Fic prologue, maybe...?
Fic bunny from ningen_demonai. Sorta. And I'm also watching a certain gameplay now and then courtesy of stridingsky. I... honestly don't think I do this type of genre much justice but uh.
"Hideo!"
Gasping, Naruse bolts up. After taking in his surroundings, he spends the next few minutes staring into the darkness of his bedroom, heart pounding.
The same dream again.
At first, it started with Hideo dying. Dying with his hand reaching out, begging for his brother to save him. Begging for justice. After a few days, the dream began to change. Hideo was still in it, but this time, he was alive. Alive and silent.
Naruse doesn't know what's worse: watching his beloved brother, with an ugly blotch of red spreading across his white school shirt, die again and again... or watching his brother walk away without a word, as if he had nothing left to say.
With a sigh, he wrenches the sheets off and pads out of the room. Sleep is likely to be a futile attempt at this point, so there are better things to do than dwelling over nightmares - especially when the nightmares seem to be telling him to move faster with his plans.
Entering the dark room, he raises his head to gaze at the wall ahead.
Slowly, his eyes widen.
On a photograph he has of the man who murdered his brother stands Hideo himself, full and rosy-cheeked, looking exactly the same way he did before his death. His expression reflects disappointment; his eyes, accusing. But he isn't looking at Serizawa. No, his eyes are angled towards the camera.
Towards Naruse.
He doesn't believe in the paranormal. As it stands, his mind is already haunted with demons from the past. Coming face to face with one of those demons, however, is a different matter altogether. Dropping all pretense of composure, Naruse flees.
The next day, Hideo is gone.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
His secretaries express concern. The chief tells him to get some rest; something about dark circles under his eyes and the way he shuffles in and out of the office like the walking dead. The assistant simply sets down a cup of English tea before him, her face speaking volumes.
Naruse just smiles, mentions bad dreams, and continues working.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
This time, a manor looms before him in the falling snow.
Naruse frowns. Structurally, the manor looks ancient. The stone paths and lights leading up to the front doors betray an early time period, far earlier than the present era. Why could he possibly be dreaming about an old manor he has never seen before in his life? Peculiar as well, that it's appearing in this quiet, snowy background, almost like an untouched painting. He has paintings in his office, of course, but none quite like this.
Straightening his jacket -- odd, again, that the dream bestowed him his best suit -- he turns to leave. The whole thing is ridiculous; there's no sense in entering some strange manor, dream or not. When he wakes up, he's going to have to find out how to attain dreamless sleep.
Something, a person, flashes across his vision.
Naruse's heart jolts.
"Hideo...?"
The back of the boy now running a few yards away certainly matches his brother's. He's seen that back enough times to pick it out from a crowd. Logically, he knows it's impossible - his brother's dead. It felt like hours before his mother finally stopped wailing over the pale, unmoving body.
But, this is a dream. And maybe, just maybe, his brother's trying to leave him a message through the realm of sleep.
Ahead, the boy slips through the front doors. Suddenly galvanized by the decision to go after the kid, Naruse leaves heavy footprints in the snow as he dashes forward to follow the figure into the manor.
They enter an empty foyer, dark, with nothing but the moonlight to guide the way. Naruse's eyes take a while to adjust to the darkness, so he's forced to slow down, the floorboards creaking in mild protest with each careful step. He can hear the rhythmic sounds of the running boy start to fade into the distance. "Hideo, wait!" he calls out, inwardly cursing his subconscious for not providing a flashlight. But soon, the noisy thuds of footsteps vanish, leaving nothing but silence in its wake.
With a sigh, Naruse sheds his jacket and drops it near the doors. It's strangely warm in the manor despite the cold season. Hands close to his sides, he starts to move further into a hallway. After all, he might as well explore, now that he has entered the building. Hideo may have left clues behind as well.
The first door he tries swings open with a groan of old wood. The area looks like a graveyard, with burial mounds lining the ground. Ignoring the chill sliding down his spine, he walks briskly into an open room in the back.
This manor is far too vivid, Naruse thinks, too well-mapped for a normal dream. Every part of the rooms he enters seem real and detailed, right down to the chest of drawers in a corner, or the clothes hanging in a wardrobe, yellow with age. Is this, perhaps, the house the dead pass through after their time? Does Hideo want him to see with his own eyes the path his poor brother walked to get to the other side?
