There was a faint murmur of a violin; the chords were sustained for a melancholy sense, cascading a dreary, depressive aura about the room. Yuri wondered of these things, of this music in her dreams. It was so dismal yet elegant that it seemed to cause her a sense of agony far worse than the gnashes buried into her spine.

She looked about the room, watching the violinist with a curious sense in her eyes. His fingers caressed their way across the strings in a crescendo manner, elevating the piece in a surprisingly calm demeanor.

"What...are you doing..?" She found herself saying softly to the man. He ignored her of course, continuing to focus his attention to the classical masterpiece. "...My back aches...my back aches...I'm.."

Yuri brushed her fingers upon her back; trails of blood flowed freely from her fingertips. Her eyes grew broad as she stared senselessly at it drizzling off her nails. "B-bleeding..?"

Glancing across the room, panic began to ensue; she found herself hyperventilating in sorts as she rose to her feet, approaching the door. Yuri found the young man turning to her, eyeing her as a prey of sorts.

"...M-mama..!!" She screamed; her fingers began to form around the doorknob as she yanked as best she could at it. Dropping the bow, he approached the girl. Yuri screamed in terror at his motives, tugging desperately on it. "Help me!! H-help me!!" She screeched, bawling like a child.

Something terrible she had seen, indeed. It frightened her so terribly that she pounded on the door. There was blood, there was rape, and there was murder in her mind.

"Call off the familiars," Karlheinz called, standing upon the outer stretch of road. "I'm beginning to understand this..." He murmured to himself as he walked along. Yazoo was following behind his master; Karlheinz looked up at the house on the hill, the rain pouring before his eyes. "...I sense an opportunity arising," he spoke, Yazoo raising his eyes.

"An opportunity, my lord?" He responded ever so curious to his motives. Karlheinz, in reply, nodded to this.

"Yes, an opportunity. I'll become a genesis very soon, and this girl is the very source of my power. My familiars are watching her earnestly, in due time, she will offer herself up to me as a sacrifice. And oh how marvelous it will be,"

Yazoo watched Karlheinz's familiar return to him as a raven, landing on its master's hand with a shriek. Blood was trickling down its claws as Karlheinz petted the creature in reply. After a moment, he swiped the maroon liquid belonging to Yuri with his index finger and pressed it to his lips. The taste was as pure as herself; it had a sense of sweetness to it, though of course it was about as tasteful as mortal's blood could be. Karlheinz began running a series of mental evaluations in his head, dissecting the blood's climax of power. Yazoo stood faithfully beside his master, eyeing down the estate with begrudgingly disgusting eyes.

Standing in the midnight moon, Karlheinz carried himself off into the distance; Yazoo followed behind the man as the bird drifted itself off into the sky. The two of them departed to the Makai once more.

Yuri's body was cold from these dreams; she faded into oblivion inside the closet, and, when Loire dragged her frail, limp body from the tiny space, he never caught notice of the lashes and claw marks deep into her back. She was as white as a ghost apart from the sheer redness surrounding her eyes.

Loire knew nothing of these things if course, and subsequently he sent Yuri off to bed without the slightest clue of the horrible things she'd seen.

After that night, Yuri refused to sleep without the candle atop her nightstand lit. She began to suffer from insomnia and found herself stealing sleeping pills from Yakimura's dresser in desperation for six hours of uninterrupted sleep. Day by day, Yuri watched her health grow worse and worse as the seasons changed. She found herself losing weight from the nightmares, scars forming on her hands from Chikai's erratic punishments, and overwhelming sadness and despair clouding her once childlike thoughts.

The mornings following were hard and dull; Chikai and Hikari had both fallen under a trance of unusual silence between the two of them. It was true, they hated each other immensely. Yuri could sense it too. Her table at breakfast was quiet excluding Eimi's blabbermouth and talk of dreams after she turned eighteen.

While Yuri and the others studied in the early hours of the morning, she found Hikari and most of her friends disappearing from the schooling room. Yuri was curious at the sight, and, though she wouldn't be coming of age any time soon, she would occasionally sneak away for a listen at the conversations taking place in Yakimura's office.

Most often than not, after the girls would leave, along with the headmistress, she would find Chikai going into the office grasping a dustpan and broom. This sort of confused Yuri, but for the most part she dismissed the entire ordeal.

The October air was cold and gloomy; December would be drawing soon, and thus, the yearly ritual began. Yuri was faintly aware of it, though far less than the other girls. It was a time of the year when Yakimura and others would take all the children approaching their eighteenth birthday into town during the Christmas season. They would be blessed at a church service, and would then spend the forthcoming days searching for work.

During this time, Yuri would most likely be left alone in the room. After all, she was the youngest of her group, and, though the winter season would probably be as lonesome as the year before, she would be okay with it.

However, what Yuri wasn't aware of, was the strained relationship between Chikai and Hikari. It certainly didn't appear from the thinnest of air.

