Resort Job

## Resort Job by unknown author

(Note: this creepypasta was originally posted to the Japanese message board 2chan and has been translated to English.)

**Chapter 1**

Author’s note: First, I should tell you that this is a very long story. It’s nothing major, so I wouldn’t suggest reading it unless you’re bored to death.

Now that you have been warned, I will start. This happened when I was a junior in college.

Summer was fast approaching, and four friends and I decided to plan a trip to the beach. During the planning stages, one of my friends brought up the idea of getting temporary jobs there. I didn’t really have any plans myself, so I said I was up for it. Two of my friends had some sort of seminar to attend, so getting a job wasn’t an option for them. In the end, three of us decided to look for jobs, and the other two would come visit and stay at the hotel we were working at.

And with that decided, we split up and started the job hunt.

I looked around online, but there were so many offers. Many even allowed groups of friends, so I picked a hotel from the list. Of course, I picked a place where it’d be easy to pick up girls. Perfect!

I called the number to ask about the job. The conversation went smoothly, and I asked whether or not we’d be able to have a couple of friends stay for a couple of nights.

“We’re going to work you pretty hard for that!” the proprietress said. Well then, it was decided.

With our basic plans figured out, we were getting excited. We went to a spa and then to one of our apartments to talk about how we’d go about meeting girls.

Finally, the day came for the three of us who were working to head to the hotel. It was my first time working at a resort, so I was nervous and full of expectations.

When we arrived at the hotel, we saw that it was only a two-story bed and breakfast, but it was quite spacious. Honestly, it looked like a house an old countrified woman would live in. The name AB Hotel spanned across the sign, but it was definitely a B & B. I think “AB Cottage” would fit better for a name, but that doesn’t matter.

We called out from the front door, and a woman came out to welcome us. She smiled, and I became tenser.

The hotel had four guest rooms, a dining hall, and two staff member rooms for a total of seven rooms. We were first shown to the dining hall. After a few moments, a young girl brought us some barley tea. She told us to call her Misaki-chan and said that she grew up in the area. So there was her and the woman who welcomed us, the proprietress Makiko-san. She was stout and had a great laugh. She was pretty awesome. If she were younger, she’d be my type. Other than us five, there was Makiko’s husband, Ryuichi, bringing the number of workers at the hotel to six.

We briefly introduced ourselves, and Makiko spoke. “The customers’ rooms are down here. The hall ends in a T, and there are rooms on either side. If you go to the left, your room will be at the end of the hall. I’ll explain everything better later, but for now let’s take care of your luggage.”

Suddenly one of my friends thought of something to ask. (I’ll call them Takumi and Shoji.)

“Aren’t there rooms on the second floor?,” Takumi asked.

Makiko laughed. “There’s a second floor, but we don’t use it.”

The three of us wondered if it was just because it wasn’t tourist season yet but didn’t really find it that strange. We figured that they’d probably open it up soon.

We brought our things to our room. The view from the windows was peaceful. The job may turn out to be a pain, but being able to spend the summer in a place like this would be great. I was expecting a summer of adventure.

And just like that, our jobs began.

Some parts of the job were really strenuous, but the people we worked with were great, so it wasn’t that bad. The workplace environment is definitely dependent on the relations of the people who work there.

“Man, we really lucked out with these jobs, didn’t we?” my friend, Takumi, said after we had worked there for a week.

“Even better, we’ll get a lot of money,” Shoji said.

“Definitely,” I said. “But it’ll be peak season soon, right? We’re going to be busy.”

“Now that you mention it, think they’ll open the second floor when it gets busy?” Takumi asked.

“Nah, they won’t,” Shoji said. “The proprietress and them live up there, don’t they?”

“They do?” Takumi and I said at the same time.

“Well, I don’t really know, but recently she’s been bringing food upstairs. Right?”

“I don’t know,” Takumi and I said.

Shoji cleans the entrance way in the evening, so he sees Makiko go upstairs quite often. Apparently, she carries a tray with food on it and hurries up the stairs with it. When Shoji told us that, we were surprised.

“Really?” It didn’t seem weird at all. Well, not at the time anyway.

A few days later, I saw it myself when I was cleaning up the hallway. The proprietress was sneaking out of one of the customer rooms. Usually she doesn’t clean those rooms; it’s always been Misaki. I thought it seemed kind of strange. At first, I even doubted my eyes, but it was definitely her. I thought about it all day, and I couldn’t help but talk to my friends about it.

“Yea, I saw it, too,” Takumi said when I brought it up.

“Seriously? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Don’t look at me,” Shoji said.

“Oh, be quiet,” I shot back.

“I just figured she had something to do,” Takumi explained. “I don’t want to make things awkward by doubting what she’s doing.”

“True…” I agreed. We only had about a month left of our job. We talked about whether or not we should act like we didn’t see what was going on or not.

“Well why don’t we follow her?” Shoji suggested.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Takumi asked. “With how small this place is, isn’t it obvious that we’d be caught?”

“Well…”

“So now what?” I asked. Nobody had an answer. We thought it over and over, but we couldn’t come to an agreement. Next week our friends would be coming, and we wanted to have an uneventful, fun time with them. But us three? We had a sense of adventure.

“If we see anything weird, we tell each other, alright?” We agreed upon that before we went to bed.

The next day, Shoji called us into one of the rooms. *Why don’t* you *come* here? I thought and reluctantly followed him.

“You know how I said that Makiko goes up to the second floor a lot?” Shoji started. “Well, I waited for her. Before I only saw her go up, but yesterday I waited for her to come back down… And she took about five minutes all together.”

“And…?” Takumi urged him on.

“Well, she always eats with us, right? But then she brings the tray upstairs. Wouldn’t that mean someone is living up there?”

“I guess that could be true…” I said.

“But we’ve never seen them before. We haven’t even heard a word about them.”

“It is strange, but they might be sick or something,” Takumi pointed out.

“Yea, yea. I thought of that, too. But if you only take five minutes to eat, you must be pretty healthy, right?”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Takumi said.

“But isn’t it weird? You guys told me to tell you if I saw anything strange. That’s why I’m telling you this.”

He spoke matter-of-factly, which annoyed Takumi and I, but we had to agree that it was weird.

“What could possibly be up there?” The three of us all wondered.

## Chapter 2

The next day, we finished our work early and gathered at the entrance way where Shoji was at. We were waiting for the proprietress.

Soon after we gathered, Makiko left one of the rooms with a food tray. She opened the door leading to the stairs and disappeared inside. I’ll explain here that to get to the stairs, you must exit the entrance way and go outside. None of us have found a way to get to the upstairs from inside the building. You leave the entrance way, go along the outside wall, turn the corner, and then there is the door. Open the door, and then there’s a flight of stairs. I’m sorry for the bad explanation if it doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, just like Shoji had told us, she came back five minutes after going upstairs. The food was completely gone from the tray. She came back in and didn’t notice us.

“See?” Shoji looked at us. “Fast, right?”

“Yea, I’ll give you that,” I admitted.

“What’s up there?” Takumi asked.

