Witch Hunter Robin Fan Fiction ❯ The Crimson Hotel ❯ Plea for Help ( Chapter 7 )

The bathroom of the dilapidated, little warehouse had seen a lot in its long, painful existence. There had once been another rest room on the other side of the building, but a kid had drowned himself in one of the stalls awhile back and some club kids thought it would be funny to steal the "toilet of death" as a sarcastic homage to their fallen friend. Of course, none of them were plumbers (or scholars for that matter), and the subsequent water damage was enough to close that room permanently. Occasionally, the warehouse was legitimately rented for conferences or for use by law enforcement, but that was rare. Most nights, it was simply the stage for extravagant raves and lots of drama. The only bathroom in the place, expected to service hundreds of partygoers, saw its fair share (or more) of action. And seeing as it was, by necessity, co-ed, there were more than a few people who had, with all honesty, demanded that the walls speak. The cramped bathroom had also taken quite a bit of abuse as well. You could almost hear it cry out in pain as two STNJ witch hunters battled to attain sole occupancy of it.

"I was here first!" Dojima said, trying to push her way through the tiny doorway.

"Actually," Michael corrected, "We were here at the same time!" They had both almost run from the barracks as Amon began dressing himself and heading for the door where they stood.

"No, I think I had you beat!" She shoved him aside lightly.

"Why don't you just go to the girls' barracks, Dojima?"

"None of the action took place there. It would be difficult to visualize." She gazed at him in disbelief, as if wondering how he could suggest something so illogical.

"Visualize?" Michael grinned.

"Yes, visualize. Why don't YOU just go to the boys' barracks?"

"I think they're still in there!"

"I'll scratch you, Michael! I'm not afraid to fight dirty!" She flexed her claws ominously.

"There is more than one stall in there, Dojima!"

"That's a little too intimate for me!"

"What do you mean `too intimate'. We could have a little fun!" He looked at her flirtatiously.

"I think you're a little too young for me!"

"Two years!? Big deal! You know you want some!" They heard footsteps behind them and froze in the clutches of their war.

"What are you doing?" Amon looked at them, snidely. He couldn't tell whether the two were actually fighting to use the bathroom or why, but he could see they were wasting valuable time.

"Where's Robin?" Dojima asked, smiling.

"You would know better than me. I would assume that she is still in her cot, although when I checked in on her earlier, she seemed to have regained consciousness." Amon gave no hint that he was lying and Michael and Dojima were secretly afraid of someone who could so flawlessly execute a concocted lie like that. The three stood, suspended in an awkward silence, for several minutes.

"Hmm…well, can you please tell Michael that ladies always go first! He's being very immature!" Dojima continued trying to push into the bathroom.

"Fine." Michael said, surrendering his position, "I'll just go `freshen up' in the barracks!" He smiled and trotted off, knowing he had secured the better location. It might even still smell like sex, unlike the bathroom, which would inevitably smell like shit. This won't take long, he thought. And it didn't. He was back at his computer going over his research with Amon before either of the girls emerged.

Miho Karasuma had dreamt, once again, of her grandmother. It was a recurring dream she'd had since her childhood days, since the day her grandmother had died to be exact. The old woman had been her mentor in many ways, one of the others in the family who also possessed the gift of psychometry. The power usually skipped a generation or two, but its appearance was consistent. The same could not be said of the manner in which it was used. Countless had used it to their personal advantage, gaining money and power by manipulating grieving families into believing that the user had a personal connection to the spirits of the dearly departed. Someone with the power of psychometry was able to see glimpses of people through objects they owned or touched, but were unable to actually communicate with the dead. Some of the, however, could fake it using the information they received, and conned families out of a lot of money. Miho's grandmother, however, was different. She had used her gift in the aid of whoever needed it, regardless of what their position in life was. Even in her old age, she regularly met with detectives and concerned parents to help locate missing persons and criminals responsible for heinous crimes. On one such case, when Miho was about ten years old, her grandmother was called on by a young couple to help locate their daughter, who had mysteriously disappeared months earlier. The police had tried diligently in that time to find the girl, but had had little luck. They took the old woman to the place where the girl was last seen, and none of them were ever seen alive again.

Miho remembered the knock on the door that had disturbed her sleep, the way her mom had collapsed when the detective told her the news and handed her her mother's watch and wallet. The bodies of the three had been found in a forest, slashed repeatedly. The police were, once again, baffled. Miho, then so young and powerless, had felt her entire world crashing down around her. She would go into her grandmother's room at night and cry.

"What happened to you, grandma?" She would ask, and one day, she got an answer.

One night, while her parents were away at a business dinner, she crept into their bedroom and took down an ornate box they kept hidden away in the rafters. Inside, were pictures of her grandmother and the items the policeman had brought in the middle of the night. When Miho went to grab the gold watch, to put it on her wrist, she saw a flash of her grandmother's face before her. Miho dropped the watch onto the floor, absolutely terrified, having never quite experienced anything like it before. When she picked it up again a few moments later, she saw another flash, only this time she held on. It was then that her own powers had suddenly awoke and she gasped and sobbed, letting the pictures swim before her eyes. When the story had unfolded, she collapsed to her knees and spoke only one word.

"Witches."

Ever since that day, Miho had dreamed of her grandmother. In the dream her grandmother called to her from the inside of a locked bedroom door. Miho would follow the voice, and though she could not enter the room, she could see her grandmother through the keyhole, sitting serenely on her bed. She always awoke, disturbed and upset, feeling as if her grandmother had one last message to give to her.

When Miho awoke in a dark hotel room with crimson curtains, a tear ran down her cheek. She had, indeed, dreamt of grandma again, but this time, things had been different. When she reached the door of the forbidden bedroom to answer her grandmother's call, the door just magically opened in front of her. As she entered, her grandmother looked up at her with tears in her eyes and said softly, "I am you now, Miho. I have given you my gift. You must help that girl!"

"What girl?" Miho had asked.

"The girl who sings of tragedy and death."

And she had awoke, lying in the bed of room 707, across the hall from the room she had first explored, unharmed. There was a faint smell of sour lavender in the air and Miho covered her nose with the blanket as she sat up. It was then that she noticed the blood red letters laid out cryptically across the mirror: HELP ME, and she suddenly knew she was about to get to the bottom of a lot of unsolved mysteries.

She climbed, slowly, out of the bed and made her way over to the dresser. After a moment of hesitation, she laid her hands over the hastily scrawled letters. She saw a vision of a silhouetted, raved-haired girl shaking with fear as she wrote the message in crimson lipstick. The girl appeared frantic and nervous, stealing glances into the hallway of the seventh floor, as if expecting to be caught and apprehended in this act. A noise that sounded like raspy breathing could be heard approaching the room and the girl screamed.

"HELP ME, MIHO! PLEASE!!"

And Miho saw no more.