Gundam Wing/AC 1. The Beginning: Dorothy

**Dorothy**

She was ill.

It did not matter anymore of what. No one knew, of course. No doctors, for all of their new, modern ways, could even lessen the symptoms, let alone tell her what it was that was sapping her strength. Even now, as she sat out on the high balcony that overlooked the valley in which her home nestled, wrapped in a blanket despite the springtime sun smiling down on her, she could barely harness the strength it took to keep her head raised. She dreaded the day when she couldn't, when her husband, her longsuffering, faithful husband, would not even be able to see her look him in the eyes.

She would rather die first. A possibility she had only recently come to accept.

Her husband had been a saint, much to the surprise of everyone in the community except Dorothy herself. A large, gruff man, many had expected that he would be seeking a new woman for his bed when it became obvious that Dorothy could not be of service in that area. Those who dared to speak this idea out loud were treated to his fist.

He had made all accommodations for her comfort. Their bedroom, up two flights of narrow stairs, was abandoned now, in favor of a much smaller room on the ground floor. When she could no longer easily walk, he had procured for her a chair with wheels on the bottom to help her around. When she could no longer push it, a nurse was hired, her duties expanding as Dorothy's condition became worse.

Marie was no less than an angel. A tiny girl with short cropped red hair and wide, expressive eyes, she hailed from the Isles in Europe, and had a strong, lilting accent to show it. Her voice was soothing, and though she could be a bit abrasive, Dorothy thought that a nurse must be, otherwise the patient would sit in their own grief, and their visitors would bear the afflicted down with overly expressed concerns. When Dorothy was feeling better, Marie would bring her here, to the balcony, and let her sit in the sun. Though Dorothy could barely talk anymore, Marie filled the silence with chatter, uplifting words, and, sometimes, song.

Of late, however, even Marie was quieter. Dorothy knew the reasons: She was becoming such a burden. Her husband was feeling the strain of being chained to a marriage that could not provide his basic needs, and brooding more and more upstairs, though he did make an effort to come visit, even still. When he did, he would simply hold her pale, frail hand in the massive confines of his and look at her, his eyes so full of grief that it saddened her to see them.

"Oh, Lady, the sun's goin' doon an' et's time tae go inside. Did ye like yuir time outside, Lady?" Marie's voice, softer than usual, also seemed strained, as if the happiness she were showing was a put on. Dorothy tried to look up at her and smile, but her head would only bob, and finally ended up with her chin resting against her chest.

She wanted to weep, but Marie was speaking again. "'Course ye did, 'tis healthy, tae be in th' sun, isn't it? But 'tis also healthy to get good rest." She paused, then, with a cool, slender hand pressed to the other woman's forehead, lifted Dorothy's head up and let it roll back. Dorothy could see Marie's face, upside down, smiling, and could tell that the smile was masking something else, a glint in the girl's eyes. "'Tis time tae rest, Lady..."

Marie did not speak as she brought Dorothy to the small room, but her movements were efficient as ever, aligning the chair, preparing the bed, and moving Dorothy from one to the other efficiently. Dorothy had marveled in the strength in the young girl's arms the first time Marie had physically lifted her from the chair to the bed. It was no less impressive, even if there wasn't nearly as much weight on Dorothy now.

Marie sat by the bed, for the first time in a long time, and took a cool cloth to Dorothy's forehead. It felt good, and Dorothy smiled at the feeling. Marie gave that wooden, sad smile back. Dorothy closed her eyes, not wanting to see her caretaker, her friend, so sad. It wasn't long before sleep pulled at her.

She had been on the edge, where sleep and wakefulness merge, when she heard the soft lilt of Marie's voice, as if down a deep tunnel, softly whispering, "S'for th' best..."

Pressure! She couldn't breathe! It felt as if someone were sitting across her chest and over her mouth. Her arms tried to flail, but she had lost that ability long ago. Her legs scrabbled against the bed, but could barely raise, let alone get traction. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe, and she was dying, and she realized with this force that she did _not_ want to die!

She tried, tried so hard, to bring her breath through the pressure on her throat and chest, but could not. Her mind, cruelly sharp even as the rest of her body betrayed her, began to cloud, and stopped sending signals to retain life. In the end, she though, just before the darkness caught her, this was for the best, just as Marie said.

The darkness had taken her, yes. It had not taken her far.

She felt no strength in her limbs, and yet could now move. This place, this dark, cold, damp place, had no light, and yet she could see, as if whatever vile things lived her made their own light. Or simply were too dark for the lack of light to conceal them.

There were windows here, too. Windows she could look through, to see dreary versions of her home. She had, a first, hungrily watched. The funeral had been somber, as was proper, and she felt satisfied that she was well remembered.

Until she found the window that lead to the bedroom that had been hers and her husband's. There, to her horror, he watched as Marie, her seemingly faithful nurse, twirled a new dress about her legs, and smiled, and, when her husband walked in through the door, did not flee for the impropriety of trying on her mistress' former attire, but leapt into his arms, kissing him as Dorothy had never kissed him, even in health. Wantonly. Brazenly.

Dorothy had waited for her husband to tell her it was too soon, that she shouldn't be here, that she was to leave. Instead he took her to their bed, his and Dorothy's.

She watched. She could not pull away.

And she smiled, lustfully, as he left afterward.

Now Dorothy watched her. Now she could see. This was not new. This was not since the death of his wife, which Dorothy could have come to accept. She had been dallying with him like a common whore.

And he had not only accepted it, but encouraged it.

They were to be married. Marie had said as much as she looked through the window, a window that Dorothy now knew was a mirror in her own room. They were to be married. Now that Dorothy was out of the way.

