"Kero-chan, Where are You?" A Cardcaptor Sakura Halloween Fanfic Story Written by Freedom Fighter Rating: PG ********** Chapter Three - Separation Anxiety (10.16.02) [Tuesday, October 29th - Inside the Haunted House] Sakura, Syaoran, Tomoyo, Eriol, and Kero were standing at a T-shaped intersection somewhere deep inside the haunted house. Two ghosts were slowly floating their way. One from the direction where Sakura, Tomoyo, and Kero had come from. The second had chased Syaoran and Eriol to the intersection. That left the group with only one way out. Without saying a word, Syaoran takes the initiative by running down the open corridor. Sakura, Tomoyo, Kero, and Eriol quickly follow with any objections. And so do the ghosts. "Hoe! They're right behind us!" Sakura screamed. Spotting a door nearby, Syaoran reaches for the knob. He opens it wide and points inside. Sakura and Tomoyo race inside immediately. Kero follows them in, but Eriol stops right in the doorway. "Why are we even running?" Eriol asks Syaoran. "They're just spirits." Syaoran looks over Eriol's shoulders and at the ghosts as they float ever closer. "Why are you here?" one of the ghosts asked. "Get out!" the other demanded. "Get out!" "They're not even scary," Eriol stated, unimpressed by the ghost's threats. "Will you just get inside?" Syaoran shouted, pushing Eriol into the room. He then goes in and closes the door behind him. ====== "Where are we?" "I think we're in a closet, Sakura-chan." "That would explain why it's so dark... WHY ARE WE IN HERE?" "Calm down! We can get out of here if we just put our heads together." "But Li-kun... I can't even see your head." "Just keep walking to the back of the closet. Maybe if we get to the darkest part, the ghosts won't see us." "But how will we know when we're at the back?" Suddenly, Kero begins to glow orange, illuminating the room just enough for the four kids to see each other and where the walls and shelves were. "For a closet," Tomoyo noted, "it's pretty bare, wouldn't you say?" "There isn't anything in here but shelves and cobwebs." Eriol picks something up off the floor and quickly throws it at Tomoyo. She freaks out as she nearly drops her camcorder on her foot. Sakura manages to catch it in time, but Tomoyo is dancing around, trying to get whatever Eriol threw at her off. And the whole time, Eriol's laughing his head off. After a minute or so, Tomoyo reaches into the back of her shirt and pulls out what looks like a bread crumb. "Gee Tomoyo-chan," Eriol laughed, "all that for one little crumb?" "That's not funny, Eriol-kun! I thought that was a spider or something!" "Are you guys done playing around?" Kero asked. "Yeah," Syaoran agreed. "Let's be serious for once." "There are two real-life ghosts out there!" Sakura exclaimed, with that ever-present tone of fear still in her voice. "Is that serious enough for you?" "You're the one and only Cardcaptor! I can't believe you're still afraid of ghosts!" "Well Kero-chan, Clow Cards I can deal with because they're all physical beings and such. But ghosts aren't!" "Shhhhh! I think the ghosts are right outside. Let's move to the back." Kero stops glowing, making the room dark again. The four kids crawled towards the back of the closet. Sakura is the first to get there as she reaches for a nearby shelf with her right hand. Without warning, a giant panel in the floor opens, dropping the four children into an air vent. It happened to be an air vent that had been converted into a slide. Sakura, Syaoran, Tomoyo, and Eriol are screaming their lungs out as they slide through what seems like an open space of nothingness. But then it gets darker and darker and darker. And then... complete darkness... ====== "Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan!" Upon hearing her name being called, Sakura slowly comes to, opening her eyes. Her vision was a bit blurry at first, but she was eventually able to make out Syaoran's face in front of hers. Syaoran's worried face, that is. "Li-kun?" "You're awake. Good." Syaoran grabs Sakura's arms and pulls her to her feet. Sakura raises her right hand up to the her forehead, feeling for any bumps or bruises. "You don't have to check. I did already." Sakura blinked, wondering when Syaoran had the time to do that. "I must have been out longer than him," Sakura told herself, thinking of the most obvious explanation. "Where are we?" Sakura asked, getting a good luck at her surroundings for the first time. Not that there was much to look at anyway. Other than the