Holic [OPEN to all]

[Mizusawa Taku]

ooc: Oh my gosh, worst post EVER. ><

ic:

The Washizu student seemed alright, so Mizusawa gave him a quick nod and then turned his attention back to Ryosuke. Ryosuke wasn't looking so great either. The other looked disheveled, and slightly annoyed with his questions.

"Can you turn the damned light off or something? God, don't shine it on me...I already feel like the living dead as it is..." Ryosuke made his point by shifting sideways across the floor and out of the path of the fluorescent beam, casting an unhappy look Mizusawa's way to emphasize how cruddy he was feeling. "I don't know what I'm doing here, Mizu. I got knocked out somewhere outside while I was gathering wood and I woke up to you. And....him."

Mizusawa frowned. If Ryosuke was telling the truth, then likely he had no clue what had happened to Mari. Though Ryosuke's story sounded a bit, well, like it didn't make much sense, he figured the Yankee had no reaso to lie. That and someone as girl-crazy as Ryosuke really had no need to hurt an innocent girl. Right?

"Mari's gone?"

Mizusawa nodded, keeping his flashilight trained on the floor near Ryosuke now, and thinking fiercely of what could have happened that they somehow couldn't find her. This place hadn't looked all that big on the outside, so it was strange that there now seemed to be so many room to it and everything. And the fact that Mari had not heard them calling--that was even stranger.

"What the hell is going on? Seriously? I got conked out, you guys are hanging around in this place...." He gestured at the two other boys as if they'd purposely come here. "Now Mari-chan is missing.....This is ridiculous..."

At the frustrated, confused sound of Ryosuke's voice, Mizusawa felt a little more relieved. Ryosuke was't lying to them. His words sounded genuine too. He was just as confused about all this as Mizusawa was. Something very strange was going on right now, and as much as Mizusawa wanted to turn and leave right away--get help--he knew they couldn't just leave Mari in here. Especially if they got lost on the way for help. Mari could already be lost or hurt or...

Why couldn't she hear them calling for her?

He opened his mouth to call her name once again, but the voice of a female rang out first.

"You guys! What the hell? Why are you--"

It was a voice he recognized, that was for sure. At first he got his own hopes up, thinking it might be Mari. But Mari didn't speak in such a tomboyish way. She had a sweeter way of speaking. This was like...

"Kaoru?"

But his words were covered up, as a moment later, there came a sudden shriek. It was the sort of chilling sound that went right through you, and at that very moment it felt as though it were piercing Mizusawa's heart. He cringed, clasping his hands to his ears to block out the sound, the flashlight beam bobbing around the room in his now shaking hand. Whoever it was, it sounded as though it had come from somewhere behind Kaoru, though it's intensity seemed to fill the entire room. He felt his legs beginning to tremble beneath him.

And then the sound stopped, leaving an all-too palpable silence. Mizusawa blinked, then moved his hands from his ears. Please tell me that wasn't Mari... He couldn't stop the thought from plaguing his mind.

Then suddenly, he felt a hand on his his, shining his flashlight in the direction where Kaoru had been standing a moment before. Only, she was no longer there now. Looking at the person whose soft--and strangely warm--hand was wrapped around his, he found that Kaoru had somehow ended up next to him.

"You guys heard that, right?"

He was still shaking after the sound of it, so he wasn't sure a response was even possible. But it didn't seem to matter, because Ryosuke had answered first anyway. "You'd have to have been deaf not to..." The other had ended up under the beam of the flashlight Mizusawa and Kaoru were holding onto.

"You saw something... right?"

Mizusawa looked at Ryosuke and saw the other shaking his head. Mizusawa nodded in response, still not trusting himself with actually speaking. He hadn't seen anything either, just the figure of Kaoru within the beam of his flashlight.

"I see a bunch of us looking scared out of our freaking minds because we all just heard something ridiculous." He dragged a hand across his forehead, wiping away a nervous sweat, and glanced around the area in the hopes that maybe there would be an obvious exit out of the place that he'd missed earlier.

There was a pause, as everyone seemed to be lost in thought. Mizusawa didn't have the heart to suggest that perhaps the scream had come from Mari. Though maybe Ryosuke had thought of it, based on his next response.

"Like Mari-chan," Ryosuke said aloud, turning to face the group. "What happened to....."