Dorothy felt her non-existent fist clench as she wept. Though she could not see it, she knew that the tears from her eyes were not falling down her cheeks, but spreading outward, away and around and in front of her eyes, like tendrils, black and damp and covering them like a dark glow.

She stood in front of the mirror-window through which she could see the world she had been in, waiting. Marie would be there, soon, preparing to wed her husband, coming to see herself in the mirror, to express her happiness. But Dorothy would show herself first.

She did not think, in the end, that Marie would be happy at all...


	2. The Maxwells

The car pulled into the driveway, much the way it had for the few years its occupants had known someone who'd lived at this address; first, Relena and Heero, then just Relena. Now, it was empty. The two had been victims of anything from a serial killer to the supernatural, depending on who one spoke to. It had been long enough, however, that neither occupant of the car cared how it had happened: Their friends were gone, and that was bad enough.

The pair sat in the car for a while. A man, with hair the color of roasted honey tied into a thick braid and hanging, now, over his shoulder, and a woman, pale except for her dark, short hair and sharp blue eyes. It was she who moved first, though not in her customary impatience. She simply leaned forward to better look at the whole house, then sat back. The man's right hand slid toward her, grasping her left before she could pull it away.

"Don't say it, Duo." The woman crossed her arms and sat back, scowling at the dashboard. Duo raised his hands, not facing her but still in the classic pose of supplication.

"I wasn't going to say a word."

"I just don't want to have to face that she's gone. That's all."

Duo cracked a smile, not daring to look at her now. If she'd seen it, she'd knock him out of the car. "Nah. Me either." Then, after a few moments of contemplation on his part and stewing on hers, he sighed. His voice was soft, when he spoke, and genuine. "Hell, you're braver than I am..."

She glanced his way. "How so?"

"I wouldn't go in there alone, and you were prepared to. Even if I chickened out."

Hilde smiled a little at that, looking at the house. She suppressed a shiver, not to fool Duo, who obviously knew she _was_ afraid to go into the house, but because she _wasn't_ afraid. That was what she told herself, at any rate.

Duo pressed on. "I would have hired workers."

"Yeah, well... a stranger shouldn't be the last person to touch your things..." Hilde looked out at the house again, chewing on her lower lip. "It's not right... mom never really got that through my head..."

"Huh?"

Hilde looked at him fully then, her eyes haunted. "Mom tried to teach me that when gram died. That family, or at the least friends, should take care of the... final possessions. She said it was a final act of love." With a one sided shrug she allowed herself to fall back against the car seat. "I didn't like Gram much, and she didn't like me, so I didn't get it, you know? Until now."

Duo watched her, then nodded, pulling on the sleeve of her puffy, white sweater. He linked his arm through hers briefly. "Come on. Let's tell our friends we love them."

Hilde smiled sadly at him, then opened the door. "Let's."

"Holy crap, they had a lot of stuff!" Duo shook his head at the enormity of it. The upstairs was packed, the clothing and trinkets set to go to a charity, and the bed set to be burned. Art and the like was packaged and ready to send to the pair's families, an undertaking for Relena, but a very simple matter for Heero: His family that was still living was the one doing the packing, and not blood related at all.

"Hush," Hilde said, bending over a box that she was taping. "This should be the last room."

"You mean, before the basement, right?"

Hilde's head snapped up so quickly that Duo had nearly winced in sympathy at what should have been a crick. "Basement? There's a basement?"

Duo grinned. "Yeah. Where do you think all the stuff went when Relena got new stuff?"

"Nobody... said anything... about a _basement_!"

"Not surprising you didn't know about it. It was me and Heero that would haul the stuff down there, while you two girls twittered over the new stuff-" He knew he had said the wrong thing, knew he could hear an almost audible snap as Hilde's phenomenal patience finally broke, and cringed in anticipation.

"YOU KNEW ABOUT THE BASEMENT?"

Duo took several steps backwards, even as his face slacked into disbelief. "Really? That's what you're mad about?"

She was mad. Duo could see that very easily. But as soon as it seemed she would reach her greatest anger, she seemed to deflate. "Damn it, Duo... Is there any other place I should know about?"

Duo bit his lower lip. "This would be a bad time to mention the small room off of the parlor, wouldn't it?"

Hilde's glare told him how right he was. She turned, heading toward the back of the house, and Duo followed, hands in his pockets, working on the proper suitably chagrined expression that he would need the next time she looked at him. It wasn't easy. Even past her teens, Hilde had a rear end that was a wonder to behold.

It wasn't until they'd circled the house a few times that Duo realized that Hilde was looking for the door to the basement. Duo stifled a laugh and, when they came to it again, opened the door. The noise made Hilde turn, and he barely got the hangdog expression on his face in time.

Her glare was less potent than it had been, but he could tell she was still angry. She swept past him, stopping at the head of the stairs.

"Yeah, so... this is the basement..." Duo rocked back and forth on his heels, letting his hands fly from behind his back to his front and back, clapping noisily at either end. Hilde stood, staring down into the basement, arms crossed, tapping her foot, but otherwise silent.

"Well," he said, after a lengthy pause. "I'm getting hungry. I think I'll go check and see what's to eat..." Duo fully expected a rejoinder about how there wasn't going to be any good food in the refrigerator after all this time, but there was no response at all.

He sighed. She did this, sometimes. Let the anger burn. In an hour or two, she would be fine, talking with him as if nothing had happened between them. It could be infuriating, but...

Well, it wasn't an easy time right now, anyway. He really shouldn't have teased her.

"I'll go get something for lunch."

Still no response, but he didn't expect one. He turned and walked to the hall.

