The black dog

Chapter 8

The building was even creepier on the inside than on the outside. There were rooms everywhere with beds that were abandoned. It was truly a mess. Souta investigated each room as closely as possible. To Eijiro's irritation.

'Why are you looking at every room. There's no need. Just stop it, it’s annoying.'

'Unlike you, I know what I'm looking for.'

'How would you know what you're looking for.'

'I had a dream about this.'

'Who's to say that this dream of yours is true.'

'Surely I know what I'm dreaming about.' A whole discussion ensued about looking at each room. The girls walked behind them, finding it kind of funny to hear somewhere.

'They're nice and busy, aren't they?' Nanami asked kindly to Mizore.

Mizore somehow wanted to be open to this girl. She was friendly enough and besides, Mizore has always been better at communicating with girls than with boys.

'Yes, you can say that again. Do you think they will ever agree?'

'I can't answer that, but from your accent you're not from here.'

'That's right. You just shouldn't ask me questions, because I suck at geography.'

'Okay, I won't ask any questions.' Nanami said laughing and with a wide smile on her face. She had gotten over her shock by now and had become accustomed to the atmosphere that was going on. Mizore had also noticed this.

'You're not so in shock about everything anymore, are you?'

'No, I'm not. But unlike you, I feel them and that is a lot worse than just seeing them.' Nanami said indignantly and walked briskly forward.

'What was that about.’ Mizore made a short dash to rejoin the group. She certainly didn't want to be left alone here. Souta was getting impatient, but was trying with all his might to look at everything. It felt like they had been at it all day.

'How about you guys start looking at some clues too?'

Eijiro was very irritated by Souta's behavior and even though Souta was right, he didn't want to admit it. Instead, he started looking for an argument.

'You think you know everything, but you don't. We try our best too, but we have no idea what we are looking for. Just as well you don't know what you're looking for either, or you wouldn't have looked at every room.' Eijiro said, clearly aiming at Souta.

'Eijiro.' Nanami said.

The mention of his name caused Eijiro to withdraw his argumentative behavior. Mizore asked herself why he retreated so suddenly. She turned her head to Nanami who gave a rather serious look to Eijiro. Thousands of questions popped into Mizore's mind again. She didn't understand why Eijiro let himself be stopped. It was clear that it was out of duty to stop. The only thing that was not clear, what duty it was. The next room Souta entered was close to what he was looking for. In the room was an empty bed, in which someone had once layed in great pain. The entire mattress was covered in blood. A bottle, from which an intravenous drip once was made, lay in shards on the floor. By the broken bottle lay the liquid that belonged in it. The room was a mess, but was also the only one where most of it was still whole, despite all the cabinets being open.

'This is like a Hidden Object game on the computer.' Eijiro said looking around in surprise.

'A Hidden Object game' Souta repeated, looking closely at the room without going inside. The girls, who were standing at the back looked at each other, for they had no idea what the boys were talking about. ‘Eijiro in those games, what is standard, what is happening. What do you have to do.'

'Well, you have to look for things that are on a list, usually things you never find in a place like that. And when you have everything, you get something you need.'

'And so that's exactly what happened here. Someone has been there before us looking for something valuable or useful. Although I have a feeling it hasn't been found. So now it's our turn to find it.'

'How do we know what to look for.'

'Think about it, what do you need? Something like a key or a pass, something along those lines. That's what we're looking for and we really need to look over all. Okay guys, search.' Souta began to look around. The rest looked at each other for a moment and started looking at once. One cabinet after the other was searched. Mizore too was busy searching until something went through her. To the others it was as if she was staring into nothingness. In reality, she saw where to look. She rushed to the place she had seen, throwing everything out, until she found a bottle with a hollow bottom. At the bottom of that bottom was a key taped to it. Mizore immediately handed the bottle to Souta.

'This doesn't add up.' he said thoughtfully.

'What's wrong with it. We were looking for a key and this is a key.' Nanami protested.

'Yes, but look what the key is attached to the bottle with. It's attached with tape, and in the days of working here, this kind of tape wasn’t invented yet.'

'So that means someone was indeed ahead of us.'

'Exactly. We need to find out what that key is for.'

'There's only one key so we have to stick together.' Eijiro said in a tone as if he was appointing himself leader of the group. Souta rolled his eyes, but followed the rest as they walked out of the room and started looking for something that the little key would fit on. Even though they had no idea what they were looking for.

‘Say Mizore, how did you know where that key was?’ Nanami asked.

'Well to be honest. I saw it. I saw where to find it.'

Souta, who was walking at the very front, stopped for a moment.

'Did you say you saw where it was?'

'Um, yes, why?'

'That's nice, very nice in fact.' Mizore couldn't keep up with what he meant. Eijiro and Nanami had no idea either. 'How is that beautiful?' Mizore asked anyway.

'This means that soon you're going to see what this key belongs to.'

'How can you be so sure!' Eijiro said just a little too loudly. The ceiling, which was partially made of wood, began to lose small pieces of wood. For a moment they stood still to wait and see what would happen. To their luck, nothing else happened.

‘Will you please stop yelling like that?’ Souta asked in his always calm tone.

'Alright, alright, I won't shout anymore, but I still want an answer to my question.'

'You ask too many questions, you'll fit in nicely with Mizore.'

'Excuse me?’ Came out of Mizore in surprise. As if completely ignoring it, Souta continued what he wanted to say. 'But okay, I'm so sure, because her gift is now developing because of the stimuli here. And believe me, her vision is coming soon.' Everyone listened carefully, but no one believed a word he said. Meanwhile, every door, which was locked, was being tried to open with the key. Mizore walked behind, her mind wandering from what was actually happening. She wondered if there might not be the possibility after all that Souta was right. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t see where she was walking.

‘Mizore look out!’ Nanami yelled out. Her hands flew in front of her mouth. She really shouldn't have called out. The rattling around her caused Mizore to look up a little blurry, but it was too late. She was walking right into a loose beam. She ran hard into the beam and hit her head. She walked a bit backwards and fell to the ground. The blow to her head gave her exactly what she had before. She followed a whole route going through the building until she came to a door and had a straight look at the keyhole. Her eyes shot open and everyone was standing around her.

'Are you okay? That was quite a blow.' Eijiro asked her kindly to impress her.

'No, no I'm fine. Souta you were right, I saw it, I know where we have to go, I saw the whole route.' 'Well, show us where to go.' Souta said. Mizore immediately got up and started running. The others followed her. She did not deviate from her route, going faster and faster, she was in a hurry. She didn't know why, but she was in a hurry. She stopped in front of door from her vision and stopped. Completely exhausted, the others came in close behind. 'In here, this is where the key should fit.'

'We'll see.'

Mizore stepped back to make room for Souta. Slowly he inserted the key into the keyhole and began to turn. The door unlocked and he opened the door. When he flung the door open, they all stood around in amazement. Even Souta was completely amazed by it.