After Dark, June 16th--???

[itwasfeyt]

[It had been a long day. Maya had been saddled with these strange memories, right after the ritual. She would have ignored them as a silly vision, had things not started to play out in the same way. Souji was missing, and she knew something was up now. Unfortunately, Hiroshi, her prime suspect in the situation, seemed to know even less then she did. And, when they had gone off to investigate Souji's house once again, they found nothing.

Frankly, she was stuck, and time was running out.

In times like this, her thoughts strayed to her sister, Mia and what she might have to say in a moment like this. One of her lessons were, "if you were going to investigate, the best place to start would be the scene of the crime". There were no proper murder scenes, at least to Maya's knowledge, but the spot in the woods where they did the ritual seemed like a good place to start.

...After getting a burger, of course. You couldn't investigate properly on an empty stomach. but now they were getting down to business, and Maya was leading Hiroshi into the outer parts of the woods.]

So... do you think we'll find anything out here?

Comments

[kouyouensei]

What???

[She says it out loud to the phone in her hand but the jumbled characters stay the same. She turns a corner and decides to console later.]

Roger, OMW

[itwasfeyt]

Hurrry!! me and Hiroshi are already here!

[kouyouensei]

[An affirmation that she is hurrying won't help. Haruhi continues to simply hurry. She tabs to her contacts list - includes entries like Alice at the top, Maya and Minako in the middle, but no... Maria. Why would a little kid have a cell phone, right? And then the question morphs into a different, worse one. What could "she's dead" mean? Maria is very innocent and pure, but too old for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. She was in the woods, wasn't that what Maya implied? Maria KNOWS the woods are dangerous; she was the bottomless legend wellspring; she could not have had herself an accident. Foul play is at hand, and... A little girl is dead. Maya tells the truth enough. What is the point? This is a good town where nobody disagrees except for Yamane and Minako and Alice politely - why else would Haruhi come here - and tragic death can't be happening. She needs to wake up from this bad dream, though until then obey the rules of the dream and shape it subtly.

Instead of wasting time by scrolling further down her contacts (her stride is already getting unsteady, her black shoes leave streaks), Haruhi realizes, she should concentrate more specifically on waking up with all her homework done on Monday morning.]

I'm calling Alice

[itwasfeyt]

HURRRY hiroshi's already calling the police

[kouyouensei]

[Minutes later.]

Coming. Shimamoto too