At the end of the hall, the closet door popped open. Duo blinked. Shaking his head, he chuckled. "Man, this is an old house, all right."

Walking to the door, he peered in. Inside was a pitch black void, probably because it was getting dark. He opened the door wider, trying to let in more light. It didn't seem to help.

Still, he should check it to make sure there wasn't anything in there they needed to pack up.

Duo stuck his head in. A touch on the nape of his neck made him jerk.

"Hey, Hilde, I was-"

He was yanked forward, the feeling of hot, fetid breath washed over him, and he didn't even have time to scream as he felt himself drop, felt the feeling of slick, ivory teeth around the entirety of his body, felt the flame of being pierced by dozens of serrated spikes through the midsection...

The closet door slammed shut. After a moment of silence, the was a deep, wet crunch, and then silence.

"Better get this over with, huh?" Hilde shook her head, as if to clear it. She had watched the blackness until her eyes had misted over. She wasn't being fair to Duo. He couldn't have known she hadn't been told about the basement. "Come on, babe..."

There was no answer. Well, that was to be expected. He never liked the silent treatment. She turned, and was surprised to find nothing.

"Duo..?"

"Hey, Hilde," came a quiet sound from the basement. Hilde blinked and turned around, peering into the darkness. How had he gotten past her?

"Duo?"

"Man, this is an old house..."

Hilde took a step into the darkness, then another. She could hear him talking, as if she were right next to him, but she couldn't see him. He hadn't turned on a light.

There was something foreboding about his talking in the dark, and any anger, new or old, was washed away in the cold chill down her spine.

"Duo, where are you..?"

"Hilde, I was-"

"Duo?"

She crept down the stairs. Surely she would hit the bottom soon...

"Duo..?

Another step. Then another. She would be at the floor, and he would have a light.

"Duo, where are you?"

Just another step down...

"Duo?"

Just one more step, she was sure of it.

"Duo..?"


	3. Catherine and Trowa

TIME: 12:42 PM

DATE: [REDACTED]

ADDRESS: [REDACTED]

OPERATOR: Emergency Services, what is your emergency?

CALLER: Hello? It's my brother! Hello?

OPERATOR: Yes, ma'am, this is Emergency Services, can you hear me?

CALLER: Yes! It's my brother! He... he fell off of the balcony!

Trowa had fallen asleep in the car. It wasn't an easy thing to do. Training had made it so that he was a light sleeper, and the subsequent paranoia of being a soldier ensured that he only slept when he felt secure. Catherine took it as a complement. Yes, they were getting older, so yes, both of them needed more sleep than they had in their youth, but it was still nice that her brother trusted her enough to all asleep.

It was a pleasant fall day, and Catherine had invited Trowa out to a place she had considered buying. Having been travelling with the circus long after even Trowa had given up and settled down to his one bedroom apartment, Catherine had not been around for the events of the last few years. She had heard of them in the news, and from what little information she could squeeze out of Trowa when she managed to get him on the phone. Now she was coming to stay in this town, despite her misgivings. Trowa was here, even if she didn't understand why he'd stay in a town where he'd lost so many friends. If he was here, so was she. It was time to stop running from each other.

OPERATOR: Ma'am, please repeat. What happened.

CALLER: I... I don't know! We were standing on the balcony and he fell off!

OPERATOR: Is there a break in the railing, ma'am.

CALLER: No! This... this can't be happening! Send help!

OPERATOR: Ma'am, could you give me an address?

CALLER: [REDACTED]

[SILENCE]

CALLER: Hello? Hello?

OPERATOR: Ma'am, there is no one listed as living at that address.

CALLER: I'm a prospective buyer! Why are you wasting time, hurry!

She had found the house by accident. It wasn't listed with any real estate office, so when those that were didn't catch her fancy, she decided to drive around a bit. The town was lovely, a quaint little village amongst the trees, spectacularly colored with fall leaves.

It was nestled in a little gully, with a small mountain road winding up above it to meet the main thoroughfare. The trees around the front were beautiful aspens, the leaves flowing like ochre silk on the branches. She could imagine the cleanup once they finally fell, and it didn't faze her. This was the house she wanted. It was almost as if it called to her.

She'd had to research to find out who owned it, and was delighted to find that it was, indeed, for sale. It had been so long that someone had been interested they had directed their man-power elsewhere. The paperwork was filed that day, and Catherine called Trowa to come look at the place with her.

He'd fallen asleep on the way, but as soon as the car was put into park, he woke with a start, as if someone had poked him. Catherine grinned at him when he rubbed his eyes. "We're here!"

"Sorry," was his only reply. Trowa was never one for words.

He turned to look out the window, reaching for the car handle, and stopped short. Slowly, he turned, looking at Catherine. She was about to give him a cheery smile to goad him from the car, but the shadows in his eyes stopped her short.

"Here?"

"Well, yes," she started. To her amazement, he cut her off.

"You can't live here."

Catherine's brow furrowed, and she could feel her temper rising. "I can live wherever I damn well please, Tr-"

"This is where Heero died. This is where Duo and Hilde disappeared." He looked out the window. "This is a bad place."

Catherine felt the blood flow from her face, then slumped back in the seat. "I didn't know." Trowa nodded, and she sighed. "I want to just take a look around before I tell them I'm not buying after all."

"Not a good idea," Trowa said, but opened his car door. Trowa was like that. He would give you advice, if he spoke to you at all, but he wouldn't ever impose his will on you. Even if she'd decided to buy the house after all, he wouldn't have fought her more than telling her she couldn't live here.

