1

"What"s wrong!?"

Hearing Midori"s voice, Hirota awakened from his stupor.

The door of the living room opened and Midori rushed out from there.

"Hirota-san?"

Hirota was sure that Midori thought it was strange. He also thought the same. Why would he be sitting down the concrete floor?

Reaching back into his memory, Hirota remembered his dizziness.

-- What the h.e.l.l did I see just now?

A pain travelled through the palm of his hand upon moving his body. When he looked, the concrete floor had been sprinkled with fine gla.s.s fragments.

"Oh my," Midori was speechless and looked at Hirota and the ceiling. Hirota did the same and looked upward again. The lightbulb of the lamp in the ceiling was broken.

"Just what happened?"

Midori went down to the concrete floor and extended a hand to Hirota. The gla.s.s at Midori"s feet that cracked when stepped on and made a grating sound, but other than that there was nothing else there.

-- It"s rather me who wants to ask what happened, he thought.

The staircase and the corridor were swept clean. There was no single trace of clotted blood.

(Another hallucination? What the h.e.l.l happened to me?)

Hirota turned down Midori"s hand and moved his body. He wiped himself briefly and countless of fragments spilled down.

"Are there no injuries?"

"-- No."

"You really are a guy who breaks stuff, huh."

When Hirota heard this and raised his face, he saw Takigawa making a stunned expression. He probably ran over here.

"I"m telling you, don"t go smashing other people"s houses."

"I didn"t break it. The light bulb exploded on its own."

Although he answered in astonishment, he couldn"t stop his legs from shivering. It seems like no one saw the sight just now. It seemed like it wasn"t shown on the camera. They probably didn"t hear those sounds and the voice of the old man.

He looked bewildered at the people who gathered at the entrance, but their faces only expressed curiosity. Hirota looked around again to see all those present and it was then that he recognized the chilly pair of eyes that sent chills down his spine.

Naru didn"t say anything. He was folding his arms and leaned gently against the wall of the staircase. His dark gaze motionlessly poured into Hirota, silently asking whether he would insist on having seen nothing this time as well.

"It looks like you have a little cut. I"ll treat you."

Midori urged and Hirota broke his gaze. When he looked to the side, Naru sighed and said:

"It was 2 degrees Celsius."

Naru continued with an expressionless voice when Hirota lifted his face at once.

"The temperature of the entranceway was suddenly like that until just now."

Hirota evaded his gaze. At the same time he heard light footsteps coming from upstairs.

"Hey, did something happen?"

Mai had just run down. Behind her he could see Masako.

"Yo, good morning."

The one who said that with a silly voice was Takigawa, but Mai didn"t mind it and ran down the stairs, looking at all of them.

"Did you just hear those noises?"

Everyone gazed at Mai.

"The sounds of someone running around and a shriek. Didn"t you hear that?"

"No," Naru answered.

"But you certainly heard it, right?"

Mai looked over at Masako. Masako nodded.

"There were the sounds of jumbled footsteps, running and a shriek. It was on the corridor of the second floor. I was sure that something had happened, so we jumped up to our feet."