Occasionally when Yuri would sweep the halls or wash the stairs, she could hear a certain extent of nervous fornicating coming from the girls' bathroom. It caused her a sense of disgust, yet, curiosity. She would sweep her way across the corridor until she would vomit from the graphically grotesque sounds. She couldn't entirely understand it, but had a vague idea of the situation.

It wasn't until a particular Thursday night when Yuri made a strange connection. She'd be taking out the ashes as she always did that evening from the various fireplaces about the building, when she heard laughter emitting from the side building and voices.

"Gonna fucking kill her, see the way that bitch walked in all confused n' shit?" A male voice called; it caught Yuri's attention as a bee to honey. She attempted to discard the unnerving reality and proceed to finish tossing about the fireplace's ashes. The smell of smoke tickled her nose and she sneezed, dropping the bucket and scattering the remnants about the gravel.

"Mm, you must be kidding me.." She sighed, rubbing her nose weakly as she crouched about the ashes.

"Scared her enough to make her run off," the familiar voice spoke again and Yuri glanced about from behind the gate. She wondered curiously as to how they had gotten inside, due to the fact that it was mostly a place for females.

"Awe, come on Yuzuru come over here and give it to me again!"

The boy, who must've been at least eighteen or so, brushed off the girl who Yuri recognized as Chikai. "Shut your mouth; we gotta get that little bitch before she rats us out," he replied, puffing a bit on his cigarette.

Chikai pouted as Yuri sunk behind the dispenser, staying as quiet as a mouse. "A-are they really gonna kill her..?" She sputtered nervously. "N-no...they wouldn't kill anyone....Chikai wouldn't kill anyone...she knows if she gets caught she'll be... punished..." She told herself.

"Yuzuru! Maybe if you'd stop swiping Yakimura's money she wouldn't have to rat you out, dumbass." She griped, snatching a cigarette from the package herself.

Yuzuru puffed out the smoke as another man, at least nineteen or so, pulled a good amount of yen from his pocket. "At least twenty-five thousand," he replied. "Took it from her top desk drawer. She probably won't notice,"

"Bullshit. She notices everything," Yuzuru replied, coughing a bit from the cigarette ashes. "Ya'll fuckers need to stop talking about this shit out in the open," he sighed, shaking his head. "One day one of those kids are gonna stumble upon us and then we're all fucked," he sighed, shaking his head.

Yuri covered her mouth; she felt a little nauseous at this. "They really are gonna kill them.." She thought to herself.

"Hey, baby we gotta go," Yuzuru pushed his tongue deep into Chikai's mouth, their lips locking in place for a brief moment. "The world is gonna be ours, I promise." He said before running about with the other male to a pale green pickup truck. From her spot behind the ash bin, Yuri could see the laundrymen's logo printed on the side.

Chikai ran back inside from the back door, just feet away from Yuri's position hidden behind.

After that conversation, Yuri felt overly sickish through the forthcoming days. The nightmares were terrible, sure, but even as she slowly found herself eating less and less, her nausea grew far worse. Hikari didn't usually say anything to Yuri as she watched the girl picking at her food one evening.

"Hatori, what's with the glum face?" Hikari was sitting across from Yuri that night, taking a sip of milk as she glanced at her. "I shouldn't be asking, I'm not a caretaker or anything, but you've gotta eat, girl."

Yuri sighed a bit as she stared at the noodles sitting before her. "I'm sick feeling is all," she said softly before taking a sip of milk. Hikari, slightly annoyed, clicked her tongue and wiped her face.

"Don't think I haven't been noticing that you've lost weight," she began. "Are you...anorexic?" She whispered softly as Yuri quickly dropped her silverware.

"N-no no no!" She cried aloud; Hikari made a "shhh" sound beneath her breath as she sighed in annoyance.

"Calm down! If Yakimura hears she'll send you off to the infirmary! I'm just asking you a question! Look, you don't gotta be miss flat tops forever, okay? It's alright to pack a few pounds, I read in a magazine once that guys like chubby girls," Hikari reassured her, though Yuri was having none of it.

"Hikari I'm not anorexic!" She cried in protest, pounding her small fists on the table.

"What's with the yelling?" Chikai said, sitting down beside Yuri with her tray. This alone caused a great deal of stress and anxiety for Yuri, who slowly shrank away from saying much again.

"As if I'd tell you," Hikari's voice snarled back. Chikai rolled her eyes as Yuri rose to her feet.

"...I'm not hungry...you can have my bread," Yuri said softly, pushing her chair in and heading for the exit.

The following hours, Yuri found herself waking up in the middle of the night in anxiety, her eyes lingering around the room to her friends. She was averse to the idea of sleeping even, especially with overwhelming anxiety at the idea it could be her they were speaking of. Her eyes would scan the room nervously at three in the morning, trapped beneath the covers in sheer terror. No amount of sleeping pills could change that.

She often wondered if they really were serious about killing the girl they spoke of. Yuri continued to ponder about how close she'd gotten to the bathroom one evening, proceeding to vomit in the kitchen sink. She tossed and turned, staring at Chikai, who slept closely to the door. Yuri would lie awake watching her candle burn into oblivion as she sighed.

"God...don't let anyone die..." She whispered.