Hey all! I apologize for the delay in updates! School is right around the corner, and unfortunately, they are still having in-class sessions. However, in the midst of packing, I had to go to the ER... No worries here though! I am doing better and just need to make sure I stop skipping meals!

Enough of that, you're here to read! Enjoy!

Mai hopped out of the car and stared out at the same house she saw in her dream. Time had taken its toll on the wood and the stone was stained with moss and cracks. She honestly couldn't imagine someone living in a place like this, considering the number of weeds that had overrun the front garden.

"Mai, let's go." Naru didn't waste time as he walked to the front door of the house, notebook, and temperature gauge in hand.

She followed behind him with her own journal and paused as he used the keys they were given by the owner of the house. Outside of the Davis', no one knew who the owners were yet.

When Naru finally pushed the doors open, shock hit Mai as she saw the foyer looking almost entirely similar to how it was in her dream.

"We are going to do a quick walkthrough," Naru said looking around the area. "Did you bring your journal?"

Mai waved it in front of his face when he turned to look at her. He rolled his eyes. "Why do I need this anyway, Naru?"

"While we are going through the house, as an initial inspection, I am going to take temperatures," He walked into the house and again took a quick look around and turned on a few lights. "In the meantime, I want you to record any feelings or visions you see on this tour."

Mai sighed. When she stepped foot over the threshold, she felt sadness grip her entirely, and a burning sensation riping through her scratches on her stomach. Grasping onto the doorway she hunched over her abdomen and let out a grunt. Tears made her vision blur, and the pain seemed to increase.

"Mai? What's going on?" Naru's voice seemed much farther away and she took a guess on what he had said. He grabbed her arm not pressed into the doorway.

"It's just some residual feelings," She took a breath and closed her eyes, forcing the tears back. "It hit me as soon as I walked through. Just this immense sadness, it's just a little suffocating."

He looked reluctant but released his grip on her arm. "Alright." Naru offered her an arm. "Let's go."

Mai frowned and eyed his arm. "I can walk fine, Naru,"

"While I highly doubt that, I also do not want to argue. Stop wasting time."

Mai grit her teeth and looped her arm angrily through his. "Whatever." Her cheeks burned.

They started with the rooms downstairs and circulated through each area of the house. All the temperature readings were normal, if anything a bit warm, and Mai hadn't felt any overwhelming emotions.

They stood at the bottom of the stairs. Mai couldn't take her eyes off the spot where James Lange died in her dreams. She gulped and gritted her teeth as she could hear a phantom of the snapping of his neck on the steps. Naru watched her reaction out of the corner of his eyes.

"Let's head upstairs," Naru had one hand on the banister and the other was on the small of Mai's back guiding her up. He released his hand from her back when they were at the top of the stairs and he walked into a room directly to the right. Just as Mai was about to follow him, she felt a tug on her shirt. Looking down she didn't see anything in the house snagging her shirt, so she was going to brush it off, but another feeling hit her. Something important to her was further down the hall, and she needed to be in there. But what was it, and why did she need to go so badly?

Her limbs moved on their own accord and she allowed herself to be lured into a back bedroom. The room wasn't huge, but it also had plenty of space. Unfortunately, Mai didn't know what the significance of the room was due to its bare walls and austere surroundings. Throughout the house, it was obvious that the current owner was not living here, but was being renovated for when they were going to move in. The foyer was the only exception. This room was no different than the ones she had seen during her duration inside the home.

Mai sighed as she walked over to the window in the room. Sheer curtains covered the glass and the light shone through easily past the defenses of the cloth. She pushed the curtains aside and looked out to the back yard. The entire place was fenced off with a high metal fence, and the areas designated as gardens were overrun with all kinds of foreign floral additions. The lawn was uncut and uneven. Mai didn't want to know what could be hiding in the tall grass. an involuntary shiver shook her bones at the thought of spiders and snakes.

She turned away from the window, opened her journal to a blank page, and wrote down what led her to this room but noted a lack of contact with anything paranormal. A cold chill gripped the room slowly and the intensity of it had Mai dropping her journal. Thanking her past self for opting for jeans, she looked wildly around the room and tried to sense anything.

A sudden constant cry, of what sounded like a baby, was the only sound in the room. At first, Mai tried to look for the sound, but she then had to cover her ears due to the increase in volume and pitch. It was like someone kept increasing the volume of an awful dog whistle. Despite her covered hears, Mai could still hear the crying as clear as crystal, like it radiated from her own mind. An ache started between her eyes and moved down to her heart.

She couldn't stand the noise, but she also felt helpless in the fact that she couldn't soothe something she couldn't see or touch. Just then the crying stopped almost as suddenly as it had started. Mai released her hands from over her ears and looked hesitantly around the room.

The door to the room slammed with a force large enough that Mai wondered if wood splintered. Standing to shaky feet, she ran to the door and tried the handle with no luck.

She was trapped.

While she had been in the situation countless times in past cases, she also never got used to the feeling of panic. The gravity of her current predicament had her fight and flight system kicking into high gear.

"Naru," Her voice cracked and she pressed her hands into the door. Balling them into fists, she started pounding on the door. "Naru!" Her shrill voice tore at her vocal cords, she would lose her voice tomorrow if she kept yelling at this intensity, but she didn't care. "Naru! Please!"

The awful crying started up again, and Mai again pressed her hands against her ears in an attempt to block out the noise. She felt like she was going crazy.