Mizusawa turned in the direction Ryosuke was looking.

"The....the glasses kid...." Ryosuke's eyes widened. "Where did he go? Where'd the glasses kid go?"

Shining his flashlight in the place where the Washizu boy had been standing only a moment before, Kaoru's hand still clasped around his, he saw exactly what Ryosuke saw. Absolutely nothing. The boy wasn't there anymore. Slowly becoming even more confused, he shined the beam around the corners of the room, looking for a trace of the boy. Nothing.

He was gone.

He felt his mouth grow dry. When had the boy disappeared? Right before the scream? During? After? He hadn't even heard the other leave. "Do you know his name?" Mizusawa asked Kaoru, wondering if she'd seen the other before. If she knew him, they could call out his name and try to find him. Maybe he'd just gone to look for Mari in another room or something.

"H-Hello?" he called loudly, unable to stop his voice from quivering a little. This was officially getting really scary. He took a moment before turning to look at the others, Ryosuke not too far away and Kaoru right beside him. Maybe they should leave now, and try to get help. An adult, one of the many who had joined them on this trip. That sounded like a much better idea. "Guys, do you think we should--?"

But he didn't get to finish what he was saying. Because a moment later, the ground--the floor, actually--they had all been standing on disappeared from beneath them, and suddenly they were falling. Mizusawa had still be in mid-speech at the time, so he was able to manage a strangled cry before he began free-falling into a sudden and unreal darkness. For a moment, he thought perhaps an earthquake had suddenly happened, splitting open the earth beneath them--they were probably crashing through the foundation of the building right now and would break their legs from the fall, if not something worse--but then confirmed with himself that earthquakes did not happen that fast, and this was definitely not something normal in any way, shape, or form.

The horrifying moment of falling continued, before suddenly he hit something with full-force, slamming into it and sinking beneath it, struggling--shocked--for a moment before he was able to break the surface once more and gasp for enough air to fill his lungs. Water began dripping from his soaked hair and into his eyes as he struggled to stay on the surface, shaking as he realized what had happened. They'd landed in water.

Or at least, he had.

"G-guys?" he sputtered, spitting out some water as he struggled to stay afloat. It was dark whereever they were, and it seemed he'd landed in some kind of underwater river, as the water was trying to carry him off in a certain direction. Where were the others? Had they landed in here too? Were they even okay?

"Guys!" he called again, more frantic now. He scanned the area, trying to see if there was some ledge or some piece of land he could stand on, to get out of the water. If the others had already gotten carried downstream though, there was no way he'd know if they were okay.

They were in some serious trouble now.

ooc: Yay, we fell into some water. WHAT NEXT? ><;;

[Uchida Kaoru]

OOC: uh-uh Alex I hate this post so much it is the worst evar you don't even know D:

The person to answer her question was a disgruntled hair boy.

"I see a bunch of us looking scared out of our freaking minds because we all just heard something ridiculous."

Kaoru groaned. The yankee was right, they were making a big fuss out of what probably was nothing, and even if it was something... she definitely wasn't the type who liked leaving things to guys, but she had walked into a room with three boys whom she hoped would look out for her... the situation being as it was. It wasn't like anything was bound to happen, but... just in case?

Her eyes fell on hair boy, who was looking quite disoriented at the moment. He finally found a spot to lean and regain his bearings... the spot where she'd been standing before. Kaoru's grip on the glasses kid's arm tightened as she debated to uttering some warning to the delinquent.

The blonde continued in a sort of lost, worried voice. "Like Mari-chan. What happened to....."

A light shone from behind them and into hair boy's face. He peered past the pair, towards the back of the room...

His eyes wide, he looked to a spot in the room beyond Kaoru the boy with the flashlight. "The....the glasses kid.... Where did he go? Where'd the glasses kid go?"

That had been her nickname for... the kid she was standing beside, though he wasn't wearing any glasses right now. But that snarky second-year was suddenly no where to be seen. That was weird. Definitely. The other three were standing by the only door, so how did he...

Former glasses kid turned to her, his eyes about confused as she was feeling. "Do you know his name?"

Kaoru looked up at him and shook her head. Remembering names had always been a weakness of hers... and if the kid was who she thought he was, was in a different grade than her and pretty much social nobody. He had good grades but a bad attitude, she'd heard from some of her underclassmen, but that was it.