“I don’t know. Wanna go check it out?” Shoji suggested.

“Uh, to be honest with you, I’m pretty freaked out,” said Takumi.

“So am I. What about it?”

“Well, let’s go,” I said, and the three of us went to the door.

“Is it locked?” Takumi asked in a worried voice. I turned the knob, and it opened with a click. It swung open a few centimeters. Shoji was on the left side of the door and could just barely see inside.

“Ew,” his face distorted, and he covered his nose with his hands.

“What?” asked Takumi.

“Don’t you smell that?” Neither Takumi nor I noticed anything, but Shoji looked really nauseated.

“Are you fucking with us?” Takumi was getting nervous, and Shoji’s acting out seemed to be making him agitated as well.

“No, I’m serious!” Shoji said, completely serious. “You don’t smell that? Open the door more, and you’ll notice it.”

I gathered my courage and opened the door at once. Warm air spilled outside, and a wave of dust followed.

“You mean the dusty smell?” I asked.

“Huh? I don’t smell it anymore…” Shoji said.

“Don’t screw with us at a time like this,” Takumi was still annoyed. “If anything happens, I will leave you here without even thinking about it. I’ve already made up my mind.” He was being pretty rude, if you ask me.

“I’m sorry, but it really did smell weird… Kind of like garbage.”

“Enough!” Takumi said. “It was just your imagination.”

As I watched them out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something.

The hallway was extremely narrow. So narrow that only one person at a time could walk through it. And there didn’t seem to be any lighting fixture; you could barely see the end of the hall with the light filtering in from outside. At the end of the hall, there was another door.

“If we go up, we’ll practically be on our own,” I pointed out.

“No, no, no!” Takumi exclaimed. “Let’s *not* go up!”

“You won’t go up?” Shoji asked.

“If you want to go, then be my guest. I’m staying down here.”

“Yea, I’m out, too,” said Shoji. Takumi hit him.

“Guess you two are chickening out,” I taunted. “I’ll go then.”

“Seriously?” they asked at once.

“If I don’t go, I won’t be able to sleep. If I can’t sleep, I’ll come here by myself in the middle of the night. That might be a death wish, so I’ll just go now.” My reason didn’t really make much sense, but taking into consideration my curiosity and the fact that Takumi and Shoji were there, it’d be best just to get it done with.

But despite my curiosity, I was scared. I was going by myself, but they agreed that if anything happened they would tell me and wouldn’t run away. If something happened, they weren’t allowed to scream out suddenly. My life might be in danger, after all.

And with that, I slowly went up the stairs.

## Chapter 3

The sunlight from outside lit the stairs, but it was still pretty dark inside. I carefully started going up the stairs, one at a time. Halfway up, I heard a *snap… snap…* sound.

I thought something must be going on and got scared. I turned around to check on the others. They didn’t seem to notice the noise. They stared at me, holding their pointer fingers up in our agreed signal of “Everything is fine”. I nodded at them and turned back towards the second floor. I figured it must have just been the floorboards creaking, as will happen in older homes.

When I got past the point where the light from the door reached, I became more scared than curious. I wanted to run back and leave. I focused my eyes in the dark and thought I saw something standing in front of the door at the end of the hall. My imagination started to go into overdrive.

*Crackcrackcrackle…*

The sound grew in intensity, and I suddenly realized that I had been stepping on something. *Bugs?* I wondered to myself. I felt a shiver run up my spine. Nothing seemed to be moving, but it was so dark that I couldn’t be sure. I don’t know how many times I looked behind me, but all I could see of my friends were long, dark shadows. Their fingers were still standing.

As I got closer to the end of the hall, a weird stench filled my nostrils. I had the same response as Shoji did and gagged.

What an awful smell. It was like rotting garbage and sewage mixed together. *What? Whatisit whatisit whatisit?!* I looked around and saw it. At the hall’s landing, there was a huge pile of food. That must be what was causing the smell. There were tons of flies in the air and on the food. Half mad with fear, my eyes turned to something else.

Plywood covered the edges of the door—plywood with countless nails hammered into it. And above that were dozens of charms pasted down. Lastly, a thin rope was wrapped around and through the nails in an almost web-like pattern.

Honestly, that was the first time I had ever seen charms, so I couldn’t be certain that that’s what they were, but I doubt they were just stickers.

It was obvious that something was locked in the room. I knew then that I shouldn’t have gone up there.

“Time to go,” I said to myself. As I was just ready to go back downstairs, I heard something behind me.

*Scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch.* It sounded like something was scratching on the other side of the door.

*Woo… Woowoo.* And then an irregular breathing sound. I thought that my heart was going to give out then.

*Is someone in there? Who? Who is it?*

I felt like I was a supporting character in a horror movie.

I knew that I should have just left then, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the courage to go ahead, and I was too scared to turn back around. I was completely frozen in place.

The only thing that moved were my eyes, which flicked back and forth. My back was soaking wet with the cold sweat that ran down it.

Even then, I could hear the *scritch scritch scritch* and *woo… woowoo*. I became desperate to somehow move my legs and get out of there.

For a brief moment, the sound stopped, and everything was silent. It was only for a moment, though. Probably quicker than the amount of time it takes to blink. And then

*BANG!*

*Scritch scritch scritch scritch.* It started again.

I could barely believe it, but the sound was coming from above me. I could hear it above the ceiling boards. Until then it had been coming from behind the door, but suddenly it moved to the ceiling.

My legs trembled with fear. I thought I was finished. Silently, I cried for help.

And then, just for another short moment, I saw something move in the corner of my eye. Right then, anything that moved felt threatening. I hesitated, but I finally moved my eyes to see what it was.

It was Takumi and Shoji. They were yelling something up at me while waving their hands. Finally, I was able to make out what they were saying.

“Hey! Hurry up and come down!” Takumi yelled out.

“You okay?” Shoji asked.

Upon hearing their voices, I regained the ability to move. Back to myself, I ran down the stairs as fast as I could. When I spoke to them later, they said my eyes were closed as I ran out and that I skipped every other step I went so fast.

I wanted to be somewhere safe. I ran right by Takumi and Shoji into our room. I don’t really remember this part of the day, probably because I suppressed the memories out of fear. A bit after I had gotten back to our room, they came in.

“Hey, are you alright?” Takumi asked.

“What happened? Did something happen up there?”

I couldn’t answer. Or rather, those sounds were still echoing in my ears, and I was too scared to remember the rest.

Takumi looked at me with a sober expression. “Were you eating something up there?”

I didn’t understand what he meant, so he repeated himself and said something that was completely ridiculous.

“As soon as you got upstairs, you crouched down, right? Shoji and I were wondering what you were doing. We tried to get a better look, and I swear you were eating something, like your life depended on it. Or… Well, you were stuffing something in your mouth.”

“Yea…But that’s…” Shoji trailed off, and the two of them looked at my chest. Wondering what they were getting at, I looked down only to find that my shirt was covered in filth. It smelled like rotting food. I hurried to the bathroom and threw up everything that was in my stomach.

Something strange was going on.

