• A/N: Okay, before reading: I suggest you listen to this song before, during, or after reading this story.

    "So now, thier ghost haunt the orphanage forever."

    "Bull." George smirked into his friend's face. Joey was always coming up with crap he expected others to believe. George suspected that this was no different.

    "It's true!" Joey exclaimed, biting on the lip ring he claimed made him look "tough."

    "I still say it's bull." George said, flopping next to him and Ari in the brown grass. "And Ari agrees with me, right?"

    Ari nodded, blinking. "Ghost's aren't real, Joey. Give it up."

    The three of them made a wierd group. Joey was the "rebel," and looked enough like the stereotype of the word to freak anyone out. Dyed, jet-black hair, dark eyes, dark clothes, multiple piercings. He, like most teenagers, became this way because he wanted to be accepted, so he acted like he didn't care what anyone thought. Ari was powerfully built, and looked like a football player, but couldn't play sports to save his life. He had chestnut brown hair, and deep, soulful eyes that girls swoon over. He never had any trouble getting a girlfriend.

    Then there was George. He didn't really look like anything, fit in in any stereotype. He was completely normal, with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes, not the stunning clear kind, but the dark, mundane kind. He was quiet most of the time, except when he was with his friends. Then he was louder, and tryed to fit in more.

    "You two really don't believe that ghosts haunt that place?" Joey jabbed one finger in the direction of the old orphanage that was the subject of thier discussion. It was an old building, so shaded by trees and overgrown weeds that even in the daytime, it was completely dark. That just made it look even creepier at night. Ivy had completly taken over one wall.

    "Nope." Ari said at the same time George shook his head.

    Joey grinned, "Then spend the night there. Both of you."

    George rolled his eyes and was about to say no when Ari said, "Only if you go with us."

    Joey looked taken aback. "Uh... sure, why not?" He grinned again, "Who's afraid of the big bad ghost? You in, George?"

    George swallowed and nodded. "Okay..." he said, his eyes wide.

    "Then let's go." Joey said, then lead them toward the house.

    xxxxxxx

    George sneezed as he walked inside. Floorboards cracked and fell beneath his feet. Thank God there's not an upstairs to this. We'd fall through the floor. He thought to himself. He noticed a board with several papers nailed onto it. Curious, he walked over to it. There were several pictures of humans skulls and brains, with writing in another language. Then, in the center of the board, there was a photograph of children standing in a circle. In the middle of the circle was scrawled in a childish handwriting:

    Circle you, circle you,
    Can you win, I wonder how
    Circle you, circle you
    Who is standing behind you now


    "What's that mean?" George grumbled to himself.

    "Kaaaagoome, kagome..." a voice whispered. It sounded like a little girl. George spun around, expecting Joey or Ari to be behind him. But both were gone.

    "Guys?" he called. There was no answer. He rushed to the door and tried to turn the handle. It turned, but when he pushed on the door nothing happened. He pushed harder, and it budged an inch. Not enough to get out, but enough to see his friends speeding away on thier bikes. "Guys! Hey, guys!" They either didn't hear him or ignored him, niether of them turned around. He shoved his full wieght against the door time after time, but it just wasn't going to move anymore. He was stuck in the abandoned orphanage for the night.

    He sat against the door, his head in his hands. Her was muttering under his breath when he heard the voice again. "Will you play with me?"

    His head snapped up. There was no one there. "Who's there?" he called out.

    "Please play?" The voice called again.

    "We've been waiting for you." another called.

    George followed the sound of the voice. It was like he couldn't help himself. He tripped over an upturned floorboard and fell at a door. On it, in the same childish handwriting as before, it said, "Play room."

    Burning with curiousity, George pushed open the door, and gasped. The room seemed untouched by the darkness and sadness that coated the rest of the house. It was filled with light and bright colors.

    And children.

    Ten of them, George counted silently. A girl smiled at him. "Do you want to play with us?" she asked, and he recognized her voice as the first one that had called to him.

