The inside of the building was gloomy, to say the least. Much darker than it should have been, or at least that was what Kai thought. He was still standing at the entrance, motionless, his phone flashlight pointing at nothing in particular. Maybe, just maybe, he didn't dare take the first step.
It wasn't that there was anything specific holding him back. They wouldn't even be the first ones to come in—the graffiti on the walls confirmed that. But there was something in the air… something strange that made his skin crawl. It was damp and thick, yet at the same time parched, as if every breath stripped a little life out of him. He could feel it even through the mask.
He finally took a couple of cautious steps forward, venturing into the dimness. The light cut through the darkness, revealing several shapes within it: walls with peeling paint, loose creaking floorboards, rotting furniture that looked ready to collapse, dead lightbulbs hanging like hanged bodies. Even some plants had claimed their space, growing freely from impossible cracks.
The faint breeze from outside, filtering through holes and broken windows, had turned into an unpleasant draft that kicked up dust and stale smells, seeping into everything. Even with his mask on, Kai felt a burning itch in his nose.
He turned toward the entrance and raised his hand to call his friends over. They were watching from the doorway, more hesitant than eager to follow.
"What's wrong? Scared to come in? It's so nice in here… Come on, I'll give you a free tour of my mansion."
He swept the flashlight toward a corner, illuminating two weeds and a vine wrapping itself around a rusty coat rack.
"Look, these are my favorite flowers. I tend to them with great care."
Ignoring Kai's attempt at a joke, Shun was the first to step inside. His steps were slow and unhurried as he kept an indifferent expression. Or so it seemed… because Kai knew Shun was hiding his excitement for some reason. Was it because of Kanon? He doubted it.
Suddenly Kai realized something: he hadn't talked to Kanon about the sky for even a moment—he'd almost completely forgotten about it.
'There'll be time for that later.' He shrugged it off.
The next to cross the threshold was Kanon, with an almost childlike gleam in her eyes. Every detail—the graffiti, the shadows, the dust suspended in the air—seemed to fascinate her. Gon and Matt followed, though they took a couple of extra seconds at the door, as if the darkness were inviting them to turn back.
Once inside, they fell into a strange formation: one on each side of Kanon, pointing their flashlights in opposite directions as if they were her bodyguards.
Kai crossed his arms and watched them for a moment. He couldn't help but notice the 'personal defense items' his friends had brought along: Gon was wielding a pocket knife like his own; Matt had pulled a baseball bat out of his backpack; and somehow, through means unknown, Shun was carrying a collapsible baton—the kind used by cops, or by gangsters in low-budget movies.
Kai shook his head with a smile and moved ahead down a hallway that led to a staircase. As he passed by a half-open door, he took a quick look inside: the remains of a bathroom reduced to broken tiles, damp stains and moss growing shamelessly.
The staircase, for its part, looked like a death trap: rotting wood, half-collapsed steps and mold devouring whatever was left standing. Some steps didn't even exist anymore.
"Thanks, but I think I'll pass," he muttered to himself.
He headed back to the first room to find that his fellow explorers had barely moved. They were just poking around with their flashlights while keeping one eye on the exit, as if they expected a ghost to jump out at them any second.
'Since when am I the one leading the charge?' Kai thought with a sigh, though deep down he didn't really mind.
He kept checking other rooms, even found a relatively safe way up to the floor above—a hole in the ceiling he could reach by climbing a couple of rotting wardrobes. Nothing that would guarantee you'd come out unscathed, but still better than the stairs. Unfortunately, there was nothing interesting up there, nothing he hadn't already seen below. Just dust, rotting wood and a disappointing ordinariness.
He sighed once more.
"Not even a single measly ghost, or a portal…"
When he rejoined the others, he was surprised to find that they had actually been exploring too, even if they hadn't covered as much ground as he had. In a mock-servile tone, he addressed Kanon:
"My lady, how is your escort treating you? Are these men doing their duty, or shall I send them packing?"
Kanon blinked, caught off guard. She hadn't expected Kai to be the one to start the bit this time, but she played along immediately.
"I don't think that'll be necessary. Right now I couldn't ask for a better guard… unless you'd like to join us."
Kai responded with a soft, condescending laugh.
"Oh, I don't think that'll be necessary, my lady. If I had to, those three wouldn't be needed… but I suppose they can fulfill their role, can't they?" His tone dripped with playful arrogance as he glanced at Shun.