cobblestone walls, the dirt-covered floor, and a few bones littered around the room, it was completely empty. But all things taken into account, being able to see even a few feet in front of her was reassuring enough of a sign that she was still alive. "I'm not sure. Deep under the house, I guess." "Just how deep?" "Judging from how long we were falling... I would say a lot." "You mean... there's no way out of here?" "Not exactly." Syaoran pointed straight ahead at an arched doorway, though it was hard to see since it was about twenty-five feet away. "You have the Cards with you, right?" Sakura nods, then pulls out her deck. She shuffled through it, looking for the Glow Card. "With the Glow Card, we can at least see where we're going." "Right! Now, if I can only find it." ====== Meanwhile, Tomoyo and Eriol wake up inside a similar chamber. Only this one was lighted by torches the whole way around. They both then turn around and stare at a large opening in the wall, two feet tall. "Could it be?" Eriol wondered as he crawled over to the opening and looked into it. "I don't see how you can be so curious at a time like this," Tomoyo complained, getting to her feet and using her hands to dust herself off. "This is the air vent that we fell out of. Sakura must have touched the trigger that activated it." "Sakura-chan?" Tomoyo's eyes lighted up at the sound of her name. "Why isn't Sakura-chan here, with us?" "I bet she's with Syaoran. Those two should be fine." Tomoyo breathed a sigh of relief. "As long as she's safe." "She's the keeper of the Clow Cards. There should be nothing she can't handle." "Except ghosts," Tomoyo corrected. "Yeah," Eriol sweatdropped, "except ghosts." "I think we should look for them anyway so we can get out of here." Eriol finally stood up. "You're right. We can't leave them down here alone." The two of them walk towards a nearby archway and into the hallway, which is also lighted on both sides. "Which way?" "That way," Eriol stated, pointing to their left. "Eriol-kun, are you sure?" "Well Tomoyo-chan, we've got to pick one or the other. We'll get out of here eventually." "That doesn't sound reassuring." "What else can we do? Unless you want to be stuck down here for the rest of your life." As Eriol starts walking away, Tomoyo reluctantly follows him. "Sakura-chan... we'll find you, no matter what!" ====== "Sakura! Sakura! Sakura!" Kero continued to shout out her name. But he was having no luck finding her among the twisted underground paths. And he had been looking for several minutes already. After Sakura and the others had fallen into the floor, Kero flew in after them. But because they were sliding down the vent so fast, he couldn't keep up. He eventually came across a point where the vent split into three paths. He tried to sense Sakura's magical powers in hopes of discovering which one she had fallen down. But he didn't know about how much the paths twisted and turned from that point on, so he ended up detecting the wrong path. He had ended up in a room similar to what the others had landed in, but he had kept consciousness the whole way down. Since then, he's been searching the torch-lit corridors for any sign of Sakura. "How come I can't sense her? Or the kid?" Kero then begins to transform into his original form, hoping to tap into his magical powers and find Sakura easily. "Now, let's see..." came the much-lower voice of the larger Keroberos. Keroberos closed his eyes and stood perfectly still as he tried to hone in on Sakura's magical energy. In seconds, he began to pick something up. "All of that magic... it must be her!" Opening his eyes, he saw a path in front of him and another branching off to the right. He takes the one heading straight as he resumes his search for Sakura. ====== "The Key which hides the powers of the Dark! Show your true powers before me! I, Sakura, command you under our contract! RELEASE!" Holding out the Key of Clow in her left palm, Sakura watches as it transform into the Star Staff. "GLOW! Illuminate the path before us!" Using her magical powers, the Sakura Card she had summoned appears and lights the path, as the mistress had ordered. "Let's find Tomoyo-chan, Eriol-kun, and Kero-chan so we can get out of this haunted house!" "And away from those ghosts." "You just HAD to mention them, didn't you?" "Well, at least they're not bothering us anymore." The two exit the room and make a right turn, hoping that their instincts and their magical powers lead them to their friends. To be continued...