Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Beyond the Looking Glass ❯ Teaser 5: The End ( Chapter 6 )

Beyond the Looking Glass

 

 

 

Teaser 5: The End

 

Excerpts from the journal of Professor G_____, found by Officer Takanawa at the Matsuei Mansion on October 13, 2003:

 

 

October 5, 2003

 

 

Shrine Maidens, called `Miko' here in Japan, still exist today as female helpers at shrines, but many years ago, they had another purpose. `Miko' were women that could see things, prophets, shamaness', mediums, they were oracles, sacred virgins. In ancient times, these women would go into deep trances and give prophecies. However, as time went on, miko became the daughters of the head Priest, and they mostly performed ritual dances and helped in ceremonies. Nowadays, Shrine Maidens are employees or volunteers of shrines, but a long time ago, they were virgins with sacred powers and always female. It is because of this that the names of those that died on the 99th day confuse me. If all of those that were sacrificed on that day were Shrine Maidens and therefore female, why are there male names on that list and why, on some of the scraps of journal that we managed to scrounge up from previous members of the Matsuei family, were some of males of the family also called Shrine Maidens? Apparently, the family was not discriminate in their choices of sacrifice which raises a lot of questions in my mind. If it is not specifically the Shrine Maiden that is important, maybe it is the child of the head of the family, which does seem to be the case.

Everything is going so wrong. I try to delve myself into my research, ignoring the states of my colleagues, but now it is impossible. The equipment has stopped working, or rather, they pick up nothing, even the things that our eyes are seeing. Is it mass hysteria? Are we all going mad? O is very, very sick, he coughs nonstop and sleeps most of the day and I fear that it has become something that we will not be able to stop. He is so pale and shakes. J spends all day on the computer, going over old data and muttering constantly. S and H spend their days wandering the mansion while I watch the mirrors. I can feel madness creeping up on me. I can see the figure in the corner of my eyes, but it always disappears when I turn around. At night, I can hear it whispering at me.

 

“I'm waiting.”

 

It's always the same. What are you waiting for, little one? Why won't you show yourself? I can't help you unless you speak to me!

 

 

 

October 9, 2003

 

 

Why did I wish for such a thing? Surely, I have doomed us all! They're all gone now… I saw it, in the mirror. Not just a flash of white this time and now I know why one of us saw red and another white….

My fears have been confirmed, it is a child. I cannot discover the being's gender since the child is so young, seven or eight, I think. The spirit wears a pure white, sleeveless kimono, but it is stained with bright red blood in some places and I can see why. It's skin is snowy pale, but across that skin are huge cuts, forever bleeding, the being's form terribly mutilated. There is a terrible bruise on its neck, its hair hiding its face. There is a small bell on a red ribbon tied to the ghost's tiny ankle. But, the child is not alone. A few nights ago I saw another, dressed and looking the same, but older, about the age of a teenager. This ghost has huge… specters… protruding from the back, like terrible parasites, distorted, contorted, screaming horrors. We saw it in the mirrors, ALL of the mirrors, even in the reflection of our cameras. It reached for me inside of the mirror and I ran, my fear overpowering my actions. As bad I feel for the spirit, I AM afraid of it. But, tonight, something horrible happened. I saw the spirit again, but it was not inside of the mirror, it was here, walking among us! It walks on bare feet, but it is real, the floor creaking under the weight, like a living person, but when its bare skin touched the wood, it rotted, like death as a form of real energy! I was right! But, that all means nothing now. Cuts have started to form on our bodies. They itch and hurt so badly, bleeding profusely. Every day that passes, more and more appear, even though we stay wide awake in fear of what will happen.

We found an underground passageway under a broken tatami mat in the blood-stained room. It was a stone staircase leading down into the dark, supported by old wooden beams that looked like they would break at any minute. We found the door and I am sure that the room behind was the place of the mirror ritual, but we could not figure out the stone lock. Even J could not solve the puzzle and we gave up on it. I know now that that… child… is responsible for my friends' deaths. That's right, they are all dead and I am alone in this awful place.

O was the first to leave. He was so very sick. He had stopped eating and his body was just wasting away in front of my eyes, only, it happened in only a few days, which is, of course, impossible. He choked on his own blood, dying in his sleep. We put his body in the closet, unable to look at it. J finally conceded that we should leave the mansion, but to our utter shock, none of the doors would open. We are trapped here. So close to the mountains, our cell phones are useless. There is no way out.

J died shortly after O. After looking after the equipment and discovering that they have not recorded anything, he claims that all of this is a hoax, even O's death. He became obsessed with finding the thing in the mirror. He told me that he saw the child and then the teenager. After he saw that, he was never the same. He went… mad. I think that he realized the truth, that there was no way out and that we were all going to die in here. I found his body in the long hallway of ropes, hanging there. I think that he couldn't take the fear anymore and killed himself. Will the same happen to the rest of us? Or at least, that is what I had thought then, but now I know that losing my sanity is the least of my worries.

S once spoke to me how the mansion spoke at night and how the walls have started to rot. I told him that it was the spirit, but he is unsure of that. He has walked the mansion many times over and, before he died, he was convinced that the spirits and energies of this place were affecting metals and woods and even plants. We kept J's body in the hallway, hanging. I didn't see the point in taking him down, just to stash him in a closet, at least he is safe there. I found S there, next to J's body. He had taken down one of the ropes and was… bleeding on it. When I had demanded what he was doing, he told me that the ropes were soaking up his blood, like the feeding of a living organism. I watched in horror as he cut up his arm and the blood dripped onto the old rope, then… disappeared, like it had indeed been drunk by something. He continued to make cuts, enthralled with the sight of his bright red blood feeding into the ropes. I dragged him back to our room, but I was inattentive. He escaped me and returned to the hallway, slicing open his flesh and feeding the ropes until there was nothing left to bleed. When I found him, it was in bits and pieces. A foot and arm and head here and there, tangled in individual ropes like toy doll in a spider's web. I could not bear to untangle him.

I returned to our room to find that, not only was H missing, but O's body as well. I do not know why I thought to do so, but I began running to that hallway and I could only stare in complete horror at the sight of my friends, all of them, dead and hanging there. H was there, too, his eyes still bleeding, but quite dead, as if he had had some sort of aneurism. I have gone mad… haven't I, my friends? I'm sure that I am insane…

 

*****

 

I am sitting in front of the mirror in our room again. I couldn't bare to be in that horrible hallway with my dead friends. What is happening here? Did that child really do this? I am waiting for that child. It will come for me tonight, I am sure. Come for me little one… I cannot take the darkness anymore. I cannot take the voices. I cannot take the loneliness… I am waiting…

 

 

 

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It came.

 

 

 

End Teaser 5