Survival of the Fittest (MP100 Fic)

1

Thunder rumbled deeply in the distance, slightly shaking the windows of the mechanical vehicle speeding along the empty, dusty roads and out of the city. The gray clouds darkened by the minute and dimmed the car's interior which made the blue glow of the lights on the dashboard stand out even more. Heavy winds scraped the sides of the car and made a high pitched whistling noise when it managed to slip between the gaps of the door, side mirrors, and windshield.

Inside, pressed against the leather of the passenger seat, sat Reigen Arataka: The Greatest Psychic of the Twenty First Century. The drivers seat was occupied by a young, blonde woman whose face was hollow and pale, her eyes empty of light and color. Occasionally he would glance over at her and observe her appearance. She was gaunt and slouched over the steering wheel, almost as if she was having trouble staying awake. This, however, wasn't the case considering every few minutes she would suddenly interrupt the settled silence with rapid fire conversation before sinking back into quietness again.

The longer he remained in the car with this somewhat strange client, the more uneasy he felt. It was unlikely he could change his mind about assisting her with her paranormal problems at this point, since they were about three hours away from Seasoning City. This actually upset him quite a bit. Before agreeing to let her drive him to the location where the acclaimed haunting was taking place, she had promised the drive would be less than twenty minutes. Twenty minutes turned into an hour, which had irked him enough. Then an hour turned into three hours and he was steadily growing more and more nervous as many 'what if' scenarios gradually spilled into his head.

He'd heard plenty of horror stories where strangers choose random people to take miles away and kill or use as a sacrifice in cult rituals. Although he may be exaggerating a bit, he believed he had a good reason to be concerned. He wasn't very suspicious in the first hour, brushing it off as the client probably miscalculating the length of the drive. What made him suspicious was that when he realized it was taking them longer than she said it would, he questioned her about it and she dodged the questions rather aggressively.

While staring sidelong out the dusty glass of the passenger side window, Reigen recalled what had happened a few hours earlier.

He had finished with his last appointment for the day and was preparing to close the office a bit earlier than usual, thinking he deserved to relax after the stressful and lonesome week. Serizawa was given a few days off to go home and take care of some personal problems. Mob, on the other hand, already hadn't had much contact with Reigen for a while and he recently found out that the kid was away on a family vacation for a few weeks. This left the man alone in the office for the time being and responsible for himself and any messes he may accidentally wind up in.

If you asked him about it directly, he would have denied feeling lonely. But the way he fiddled with his pens, his tendency to flip his phone open and closed without actually using it, and the amount of time spent just staring at the office door spoke volumes about the way he felt.

This day was different though.

Just as Reigen had begun to clean up the office and close up for a day, there was a knock at the door. At first he thought it was his newest employee returning from his break, so he casually called out 'come in.' Upon seeing the woman standing in the door way, he would admit that he was somewhat surprised. It was getting late and he wasn't expecting anymore clients to show up, although he wouldn't turn away a walk in client if it meant getting some more money in his pocket before the end of the day. So he listened to her story.

Apparently she was being haunted by a particularly possessive spirit. It would prevent her friends from staying in, or even entering her house, as well as not letting her leave sometimes. She would wake up with scratches and bruises. It liked to lock her in her bedroom for hours at a time. There was even an incident that occurred recently (and was the reason for her immediate visit to his office) where a male friend had made a flirty, joking comment towards her and in response the spirit blew a hole in the floor of one of the upstairs bedrooms.