As if in answer to his questions, the white figure of a boy drifts into a door to the right.
"Hideo!" Breaking into a run, Naruse lunges forward and nearly rips the door off its hinges in his haste.
It's a corridor, more well-lit than the rest of the house, with light flooding through an open hole in the roof. Pristine flakes of snow fall through the crack, adding to the growing wet stain on the floor below. Naruse takes in the scene with one glance, then he's after the figure in front of him again, pleading the boy to stop a second time.
It's only when the silhouette turns to face him does he realize his mistake.
Unlike the distinct shape of Hideo, this one is blurry, taller, with shoulders broad enough to compliment a wrestler. The clothes are odd too, looking, if Naruse recalls his history lessons at all, like the old uniform of a carpenter. And in the place of eyes lay sunken holes; below, its mouth wide open in a perpetual scream. But it's not the appearance that causes Naruse to lurch backwards, scrambling away in horror.
It's the blood-stained axe raised above his head.
"More sacrifices!" the thing shrieks.
In a swift move propelled by nothing more than pure survival instinct, Naruse dives to the side. He feels the breeze of the weapon a hair's breath away, before he hears the sickening crunch of its blade making contact with the floorboards. This thing wants him dead. More importantly, this thing can kill him dead. Rising to his feet, Naruse makes a short dash for the door on the opposite end of the corridor. Behind him, the ghost lets out an anguished moan. Naruse keeps going, determined not to look back - one look can cost his life.
He only remembers reading somewhere then, when something begins to take shape before the door, that ghosts can filter through planes at will.
Without waiting for the figure to gain form, Naruse spins, throwing himself out of the way. It turns out to be the right choice as again, floorboards are crushed in his place. He doesn't stop to think; already, he's up on his feet, sprinting for the door he had gone through minutes before. The last hiss he hears as the door shuts behind him is filled with bitter rage.
Once a safe distance away, he drops to his knees and hurls.
A few ragged breaths later, Naruse starts to laugh. If Serizawa could see him now - a shaking mess, afraid of some hallucination! Still, he can't deny it, this place is too real. The ghosts are too real. And if anything, it looks like Hideo had led him towards that-- whatever that thing was. Naruse grits his teeth. No, not Hideo. Hideo had a kind, gentle soul, and the real Hideo would never cause his own brother's death, no matter how displeased he may be. It can't be Hideo. Someone in the real world must have given him a formula designed to drive him to the brink of madness. The journalist maybe, there's no telling what the bastard can pull.
When he wakes up, there will be hell to pay.
Vengeance clearing his mind, he gets up and retraces his steps back to the foyer. Occam's razor states that the simplest explanation should be used for any phenomenon. Likewise, perhaps the easiest method to leave this cursed dream is to simply leave the manor. Or so he thought.
When a woman burst through a wall to the left, her upper torso naked and exposed, he's too stunned to react.
So instead, Naruse freezes, a scream dying in his throat as cold hands wrap round his neck. There's a glimpse of snakes writhing on hollies, before the grip tightens unmercifully, and his vision fades. In the fringes of his mind, someone weeps.
"I don't want to see... anymore..."
Gasping, Naruse bolts up. After taking in his surroundings, he spends the next few minutes staring into the darkness of his bedroom, heart pounding.
That was not the same dream.
First the ghostly carpenter, then the woman in the foyer... they were all out for his blood. And, the woman had almost--
His hands fly up to his neck. He feels no pain, no welts from the nails he had digging into his skin, nothing but a phantom sensation of pressing fingers. Closing his eyes, Naruse releases the breath he's holding. At the very least, the dream remains a dream.
Now calm, he wrenches off the sheets and pads out of the room for a drink of water. His throat feels oddly dry. As he passes the hanging mirror in the living room, he absently watches his reflection move with him across the surface.
Then, something catches his eye.
Slowly, slowly, Naruse moves closer to the mirror. He looks nothing like the angelic lawyer the public adores, with his disheveled hair and crumpled T-shirt. But it's not his appearance that he finds amiss.