Shun returned a confused look, clearly wondering if he was now supposed to be part of the scene, with absolutely no idea what to say. He cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Uh… right… yes, sir!"
Kai gave an almost paternal nod before bringing the bit to a close.
"Good. Setting that aside… what did you find? I went up to the floor above but didn't see anything much different from down here."
The others looked at him for a moment, thrown off by the sudden death of the roleplay. Kanon, however, matched his pace without missing a beat.
"Honestly, not much more than dust and a couple of spiders. Pretty disappointing."
"That's… kinda sad."
Kai swept the room with his gaze, as if reluctant to leave the place with such a flat impression. And even if it was something he'd find a little embarrassing because it seemed childish, an idea crossed his mind.
"We could make it our base…" he murmured, barely above a whisper. Or so he thought.
Apparently he hadn't been as quiet as he'd assumed. Shun's voice pulled him out of his own head: "Works for me."
Kai looked up, surprised. It took him a moment to process that he'd said it out loud. By the time he could react, Kanon was already nodding enthusiastically.
"That would be amazing! It could be like our secret hideout."
"Fine by me." Gon shrugged in his usual passive tone.
Matt, on the other hand, frowned.
"I'd say no, but I get the feeling that if it's just one vote you're all going to ignore me anyway, right?"
"Absolutely," Kai replied instantly, without a moment of hesitation.
"You don't even consider it…" Matt huffed, resigned.
Kai brought a hand to his chin as he looked back down at the dust and debris-covered floor.
"What a pain though, right? We'd have to clean all of this up…"
Gon shot him a look somewhere between amused and exasperated.
"Dude, you're the one who suggested it. You can't bail on your own idea."
'Fair enough… but you weren't supposed to hear that in the first place.'
Though, being honest with himself, even if it had been unconscious, he'd said it out loud because deep down he liked the idea. He just really, really didn't want to picture himself cleaning.
"Well… we can sit down and talk it over, can't we? That way we can also go over some other things we've been putting off." He shrugged. "I found a room that doesn't have as much dust, and a surprisingly clean rug."
After a few seconds of hesitation, everyone ended up following him. The group eventually settled into a sort of circle on the strangely clean rug. It was black with an intricate pattern, though it was hard to make out since the pattern was also black.
Kai cleared his throat, trying to adopt a solemn air.
"Right, as I said, the base isn't the only thing we're here to discuss. There are still a few unresolved mysteries: the sky splitting open, what the hell you were all doing that you didn't see it, and who Kanon is." Kai shifted his position. "Shun and Matt, you two seem to know her place at high school."
At the sound of her name, Kanon let out a soft laugh, but something different flickered in her eyes. Her usual spark faded from her tone.
"I'd rather not talk about that… About high school, I mean."
Kai paused for a moment, studying her expression.
'What's going on with her? That tone… it sounds too… I don't know what it sounds like, but it's strange.'
Not wanting to make the moment any more uncomfortable, he cleared his throat again and changed the subject with clumsy theatricality.
"Alright, subject closed. Moving on."
He closed his eyes for a moment as if bracing himself and then, suddenly, shot his arm out pointing at Gon with a dramatic, accusatory gesture straight out of some lawyer video game—a clumsy attempt to completely reset the atmosphere.
"You! What were you doing before you got to the plaza?"
While waiting for his friend's answer, Kai leaned back, forgetting for a moment where he was. The harsh creak of a rotting wardrobe he brushed against made him sit up sharply. A hinge hung loose, letting out a sharp squeal that turned his stomach.
Of the three people he could have asked, he'd probably picked the only one whose answer he could already guess—but that gave him some free time to think. He was thinking about Kanon's reaction a moment ago.
Thinking about it, he didn't even really know her. He only knew what he'd seen that afternoon. He had no idea what she was like at school, with her friends, let alone at home.
"—and basically I was asleep until until it was almost time."
Kai glanced discreetly around, realizing he'd missed the answer—but he didn't really need it. Gon lived right by the plaza and didn't need any time to get there; it wasn't hard to guess he hadn't been paying particular attention to the sky.
"So, asleep… that means I can't even know if you heard the screech."
The others looked at him, puzzled. Kai sighed once more.
"Before the sky split open, I heard a metallic screech. Really unpleasant. Like the air itself was being torn apart."
Matt frowned, but his voice sounded less certain than usual:
"Is that what the questions were about? Are you seriously still on about this?"
"Of course I am. Why don't you believe me, even when Kanon saw it too? Why else would you think I'd ask?"
"Because you care about your friends and were curious about what they'd been up to?"
