*mentions of suicides and hauntings*
*This part is 3rd person*
Semi-timeskip
One part of the Zenitsu's letter will be changed but it's like a different part of it unshown
All throughout the night no one was able to sleep. If they did they were awakened quickly by nightmares and sounds of sirens they kept on imagining.
"It's not real, it's not real, it's not real," one had said. She covered up her ears with her hands tightly, trying to make herself believe that whatever was happening wasn't real. "It's all in your head, we're all happy, there is no pain..." But the next thing that came out was soft, gentle sobs.
"Please, I just want her to come home..." she cried into her arms as she sat up instead of lying down. "I just want Kanae to come back with us..."
Another nightmare struck someone else, making it to where he couldn't get a wink of actual sleep all night.
"NEZUKO-!!" Sweat dripped down his neck as he suddenly woke up. "Nezuko-" he whispered this time. "N-no....please no," Zenitsu prayed. "Don't die. Whatever I did, I'm sorry. If that bitch hurts you-" but halfway he broke down, feeling powerless. He felt weak. He felt as if there was nothing he could do even if he tried, that it wouldn't do anything except perhaps make the situation worse. And that's what the situation was.
"DAMMIT!!" He pounded his fists on the floor before turning to the side and picking up the note from last week. Carefully, he reread the line to make out what it said again, hoping he could find a hint that there was a part he missed, a part that he could have gotten wrong.
She'll be put in danger if you keep talking to her. You might be happy but if she gets happy she'll be cut and harmed. See your smile then.
Inside his heart sank. She seemed bothered by him anyways. What would I do to save her? was the question that popped into his head. Nothing. I can't do anything. But even as he tried to convince him of the answer he found himself actually having anxiety at that moment and started to thrash at things in the room. "FUCK IT! IS IT SO BAD TO-" His knees wobbled and he fell down with his hands back to his face. "Forget it...None of this would happen if I was dead." And just like the other girl across town his mind filled him with the imagination of sirens wailing down the street.
It wasn't just these two that experienced that. Several others did, whether it was for themselves or towards someone else. Aoi, Nezuko, Tanjiro, Kanao, Zenitsu, all of them had a similar experience that night. And then there was Shinobu...
"Shinobu..." someone tried to wake her up by gently shaking her. "Shinobu-" He kept shaking her, harder and rougher each time she went unresponsive. "SHINOBU!?" Giyu wasn't one to be in a panic so this was a shock. "C'mon Shinobu, wake up."
Still, no response ever came.
He checked her breathing and heart rate but her breathing was becoming shorter and her heart rate was going up fast. "KANAO! AOI! WAKE UP!" He yelled loudly, trying to make them hear him throughout the rooms.
Giyu checked again and saw that she was drenched in her own sweat now. Her breathing was still no better nor was anything.
"Shinobu!?" Kanao rushed in at the sight of sister in the condition she was in. Aoi soon followed her but soon ran out the door.
"I-I'll go get help-" she told them before she left.
"What happened?!"
"How should I know? I just woke up and found her like this!"
Minutes passed as they kept on checking on Shinobu, doing the things and processes they would as if it was anyone else. Aoi brought a damp towel and placed it on Shinobu's forehead and at least tried to help her breathing.
Then, the sirens finally came.
"K-kanae..." Shinobu muttered out with a weak smile playing on her face. "M-my si-ster..." The sirens came closer to the estate and the three brought her out the door. Silently they all hoped that this was all just a dream, a nightmare. But as each minute passed, they knew it was all too true.
A stretcher was brought out as they watched, helplessly, her being taken into the ambulance and away to the hospital. They drove off, leaving them alone in the distance.
"T-that's two of them already..." Aoi said. "Kanao, don't you dare you leave!?!" She grabbed Kanao's shoulders and shook her hard. "Don't even think about it!" But all she did was nod.
Sirens, like they all heard in their imaginations, in their dreams and nightmares that night. It all became...real.
***
School wasn't the same for no one since then. Not for Nezuko, not for Tanjiro, not Aoi, not Kanao, not Zenitsu, not even Isosuke or any one of them. It was even harder to focus because of some things going on.