The found the balcony, looking down into the gully, and Catherine had to fight the images of sitting out on a cool night with some tea. Trowa stood next to her at the ledge, and she looked out, watching the trees on the other side shake their brightly colored leaves in the wind... it was hypnotic... she felt cold, but she didn't want to cover up. She just wanted to watch the leaves...

Trowa sighed. Too many bad memories here. He turned to look at Catherine, and noticed that she was staring out at the trees. Fine. Let her have her...

She wasn't just staring. Her face was blank, as if she were drugged. Trowa gripped her shoulder. "Catherine?"

She turned to look at him, then smiled, the smile growing too wide for her face. Her eyes began to emit a black mist. Her hand came up and gripped his upper arm in a tight, crushing grip, and he grunted in pain. Then he was lifted, so quickly he couldn't react, and thrown over the railing. The ground was coming up fast, and he was spinning uncontrollably. His last look just before his head hit the rocky ground below was Catherine looking down at him with those blackened eyes and that wide, impossibly grin...

OPERATOR: Is he moving, Ma'am? Can you see him? Can you go down to him?

CALLER: No, I can't, I can't get a signal except for the balcony! [crying] He's hurt, please send someone!

OPERATOR: Emergency personnel have been sent right away, ma'am and will reach you shortly. You said you cannot go where he is and stay on the phone?

CALLER: No, I can't get a... Oh my god, he's moving! Trowa!

OPERATOR: Ma'am, you said he was moving?

CALLER: He's moving, oh my god, he's moving! I'm going to put the phone down and see if he's all right! Trowa, stay there... [voice recedes]

OPERATOR: Ma'am? Ma'am? Emergency Team, this is Dispatch, victim is now moving. May need restraints...

She shook her head, to clear it. "It's so pretty here, isn't it, Trow-" She turned her head to look at him, but he was gone. That was odd. There was no way for him to have left the balcony without her noticing...

She looked toward the house, but the door they had come in by was shut, just as it should be. She looked to the other side of the balcony, seeing if he had stepped over there, but he wasn't there either.

His jacket caught her eye as she turned, and she looked down to see him sprawled, twisted. Gasping, she hurriedly called the emergency line and dashed into the house as the phone rang.

It squelched and cut off. She looked at her phone in horror to see that it had no bars.

She dashed back out, relieved to hear the double tone that meant she had picked up a signal. She stepped into the house as she dialed this time, but there was nothing but dead air.

The house was a dead zone for cell phones. She whimpered in frustration and stepped onto the balcony again, dialing with her fingers trembling now.

She didn't remember the conversation. At one point, she had had to give the address, but everything else was a blur, until he started moving. She didn't want to lose the call, but she had to check on him! He could be hurt, and his trying to move would hurt him more.

She had nearly tripped dashing down the stairs, but managed to right herself in time. Years of acrobatics training hadn't yet failed her. She dashed out of the door and around the house.

Trowa was standing now, slumped, his back to her. She couldn't hear him breathing, or any other sign that he was injured, but she wouldn't. She stepped toward him. "Trowa? Trowa, what happened?"

He didn't answer, but, again, that wasn't too odd. His left leg was bent lower, but the right was out at an angle. Catherine could see the ugly twist that told her it was broken or dislocated. His left arm hung limp, useless, and that was probably broken as well. Blood dripped from his fingers.

"Trowa, I have Emergency Services on the phone. Come inside. They'll be here soon enough."

She reached out, close enough now to touch his shoulder, and he spun, faster than an injured man should. He gripped her wrist with a crushing grip, and when Catherine tried to see his face, there was only black, obscured eyes.

She screamed, terrified, her heart fluttering in her chest. The scream cut off abruptly with a sharp pain, and Catherine looked down to see Trowa's fingers embedded in her chest. Her heart was not fluttering anymore. In fact, it felt cold.

[LOUD SCREAM, CUT OFF SUDDENLY]

OPERATOR: Hello? Ma'am? Ma'am? Are you there? Hello?

[SILENCE. AFTER MOMENTS]

VOICE: Hello?

OPERATOR: Hello? Is this the woman I was speaking to before? This is Emergency Services. Is everything all right?

[SILENCE]

VOICE: No. Send more medics...

[CLICK]


	4. Wufei

Wufei had long since given up trying to be around people.

A veteran of too many wars, he had tried, truly tried, to return to the way things had been before. He had been a scholar once. He had once opened his mind to knowledge, even to art and poetry. He had once been deeply in love. It was, in fact, the loss of that love that had driven him away from all else, to seek revenge, retribution for the soul that had been taken from him. At times, even now, he felt the ragged edges where Meiran's heart had joined with his and then been torn away.

So he had become a soldier, and he had fought within the machine where Meiran had breathed her last, merciless and cruel, until four others, similar to him, banded with him to bring down the men who had wanted to use the mobile suit technology to decimate the Earth and leave the colonies at war with each other, a war that would have spanned decades, even centuries.

These people, and, eventually, their families, were the only ones who would tolerate him long enough for him to return the favor. He was closer to them than any of his kin. However, Wufei would be the first to admit that it wasn't exactly a great difference.

It didn't take a detective, though Wufei had gained some skill in that field, to put together that all of those who had moved on had all been done away with in the house where Heero and Relena had lived in, had died in. He'd heard the theories, growing larger and more detailed with every new death, that the house itself was responsible. The house or something in it.

Of course, he didn't believe it.

More likely, to him, was that people entered the house, expecting something to happen, and got careless in their anxiety. Wufei shook his head. They had been important to him, yes, but none of them, himself included, had been entirely sane.

Letting himself in the house was not a problem. It was, currently, property of a realty company that still tried to sell it, but left it unlocked for any potential buyer to come in. The house's reputation had long preceded it, however. He had been the only one to do so, judging by the leaves on the porch.