She slid down the door and crawled over to the corner of the room. Tears flooded her eyes due to the pain in her ears and the headache that followed. She curled around herself and tried to lessen the hurt she was feeling physically and emotionally. A sudden internal battle erupted inside of her, and she couldn't decide if she wanted to try to soothe the invisible child, or give up and make the noise stop forever.

The thought's scared her, but she knew they were not her own. Someone else was here with her.

Looking up, she saw the woman in black from her dream. She looked more human and had less of a disturbing appearance. The woman had tears streaming down her face like Mai, but in her hand, she held a knife. The sight of the blade reflecting in the light had Mai's blood run cold. She wasn't dreaming, right? She hoped that she was and would wake up soon, but she knew that was not the case.

The woman tilted her head back and her hands shot up, knife in one, to grip her long black hair. A shriek flowed over her lips and blasted into the air. It amalgamated with the already crying baby and only made the child scream louder.

Mai shrunk more into the wall, shut her eyes tightly, and cried out. "Naru! Please!" He was her only thought, her only light in the dark at this moment. She just wanted him. He meant safety and warmth. She hated this cold pain.

The woman's screams stopped and Mai opened her eyes at the lack of noise. A dark red liquid covered the woman's arm that held the knife, and some of it stained her face. The crying child stopped now, and the woman let an emotionless face cover her crazed eyes.

Mai could hear her own breathing, fast and shallow. Her own scream took over the room and her legs tried to push her body as close to the wall as she could get. She turned her head to look away from the scene.

A loud crashing brought her head up again. Naru stood at the opening, slightly hunched over and breathing heavily. Lin was just behind him, crowbar in hand.

Relief took her breath away and tears of gratitude spilled down her face.

"My God, it's freezing in here," Lin exclaimed coming into the room more.

Naru headed straight for her, and after looking her over and not finding an obvious wound, he looked at her face. Her eyes were glazed over and the tears didn't seem to want to end. Now with his close proximity, he could hear the slight mumbles she was saying, but couldn't understand much.

"Mai." He cupped her cheek and jerked his hand away in surprise. The paleness of her face and the blueness of her lips caused a zing of panic to shoot through him. "Lin, give me your coat."

The older man didn't hesitate and Naru quickly draped it over Mai's shaking body. Her eyes still hadn't moved from where they were staring into space.

"Bloody hell." Naru cursed and turned to Lin. "We're getting her out of here."

Lin nodded to him. "I'm going to finish up the temperatures in the house, take her outside."

Naru already had Mai in his arms. He couldn't ignore the fact that she still hadn't spoken or moved yet. Usually, she couldn't stop talking, and moving her into his arms didn't seem to faze her. "Make sure to take a reading of this room as well." He looked around the room over the top of Mai's head and noticed her journal and pencil. "And grab her journal too, please."

When Naru exited the room Mai's head fell into his chest and her breathing was more settled. Walking out of the house had a more acute reaction. Mai blinked around and looked up to Naru.

"Where are we?" She whispered, not trusting the damage she had done with her screaming.

"Outside of the house. We're taking you home."

Mai looked around a bit more, noticing the familiar roundabout in front of the driveway. "I don't need to go home, Naru." She wasn't in the mood to fight him on this. Truth be told she wanted nothing more than to curl up in her warm bed. But she didn't want him thinking she was weak.

"Mai, look, I do not really think you want to get into this right now," He continued. "We've done enough for today, and did what we needed to. So, please, will you just stop acting like everything that happened today was not a big deal?"

She looked up at the change of tone and found that he was looking right at her. She felt heat cover her cheeks but she couldn't look away. "I'm not acting like it wasn't awful, I just," She sighed and he waited patiently. "I'm not weak, I can do this!"

Naru chuckled at her blatant ego. And he was the narcissist?

"You're a lot of things, Mai, but weak doesn't come to mind." He smirked at her and she pouted.

"Oh, yeah?" She crossed her arms. "Then what exactly 'comes to mind', smart guy?"

Naru said the first thing he knew she was thinking about. "Stupid."

Mai felt her eye twitched and she pushed down the need to punch him despite the easy access she had to his face.

"Amazing is also something that comes up."

Mai looked at him in shock. "More than you?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, idiot."

Again, Mai pouted. "You know, Naru, you're never going to get a girlfriend with that attitude of yours." She haughtily.

"Really?" He smirked at her.

"Of course! That is in no way-" She was cut off by his mouth.

Her stomach dropped at the feeling of his lips on hers and she felt her legs turn to jelly. She was lucky she wasn't standing.

Snapping out of her brief check-in with her body, and having the confirmation that Naru was indeed kissing her, she grabbed onto his shirt and pulled herself closer to his mouth. Her eyes shut and she savored the moment.

Naru broke the kiss and leaned his forehead on hers. "Did I disprove your theory?"

Mai bit her lips to keep back the grin that wanted to spread across her face. She couldn't reinforce his large ego. "I think I need another trial." She laughed at their banter.

A gentle smile was on Naru's face. "After we get your body temperature up, you're still shaking."

Mai couldn't argue with that, considering she was still shivering due to the cold of the room she had been in. Deciding for once that she would not argue back, she nodded and laid her head back down on his chest.

Man, I really need to read these chapters before I post them. I am missing all of these twists that I wrote.

I hope the whole kiss-scene didn't seem too rushed. I just feel like they're the whole relationship is kind of more surprising in the PDA department. However, I don't think this is OOC for either of them! Naru is so confident about everything, I would find it hard to imagine a young man being awkward to the dating scene.

Anyhow! Have a great rest of the week and a great weekend! I will try to get the next chapter out before I leave to head back to school!

Stay safe and stay sane!

~Cheers!