"N-nezuko?" Zenitsu called out to Nezuko who was down the hall. She wasn't with anyone right now so he thought it was a good moment to talk to her. "Nezuko? Please-"
"Hm?" She turned around but instead of any expression he expected to see was quickly drowned out by the view of seeing bruises on her arms and face.
"N-" He stood there, shocked, his hand reaching out. "I-I'm sorry. This is all my fault." He fell down onto his knees and started crying, like usual. "Please forgive me, Nezuko! P-please! Tell me what I did wrong in your eyes! Just-" But instead of finishing she bent down and covered his mouth with her hand.
"Let's go," she told him to which he stood up and followed her down the hallway. "Hurry. Tanjiro will get even more upset at-" but he wasn't listening anymore. All he could think about was that they were already hurting her and he was all to blame.
They wound up going to the nurse's room to get her bandaged up and put [cheap] medicine on her bruises. "What are you going to tell him?" he asked Nezuko while the nurse, who wasn't even paying attention to them two, cleaned her up.
"I'm sometimes clumsy so I'll just tell him that I fell down the stairs and wound up hitting the bar pole at the end. Hopefully he'll believe it."
"Yeah..." he said while he just sat there next to her. "Hey, can I ask you something?" She nodded to him before he took a deep breath. "Do you hate me?"
Her eyes went wide in shock as she heard what he had asked her. For a moment she stayed silent, debating whether or not she should tell him the truth and that's what she decided to do. "No, why would I hate you?"
"Because..." he started but never got further than that.
"Because of that girl?" She tilted her head to the side as she asked curiously. "Even if it was your fault I wouldn't hate you for it. That's the way my brother and I are. We don't really like to hold grudges...except on occasions."
"Yeah I could see that happening," I joked lightly. We started walking down the hallway together to her next class. I wanted to ask her another question but I didn't want to seem to bother her at the same time.
"Hm?" she said quietly.
"C-can I ask you another question? I-I'm sorry if it s-seems like I'm asking so many-" But she just gave a gentle laugh to herself.
"Sure," she replied.
"Umm, I know you said that you didn't hate me but...why haven't you talked to me?" Shit that sounded too desperate-
"Oh well, Tanjiro can be...Tanjiro. And ever since the letter...I didn't want harm to come to you, just in case."
"Did they already do something to you..." I hesitated on the question but I felt as if I needed to know. That way maybe there could be something I could do to help. But as soon as the question left my mouth she froze in her tracks before immediately looking behind her.
"C'mon, let's go. School's almost finished for the day anyways." She grabbed my hand and led me outside of the school's campus. To be honest, her actions took me by surprise. I had never thought her to be the kind to skip school or a class, even if there was nothing going on that day.
"Where are we going?" But she didn't respond and just kept walking.
Eventually, she let go of my hand, knowing that I would follow her. She was right, too. There wasn't any way that I would go back to school late and it felt better to just miss the class. A break while it lasted even though I had a feeling that this "break" wasn't going to even be one.
We had continued turning the corners down the street until we came to an open park. There weren't many people here, maybe only two or three couples, but as I thought about that I knew she had done this on purpose. With her selective mutism she wouldn't want to face any people. Still, thinking about that made me feel special that she was able to talk to me even though it was like walking through a minefield.
Once we sat down she turned to face me and sighed. At that moment I knew that she wanted me to speak up first but I wasn't sure of what to say. Then I winded up stating the obvious, or more like a question I had already asked her back at school.
"What- did they already do something to you...?" I asked slowly. This might have not been the question that she had wanted me to ask but she seemed alright with it at the very least.
Nezuko pulled out a notebook from her backpack and handed it to me. In the beginning, it was filled with tons of drawings and sketches but I soon found out that that wasn't the case in the later pages.
As I flipped through it, the book took a major turn from beauty and splendor to nasty, hateful words and sexual, nude drawings of her. Not only that but words were scribbled all across it. It wasn't hard to figure out that the remaining drawings weren't hers because her style was different from the later ones.
"I- Who-" but she continued to look down in her lap.
"I lost my notebook two weeks ago...and it was returned to me that same day but someone stole it again every other day. Each time I got it back it was filled with...those. I haven't looked for five days." As she spoke she sounded ashamed and embarrassed to say it even though it wasn't her who had done it. It may have been unclear about who it actually was but that didn't excuse anything. "Have they done anything to you?" she asked.