## Chapter 4

I remember going up there. The fear is still fresh in my mind. But I never bent over, and even more importantly I don’t remember eating rotten leftovers.

But looking at my shirt, you could easily see bits of food stuck to it. Even my hands had traces of food on them.

I felt like I was going crazy.

Takumi and Shoji looked at me with worried expressions.

“You know, if something happened, you can talk to us,” Takumi offered. “You’re not yourself right now.”

Despite being overcome with fear, I didn’t want to take this on alone. I slowly told them what I experienced when I got to the end of the hall. They nodded as I spoke to urge me on and looked like they were taking me completely seriously. Even though what they saw and what I experienced were completely different, they listened until the very end. Their support calmed me down, and I thought I might cry.

I let out a long sigh and noticed for the first time that my legs felt weird. *Huh?* I wondered and looked down. Countless small cuts covered the backside of my knees and legs. *Weird*, I thought. I focused my eyes, only to find that things that looked like small plastic shards were stuck to my skin. Some were red, while others were white with black specks. I couldn’t help but stare at them.

“What are those?” asked Shoji. He took one of the shards and peered at it. Suddenly he gasped and threw it to the floor. Takumi and I jumped at his movement.

“Something wrong?” Takumi asked.

“Look at it!”

“What’s wrong?” Takumi demanded. “Just tell us! I’m scared, okay?”

“I-isn’t that a fingernail?” he asked nervously. The three of us froze instantly.

That’s when I, somehow calmly despite my fear, remembered the sounds from upstairs. *Huh. So it was fingernails scratching…* I don’t know why I thought that, but it made sense. And then when I went upstairs and heard the snapping as I walked… Couldn’t it have been because I was stepping on a bunch of fingernails?

And the nails must have come from whatever was scratching the other side of the door.

I must have gotten cut by the nail shards when I was sitting down and eating the food and when I rushed outside.

But none of that mattered. I couldn’t stay there anymore. I looked at Takumi and Shoji.

“I can’t work here anymore.”

“I know,” Takumi said.

“I was thinking the same,” Shoji agreed.

“I’ll tell the proprietress tomorrow,” I said.

“You’re going to tell her?” Takumi asked, surprised.

“I have to. She’s been really great to me, and I have to apologize.”

“But aren’t you worried about what she’ll think when you tell her you went up there?” Shoji asked. “I don’t want to see her reaction when she finds out.”

“Don’t be stupid! There’s no way I’m telling her about what happened. I’m just going to quit.”

“Yea,” Takumi nodded in approval. “That’s probably best.”

That night, we packed our luggage. I realize it sounds bad since we’re guys, but we were so scared that we pushed two futons together and slept next to each other, like canned sardines.

But none of us slept a wink. We stayed next to each other until the sun came up the next morning.

We didn’t exchange words when we got up. One of our phone alarms went off and broke the silence. It was the time we normally got up at.

Shoji had relaxed and seemed to be suppressing his fear.

“I’m sorry,” He started. He’s always been a nice guy, and he insisted on talking to me face to face for this. “I know that you must have been infinitely more scared than I was. But I didn’t do anything… I didn’t try to help you. I’m sorry.”

My eyes teared up. I was happy to hear that he cared so much.

But something was off. *You must have been infinitely more scared than I was*? He was scared? I was the one who went through the ordeal; Takumi and Shoji were only watching from downstairs. Is he talking about me running downstairs? Did I scare them? Did I scare them that much by telling them what had happened?

Rationally, though, I figured that I was probably just taking what he said too seriously. Right then, all I wanted to do was spend the rest of summer vacation in peace. That’s all I wanted to think about.

But it turns out that Shoji’s fears were real.

He jumped at every sound we made. Judging by the way he stared at the wounds on my legs, it was easy to tell that something was wrong.

Takumi looked at Shoji nervously.

“Hey, are you okay? Are you feeling weird because you didn’t sleep?” He grabbed Shoji’s shoulder.

“Shut up!” Shoji screamed and roughly pushed away Takumi’s arm. Takumi and I immediately became silent.

“What the hell was that for?” I demanded. Takumi was too surprised to say anything.

“’*Are you okay?*’ How am I supposed to be okay?” he was glaring as Takumi as he spat the words out. “I thought me and Yuuki were going to die! Don’t act like you give a fuck about us when you don’t even know what’s going on!”

*What is he talking about?* I wondered. *Shoji thought he was going to die? He can’t be talking about what I told them I saw.*

Takumi and Shoji were pretty close friends, but Takumi had a tendency to tease a lot. Despite all that, Shoji never really got mad about the jokes Takumi played. I’d never seen Shoji scream at Takumi like that, and judging from Takumi’s reaction, it was the first time it had happened. He looked more upset than I had ever seen him before.

“You thought you were going to die?” I decided to ask him since it was bothering me. “You were downstairs the whole time, though…?”

“I was. I was watching everything from the bottom of the stairs the entire time.”

He was silent for a moment, and then he looked down.

“I’m still watching.”

## Chapter 5

I didn’t know what to say. *Still? Huh? What are you watching?*

I didn’t know what he was talking about. Not at all. I thought he had gone crazy. Or that maybe he was possessed by something.

“I was downstairs, but I saw something.” His mouth was quivering, but he spoke clearly.

“You mean me going upstairs, right?”

“No, not that. Well, yes, I saw you. At first that’s all I saw. But once you got to the top, I was able to see more clearly.”

“Okay…” Honestly, I didn’t want to hear anything about what happened. But it seemed like Shoji couldn’t bear to keep it to himself anymore. He looked like he was reliving what happened the day before. He and Takumi had listened to my story all the way through. It saved me. I had to listen to what he had to say.

“What did you see?” I asked, afraid to know.

“Shadows…” he said after readying himself. “I think.”

“Shadows?” I wanted to confirm what he had said.

“Yea,” he nodded. “At first I thought it was just your shadow. But when you crouched down and started to eat the food on the floor, they were still moving around. I saw your shadow shrink down when you crouched, and our shadows didn’t stretch far past our feet… But those shadows were moving. There must have been three or four of them.”

I felt goosebumps pop up all over my skin.

This had to be a joke. But Shoji didn’t look like he was joking at all. In fact, he looked serious enough to hit one of us if we tried to make light of the situation.

“I was the only one there.”

“I know,” Shoji said.

“On top of that, there’s no room for four or five people to move around.” There was definitely only enough space for one up there.

“They weren’t human. That much, I’m sure of.”

I had no reply for that.

“There is no way they were human,” he insisted quietly.

“Then what were they?”

“…They were all stuck on the wall.”

“Huh?” I didn’t get what he was saying.

“They were kind of like spiders,” he clarified. “They were all moving along and up the walls… Kind of like they were crawling around.” His breathing had become more erratic as he recalled what he saw.

“Calm down,” I said. “Breathe deeply. Okay? It’s alright. We’re here for you.”

“They weren’t human,” he said after he had calmed down a bit. “No, they were *never* human. Even their figures weren’t like a person’s. Well… They were kind of like a person’s, but something was off.”

He looked like he wanted to saying something, so I asked. “Something with a human shape was on the walls?”

