Okay, I've been procrastinating about whether I could handle writing a one-shot for Ghost Hunt on top of all of my AS coursework. After attempting to do my homework, I finally decided that I'd much rather be writing and so here I am.

I suppose this is kind of fluffy but it has some deeper messages if you really read between the lines. I didn't add this to my collection of One-shots 'Reflection of a Mask' because it's written in a different kind of style and so I didn't really think that it would fit.

We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone.

-Orson Welle

Alone in Your Company

By Seishin No Hime (Sei)

Running. I'm running and I don't know if I'll ever be able to stop. I want to. My lungs burn with exertion, my chest rising and falling rapidly to accommodate my ever-growing need for oxygen. It's dark tonight and I can barely make out the outline of trees, gnarled and rotting with spidery cracks littering the trunk, as speed up, pushing my lungs to their limit.

I feel as though I will collapse any minute but my mind screams at me to keep running. I will die if I stop, stopping is dangerous so I won't.

What am I running from? The darkness is littered with creatures that are too unimaginably frightening to put into words. The darkness itself seems to contort and fold in on itself, forming red eyes and a gruesome mouth, set in a snarl, yet looking like it wants to scream in pain and horror that is so terrible that I don't even want to try and guess at what it is.

I am terribly afraid. I am afraid of being caught by my own fear. After all, what else is there to be afraid of apart from fear itself? Without fear, how would one possibly ever be afraid. I am afraid of being fearless. To be fearless is to be reckless and to be reckless in to be in danger.

One can not truly be afraid of nothing. People can pretend that they are comfortable in the dark only to cry themselves to sleep when they really think about what lingers just beyond the barrier of the imagination. You can say that you're not afraid of death but when you lay on you death-bed what do you think about. Do you think of how you will no longer exist? How everybody you care about will cease to think about you, forget your very existence?

I am afraid of dying, I realise with a start. The realisation causing me to trip and stumble and then I am falling.

Only I can't see the ground, below me is only blackness. A never-ending pit of blackness that will swallow me whole if I give it the chance. I scream. At least I think I scream but no sound escapes my suddenly parched lips and I know that there is nobody around that could possibly help me. There is nobody around at all.

I shift, hugging my knees to my chest and willing myself not to fall apart as I fall to my inevitable death. The ground is nearing, I can feel the energy of living creatures around me and I do not open my eyes when my back hits solid ground, wet grass cushioning my fall only slightly.

I am not alone. I can feel numerous pairs of eyes on me and hear the laboured breathing of something close by. I still do not open my eyes as I pull myself to my feet, ignoring the tearing pain that shoot through my right arm as I try to use it to support my ascent.

Now I am not afraid of death. I am afraid of being alive. Of having to face what is beyond my eyelids and recognise it as reality. It is real. The sensation of the grass beneath my feet and the wind through my hair is too realistic to be dreamed.

I am surrounded and yet I have never felt more alone. I want to my friends again, It has been too long since I have seen somebody smile and I blame it on the amount of time that I spend sleeping. I am always sleeping these days. It is too painful to stay awake. I don't know why I feel the pain that I do, if I did something that has made me deserving of this punishment. Never the less, I find it difficult to smile now.

I stumble backwards, now aware on some plane of consciousness that this is not really happening. I am dreaming but I don't know how to wake up. My mind is creating these horrors in response to something that I have obviously done. I wonder if my waking body is showing any signs of distress. Am I crying? Am I talking in my sleep? Or am I just laying there, pale and motionless as I have been for the past year and a half. Are the people that surround me even aware of the emotional turmoil that I suffer every waking moment?

The deformed figures move towards me with agonizing slowness and I know that only way to escape this is to stay completely still and try not make any sudden movements that may startle them and give them actual reason to attack me. I don't know whether I am afraid or not any more.

The logical part of my brain tells me that this isn't real and to be afraid would be utterly ridiculous and yet in the same breath I'm afraid of waking up and having to face another day of agonizing loneliness. Human beings aren't meant to be alone, we are created as two halves of one whole that were never meant to separated.

I think of Naru. What must he be feeling right now? Does he even remember my name? What I look like? I like to think that his life has been better, happier since he returned to his family in England. After all, they are the only ones who can even come close to feeling the emotional pain that he feels over his brothers death. They lost a son,albeit an adopted one, just the same as Naru lost a brother.

I am a selfish person. I know that being in Japan causes Naru pain, that every waking second he sees something that reminds him of the place where his brother met his untimely end. Still, I wish he had though about what his leaving did to me. Did he ever think about the emotional distress that his leaving would cause me. Above all, I wish that he would be able to love me the way that I love him.

Telling Naru that I loved him still remains to be the best decision that I ever made. He may have broken my heart by asking me is I loved him or Gene but I would have killed myself with regret if I had never gotten around to telling him. I would constantly ask myself 'What if?' I am at least happy in the knowledge that Naru knows of my affection for him. I don't want Naru to feel like he's alone, I don't want him to think that there is nobody around that loves him.

Is there anybody that feels that way for me? Is there anybody out there that would do anything to take away my pain? Anybody that lives just to see me smile someday?

