Chapter 13

Mai sat in darkness, curled up in a small ball. After finding no one home at the Imura residence - the house that had been empty for the past couple of days - she remembered how Keichi had mentioned often playing at the abandoned house and wondered if he might know of another way in. But, seeing as it was a weekday, Mai figured he wouldn't be home yet. So, she was quite surprised to find him standing behind her when she turned to return to base.

She asked Keichi if he knew of any secret ways in, and when he indicated he did, she decided to contact Naru in the base and let him know what she was about to do. Things were fine up until then. What she didn't expect was for Keichi to grab the two-way radio from her, as soon as she took it out of her pocket, and to take off.

Mai chased after Keichi in an effort to get the handset back, when she saw him duck into a small barn or shed. She remembered hesitating at the entrance as it was very dark and gloomy inside; as far as she could tell, the building had no windows. She also couldn't see where Keichi had gone. There was a sharp, rank odour inside the building which made her think that it was a barn more than a shed and that perhaps it hadn't been cleaned out recently. Hearing a sound come from up in the loft, she decided to go up there and investigate. And things went downhill from there.

Mai'd carefully climbed up the ladder and stepped out onto the floor of the loft to take a look around. When she moved several steps further into the loft, she heard a sudden noise behind her. Whirling around at the sound, she watched shocked as someone took the ladder away and ran out the door. Knowing that the edge of the floor was only steps away, Mai'd dropped to her knees to feel her way around only to stab the meaty part of her right hand on a large sliver of wood poking up from a knot in the floor. Mai cursed softly as she felt a small trickle of blood slide down her hand to fall onto the floorboards. Fumbling for a tissue, she carefully pressed it against her hand. However, while she was ministering her hand, the building was plunged into full darkness when the door was closed, and she distinctly heard the sound of a lock clicking shut afterwards.

Mai sighed. She didn't see the point in locking the door seeing how she was trapped up in the loft without a way down. It was a bit too high up for her to risk jumping down in the dark, especially since she didn't know what was down below. At least, she wasn't about to risk it quite yet.

After she was sure her cut had stopped bleeding, Mai curled up into a tight ball and buried her face in her knees as she shivered. Now that she wasn't constantly moving around, she was becoming all too aware of the chilly temperature.

'Why do I always get into situations like this?!' she wondered. 'I guess it's a bit better in that I didn't fall into something like a well or a manhole, but still!'

The others often called her a trouble maker and teased her about her tendency to get into trouble, but she definitely couldn't make any excuses this time. She was too miserable to even wonder why Keichi did that to her. 'I'm sure it was him. There's no one else it could've been.'

"Naru..." she murmured to herself when her head jerked up in surprise. 'No. I can't. I can't always depend on him... or on Gene to help me when I get in trouble,' she thought. 'It's bad enough Naru had to come out here because of me, but adding this on top...'

Mai felt tears spring in her eyes. She was always causing trouble for Naru, which is probably why he always yelled at her. Mai sighed. 'It's also probably why he often insults me and calls me an idiot,' she thought depressed. 'I wonder if he did the same to Gene. I know he called him an idiot especially when he found out that Gene can't seem to move on from this world, but...'

She shook her head. 'Gene at least was fully trained and a medium in the true sense. So it makes sense that Naru would put up with a bit of inconvenience in dealing with him, not to mention he was Naru's brother. But me? I've only caused problems, ever since I broke that first camera.'

Mai struggled against feeling sorry for herself. She knew it wasn't going to improve her situation, but knowing and feeling were two very different things. She shivered again and felt still more depressed over the cold. 'Of course I'm cold. It's late November! At least when Naru and I fell down the manhole it was still late summer.' Mai grit her teeth in frustration. 'Damn it, why is it always me? Why can't Lin-san or Yasuhara-san get into these sorts of situations for a change?! Better still why not Naru? Mind you, if that stick-in-the-mud did something as stupid as this...'

Mai giggled to herself. She imagined Naru getting so angry at himself for getting trapped up in a loft that he used his PK to knock down a wall. 'I can just imagine the after-effects,' she thought as she laughed. 'Not only would the building probably collapse bringing Naru crashing down with it, further annoying him and injuring his pride, he'd probably end up collapsing from using his PK. And when that happened, we'd all end up in a panic over his collapse that we wouldn't even realise he'd been an idiot in the first place. Not until much later... if at all.'

Mai sighed as she hugged herself tightly. 'I hope they realise I'm missing soon,' she thought. When she'd first been locked into the barn, just enough light leaked in from around the door that she could barely make out the difference between the floor and the empty expanse where the floor ended. But the light had faded at some point while she huddled on the floor and it was now pitch dark in the barn.

Mai struggled against exhaustion as it came crashing down on her. She hadn't slept much at all since coming to Kyoto, as she was afraid of possibly seeing Gene. She sensed that she might be even more afraid of not seeing him in her dreams. So she'd avoided sleep as much as possible, barely even napping. But three nights with little sleep were taking their toll and she slipped into a fitful doze.

She didn't hear Gene's voice as it whispered in the darkness of her dreams.

'Hang in there, Mai.'