The door scraped against the ground as he entered, setting Wufei's teeth on edge. He smirked to himself. Was it the sound that set his teeth on edge, or was it anticipation of the house.

He chuckled, even as he pulled the long coat around his wiry frame. The passing of years had not caused him to neglect himself the way it did with others. Another thing he and the other pilots had in common: They had remained vigilant, even after the wars had passed, even after the mobile suits had been destroyed, they had kept in shape, kept ready.

Just in case.

Even now, one of the remaining two, he carried a side arm with him at all times, so much so that it didn't even get noticed anymore. Wufei Long with a side arm was the same as anyone else with a watch. Wufei used his side arm much less often than others would even use their watch, which, with digital displays showing the time around every corner, wasn't often at all.

He walked slowly through the lower part of the house. Was it darker in here? Did he see the light dim? It had been the height of the afternoon when he'd reached the house, was the sun setting now?

Were his eyes failing him? He thought of the glasses he still carried in the inside pocket of his long coat. More and more he had to rely on them to read. A sign of age no amount of preparation or exercise could have prevented, yet he still balked at wearing those glasses for more than he absolutely had to.

The window still showed the clear, cloudless sky. Not cloudless, however, he noticed as he looked out. There was a large bank just cresting over the mountain range. It would get prematurely dark, soon, and the thought brought an unwelcome shiver up his spine. He shook it off in annoyance. There was nothing new here. He was here to remember, not to investigate.

The time for investigations were long over.

He'd come to remember. He'd come to see where his friends had, all but one, passed on without him, and wonder why nothing had yet been done, and possibly, if he could find it in his heart, let go for once in his life and move on.

Mei-lin knew, he hadn't been very successful with that concept in the past.

The clouds had come, blocking out the sun as predicted, and the house had stood empty for so long that the owners, a realty company, had bothered to turn on the electricity. It didn't disturb Wufei, not in a way that he'd admit to anyone else. He shook off another chill and walked to the stairs. They, too, were dark, darker than the living room was getting, but he no longer cared.

He walked the treads of the old staircase slowly. It didn't creak, as one might expect in an older house. Despite the wooden tread, there was only muffled noise, as if the house itself were holding its breath in anticipation of something. It was not a comforting thought.

Wufei passed the servant's room, where Relena's housemaid had lived in the year between Heero and Relena's deaths. There was nothing of interest for him there, though he remembered that the housemaid herself had been killed here as well.

He stopped in front of the master bedroom door and looked. The chill, at first an annoyance, had begun travelling up and down his back in earnest somewhere past the landing, and when he raised his hand to open the door, he could feel it was shaking. He grimaced and shot the hand to the knob, groping for it in the dark, until he found it and twisted. The door opened, and Wufei looked in surprise. Had he pushed the door open, or had it been pulled..?

He stepped in, the cloud-shaded light from outside casting grey pall over everything in the room. There was the bed, more than likely a new one, and there was the red mark on the floor, the one that had been there since Relena had died. The room was, in fact, very much the same as it had been since that night. The place was almost perfectly preserved, as if time itself were afraid to venture in.

Wufei shook his head at the poetic thought. His days as a scholar had never really left him. Like the memory of the dearly departed, it would spring up and make him wistful. But it, like her, like Mei-Lin, had long since been buried.

There, across from the bed, was the standing mirror. The dark wood frame seemed to absorb the scant light that filtered through the clouds, and the glass reflected the room almost as if it were in shades of grey. There he was, looking back through the mirror at himself, hands in the pockets of his long coat, eyes hooded against the chills that hadn't stopped dancing up and down his spine since he'd climbed the stairs.

There was a sudden shift in the mirror, one that had happened just as Wufei began to look away, and he snapped his eyes back to it, narrowing them, alert to any sudden changes. He shifted his feet to more squarely face the mirror...

The image of him didn't. Instead, a shift, like a glitch, happened, a split second of some image that wasn't the room or Wufei or anything, and then his image looked at him, directly, turning only its head.

It grinned. Wider than Wufei ever had, then wider than should have been possible. The eyes began to flow with a black substance, at first like tar, then, like a black mist, with tendrils flowing out and curling back in.

Wufei clenched his teeth, and nearly turned to charge out of the room. Then, suddenly, as the realization hit him, he relaxed.

It was tech, not spirit, that did this. The glitch in the screen made it too obvious. Someone was screwing with him. Probably the same someone who had killed his friends.

He walked to the mirror, the image now matching him movement for movement, except for the too-wide smile and black-misted eyes. Soon, they were virtual feet from each other.

Wufei slowly pulled his side arm from its holster, pulling back the hammer. He lifted it until it was inched from the mirror, pointed at his mirror images tall forehead.

The image was now acting just like a mirror should, enough that Wufei began to doubtwhat he'd seen before, if not for those eyes and that grin. With a smirk, he put his finger on the trigger. "A warrior doesn't fear tricks," he said, softly, and pulled the trigger.

The sound was loud, and echoed from the room, through the house, and back. Wufei's smirk slowly melted off of his face, flowing down like the blood pouring from the hole in his forehead. He twitched, once, dropping the gun, then fell, boneless. The image in the mirror smiled down at him.

Had anyone been there to see, they would have seen the image turn to the corpse's reflection, shake its head, and walk away, kicking the reflected corpse as it passed.

The body on the ground jerked once.

Through the window, a storm raged, the lightning crashing violently, thunder clapping through the valley like gunshots.


	5. Quatre

Quatre Ribeira-Winner stood at the end of the long, arcing driveway, leaning heavily on his cane. He was staring, warily watching, a house he had never once stepped foot into, yet still hated.

