Sho dragged his gaze away from the building when he felt someone collide with him. He staggered slightly, taking a moment to regain his balance. When he looked down, he saw a guy from his class on the floor. He snapped out of his stupor long enough to offer the poor guy a hand up off the ground.

“Um, sorry,” Sho said, still in a bit of a daze. “I should have been watching out. I didn’t realize I was standing in the middle of the hallway.”

He hesitated, struggling to remember the guy’s name. Tomo… Torai… Toushi…? Oh right, didn’t this kid have a nontraditional name? It was English, or something. Sho racked his brain, trying to pull out the memory. After a moment, he finally remembered.

“Toby, right?” Sho said, offering an uncertain smile. He felt his eyes slowly wander back to the window. He was hoping to look back and see nothing, if only to reassure himself that the figure in the building was only a trick of the light or his mind playing tricks on him. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Sho felt his blood run cold as a deep crimson liquid spattered the window of the abandoned building.

[i]What the…? Was somebody just murdered?[/i]

“Did you see that?” Sho asked anxiously, his voice a bit higher pitched than he had intended. He wasn’t a coward by any means, but paranormal activity always gave him the creeps. Besides, even if it wasn’t a ghost, that would mean he just witnessed someone’s death. He blinked and looked back at the window, but the red stain was gone. Maybe he was losing it, but Sho refused to believe that he had imagined it.

He spun around when he heard a couple of voices behind him. Someone was standing behind the wall where the hallway turned a corner. Was someone watching them? He gestured for Toby to follow as he approached the corner. When he peered around the side, he saw a girl from his homeroom edging away from them. He considered calling out to her, but held his tongue. Instead, he tailed her down the hallway, keeping a respectable stalker distance of five meters.

The girl walked to another corridor, where she met up with two others who were also looking at the building. Sho frowned. Okay, now this was getting weird. Why the sudden fascination with the abandoned place? But then again… He stepped over to the group of girls and cleared his throat.

“Yo,” Sho said, flashing a friendly grin. “Seems like I’m not the only one interested in that place today. Would any of you lovely ladies like to accompany me on a midnight ghost hunt?” He paused, tilting his head slightly, and then looked at Toby. “Oh, yeah. You’re not nearly as pretty, but you can come too.”