Happy Wonderland

Nanami

Halo Fourteen: Nanami:

-Six Months Ago-

"Tell me something," Mikado said on the phone. "What do you know about Chou Mori? Yes, the mental hospital. What can you tell me about it?" He expected some bullshit to fill his ears again. Why should he expect anything new from whoever this was? However, tonight sound different. Mikado paused with his typing as his eyes grew wide.

"What did you say?" he asked. The caller started with their own question. Mikado dropped the phone on the floor.

2:00 a.m.

Keiichi awoke to his cell phone ringing. He reached out of his bed and felt around for it.

"Hello?" he mumbled.

"Is this Minami?" a woman's voice asked, trembling. Keiichi narrowed his eyes.

"Uh... who is this?" he mumbled.

"You don't know me, but I can't seem to reach Arisu-san."

Keiichi sat up in bed. "Who are you? How do you know Arisu?"

"Uh... my name is Yamazaki Nanami," the woman said. "She told me to get in touch with you if I couldn't reach her."

Nanami couldn't understand why this was happening. She was a normal woman in her twenties. She taught math at an elementary school. Nanami was described as cheerful and energetic among her students and colleagues. That youthful energy was what drew her boyfriend to her in the first place. But lately, disturbing visions began to frighten her.

Last month, she received a bouquet of flowers at her apartment. The delivery man walked up to door and rang the bell.

"Yes?" Nanami asked when she opened the door.

"Are you Yamazaki Nanami?" the delivery man asked with is cap, covering his face.

"Yes?" the grade school teacher asked. The delivery man gave her a bouquet of white flowers.

"These are for you," he said. The perky teacher took the flower with a smile on her face.

"Oh thank you!" she said. "Who are these from?"

"A secret admirer," the delivery man said. Nanami didn't listen as she took a sniff of the bright white flowers. It all disappeared into a haze after that. Hours later, Nanami awoke in her own bed. She couldn't remember what happened in those lost hours.

Five weeks ago, the first vision appeared while she was teaching her class. She began to have visions herself being naked and on fours. The images only came in bits and pieces, but they were so strong that they made her tremble. She could see a pair of strong hands around her throat from behind, her ankles and wrists tied down to a bed, and her mouth around a huge, throbbing...

"Yamazaki-sensei, are you feeling okay?" Awakusu Akane asked from her desk. The teacher pressed her hand to her head as she shook it.

"No," she said. "Everyone... study group for the rest of the period." The students whispered amongst themselves as Yamazaki-sensei dragged herself out of the classroom in a cold sweat with more visions skipping around in her head.

These visions grew worse as the days wore on. Nanami could almost feel the hands around her neck. She thought there might have been a mirror involved with this. These "memories" made her skin crawl. It didn't help that one certain teacher kept staring at her. Ah yes, him.

"Yamazaki-san!" he said in the hallway this morning. Nanami about jumped when he appeared in her face, grinning.

"Hi, Fujihara-san," she said. Her coworker gave her a funny look.