And now he was... gone?

Wait, how about this "Mari-chan" the yankee was babbling about? Had she been in the room before Kaoru had come in? Were people disappearing?

For a moment, Kaoru was overwhelmed by this surreal, almost dissociative feeling. Like all this really wasn't happening to her, but she knew it was. And as far as she knew, this was just a stupid class trip, and the worse thing that happened on class trips was your classmates playing stupid little pranks on you. And porta-potties. But stupid little pranks could explain what was going on then... or maybe it wasn't even intentional. Maybe people were just wandering off. As much as Kaoru loved thrillers and slashers, this was real life, and real life made sense.

Wanting to be sure of that thought, Kaoru looked to the boys, her eyes intense and her voice firm. "I'm sure they just wandered off. It hasn't been that long, so they can't have gotten that far."

But she wasn't sure she was convincing anyone left in that room, not even herself. In fact, Kaoru was shaking, a strong shiver traveling up her spine. It's cold. It's just really cold, she thought to herself. And it was cold that night, even inside the building.

Suddenly... flashlight kid started up again. "Guys, do you think we should--?"

Then the weirdest thing happened.

Though Kaoru had been standing still, firmly latched onto the kid with the flashlight, she found herself falling forward, towards the ground. For no reason? She braced herself, throwing her hands in front of her, closing her eyes tight, fearing that her face would smack hard against the wooden floor.

But that didn't happen. The floor had disappeared.

She was in freefall.

She didn't know how long she careened through the air; her She finally did hit something; a horizontal wall of... wet.

Oh shi--

Kaoru couldn't swim.

Stunned by the impact, she sunk few a few seconds, and in those few seconds water permeated her clothes, her hair, her nose--

She pinched her nose with one hand, and started failing about with the other. She couldn't summon the piece of mind to open her eyes, but she didn't need to see to know that she was moving. And fast.

Had she fallen some kind of river? A stream?

That when her hand grabbed onto something... hard. A corner of something, strong and sturdy enough the she stopped moving.

Only then could she open her eyes, and she saw that she was holding on to a large rock. It was lodged in the bed of the river, and it seemed to protrude from its surface. Summoning some courage, Kaoru released her nose and reached out to the other side of the stone with her other hand, counted to three, and tried hoisting herself up.

Groaning, she was able to overtake the current and she broke the surface, her body still being held up by the river current. Kaoru spent a few minutes coughing and sputtering and gulping in so much air it made her feel a bit sick. She hadn't realized she'd been under that long...

This isn't some freaking cartoon movie! No one's going to come and save me. I've gotta... I've gotta...

Her arms were achy and sore and she was freezing and completely confused... but she could get herself on top of this rock thing. Uchida Kaoru was a freaking gymnast. She wasn't the best, but she could do this.

Counting off again, she pulled against the rock with all her might. Luckily for her, it seemed to be stuck fast in the bed of the river and she was able to heave her body onto the surface of the rock, which was flat enough and wide enough for her to rest on somewhat comfortably.

For a second, Kaoru just lay on the stone, catching her breath. That had taken... so much out of her.

Finally, she was able to regain her composure and look around. She was in the middle of a river -- that much was obvious... it was a particularly wide one.

The girl frowned. Hadn't she just been in a building a few minutes ago?

She pushed that out of her mind, to focus on the immediate situation. Upon another look, it seemed like the river was big, wide, and fast-moving. She knew she couldn't swim, so... making it to one of the shores seemed like it'd be a little tough. Was it something she could accomplish on her own?

She opened her mouth, and--

...and...

...closed it again, promptly.

Kaoru didn't know the names of any of the boys she had just run into -- not the part-time spectacle wearer, not the bleached blonde delinquent... not even the short, snarky nerd that attended her own school. It's something that usually wouldn't bother her; she could get around it all the time. But she didn't have anyone to call out to.

"Anyone out there? Help!" she called, but she could only hear the echo over her own voice, and the constant flow of the moving waters.

Perhaps... she was stuck on her own.

Maybe she could find it in herself to regroup, make it across the river... and find the others. Or make her way back to camp and tell one of the teachers. Uchida Kaoru fancied herself pretty capable...

She just needed a minute.