I often think about these things. I have so much spare time now that I live inside my own mind so I have all the time in the world to think about these meaningless things. I wonder if there is anybody who is waiting desperately for me to wake up. Is there somebody sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair that is inevitably sitting beside my bed? I like to think that there is.

I remember the days just after Naru left, when I was still numb from the shock and oh so naïve, so sure that he would come back for me as long as I gave him time to grieve. I remember writing him a letter, one that is still incomplete to this day because I am simply unable to put my feelings for him into words. Now I have no idea where it is. I don't know where any of my stuff is, probably in storage somewhere because I am no longer able to pay the rent on my apartment.

Now, as I kneel before the creatures that encroach on me, I smile in the hope that I am making somebody feel just a little happier. It is a foolish hope but is is all that I can do in my time of weakness.

I lay my palms flat on the ground and tell myself that this is a dream and that if I really wanted to then I would wake up. I feel the pull on my subconscious before I see the surroundings melt away, once again leaving me in the dark prison of my own mind. It is by no means better than where I was before but it is a suitable compromise.

So I continue to wait. Wait and hope that somebody will come and save me from myself.

Naru's POV

My days bleed into one with sameness and I consider the fact that I was wrong in my decision to return to England. I don't consider it for long, my parents needed me close in this time of mourning and I needed to feel closer to my brother. I can't bring myself to regret my decision because it what was best for all parties involved.

I remember Taniyama Mai's confession clearly, word for word and with perfect clarity. I remember the hope shining in her eyes as she told me how she felt and the heartbreaking sadness and tears when I questioned who it was that she really loved. I had to do it though. Finding out that Mai had been able to communicate with Gene for as long as I had known her was a shock. I remember the feeling of betrayal when I thought that she had dared to keep something so important from me.

Now, just over two years later, I wonder how she is doing. Has she managed to get over Gene and fallen in love properly this time? Is she still in contact with the rest of the people that worked with SPR? Is she well?

I am broken from my musings by a quiet, polite knock on my door. I sit up and tell the person that they can enter. Lin pushes the door open and walks over to were I am sitting, admiring a picture of SPR that Mai gave me before I left. He doesn't speak for a moment, instead deciding to look upon the thing that had currently captured my interest.

Then he places an envelope on the bed beside me.

"It's from Japan, addressed to Naru, not Oliver or Kazuya. I don't know who sent it but I feel like it's important," Lin said, already beginning to move back towards the door. Before he left completely he nods towards the envelope and then pulls the door shut.

I stare at it for a while before even daring to open it. It's faded and creased, like it's been handled a lot and the writing on the front is clumsy with inexperience. I am intrigued. I want to know what it's about so I open it and pull a single sheet of paper that had been likely folded many time before it found it's way to me.

The letter is written in Japanese, unlike the address on the front but the language comes back to me naturally and I read the clumsy script, It is not lengthy.

Oliver Naru,

I miss you, How are you, have you settled back in alright?

There is is something that I want to tell you but I'm not quite sure how I should word it.

My dreams have become frightening and I have them much more often now. I am afraid, I feel as though soon I will be unable to wake up from them. Gene is gone, I'm glad that he's been able to move on. The dreams without him have a frightening intensity, they feel like chains. The more dreams I have, the more it feels like I will not be able to leave someday soon.

Just last night I struggled to wake, like I was forcefully being held back, something didn't want me to leave. I'm scared that I am no l longer safe even inside my own head. I've told nobody of this development, I fear that they will see me as crazy. As it is, I will never actually send you this letter because I do not have the courage.

There is something out there that is bigger than we have ever seen before and already I know that soon I will be too weak to hold it back.

I don't want it to hurt me... I don't want to be afraid but I am.

Mai.

At first I am shocked. The letter makes no sense, at least, there is no logical pattern that my mind has been able to identify.

Mai. Taniyama Mai is the one that wrote this letter. The experience that she describes is confusing. She says that something is able to physically stop her from leaving the astral plane.

Then there is the fact that Mai states in the letter that she will never send it. This leads me to believe that either she has changed her mind or the letter has been sent without her permission.

The one thing that I know for certain is that I need to go to Japan. Mai is in danger from something is far beyond my current understanding and I don't know if I'll even be able to help her.

How long ago was the letter written? How far has the situation progressed between that time and now. I cannot be sure but I will find out. I need to know that she is alright. I was fine with the decision to come back to England because I was under the impression that she would be okay. She had her pseudo-family who would protect her from any harm that she may inadvertently stumble into.

Mai sounded so alone in that letter. I am unable to comprehend how she has ended up with nobody to rely on. How is it that she can be surrounded by so many people who love her and still manage to be alone?

Tonight I would pack and tomorrow myself would make our way to England.

I have to get to the bottom of this. This is so much more serious that before, the stakes have been raised and now Mai's life is in danger. She had to alright. She has to.

So that's the end of this part of this two-shot. I hope you enjoyed reading it, in any case, thank you for taking the time to read my story.

Please leave me a review, letting me know what you think and your theories on just what is really going on.

Sei x