"No..." I admitted. I felt guilty that things have been happening to her and not to me but I feel like all these things happening to her are meant to hurt me. And they were right about that. They have been hurting me indirectly by hurting someone else I cared about.
"That's good though! I'm glad that they haven't hurt you because that would've been worse." Maybe I should have told her that but to say that after what has been happening would sound wrong and cringe in my head. But then again, it was probably no better than what I did next.
It was an act in the moment, what I did next. My actions took over my body and I reached over and wrapped Nezuko in my embrace. I wanted to start crying but Tanjiro and Inosuke taught me how not to cry as much as I used to. Still, that didn't mean that they taught me how not to want to cry.
For a while, we stayed like that and I didn't even realize Nezuko was hugging me back. All I knew is that while we sat like this, it made me feel safer and stronger somehow. I hugged her again, slightly tighter, before I let go.
I knew that I had wished I could hug her longer, I didn't want anything else bad to happen to her. When I was with her I felt like I would finally be able to do something but when I let go she felt so far away.
"Thanks, Zenistu," she whispered so gently and quietly that I could barely hear her. Although, I think that's what she wanted.
"I don't want them to hurt you again or for them to do anything like that again either. Please, tell me if something happens. I don't care what they might say or do to me..." I paused for a moment to catch my breath. "As long as you're okay and safe, I know that I'll be, too."
**two days later**
Knives hung across a room next door. Empty. No one was in there. No one knew if anyone had been in there in the first place although everyone knew that some visited often. What they didn't know was why there were knives hanging up in the first place and how they got there. But no one ever brought up that room unless someone wanted or needed a knife.
There might have been several myths and legends floating around the room but one thing is for sure. That room, and the entire hospital was demolished twenty-four years ago but it's still standing in its remodeled version.
The Knife Room was a room in the hospital that was infamous for suicides and self-harming due to the knives and nooses that hung all around. The staff always tried to keep it locked up but everyone always found a way in.
Because the door was always unlocked.
Everyone begged the boss to take out all the knives and nooses, because the staff themselves were banned from doing so, but the boss never answered. Some tried but they were brutally killed at the next dawn. After a few tried to take down the room, each murdered, they all gave up trying to remove anything from it.
It wasn't until six years after the last murder was committed there that the boss died and left her will. On Tuesday, April 19th, 19XX she was founded dead at the scene by committing suicide. She hung herself with a noose and stabbed her neck for good measures.
The room never smelled so terribly in the entire time it has been up. Some thought it was because she wasn't fully human, others thought it was because they found out she was the room's founder.
The boss was known in junior high and in high school for being a sociopath and for her depression. She never had wanted to be known for that reason but due to an incident, that is what she became known for. Ever since then she made a vow to herself saying that once she collected enough knives and nooses that she would create a room for them.
A suicide room.
But that room was made in the hospital she was the boss at and in her eyes it was the perfect plan. She tested herself and others to see how long they could last and recorded the times for each, including herself.
Her only thing in her will was that they would take apart the Knife Room/Suicide Room and remodel the whole hospital. She didn't want any trace of that horrid room anymore even in her afterlife. And that's what they did with the money she left behind.
Despite her will being fulfilled, not everything was cleansed. The victims' ghosts and spirits stayed lingering in the place where the room used to be and has basically put a curse on it. They were upset and angry that they were used as test subjects for a maniac's pleasure and ended their own lives just to have their test data recorded. Now some who's spirits were left there wanted revenge but now for the people who winded up in that same room that they had died in. Only, where the Knife Room was is now in between two different rooms.
Two rooms in the hospital have a curse from the Knife Room from about twenty years ago that has where anyone who is emitted to those rooms in mild to severe condition will have their survival chances decreased. Not only by a small percentage, but almost to the point where they have a zero percent chance rate of survival.
Even now this curse shows to be standing strongly with the two people in those rooms. Kanae was in one, ready to die at any moment now while Shinobu was in the other next door after her accident and heart attack.
Both sisters laid on their deathbeds, neither ready to accept death even though death was ready to accept them. People stayed with both and some rotated to see each other. Almost everyone cried and if they didn't, they stood heartbroken and depressed at the sight of their friends/family members.
And that's when one machine finally went off beeping.
Someone had just died...