Shoji nodded silently. My heart was beating so fast I thought it might fly out of my mouth.

Okay. What he saw wasn’t my shadow. It’s unnatural for shadows to move around across the walls and ceilings in the way he described. Supposing they were shadows, they had to have been some*things’* shadows. Even I could figure that out, and I’m pretty stupid.

And those things… I didn’t notice them crawling around me despite the fact that I was on the ground stuffing my face.

And the sounds? The crunching and scratching, they didn’t come from behind the door or walls… They came from right next to me. And the breathing?

I felt dizzy with fear. I don’t know whether he noticed or not, but Shoji came to stand by my side.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” he apologized to Takumi.

“No, it’s alright,” Takumi said. “I’m the one who should apologize.”

The atmosphere grew uneasy after that, but I wanted to keep things peaceful. I breathed deeply to keep calm. That’s when Takumi brought up something that had been bothering me.

“You said that you were still watching them,” he said to Shoji. Before he even finished the sentence, though, Shoji answered.

“Oh, sorry,” he had a fake smile plastered on his face. “I was just confused, hah! Sorry, I’m alright now.” It was clear he was lying. His eyes seemed to be focused on something strange.

I don’t know why, but something that really struck me at that moment was that the muscles under his eyes were twitching. There’s always one of those people when there’s a group freaking out. But wearing a fake smile and twitching like that… I couldn’t help but think that something was wrong.

Takumi and I didn’t want to ask anymore, though. Think me a coward if you want, but I was scared and *couldn’t* ask. But Shoji was hiding something… I just thought that if I asked I might break down. And if that happened, I really would go crazy.

After a brief silence, we heard Misaki calling us from the hall. Breakfast was ready. We’d spent quite a long time talking.

I didn’t really have an appetite, but I didn’t want to look bad by not showing up. I had to go. I stood up and spoke to the others.

“The sooner we do this, the better,” I stated. “I’m going to tell her that I’m quitting when we’re done eating.”

“Good idea,” Takumi nodded.

“I’m not going to eat,” Shoji said. “Takumi, you brought your laptop, right? Can I borrow it for a bit?”

“Go ahead, but you should eat something.”

“There’s something I want to look up,” he insisted. “I don’t have much time. I’m sorry, but you two go ahead and eat without me.”

“Alright,” I said. “I’ll ask Misaki to make you some onigiri.”

“Cool, thanks.”

“The computer’s in my bag,” Takumi said. “Use it as much as you want. It should be able to connect to the internet.”

Takumi and I went to the hall to eat breakfast after that. Most people would probably want to eat quickly under those circumstances, but I wanted to act as normally as possible.

When we got to the hall, the proprietress looked at us, then my legs, and then gave a huge smile.

## Chapter 6

“Good morning! Did you sleep well?” She had asked the same thing every morning since we arrived. Somehow, it seemed creepy now. I was all nerves and couldn’t move a muscle, so Takumi answered for us.

“Yea. Sorry for being late this morning.” He slapped my back to help me move towards the table. My body moved forward instantly. I was shocked that Takumi, who is one of the most nervous people I know, was able to stay cool and save *me*. He said that Shoji wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be eating with us and then asked if Misaki could make some onigiri for him.

“Oh, that’s fine! He should take it easy and sleep for a while,” she said in a worried tone.

We sat down without saying anything else about Shoji. We weren’t really thinking of anything besides quitting.

The entire time I was eating, Makiko was smiling at me. I stopped moving my chopsticks; I must have looked like I was in a hurry. Misaki and Ryuichi seemed to notice something was off as well because they kept looking back and forth between me and Makiko. Needless to say, Takumi was sitting stiffly.

We were both feeling scared, so we ate much more quickly than we usually did. When we finished, we went back to the room to get Shoij so we could talk to Makiko about us quitting.

On the way to the room, we heard him talking. He was on the phone with someone. Takumi and I didn’t want to interrupt him, so we sat down and waited for him to finish.

“Yea, it needs to be today,” he paused, listening to what the person had to say. “Uh huh. Thanks… Yea… Yea… I will definitely ask. Thank you!” And then he hung up.

It seemed like he already had plans to go somewhere once we finished up at the hotel. Takumi and I didn’t really feel like asking about it, so we left it at that and then went to the hall together.

Misaki was cleaning up, but Makiko was missing. That’s when it hit me. Wouldn’t she be going upstairs now? An image of her carrying the tray covered with food up to the second floor came to mind. She must dump new food on top of the old food day after day. Eventually, it made the mountain that was up there.

*But why? What is it for?* I wondered before making myself stop those thoughts. I was going to quit. It was time to say goodbye and forget about what I saw. *I need to forget*, I kept telling myself.

Takumi asked Misaki where the proprietress was.

“Oh, she’s watering the flowers. She should be back soon.” She turned to Shoji. “I’ll make the onigiri in a minute, so just wait, okay?” She smiled and went into the kitchen.

Oh, Misaki… If none of this had happened, I probably would have wanted to get to know you better.

We waited for Makiko to come back. When she did, she seemed to know something was wrong. Instead of doing her work, she sat down and looked at us.

“Is something wrong?” she asked us point blank.

I readied myself and started to speak.

“Ma'am, can we talk with you for a minute?”

“What?” she moved to the seat in front of us. “You’re acting pretty seriously.”

“I’m going to be blunt,” I said. “I’m quitting.”

Takumi and Shoji chimed in and said they were as well, bowing when they were done.

Makiko’s expression didn’t change. She was silent for a moment. I was really unsettled by that. She didn’t bat an eye… It was like she had been expecting it.

Finally the silence ended.

“Oh. I understand. I guess it can’t be helped, right boys?” She laughed a bit as she said it. She continued talking and explained about our salary and what to do with our room now that we were cleaning. She told us to call for her when we were done.

After the depressingly short conversation, the three of us suddenly felt relieved. But something still felt off to me.

We started to get ready immediately. Our things were already packed, so all we had to do was clean the room and we’d be done.

Since starting our jobs, we hadn’t really spent much time in our room. After finishing up our work for the day, we’d hang out on the beach and then come back late at night when we’d fall fast asleep. Luckily, this meant that we didn’t really have the chance to mess the room up that much, and it didn’t take long to make the room look spotless.

Once we had finished up, we went into the main hall and called for the proprietress. She, Ryuichi, and a sad-looking Misaki were sitting down. We sat down across from them.

“We weren’t here long,” I started “but thank you so much for all you have done for us. I’m sorry for quitting so suddenly.” And then the three of us thanked them and bowed our heads.

Makiko stood up and stepped towards us.

“No, no… The pleasure was ours.” She handed us each a brown envelope and a small coin purse. “This isn’t much, but please take it.”

“Take care,” Misaki said from behind Makiko. She looked like she was about to cry. She then gave each of us some onigiri. “I made enough for all three of you.”

*Hey, hey, hey! Stop that! You’re going to make* me *cry!* I thought, barely able to look at her face. Despite how scared I was the day before, I was choking up a bit. But really, it only makes sense to feel that way when you part ways with people who helped you out.