Kai didn't respond for a moment, just stared at him blankly. A couple of seconds later he crossed his arms the same way his legs were already crossed.
"And what were you doing at the time?"
Matt readjusted his legs and sighed before answering.
"I was on the subway—I wasn't going to walk, I did legs at the gym yesterday and I knew you'd want to walk to the building."
As he answered he was shifting around and looking about, clearly uncomfortable sitting where he was. Beside him, Shun was playing with his baton and Gon was looking at something on his phone; Kanon was searching for something in her bag.
"And before you ask—I didn't hear anything unusual. Headphones in, just normal subway noise. Maybe a screech from a sudden brake, but nothing out of the ordinary."
Kai nodded.
"Right, and you, Shun?"
Kai shifted, adjusting his position. For the past few minutes something had been making him uncomfortable but he couldn't quite put his finger on what.
"I took the subway."
He answered flatly.
Kai felt a chill run down his spine.
"And you didn't hear a metallic screech?"
Shun retracted his baton.
"I did, but I think it was the train braking. It jolted pretty hard."
Kai nodded.
"Right, right—that leaves me exactly where I started. You were all in the perfect situation to miss it."
Kai gripped his own arms—his hair had stood on end. Something about this place didn't feel right. Not like before; now it felt like… He didn't know how to put it in words, but it was far from comfortable. The closest feeling he could think of was watching a horror movie and knowing the main character was heading straight toward the killer's hiding spot.
"Guys, isn't it… this might sound a little strange, but—don't you feel like you're being watched?" Kanon asked, glancing around uneasily.
Shun pointed behind him.
"Probably that."
Behind him was a graffiti of a pair of eyes in a quite distinctive, almost captivating style.
'Wait, has that been there the whole time? I don't remember that graffiti.'
Everyone laughed softly at the little joke, though the laughter sounded forced. As if none of them wanted to admit they were nervous.
Kai, however, went rigid. His smile vanished instantly when, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the graffiti blink.
'No way.'
He swallowed. His hands gripped his own arms as if he could stop the chill running down his spine.
'Absolutely. No way.'
When Kai went to speak, his own throat seemed to be working against him—the words wouldn't come out.
The room had fallen completely silent a moment later. Moonlight suddenly poured in through the window, bathing the furniture as if it didn't care that it hadn't shown up sooner. Kai felt one last shiver, but this one seemed to be shared by everyone.
Barely an instant later, shattering the dead silence, a metallic sound invaded their ears—though it was worse than the one Kai remembered. The sound, just like the previous one, seemed to come from inside his head. He brought his hands to his ears and hunched over, waiting for it to pass.
When the noise stopped he lifted his head, and could see that the graffiti of the eyes was gone—not that it mattered.
Of course it didn't matter, because a mysterious, blurred figure had appeared among them. It was humanoid, but that only made it harder to look at without feeling a deep sense of revulsion. It had an aura around it—not literally, but the air felt heavier and colder, yet somehow more… receptive. What did that even mean? Receptive air?
No, it wasn't the air—it was more like… like everything around the figure was part of it. Of course the air no longer felt like air, because it no longer was. Then an unknown yet disturbingly familiar voice resonated around the figure and inside Kai's head at the same time.
"Gathering without me? Despite being my lucky chosen ones... I know I'm a bit late, but I'm hurt."
'Chosen ones? What on earth is it talking about?'
Less than a second later reality seemed to corrupt. Everything went haywire.
Foreign sounds and smells flooded the room; opposite concepts—heat and cold—embraced instead of repelling each other, and everything around Kai and his friends stretched, contracted, shrank, changed shape. Everything was seen from every angle at once, from inside and outside, everything everywhere all at once.
Objects rewound through time, objects fast-forwarded through time. It was no longer even clear why, because everything was happening simultaneously—time was no longer an absolute law.
Kai couldn't even scream. It was as if his own body no longer belonged to him; he couldn't do anything, and his senses were going dark one by one.
He could barely think straight, had no idea what to do, couldn't even think about whether his friends were seeing all of this too.
His vision was blurring and everything kept getting darker. He thought he could make out his friends, thought he could make out that they were trying to resist, thought he could see the entity wandering around the room looking at the furniture—but he wasn't sure of anything.
The last thing he could barely make out before his vision went completely dark was the rug, or at least that's what it seemed like.
After that… only black. Only nothing. Only an absolute void. No sight. No feeling. No sound. Every single one of his senses, gone.