Dangerous Souls

Nightmare

Chapter 4-Professor

February Day 2 6:50 A.M.

Mai managed to doze off for about an hour, but no real sleep. She was grateful and annoyed at the same time. She was still exhausted, but at the very least if she didn't sleep deeply then she didn't dream. If she didn't dream then she didn't see that demon thing. She was okay with that. Just so long as he didn't show up while she was awake.

That's not a possibility right? I'm not going to start hallucinating and see him around here am I?

She visibly shook off the shiver that ran down her spine and got dressed. She left a note on her bed for the priestess to find when she woke up. She had had enough sitting around doing the little bit of homework she brought. Plus it was hard to do it with such little light. So Mai set out for Base, tucking her protection charm in her jean pocket before closing the door behind her.

Walking into Base, she wasn't too surprised to find her boss sipping tea as the sun began to rise. She was a little surprised that her co-assistant was not typing away on something. "Morning," she said absently.

Naru turned around before replying, "Morning, I just made tea." He gestured his cup toward the teapot and mugs on their conference table. He turned back to the monitor that he had been studying earlier.

"Thanks," she answered, pouring herself a mug. Doesn't look like he slept much, either, she mused to herself.

Little did she know, he didn't get much more sleep than her. He turned back around holding a headset. "If you're up and in here, I figure you'd want to get to work. I haven't yet gone over the audio for the second dorm building. Why don't you get started on that?"

"Sure," Mai replied, taking the headset and sitting down next to her boss. She was absently aware that she forgot to put on makeup, but she didn't want to wake up Ayako. Oh well.

Naru did his best to not notice the purple shiner, at least it wasn't swollen like it must have been a few days before. He was still feeling uneasy with his dream from earlier.

***

"It's here. Mai will be the next victim of this monster." Naru said with clenched fists. It couldn't have happened yet, right? He just had a potential vision of what might happen, not what was happening, right? He needed to know.

He stood back up and bolted for the door, only to be jerked back once again. "Stop." Lin's voice was calm yet stern. "She's fine. She's not in danger. You need to sleep."

Naru knew his assistant had posted each of his four Shiki to each of the dorm rooms their team occupied. He also knew that because of the potential danger their team faced with this case Lin had Shiki tag along with each group as they did their job. By all accounts, if something were to happen to anyone, Lin would be the first to know.

One thing Naru knew from years of research, was that precognitive dreams can come as warnings, even to those who do not normally have visions. A warning of what is to come or what might come, it was never a definite. But sometimes, the measures you take to avoid such outcomes lead you in exactly the same situation as the vision. So when Ayako had said she and Mai would not be joining, he thought that maybe she had escaped whatever fate he had been warned of.

But when he still had the same dream again, he knew something was wrong. It was completely possible that the same fate could happen to either Masako or Kiko, but Naru was taking precautions to protect them. He hadn't expected Ayako to show up the day before with his battered assistant in tow. He hadn't expected his dream to change to what was most likely an empty dormroom in possibly the same building they were all staying in. He hadn't expected to feel so certain that there was almost nothing he could do to change the outcome of whatever he saw.