We said our goodbyes and then headed out.

When we arrived we had taken a bus to a nearby stop, but we agreed on taking a taxi back. The proprietor asked if we wanted him to drive us to the station, but Shoji declined. Misaki-chan called a taxi for us.

When the cab arrived, Makiko walked us to the car to see us off. As an outsider, it must have looked like an emotional farewell, but in actuality we were in the middle of an escape.

Right before I got into the car, I turned around. I could barely see the door to the second floor from where I was standing. It seemed like it was just barely open. I turned away, and sat down in the back of the cab. We told the driver where we were going, and he started the car.

But after we had driven a short way from the hotel, Shoji told the driver to go somewhere else. He handed the driver a note and said to go there.

“Really?” the driver said dubiously. “It’ll cost a lot to get you there.”

“That’s fine,” Shoji insisted. He turned around and faced Takumi and me. “There’s somewhere I need to go, and you’re coming with me.”

## Chapter 7

Takumi and I looked at each other. *Where are we going?* we wondered. We wanted to ask, but both of us were too nervous to because of how he had been acting all morning. He might go off on one of us again or something.

After we had been driving for a little while, the driver spoke up.

“The car that’s following us… They’re from the place you just left, right?”

*What?!* I turned around to see a small truck following us closely. Ryuichi was waving at us from the driver’s seat. We wondered if maybe we had forgotten something and told the driver to stop the car. Ryuichi stopped right behind the cab and came up to us.

“You can’t just go home like this,” he said.

“We aren’t going home,” Shoji said. “We can’t leave with how things are.”

They seemed to understand what the other was saying, but Takumi and I were lost on whatever code they were speaking.

“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked.

“You went up there, didn’t ya?” he asked me accusingly, staring directly into my eyes.

My heart thudded in my chest. *How do you know that?* I was scared. I felt like I had done something extremely bad.

“Yea…” was all I could muster to say.

Ryuichi sighed loudly. “If you leave like this, you’ll just take it with you. Why’d ya have to go up there? I guess maybe I should’ve told you not to go there in the first place…”

*Hey, what do you mean ‘I’ll take it with me’? Excuse my stupidity, but I thought I was going to finish up the summer in peace?*

I was starting to worry, and I looked at Takumi. He was looking at me with wide, frightened eyes. I looked at Shoji, and he spoke.

“It’s alright. We’re going to go get blessed. We can talk about it once we get there.”

I couldn’t believe it. *Am I possessed? Am I going to die? People die this way, right? Why’d I go up there? If I wasn’t supposed to go up there, you should have told me from the start!*

In my fear, I wanted to push my responsibility onto someone else. Ryuichi looked at my dumbstruck face and continued speaking.

“Purify?”

“Yes,” Shoji said curtly.

“You see it, don’t you?”

Shoji was silent.

“Wait, what do you see, Shoji?” Takumi demanded.

“I’m sorry, but please don’t ask me that.”

Without thinking, I grabbed Shoji. “Come on already! What the fuck is going on with you?”

Ryuichi stepped in between us. “Hey now, stop that. You should be thanking him.”

“But he can’t tell us what’s going on,” Takumi said, confused.

“You guys just can’t see it yet,” he said. “Shoji is the one who’s in trouble right now.”

Takumi and I looked at Shoji at the same time. He looked worried.

“What’s going on? *I’m* the one who went up there.”

“You’re not listening, now, are you?” Ryuichi asked. “You guys didn’t see it, right?”

“You keep talking about seeing it and not seeing it. What are you talking about?” I asked.

“I dunno,” he said simply.

“What?!” I screamed at him. How could he talk about such bull shit? I was pissed.

“It’s pitch black, that’s all I know. But…” he looked at Shoji. “I know you’re goin’ to get purified, but I don’t think it’ll do ya any good.”

“Why is that?” Shoji asked with doubtful eyes.

“Somethin’ like this happened before,” he said. “But I can’t tell you no more than that.”

“Well we can at least go check it out, right? See if it works?” Shoji asked.

“Well, I guess so.”

“Okay then.” Shoji was still determined.

“If that don’t work, what are you gonna do?”

Shoji didn’t have anything to say to that.

“Once you can see it, it happens really fast.”

I had no idea what was going to go fast, but Shoji broke down crying after hearing that. It was silent crying; all Takumi and I could do was stand by him.

Sensing something amiss, the driver opened the car window and called out to us. “Are you alright?”

We couldn’t answer. Shoji had fallen to his knees crying. Ryuichi was the one who spoke to the driver.

“Sorry 'bout havin’ you come all the way out this way, but could you just drop them off here?”

“Huh? But…” He looked at us, unsure of what to do. Ryuichi ignored Shoji’s crying and spoke to him.

“You know why I came chasin’ after you guys? There’s someone who knows about how this all started. I wanna bring you to him so you can get things figured out. I told them we’d be on our way. We don’t have time. Please, believe me.”

“Oh… k-kay…” Shoji said with much effort, shoulders trembling. His face was distorted, and his voice was breaking. It was like watching a child sobbing.

It had only been one day, but Shoji was carrying a huge burden all by himself. Never before and never since have I seen him cry like that. Hearing him agree to go with Ryuichi, I spoke to the taxi driver.

“I’m sorry, but we’ll be stopping here. How much do we owe you?” After paying, we got into the truck; Takumi and I were in the truck bed, and Shoji was in the passenger seat. It was the worst drive ever.

Even though two of us were in the truck bed, he drove at an almost impossible speed. Takumi was whimpering like a little girl, but he managed to get through the trip mostly unscathed.

I don’t know how long we drove. I don’t think it was very far. Well, I can’t be certain, but I don’t remember my tailbone hurting after the ride so I can only assume.

When we finally stopped, it was in front of a normal house. Next to the house stood a small *torii,* and a set of stone stairs led further back. We were heading to the house, though, and Ryuichi rang the doorbell.

“Only answer what you been asked,” he said. “You don’ know how to speak right. I don’t need you sayin’ anythin’ weird. Got it?”

*You of all people shouldn’t be saying that to us*, I thought but didn’t dare to say.

After a short wait, a woman came outside to meet us. She looked like your average 20-something woman, but in the middle of her forehead was a huge mole. I couldn’t help but notice it.

She invited us in and led us to a Japanese-style room in another part of the house. In the room sat a priest (maybe a monk?), a middle-aged man, and an even older man. As soon as we entered the room, the middle-aged man began muttering.

“…How ominous…” was all I could make out.

## Chapter 8

“Sit,” Ryuichi commanded. We sat down directly across from the other three; Ryuichi sat next to us.

The old man spoke. “Ryuichi of AB Hotel. Are these the three you told me of?”

“Yea, that’s all of ‘em. Shoji 'ere can already see 'em.” When Ryuichi said that, the middle-aged and older men looked at each other. The priest spoke then.

“Ryuichi, was he the one who entered the temple?”

“No,” he shook his head. “That was Yuuki.”

“Hm…” was all the priest had to say.

“Shoji was outside and only watched, I think.”