It was not easy for Quatre to admit he hated something, let alone something as subjective as a house. Conceivably, the house could not have done anything against him purposely, and yet it seemed that, over the years, his friends had, one by one, disappeared in relation to this house. Heero had been the first, but not the least remarkable because of it. Relena had been found, gutted, hands clawed at her face as if she were caught in her last, terrified scream. Duo and Hilde Maxwell had never been found. The little girl, Marie, who had served faithfully as Relena's handmaiden, found with her face cut up and eye gouged out in the upstairs bathroom. It had seemed that the mirror had exploded, and yet the investigators had reported it intact. Trowa had fallen to his death, his sister Catherine's body lying next to his, her heart ripped out of her chest and placed in Trowa's dead hand. Wufei had shot himself in the head.

Despite the obvious evidence of murder, nothing was being done.

There had been others, as well, Though Quatre didn't know many of them personally. Little Marie's fiancé had gone to the house in a drunken fit of rage after the girl's funeral and ended up hanging from the eaves. Paramedics that had come to render aid had arrived to scenes of gore. They would commit suicide days later, often to the complete shock of their families.

They were just far enough apart that no investigations had started to look into it. Quatre himself wouldn't have put it together if not for his own investigation, one he felt compelled to make after hearing that Wufei had shot himself.

Wufei was many things, some noble, some quite the opposite. A coward, however, was not one of them.

As his investigations progressed, he felt, at times, the presence of others. A familiar feeling to him: Back in his, in their, youths, he knew he could rely on his four comrades to be there when he struggled. Now, when he ran against obstacle after obstacle, he had the same feeling, sometimes like a touch on his shoulder, sometimes like a push in a more fruitful direction, others like a wink and a smile. He'd taken to thinking of it as his four dead comrades come to support him one last time.

Yes, he knew it was crazy. He was getting old, and he was a veteran. He was allowed a little craziness.

He had, finally, after so much legal maneuvering it caused his old leg injury to flare up just to think about it, managed to get his hands on the Emergency Services call from the day Trowa and Catherine had died. That tape had given him more questions than answers. Some questions, such as why the address and location was edited from the log, were easily answered: The tape could be released: Quatre had seen that first hand. They did not want people who were curious going out and risking their lives, looking for thrills, or clues, or what have you.

The obvious follow up was that if they knew there were such dangers, why wasn't something to be done. The woman answering his questions had looked nervous for a while, and then, in a low whisper meant only for his ears, admitted that they didn't want more people to die. It was she who pointed out what would have been obvious to someone watching from the distance she could afford: Anyone who stepped foot in the house died.

Quatre didn't believe that. Not at first. But his investigation definitely pointed in that direction.

There was, of course, only one real solution.

The house would have to go.

He bent, slowly, picking up the gasoline can at his feet, and limped his way toward the house.

Stepping across the threshold was like stepping into another world.

From outside, the house seemed dark. Perhaps a little musty, perhaps the smell of years of dust, but that was all. It was just another empty house.

When Quatre stepped into the house, he felt a chill almost like a jolt of electricity, so real that his bad hip twinged painfully enough to cause him to drop the plastic gas can with a loud thump. The noise echoed through empty halls.

Quatre let some moments pass, willing the pain away. His heart was thumping hard in his chest, his breath coming in pained, rapid gasps. He had really gotten himself worked up. It had always been that way. The house had always seemed so foreboding, so dangerous that he couldn't bring himself to enter it. Finally passing that barrier after so many years must have caused a mental jolt that his body took as physical.

He was no stranger to such things, either.

It took longer than it had when he'd first gotten the injury, but that was to be expected. He was older, much older, and his body didn't recover as quickly. He concentrated on the sound of his own breathing. It wasn't until the pain began to ebb that he became aware of another sound, almost too low to hear.

He stopped, but the blood in his ears and the pounding beat of his heart muffled the sound. He could hear it, oh yes, a whisper against the white noise in his ears, but though the nose rose and fell like speech, understanding eluded him. He waited, trying to relax in this strange place he'd walked into.

The voice grew closer, and soon Quatre could discern what sounded like a kind of hoarse singing, the lilting, faltering tune like that of a lullaby or nursery rhyme, something that may be sung to quiet a frightened child. Quatre strained to hear.

"Hush now, quiet now  
>It's time to lay your sleepy head<br>Hush now, quiet now  
>It's time to go to bed<p>

Drifting off to sleep  
>The exciting day behind you<p>

Drifting off to sleep  
>Let the joy of dreamland find you..."<p>

Quatre shuddered involuntarily. The voice was strained, shaking. At times, they went nearly completely silent, only the sound of breath passing over vocal chords, like a stiff wind through reeds, keeping a semblance of the tune alive. It sounded as if it took effort to even speak the words, let alone comfort anyone with them. The voice was high, a woman's voice, and Quatre thought it might be semi familiar.

He looked toward the doorway on the opposite end of the room from where he'd fallen, where the first hallway leading into the house joined the foyer, but there was no one there. Shaking his head, he stood and headed into the hallway, past the coat room and into the ball-sized living room, where, he'd been told, Relena had loved to entertain her guests. He had only seen it through the large plate window on the one night he'd almost been convinced to come in.

The ballroom was empty and bare, but still quite clean. There wasn't even a thin layer of dust. The wooden floor, stained a dark blonde color, shone almost like honey, and the fireplace was clean as if it'd recently been swept.

The singing was a little louder now, more discernable, but no less unnerving. He opened his mouth to call out, but thought better of it. It would be like intruding on grief, and that wasn't right. The hallway beyond, leading to the stairs that rose to the bedroom in which Heero, then Relena, had been killed. The kitchen, easily visible over the half-counter that separated it from the grand living room, was also empty. Yet the singing continued on, louder.