    "W-what are you doing here?" he asked.

    A boy, the second voice, giggled. "We live here." he said, as if it were obvious.

    Two twins, one boy and one girl, grabbed his hand and pulled him inside. The first girl shut the door behind him. He tryed to pull away from the twins, but thier grip was wierdly strong. "Don't you have adults here to watch you?" he asked, trying very hard to keep Joey's rumors out of his head.

    "We did," said the girl twin.

    "They aren't here now." said the boy.

    George didn't want to ask, but he had to know. "Where are they?"

    A girl giggled, "They lost the game." He gasped as he recognized her from the photograph.

    "Okay, now this is getting freaky." He muttered to himself.

    The boy twin tugged on his hand again. "Wanna play?" he asked.

    "It's fun!" the girl cried happily.

    George thought about running, then remembered that there was no way out. Not wanting to make them angry, he nodded. "Okay, what do you want to play?"

    Several of the children cheered. "Circle you! Circle you!" they all chanted.

    "What?" he asked, as the girl from the photograph grabbed a blindfold from the shelf.

    The first girl sang in a childish voice, "Kaaagoome, kagome! Kagome... circle you!" She pointed at him. He remembered the poem on the photo.

    "Oh, I get it. You want to circle around me, then when your done I guess who's behind me. Right?" The girl clapped her hands and nodded.

    The twins guided him to the center of the room, and the girl from the photo tied the blindfold around his eyes. He listened as the kids shuffled around him, then as they began to walk around him and sing.

    "Kagome, Kagome, nige rare no you ni! Kagome kagome, ushiro no shoumen daare?" The kids stopped shuffling and someone took off his blindfold. "Don't look behind you!" a girl to his right warned.

    As his vision came back, he gasped. The room and the children had changed. The room had become dark, and the children had grown dark too. All of them had some sort of bandage, some of them were even missing limbs all together. George yelled.

    "Ushiro no shoumen daare?" The girl twin (who was now missing an arm) asked, "Who is behind you now?"

    "Um, the girl with the red hair in pigtails. The short one." he guessed, looking at the people in front of him. The first girl, the girl from the photograph, a boy, and the girl he guessed were out of his line of sight.

    "Wrong!" said the girl from the photograph, behind him. He spun around and stared at her. She had a grin on her face. "Wrong, wrong wrong! You lost the game!"

    He spun back around. The first girl was in front of him now, only she had changed her clothes. Now she was wearing a black robe, tied with a red rope. Her hands were behind her back. He felt like he should run, but the children were surrounding him, pressing closer together... as he watched, the girl smiled slowly. She took one hand out from behind her, and he saw a flash of silver.

    Then she lunged at him.

    xxxxxxxxxx

    "Let's go find him now." Ari said.

    They had been standing outside the orphanage, calling George's name, for ten minutes. They had moved the giant tree branch that they had placed there away from the door.

    "Okay. He can't take a joke." Joey walked inside. "Hey, George, man! Time to come out. Hide-and-seek time is over."

    The two walked through the house, when Ari stopped suddenly and stared at a picture nailed to a board.

    "Look at this!" his thick finger was pointed at one of the eleven kids in the picture.

    "Whoa," Joey said, "That one looks like George. As a little kid, anyway." The dirty blonde boy stared at them from the photograph with glittering eyes.

    "I know!" Ari cried. "Creepy." They continued searching for thier friend, until the sun dipped below the skyline.

    "Aww, let's go. George probably found a way out. He's probaly home right now, laughing at us." Joey said.

    "Alri-" Ari stopped. He tilted his head to the side, like he was listening for something.

    "Well, come o-" Joey was cut off when Ari shooshed him. He put a finger to his lips, and nodded as a signal for Joey to listen. He did, and finally, he heard it. A voice. A little girl's voice, singing.

    "Kaaagoome, kagome."