“Is that so…” The priest was silent for a moment before he spoke to Shoji. “Is this your first time experiencing something like this?”

“Experiencing something like this?” he asked, unsure of what the priest meant.

“Yes. Seeing spirits and the like.”

“Yea,” Shoji nodded, “this is the first time.”

“Really now… This is quite strange indeed.”

“…Am–” Shoji started to talk, and everyone turned to him.

“Please, speak,” said the priest.

“Am I going to die?” He was sitting on his knees with his hands on his thighs; his arms shook visibly.

“Yes,” the priest answered silently. “If it continues as it has been, you will certainly die.”

Shoji lost all words. His shivering stopped suddenly, and he stared intently at a single spot on the floor. Seeing that, Takumi cut in.

“What do you mean when you say he’ll die?”

“I mean that he will be taken away” the priest replied. Takumi and I still didn’t understand what he meant. Something is going to take Shoji away…? The priest continued speaking.

“It is no surprise that you don’t understand what it is that I am saying.” He turned to me. “Yuuki, when you went into the temple… Did you not sense that something was wrong?”

*Temple?* I assumed that he was talking about the second floor of the hotel.

“I heard something… And there was a strange breathing sound. There were a bunch of charms stuck to the door…”

“I see,” said the priest. “You may not have realized it, but what lives there is not human.”

I wasn’t very surprised. I had already begun to wonder that myself.

“I believe that you sensed their existence with your ears,” the priest explained. “Usually humans cannot sense them; they go on, unnoticed, living in silence.”

He stood up. “Shoji, can you see them now?”

“No, but I can hear them. They’ve been scratching at the walls really loudly.”

“They cannot enter. I have warded off this place many times, but they are trying to break through the barriers.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “But you cannot stay here forever. You must leave and go where I tell you. And Shoji, when you leave, they will reappear before you. I realize that this is going to be difficult for you, but I will save you. However, you must stay calm and come with me.”

Shoji could only nod in reply, but he was able to get up so we could leave. We followed the priest and left the safety of the house. We passed under the *torii* and made our way up the stone steps. Ryuichi stayed with us until we left the house, but he stopped to speak with the other men. He bowed towards the priest and left us in his care.

Feeling abandoned by the only person we knew, the three of us followed closely behind the priest. Shoji especially seemed worried; his eyes darted back and forth, and he hunched over as he walked. He was clearly worn out. In an attempt to calm him down, Takumi and I kept him between us as much as possible so we could protect him from whatever it was that he saw.

Once we reached the top of the stairs, we saw a large temple. Surprisingly, the priest did not bring us there; instead, he led us around the right side of the temple and continued walking. There was yet another *torii* and still more stone stairs beyond that. But before we had passed under the gate, the priest spoke up.

“Shoji, what are they doing now?”

“They’re standing up…” he said, still looking around. “They’re always watching and following us, wherever we go.”

“Hm… They’re already standing. They must be excited that you can see them,” the priest explained. “There isn’t much time. We must hurry.”

When we finished climbing the second set of stairs, we saw yet another temple. This one was much smaller, though. The priest walked around the back of the building and then called us. We walked over to where he stood, and he explained that we must spend the night in the temple to purify ourselves of whatever had attached itself to us. Once we entered the temple, there would be no light, and we were forbidden from speaking until dawn.

“Of course you are not to use your cell phones, either,” the priest continued. “Anything that emits light is not allowed. I also forbid you from eating and sleeping while you are in the temple.”

He handed us each a strange cloth bag and said to use it if we absolutely needed to. I looked at it closely.

*A cloth bag…?*

Before I had the chance to ask what it was for, the priest explained that the bag was made to be leak-proof. I guess this was my toilet. It was hard to believe, but we had no choice but to accept the rules we were told.

After the priest finished up the explanation, we were told to take a drink of water from what looked like a bamboo pipe. The priest took a mouthful of water last and then spat it on us before telling us to go into the small temple.

We went into the temple one by one, but when Shoji got inside, he covered his mouth and ran back outside to vomit. Takumi and I were more surprised than anything, but the priest lost his formerly calm composure.

“You didn’t go into the temple today, right?!”

“Huh? No, it was yesterday,” I said.

“Strange… It was only a moment, but the purification should have begun when he entered. But he can’t even enter the temple…”

I didn’t quite understand what he was saying. The priest was eying Shoji’s bag.

“While you were staying at the hotel,” the priest started, “did you receive anything from anyone?”

Nothing came to mind personally, but Takumi answered immediately.

“We got paid today, but that’s about it.”

It was so obvious that I had forgotten. But now that he mentioned it, I remembered something else as well.

“Oh, yea! They also gave us coin purses.”

“And onigiri,” Takumi added. “If that counts.”

So, all in all, we had received three things: our pay, the coin purses, and the *onigiri* that Misaki had made us. After hearing all of this, the priest spoke directly to Shoji.

“Shoji, do you have any of those items with you now?”

“I left the onigiri in my suitcase, but I have the money and coin purse on me.” He opened his bag and took out the coin purse and money he had received. The priest first took the purse and opened it.

“This…” he opened the purse wide and showed us what was in it.

We were taken aback by what we saw.

When we peaked inside, we saw that the coin purse had been filled with fingernail shards.

The same kind that had scratched up my legs. Red and black nails.

Shoji vomited again, which in turn caused me to throw up. The stench filled the air, and even the priest made a face.

The priest took everything Shoji had been carrying and told Takumi and me to hand over anything we might have as well. I gave him my wallet, cell phone, and what I had gotten from the hotel. The priest nodded at us and then had Shoji drink water from the bamboo pipe again. And, again, he drank the water himself and spat it out at Shoji.

The three of us went back into the temple.

“You are not to open this door,” the priest said. “I will be in the main temple. Nobody will come for you until tomorrow.”

He paused a moment and looked at each of us before continuing.

“You must not speak with anything that may talk to you through the walls. You must not speak to anyone or anything within these walls, either. You must not tell anything where you are. I am praying for your safety.”

He looked at us again, and we nodded at him. That’s all we could do. We felt like even then we weren’t supposed to speak, so we stayed silent out of fear.

The priest confirmed one last time how we were doing before he closed the door without saying another word.

## Chapter 9

It was chilly inside the temple. I had been worried about not being able to eat or drink anything, but I suddenly felt confident that I could hold out for the night.

The building itself was quite old, and there were gaps in the walls where the wooden boards met. It was also very small.

Because it was still afternoon, I could see Takumi’s and Shoji’s faces in the light that made its way into the temple. It was the first time we hadn’t been allowed to talk despite being right next to each other.

I nodded at them as if to say “It’s going to be alright,” and they nodded back.

After a while, we stopped looking at each other as much, and eventually we just faced different directions. Frustrated at the fact that we couldn’t talk, the hours dragged on. We had no way of telling how much longer we would be in there. All we could do was sit and wait in our confusion.

It felt like we had been waiting forever, but it was still light outside. Takumi began to rustle around.

Wondering what he was doing, I turned to him to quiet him down before he got too loud. He was holding a pen and a piece of paper up to us.