Quatre heard a pop before he turned, and felt the second shock of his visit. There was a fire in the fireplace, as if it had been just started, with a new log feeding a rapidly growing blaze. In front of the fire was a woman, all in white, with short, white hair on her head. She was facing away from him, her clothes hanging in tatters, but still serviceable; at least, they hid what was supposed to be hidden from the back. Quatre took just enough time for the shock to begin to fade, then hobbled forward. "You frightened me, miss," he rasped out, his throat dry with all of the sudden shocks.

The woman turned. Her face was gaunt and pale, and her icy blue eyes, dimmed and vacant, did not seem to focus on anything in particular. Her lips moved for moments before sound actually came out.

"Dead," she whispered, her voice shaking. "All dead. Saw them all. Saw it happen..." The voice, even the shape of the face, was familiar, and Quatre's mouth went numb, his lips trembling. He swallowed, licked his lips, and swallowed again.

"Hilde..?"

The woman turned at the sound of the name, and for a brief second, a familiar look flashed into the woman's eyes. The look was enough to confirm that yes, this was Hilde, lost so long ago, presumed dead. Something had happened, for her hair to turn white and her skin pale, and Quatre was certain, despite his disbelief in the supernatural at all, that she was a ghost.

"Hilde," he said again, mourning, but the name seemed to trigger a stronger reaction. She looked at him, focusing.

"Seen you," she whispered. "Saw it happen... Oh, Quatre," she said, her voice breaking. Tears began to drip out of her eyes, and Quatre gasped. The tears were black, like oil, clinging as then dripped down her face. Even the welling of them in her eyes was an obscuring black. Quatre's mouth opened in horror, and he couldn't resist stepping back when Hilde stepped from the hearth, toward him. The can was jostled, falling to its side even as it nearly set Quatre tumbling to the floor again. A strong scent of gasoline filled Quatre's nostrils, but he had no capacity left to react.

"No," Hilde whispered, so matter-of-factly that she could have been talking about mobile suit specs. "No, I don't want to see it again." She began to walk past Quatre, her gait shuffling, almost shambling, but she stopped next to him instead, suddenly gripping his forewarm with a grip hard enough to hurt.

"You shouldn't have come into the house, Quatre..."

Then she was gone. She had not shuffled away, but instead she was simply not there, as if she never had been. The fireplace, too, was once again empty and swept clean. Quatre's knees gave out, and he gripped the arm where she had held him. It hurt, both from the pressure and the jolt of an electrical shock.

She had been real. Flesh, bone, and whatever else. He could still hear the intake of her breath before her warning, and the shuffle of her feet before she had, somehow, disappeared. She had been as real as he.

He jerked in the direction she had been facing, wanting to follow, to rescue her, but the can, already on its side and spilling dribbles of gasoline, tripped him. The impact knocked the container's lid off, and gasoline gushed over his legs and underneath him. His face, on the floor, was doused in it, and he spat, some of the gasoline going into his mouth, though he had made a point not to breathe in.

"Oh, don't mind her," said a voice, smooth as silk, coming from above him. There was another woman, tall and blonde with brows like spikes extending past her temples. Her mouth stretched in a wide smile.

"You seem cold... what a poor host I've been... here." She gestured to the fireplace, her wide grin growing impossibly wider. "Let me remedy that..."

Suddenly, with another pop, loud, like a lock cracking from the heat, sounded, and Quatre felt it. He only had time to see the fire racing up his body, faster than even the accelerant could account for, and then he was consumed. His fingers curled like claws, and he opened his mouth to scream, but only flames came out...

It was much later, when the robotic coroner came on reports of a fire, that he was found, unmoving, still locked in the shape he'd died in, eyes wide and staring, fingers curled as if in deep pain, and not breathing. The autopsy showed no understood cause of death, but the inside of his mouth was blackened and full of ash, as if he'd been burned from the inside.


	6. After They Were Gone

The finding of the last hero of the Peacecraft era, burnt from the inside, had been the final straw. The realty agency listing the house took it off the market, locked it up, and archived any file on it. The events of the house passed into legend, then myth, then became the types of stories told between young boys and girls to scare each other.

The house began to fall into disrepair, its lasting as long as it had taken as a testament to its construction. By this time, the stories had faded. No one was frightened of a house as old and shabby as that one anymore. A company from well out of town was hired to survey the land and plan the destruction of the house.

This was how the old man found himself in the scrub-laden ravine, looking at a house that all at once drew his eye and frightened him. He was an older gentleman, near retirement age but debating whether or not to actually retire. His white hair fluttered in the breeze, and his eyes looked rheumy. He claimed, however, that they were as strong as ever, and no one could find any evidence to the contrary. The only concession he seemed to have made to age, besides his hair and some liver spots on his skin, were hands that curled from the onset of arthritis. He had been raised to ignore what pains he could and power through those he couldn't, however, and insisted on continuing his work. Operating the theodolite, an older style device that measured angles, distance, and elevation of different points of land, wasn't as easy on his hands as holding the target, but he preferred the old methods to GPS surveying. It gave him a feel for the land.

He was just setting up the imaging device at a new point when his partner came bounding up to him. He was a young man, just a kid, really. Fresh out of college, and probably working this job until his degree proved fruitful and he could make "a real living". The old man shook his head. It was a shame, sometimes, that the old ways died out. Still, the boy was not a bad sort, and he hardly ever complained, even when he knew that the techniques the older man used were severely outdated.

"Hey," the boy called, still yards from the older man, "Let's have a break! I'm starving!"