With trembling fingers, he lightly brushes at a fresh tattoo on his neck with morbid fascination, the pattern burning against his skin like a horrible bruise.
A pattern of snakes and hollies.
"Hideo!"
Gasping, Naruse bolts up. After taking in his surroundings, he spends the next few minutes staring into the darkness of his bedroom, heart pounding.
The same dream again.
At first, it started with Hideo dying. Dying with his hand reaching out, begging for his brother to save him. Begging for justice. After a few days, the dream began to change. Hideo was still in it, but this time, he was alive. Alive and silent.
Naruse doesn't know what's worse: watching his beloved brother, with an ugly blotch of red spreading across his white school shirt, die again and again... or watching his brother walk away without a word, as if he had nothing left to say.
With a sigh, he wrenches the sheets off and pads out of the room. Sleep is likely to be a futile attempt at this point, so there are better things to do than dwelling over nightmares - especially when the nightmares seem to be telling him to move faster with his plans.
Entering the dark room, he raises his head to gaze at the wall ahead.
Slowly, his eyes widen.
On a photograph he has of the man who murdered his brother stands Hideo himself, full and rosy-cheeked, looking exactly the same way he did before his death. His expression reflects disappointment; his eyes, accusing. But he isn't looking at Serizawa. No, his eyes are angled towards the camera.
Towards Naruse.
He doesn't believe in the paranormal. As it stands, his mind is already haunted with demons from the past. Coming face to face with one of those demons, however, is a different matter altogether. Dropping all pretense of composure, Naruse flees.
The next day, Hideo is gone.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
His secretaries express concern. The chief tells him to get some rest; something about dark circles under his eyes and the way he shuffles in and out of the office like the walking dead. The assistant simply sets down a cup of English tea before him, her face speaking volumes.
Naruse just smiles, mentions bad dreams, and continues working.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
This time, a manor looms before him in the falling snow.
Naruse frowns. Structurally, the manor looks ancient. The stone paths and lights leading up to the front doors betray an early time period, far earlier than the present era. Why could he possibly be dreaming about an old manor he has never seen before in his life? Peculiar as well, that it's appearing in this quiet, snowy background, almost like an untouched painting. He has paintings in his office, of course, but none quite like this.
Straightening his jacket -- odd, again, that the dream bestowed him his best suit -- he turns to leave. The whole thing is ridiculous; there's no sense in entering some strange manor, dream or not. When he wakes up, he's going to have to find out how to attain dreamless sleep.
Something, a person, flashes across his vision.
Naruse's heart jolts.
"Hideo...?"
The back of the boy now running a few yards away certainly matches his brother's. He's seen that back enough times to pick it out from a crowd. Logically, he knows it's impossible - his brother's dead. It felt like hours before his mother finally stopped wailing over the pale, unmoving body.
But, this is a dream. And maybe, just maybe, his brother's trying to leave him a message through the realm of sleep.
Ahead, the boy slips through the front doors. Suddenly galvanized by the decision to go after the kid, Naruse leaves heavy footprints in the snow as he dashes forward to follow the figure into the manor.
They enter an empty foyer, dark, with nothing but the moonlight to guide the way. Naruse's eyes take a while to adjust to the darkness, so he's forced to slow down, the floorboards creaking in mild protest with each careful step. He can hear the rhythmic sounds of the running boy start to fade into the distance. "Hideo, wait!" he calls out, inwardly cursing his subconscious for not providing a flashlight. But soon, the noisy thuds of footsteps vanish, leaving nothing but silence in its wake.
With a sigh, Naruse sheds his jacket and drops it near the doors. It's strangely warm in the manor despite the cold season. Hands close to his sides, he starts to move further into a hallway. After all, he might as well explore, now that he has entered the building. Hideo may have left clues behind as well.
The first door he tries swings open with a groan of old wood. The area looks like a graveyard, with burial mounds lining the ground. Ignoring the chill sliding down his spine, he walks briskly into an open room in the back.
This manor is far too vivid, Naruse thinks, too well-mapped for a normal dream. Every part of the rooms he enters seem real and detailed, right down to the chest of drawers in a corner, or the clothes hanging in a wardrobe, yellow with age. Is this, perhaps, the house the dead pass through after their time? Does Hideo want him to see with his own eyes the path his poor brother walked to get to the other side?