He had ignored what the priest said and brought a pen in. The paper he showed us was a gum wrapper; we had no reason to think of bringing a memo pad with us, so that must have been the only thing he could think to write on.

*What the hell are you doing…?*

I thought that for a moment, but there was no way for me to reply to what he had done because of the situation. Though, honestly, I did feel relieved.

First, Takumi wrote on the paper and handed it to me.

“Are you two okay?”

I took the pen, and as small as I could, wrote a reply.

“I’m fine. Shoji?”

“I’m alright, too,” he scribbled down. “I can’t see or hear any of them.”

And then he handed the pen and paper back to Takumi. We continued using them to communicate.

“I have four pieces of gum left,” Takumi wrote. “With the silver wrapping and outside paper, that’s eight pieces of paper. Write as small as you can.”

“OK,” I agreed. “We won’t be able to do this once the sun goes down, so let’s talk while we can.”

“Got it,” Shoji wrote.

“Know what time it is?” Takumi asked.

“No,” I shook my head.

“About five?” Shoji estimated.

“We got here at about one,” Takumi pointed out.

“So it’s been about four hours,” I summarized.

“Three more hours til night,” Shoji said.

“This is going to be a long night.” And with that, Takumi finished up the first piece of paper we had.

“You write too big, Yuuki,” he wrote on the next piece. I made an apologetic gesture, and he handed the pen and paper to me.

“I’m hungry.” I handed the paper to Shoji, but he handed it straight to Takumi.

“Me too,” he wrote and handed the note back to me. That thought made me feel more helpless than before. It was strange that now that we were able to communicate, none of us were really saying much. But there was one thing I wanted to say before the sun went down.

“No matter what happens, we have to get through this.”

“Definitely,” Shoji wrote.

“What happens if I scream?” Takumi asked.

“Stick something in your mouth,” I suggested.

“There’s nothing *to* stick in his mouth,” Shoji pointed out.

“I’ll use my shirt,” Takumi offered.

“We should just hope that nothing will happen,” I wrote, hoping I wasn’t taking up too much space. Shoji had nothing to say to what I wrote. Though, really, I didn’t know what to say either. The priest didn’t say anything about *nothing* happening. In fact, he seemed to be warning us that something would definitely happen.

With that in mind, my only wish was that time would go by faster. But I was extremely scared of what the night might bring.

As scared as I was when I was upstairs in the “temple”. The only thing that saved me was seeing my friends there waiting for me.

I had killed what little comfort we had with my comment.

Wanting to try and relieve some of the tension, I took the pen and paper from Shoji.

“We don’t have much more time to talk.” I handed it over to Takumi, hoping he might be able to lighten the mood. He looked confused at first, but he quickly wrote something down.

“Well, what do you want to do when we get back home?”

“Good question. I think I’m going to the video rental store.”

“Why there?” Shoji asked.

“I forgot to return a DVD before leaving.”

“How much will you owe in overdue charges?!” Takumi asked.

Actually, everything was a lie. I just wrote something that would take their minds off of what we were about to experience. It worked, a little, and both Takumi and Shoji wrote about their plans. Slowly, time passed on. Once we were almost out of paper, Shoji wote a note that chilled us.

“I’m going to do as the priest said. I don’t want to die.” Takumi and I gazed at the words. I had never said those words in my life. Takumi seemed to be thinking the same thing.

Because we never thought that we were going to die like that. We had never felt like we were in that kind of danger.

Shoji brought that to light with what he said. I was shocked. I nodded at him.

After that, we didn’t really talk, but there wasn’t the same sense of loneliness that I felt when we first got in the temple. Sensing each others’ presence, the sun began to go down. Cicadas began to cry loudly, but I soon got used to the sound.

But something was off. If I listened carefully enough, I could here *something* strange. Trying to hear better, I focused more on the sound. It became clearer and clearer.

I realized what it was immediately.

It was the breathing I heard on the second floor of the hotel.

## Chapter 10

I looked at Shoji. It was hard to tell in the dim light of the temple, but he didn’t seem to hear it.

*Can’t you hear it, Shoji? Or have you never heard it before? Or do you just not notice it?*

My thoughts were racing. Noticing that I had stiffened, Shoji began to look around. There was no way for us to stay calm once we finally started to get scared.

Shoji’s eyes stopped and focused on a single point. He was staring right past my shoulder. His eyes widened immediately.

Takumi also noticed Shoji after this. He looked to where Shoji was staring but didn’t seem to see anything. I was too scared to turn around.

But I could still hear the breathing. I could tell that it was right next to me. Unmoving, it only breathed. *Woo woo…*

I stiffened even further when I heard the sounds from outside. It was as if something was being dragged along the ground outside of the temple. Takumi noticed the sound and grabbed my arm.

Whatever it was went around and around the temple, and another sound I had never heard before joined it.

*Kyu-ay… Kyu-ay…*

Despite not being able to see, I could tell by the sounds that it was slowly going around the temple.

I could feel Takumi’s heart beating. I couldn’t confirm anything with Shoji, but he seemed to be getting tenser.

None of us moved a muscle.

I closed my eyes and plugged my ears in an attempt to escape my fear and silently wished for the thing to disappear. I don’t know how much time passed while I was blocking out the outside world. It may have only been a few minutes or it may have been much longer. When I opened my eyes and looked around, the temple was pitch black, and I couldn’t see anything.

But the sound had stopped.

I couldn’t tell if it had gone away or if it was still waiting outside, so I continued to stay still. But the darkness brought another horror with it.

No matter how I adjusted my eyes, I couldn’t see. I couldn’t even call out to ask if the others were there or whether or not they were alright. But Takumi was still grasping my arm, so I knew that at least he was there.

Despite feeling better about Takumi’s presence, I started to worry more because I couldn’t tell how Shoji was doing. He had definitely seen something. I tried to look for him in the darkness, but I couldn’t see.

I switched Takumi’s grasp to my left arm, and we walked slowly to where Shoji had been. I moved slowly to avoid making any noises and to keep Takumi from freaking out.

It was too dark, so we had no way to communicate our thoughts to each other. If someone panicked, we were done for.

I had no idea where Shoji was, so I continued to hold Takumi’s arm with my left hand, stretching my right arm out to feel around. My hand hit something hard, and my heart felt like it almost jumped out of my chest. It was just the wall.

*Weird. Shoji* was *over here, but now he’s not.* I was getting anxious. I began to walk along the wall until I reached the other side of the room.

I was losing it. I wanted to cry.

I had to stop myself from asking “Where are you, Shoji?” several times. I had no idea what to do, so I stopped and stood there while I held on to Takumi’s arm. He then took over and started moving forward slowly.

First, he made his way back to the wall and signaled to me that we had gotten to the side of the temple by making me touch the wall. He walked along the wall slowly, turning at the corner as he went. Somewhere along the line, he stopped suddenly and tugged my arm sharply. He pressed my hand against something warm.

It felt like a person who was shivering. We had found Shoji.

*Is that really him?* I wondered, immediately doubting my first assumption. Then I began to wonder if the person holding my arm was really Takumi.