The old man smiled, shaking his head. That was a setback to working with the older equipment. If he'd used the new stuff, he wouldn't need a partner, and there wouldn't be a call for a break every few hours. Still, his hands were starting to ache. A break might be the thing.

"Man, this is beautiful land. And that house!" The boy's voice slurred from the speed with which he spoke, and the older man had to concentrate to actually understand him. "The architecture is beautiful! I bet it was gorgeous in its day..."

The boy had drawn closer, and the man could see the sweat plastering hair to his young partner's forehead. His face was flushed, and his eyes held a gleam in them, one that startled the old man.

"You OK, son?"

"What?" The boy blinked, then shook his head, as if to clear it. "Fine, I'm fine," he said, quickly. "Anyway, I was thinking we should pack it in for the day."

The old man's eyes narrowed. The boy was a bit of a whiner sometimes, and definitely green, but lazy, thankfully, had not been an impression he'd given off ever. "Why's that," the older man asked, already preparing for the usual excuses that lead to either he was going to see his girl for a romp or he wanted to catch a sporting event. Sometimes both.

"Just," the boy started, faltering. He seemed to be confused, until, finally, he blurted out, "I'm going to buy it. The house, I mean," he said, slurring the S even though he was now speaking slowly, deliberately.

Well, that was new. The old man shook his head. "Won't sell it to you, son," he said, evenly. "Get more money from sellin' the land and puttin' offices on it, or something."

The younger man scowled at the older, and that was odd, too. He'd always been unfailingly polite. Maybe he was coming down with something. "Yeah? Well, I'm going to buy it. It's perfect. I'll fix it up, and invite my friends, and it will never be empty again. Never," he said, the last word delivered in such a slurred, dreamy tone that the old man became seriously worried.

"All right, son," he said, gently, as if to a spooked critter, "you go check. Where'd you leave the target?"

"It's over by the house... isn't it beautiful? It calls to me..."

The old man followed the young man to the truck, casting a worried glance at him the whole way, but saying nothing. It could get to you, sometimes, the stillness, and the boy did look a little overcome, as if he might be coming down with a cold.

"Why don't you take your time," he said, pulling the spare target from the back. "Have some lunch. I can manage..."

"You might as well stop. We won't be tearing that place down... it'll be full again in a month..."

The boy drove off with little else said, and the old man looked after him, worried. Maybe, in town, he'd come to his senses, get some rest.

With work to be done, the old man trudged to the house, setting up the spare target on top of the hill at the mid distance from where the theodolite was set and the house, thengoing to get the last.

It had started as a whisper. Wind through the trees. Words seemed to form, spaces where there shouldn't have been lulls differentiating words. The language of the land.

Except that it was different. The old man had heard this language before, but this... this was harsher, yet cajoling. As if he were being mocked, or a person who hated him was desperate to get him to listen. It wasn't right, how some of those parts in the wind sounded like hissing.

buy the house.

The old man's eyes narrowed. The boy's ranting had gotten to him

Buy it. Fill it.

and he was starting to fall under the kid's spell. Ridiculous, really

Buy it, you nasty old man

to think a place like this was worth saving. It was ugly. Unfixable

Buy it! Buy it or-

- That was enough of that. He turned his back to the place and to the delusion, borne of worry for the kid, and walked resolutely back to the measuring device. He was winded when he got back, and felt as if he were being watched, the eyes on him burning against the nape of his neck.

Ridiculous.

He turned, looking toward the house, and gave it a mocking salute. That took away any notion that the house was anything more than a house. He could ignore that cold stone in his stomach just fine...

He turned the theodolite toward the first, midpoint target, looking through the aperture until the reflective target shone through the center of the crosshairs on the lens. He pulled his eye away then, taking down the measurements and elevations. Then he spun the front toward the house and looked in.

There was a smudge on the lens, and he jerked his head back up. Dust, he thought to himself, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and swiping at the lens. He looked through again, and was rewarded with a clear view of the target. For about three seconds. Then the smudge came back, clearer, somehow.

He pulled his eye away again, half expecting a person to be standing out between him and the house, but no one was there. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Doc'd said this would happen, but he didn't think it'd be sudden.

He leaned down and looked again, and there it was, resolved almost completely to a shape. White skin, dark hair, something around where eyes would be...

It was there, suddenly, as if it had been a step out of the range and moved into the focus. A young woman, honey blond hair, pale skin, and big eyebrows. It was glaring at him, and, as he watched, the eyes began to bleed black, a black that covered them completely, then float toward him like tendrils. He wanted to pull away but couldn't, and she opened her mouth, and there was nothing inside it, blackness, pitch black, and it, too, curled out of her mouth, filling the lens, filling his vision, filling his mind until there was nothing left but the certainty that he was never, ever leaving and utter blackness.

The young man returned, this time with a realty supervisor, extolling the virtue of the house, explaining how he'd fix it, how there would be people there, always full.

The realtor tried to explain that she could not sell the house, it was no longer for sail, but the young man, looking feverish and sweaty, turned to her, grabbing her by the lapel, frantic, shaking her, shaking her until she clawed at his hands and screamed to be let go, shaking her until she listened, shaking her until her head hit the rocks of the ground and her eyes rolled up and her blood spilled and her head cracked, shaking her until the shakes became a nod from her lifeless head, and he smiled, and hugged her, and let her go.

He turned to the house with wondering eyes, his smile growing wider, too wide, and took no more notice of the dead woman at his feet, nor of the conspicuous absence of his partner. All he could see was the house, and, there, in the window, the young woman waving in greeting.

Welcoming him home.


End file.

Gundam Wing/AC, Horror