Haunting Hour Pasta (Chapters 8-12)

Chapter 8

The episode shifted back to the outside of the house where Kristy had slammed the door behind her. As she proceeded down the walkway, she seemed to stroll at a very brisk pace. When she got to the gate, Kristy was shown to have a slight scowl on her face as she unlocked it. The gate had burst wide open as Kristy fiercely heaved it forward and hit the surrounding stone wall so hard, that one of the hinges had almost broke.

As Kristy set out on her walk, she took note of the street's colour. Instead of the inky black asphalt she was used to, the street had a grayish green tint to it. She then let out a small grunt and said to herself, "Who chose the street colour, leprechauns?". A bit later into her walk, she started to realize how narrow the street was and became more fidgety.

At the thought of being run over by a car, Kristy hastened her stride and the background music became more audible and gradually increased its tempo. The music kept building until Kristy got to an open gate where a figure had leapt out at her and let out a thunderous roar. At the same time, I heard forceful pounding at my door, which made me jump up from the daybed and release a tiny yelp.

Just then, a familiar voice rung out. "Hey sis!" My brother said. "Could you come down for a second?". I paused the episode and went downstairs to see what the commotion was about.

Chapter 9

When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw a small boy who seemed to be younger than 10, sitting on the living room couch with Erika. He wore a gray "I heart Aruba" shirt and baggy maroon shorts. I also noticed that Erika was giving the boy a livid stare and motioned for him to stay put.

I went into the living room and asked Erika who the boy was. "Well, if you must know," Erika responded, "This is the boy who might've been that 'shadow' you were screaming about earlier today." Erika turned to the boy and asked what he had to say to me. He said that Erika wasn't telling the whole story.

"OK!" I said firmly, "If I'm going to understand what happened, I need somebody to explain the situation and clearly as possible. Is that doable?". The boy was the first to speak and he told me that at the time the shadow appeared, he was playing video games with his friend. Later in the day, they got bored of that and went outside to play football. When the boy was passing the ball to his friend, he flung it a bit too far and it landed in Erika's yard. He went to retrieve it when Erika came running out and grabbed him.

After the boy explained his side of the story, I got an idea. I told Erika to come outside and stand under the kitchen window. As soon as we got outside, I told her to look up at the window. She looked up and noticed that the window was about eight feet above her. I said to her that if I nor she could reach it, it was possible that boy had no chance of being seen running past the window.

When we got back inside, Erika started to laugh sheepishly and apologized to the boy for any misunderstandings between them. The boy then shouted "Woo Hoo!" As Erika told him he could go home. I clenched my teeth and released an audible scoff as I marched up the stairs and into my room.

Chapter 10

I once again propped myself up on the daybed and continued watching the episode. When Kristy saw the figure, she turned around and scampered as quickly as she could. As she was running, a voice called out saying "No! Wait come back!" and "I'm sorry!". This continued until Kristy felt someone gripping her arm very tightly.

She was forcefully turned around and as soon as she saw who grabbed her, she started to calm down a bit. It turned out to be a boy her age who was wearing a plain white T-shirt, black jeans, and glasses with thin, circular frames.

"Mind telling me what that was all about?" Kristy asked as she was panting heavily. The boy started to laugh and said "I'm sorry! I was trying to scare my friend and you looked a bit like her." The boy kindly introduced himself as Hotaka Koizumi and Kristy had followed suit.

Hotaka told Kristy about the truck and she had responded to him by saying that her family had just moved in. "So you're the new neighbors, huh?" Hotaka asked with enthusiasm. "You know, my family has been wanting to meet you and your family but they were busy with other things." Kristy told him that she would be more than happy to visit his house since she was out anyway. She called up her mom and let her know that she was going to be a bit late getting back from her walk.

Chapter 11

The next scene showed Kristy and Hotaka sitting under what looked like a cross between a table and a blanket. They started talking about various things from both their cultures, which led to Hotaka asking Kristy if she has heard about the legend of the samurai girl. "I gotta be honest, I haven't heard of that legend." Hotaka began to tell Kristy about it and as soon as he said the words "Well, you see", it immediately cut to the outside of his house with an orange sky in the background.

The episode shifted back to Kristy and Hotaka. Only this time, Kristy had a bit of a surprised look on her face. "Speaking of samurai girls" Hotaka began, "Me and my friends were thinking of playing a game of Kokuri San in the forest near our school sometime this week. Would you like to join us?". Kristy thought about it for a moment and happily accepted Hotaka's offer.

When I got to the scene where Kristy arrived at her house, I heard a crash coming from the closet that made me shiver a bit. I immediately paused the episode to investigate. As I opened the closet door, I saw that all the coat hangers had fallen on the ground. Seeing as how my curiosity got the best of me, I looked around my closet to see what had caused the hangers to fall. To my surprise, it seemed that one end of the wooden rod had fallen due to a rusty support nail that had snapped in two. I breathed a sigh of relief and exited the closet.

Just as I was about to hop up on the daybed, I heard tiny footsteps coming from the bathroom, which was right next to my room. "Huh... That's strange." I thought to myself, "I didn't hear anyone come up the stairs." Thinking somebody had broken into the house, I grabbed a large wooden coat hanger and made my way towards the bathroom.

As I opened the bathroom door, I ran in and checked every possible hiding place. When my search came up empty handed, I proceeded back to my room. I was just about to shut my door when I encountered the shadow figure once again as it glided along the wall of my brother's room across the hall. This time however, it seemed to be more detailed. Along with the trapezoid headgear, it now had thin crescent horns in the middle of the headgear and rectangular shoulder pads. I hastily gasped and slammed the door shut. I started to hyperventilate for a bit as I locked my door and made a break for the daybed.

Chapter 12

I was inches away from the daybed when I jumped up and collided with its mattress just hard enough to find myself bouncing a couple of feet up in the air. A moment later, I had stopped bouncing and tried to find the remote, only to discover that it had fallen off as I landed on the mattress. I quickly found it lying under the queen sized bed and hit the play button as soon as I sat down.