hit my back, which made me lose balance and fall. As I hit the ground, I could hear the musical clatter of metal, and I realized that the Piper, tired of the chase, had thrown his pipe at me and struck me in the back.
Although he was unarmed, so was I. When I had fallen, the knife had slipped out of my grip and slid several feet away. I tried to scramble for the knife, but the Piper was faster and he ran right over me, stepping on my back two times before jumping onto the knife. He kicked it with his heel and let it slide further away before walking towards me.
Not sure what to do, I looked around and spotted the discarded pipe, just lying at the side of the road and I scrambled to grab it. But before I could reach it, something hit my shoulder and knocked me aside.
“Ow!” I cried out.
It felt as if someone had kicked a soccer ball at me, but I wasn’t sure what it really was. Not until I looked up, that is, and saw the space around the Piper’s outstretched hand was blurry.
Psychokinesis. This guy had psychic powers that were just like Oota’s.
That explains it, I thought. I looked around a bit more carefully and noticed the same blurriness around the Piper's hand covering the houses that surrounded us. No wonder no one came out after all that screaming. My voice never reached anyone. It couldn't with that wall of psychic energy in the way.
The Piper’s shoulders heaved up and down.
“Man,” came a muffled voice from beneath that helmet. “I haven’t had this much trouble in a while. You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?”
I didn’t say anything and slowly edged away. A loud pop next to my hand startled me and I shrieked.
“Sorry,” said the Piper, chuckling. “I want to drag this out a bit longer, I really do, but I got a meeting to get to tomorrow. So I’m going to end this now. When you get to the other side, be sure to say ‘hi’ to the others for me.”
A wave of psychic energy pinned me to the ground. As much as I tried, I couldn’t break free.
The Piper picked up his pipe and walked over to me, gently bumping the murder weapon against his shoulder as he loomed over me, probably leering at me through that impenetrably black visor. His back was to a street light, which cast a shadow over his front and made it completely dark. Unable to move I could only watch him and imagine the kind of disgusting smile he had on his face as he got ready to kill me.
He slowly raised the pipe over his head and then swung it down.
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