As if in answer to his questions, the white figure of a boy drifts into a door to the right.
"Hideo!" Breaking into a run, Naruse lunges forward and nearly rips the door off its hinges in his haste.
It's a corridor, more well-lit than the rest of the house, with light flooding through an open hole in the roof. Pristine flakes of snow fall through the crack, adding to the growing wet stain on the floor below. Naruse takes in the scene with one glance, then he's after the figure in front of him again, pleading the boy to stop a second time.
It's only when the silhouette turns to face him does he realize his mistake.
Unlike the distinct shape of Hideo, this one is blurry, taller, with shoulders broad enough to compliment a wrestler. The clothes are odd too, looking, if Naruse recalls his history lessons at all, like the old uniform of a carpenter. And in the place of eyes lay sunken holes; below, its mouth wide open in a perpetual scream. But it's not the appearance that causes Naruse to lurch backwards, scrambling away in horror.
It's the blood-stained axe raised above his head.
"More sacrifices!" the thing shrieks.
In a swift move propelled by nothing more than pure survival instinct, Naruse dives to the side. He feels the breeze of the weapon a hair's breath away, before he hears the sickening crunch of its blade making contact with the floorboards. This thing wants him dead. More importantly, this thing can kill him dead. Rising to his feet, Naruse makes a short dash for the door on the opposite end of the corridor. Behind him, the ghost lets out an anguished moan. Naruse keeps going, determined not to look back - one look can cost his life.
He only remembers reading somewhere then, when something begins to take shape before the door, that ghosts can filter through planes at will.
Without waiting for the figure to gain form, Naruse spins, throwing himself out of the way. It turns out to be the right choice as again, floorboards are crushed in his place. He doesn't stop to think; already, he's up on his feet, sprinting for the door he had gone through minutes before. The last hiss he hears as the door shuts behind him is filled with bitter rage.
Once a safe distance away, he drops to his knees and hurls.
A few ragged breaths later, Naruse starts to laugh. If Serizawa could see him now - a shaking mess, afraid of some hallucination! Still, he can't deny it, this place is too real. The ghosts are too real. And if anything, it looks like Hideo had led him towards that-- whatever that thing was. Naruse grits his teeth. No, not Hideo. Hideo had a kind, gentle soul, and the real Hideo would never cause his own brother's death, no matter how displeased he may be. It can't be Hideo. Someone in the real world must have given him a formula designed to drive him to the brink of madness. The journalist maybe, there's no telling what the bastard can pull.
When he wakes up, there will be hell to pay.
Vengeance clearing his mind, he gets up and retraces his steps back to the foyer. Occam's razor states that the simplest explanation should be used for any phenomenon. Likewise, perhaps the easiest method to leave this cursed dream is to simply leave the manor. Or so he thought.
When a woman burst through a wall to the left, her upper torso naked and exposed, he's too stunned to react.
So instead, Naruse freezes, a scream dying in his throat as cold hands wrap round his neck. There's a glimpse of snakes writhing on hollies, before the grip tightens unmercifully, and his vision fades. In the fringes of his mind, someone weeps.
"I don't want to see... anymore..."
Gasping, Naruse bolts up. After taking in his surroundings, he spends the next few minutes staring into the darkness of his bedroom, heart pounding.
That was not the same dream.
First the ghostly carpenter, then the woman in the foyer... they were all out for his blood. And, the woman had almost--
His hands fly up to his neck. He feels no pain, no welts from the nails he had digging into his skin, nothing but a phantom sensation of pressing fingers. Closing his eyes, Naruse releases the breath he's holding. At the very least, the dream remains a dream.
Now calm, he wrenches off the sheets and pads out of the room for a drink of water. His throat feels oddly dry. As he passes the hanging mirror in the living room, he absently watches his reflection move with him across the surface.
Then, something catches his eye.
Slowly, slowly, Naruse moves closer to the mirror. He looks nothing like the angelic lawyer the public adores, with his disheveled hair and crumpled T-shirt. But it's not his appearance that he finds amiss.
With trembling fingers, he lightly brushes at a fresh tattoo on his neck with morbid fascination, the pattern burning against his skin like a horrible bruise.
A pattern of snakes and hollies.