Surrounded by complete darkness, I was suspicious of everything. I stayed silent, though, and when Takumi grabbed my arm and started walking again, I followed.

And then I saw a very faint light. The moonlight must have been coming in through some of the slits. Takumi was bringing us over there for the light.

I don’t know why I didn’t notice it then, but thinking back on it now, it was definitely odd. I know that your eyes are supposed to adjust in the darkness, but because of my fear that didn’t happen. It was truly pitch black.

When I saw the light, I felt like I had been saved. I wanted to thank Takumi. When I asked him about the ordeal later, he had this to say:

“I didn’t see anything, and I didn’t hear anything. I did hear whatever was dragging outside of the temple, but that was about it. But because of that, I think I was able to do more than you two.” I respected him a bit more when he said that.

When we got to where it was brightest, I saw that Takumi was holding onto Shoji’s arm with his other hand. Under the moonlight, I was able to see that his face was covered in sweat and tears. I wondered if something happened or if he saw anything, but of course I couldn’t ask.

Unlike day, night is quiet. We heard crickets chirping somewhere in the distance.

I sat still for a short while, and the three of us sat in a circle holding hands. It felt safest for us to be in that formation. More than that, even if it was only faintly, being able to see each other was like being in a whole different world.

Soon enough, though, something we all expected happened.

It was Takumi, and it was unavoidable.

He took the cloth bag out of his pocket that the priest had given him. He rustled it as he opened it and then moved a little bit away from us as he took care of business.

The room was completely silent except for the trickling sounds of Takumi urinating. It was such a mundane sound after all we had experienced. Shoji and I smiled at each other.

That’s when it started.

## Chapter 11

“Shoji.”

The three of us stayed silent. My nerves came alive in an instant.

Then we heard it again. It was coming from right outside the door of the temple.

“Shoji.” We realized at the same time whose voice it was. We had heard it just this morning.

It was Misaki.

“Shoji, I brought you some onigiri.” She continued talking as if she were just coming by to visit.

But her voice had no intonation. It was flat and mechanical.

I felt Shoji’s hand tighten around mine.

“Shoji.”

He didn’t reply. The silence continued for a few moments before the floodgates opened.

“Shoji, I brought you onigiri!”

“Welcome!”

“I made you onigiri!”

“Shoji.”

“Welcome!”

“I brought you onigiri!”

She (it?) repeated the same words over and over and over again. It definitely wasn’t normal.

I was scared. It was Misaki’s voice, but I was frightened.

The priest had told us that nobody would come to the temple we were in. That along with ‘Misaki’s’ inorganic way of talking, I knew that it wasn’t really her at the door.

At some point, Takumi had come back to us and grabbed our arms. His grip was strong, so I knew that he heard whatever was at the door, too.

The three of us stared at the door without moving. The voice continued calling out.

“Welcome!”

“Shoji.”

“I made onigiri for you!”

Finally, the door started to make a rattling sound—it was shaking.

*Hey, wait a minute!*

Whatever was outside was trying to get inside. I tried thinking of what to do if the door did open.

*I’ll run away as fast as I can. The priest said he’d be at the main temple. If I can get there… Shit. Where* is *the main temple?*

All I could think about was how to escape if it came down to that.

It began to throw itself at the door, all the while talking in that monotonous tone. It then started to work its way along the sides of the temple, moving counter-clockwise, talking nonsense and slamming itself against the wall as it moved. At set intervals, it would move left and continue its taunting.

*What is it doing?*

Unsure of what was going on, I realized something. The wall we were closest to had gaps where the boards met. And that thing was getting closer to that wall.

*What if it can see inside through the cracks? What if* we *can see* it *from in here?*

I couldn’t just wait for it to be right next to us. I grabbed the other two and dragged them to the middle of the room. We moved slowly but surely.

I wished that my heart would calm down, just in case that thing could notice it.

*But it might already know you’re in here.*

My teeth began to chatter I was so nervous, so I bit my finger to keep from being too loud.

And then, through one of the cracks, I saw it. I saw it with my own eyes. Its face reflected the light of the moon, and I saw it. I had only been able to hear it until then, but I *saw* it.

## Chapter 12

Its face was pitch black; its long, thin, white eyes stood out in contrast.

I was wrong about it slamming itself against the wall. In the light, I could make out the thing banging its head against the wall as it moved.

Its face disappeared from the crack. It seemed to be bending backwards, and then

*BANG!*

It slammed its head against the wall again with unbelievable force. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I wasn’t frozen at all; I was trembling. I must have just been dumbfounded by the strange sight I was looking at. It continued talking mechanically as it banged its head; it most definitely was not human.

Apparently it didn’t see us. After banging its head near the crack for a little bit, it continued its rotation around the temple. Despite leaving my field of vision, the images I saw replayed in my head. When it would bang its head, I could see it clearly in my mind as if I were still watching it.

Honestly, I don’t know how long it was out there. I couldn’t really distinguish reality from my imagination at that point. Even after the thing left, the three of us stayed perfectly silent. Takumi was on guard. Shoji was too scared to move. And I was still seeing the thing in my head.

When Takumi grabbed my arm to try and bring me back where the light was peaking through, I was apparently so stiff that he thought I had died. He really thought I had died.

Shoji had been gritting his teeth so hard that his gums were bleeding.

And Takumi hadn’t seen it at all.

When it had left us and was some distance away, it gave a loud *Caw! Caw!* much like a crow would. Takumi was the only one to hear it.

We didn’t calm back down. We were too worried that it might come back. We sat with our heads hanging limply from our shoulders without looking at each other. Shoji ended up wetting himself, but Takumi and I weren’t bothered by it in the slightest.

It was the longest night of my life. We were exhausted and witnessed something that was in no way human. I remember everything in detail, even now.

When we finally saw the first signs of the sunrise through the cracks of the building, we continued to stare down at the ground. The sounds of sparrows chirping and people starting their mornings in the distance pierced through us. The same thought was on all of our minds—*are we really going to be able to get out of here alive?*

We heard footsteps approaching us at about the time the direct rays of the sun had reached us. We were slumped over, unmoving in our positions. The footsteps circled around to the back of the temple and stopped in front of the door.

I held my breath as the door rattled and then let out a loud creak as it opened.

The monk was standing outside.

When he saw our faces, he looked like he might cry.

“You did well,” he told us. I don’t think I will ever forget the look in his eyes. He looked so warm and kind. I was so scared I thought I might faint, and I broke down crying.

The monk came into the temple, unperturbed by the stench of sweat and urine that filled the air. He patted each of our shoulders, one by one. His robes let off the familiar scent of incense.

*We’re alive!* I thought to myself and began to cry even harder. Seeing that I was unable to stand, the monk called the middle-aged man to help. With one arm around each of them, I made my way back to the house. On the way there as we passed by the larger temple, the three of us heard a scream. It started out low but then quickly got louder and louder.

It was a person.

“Isn’t that Makiko’s voice?” Takumi whispered when we got to the front door of the house.

*Oh my god,* I thought. *It* is *her voice.* But at that time, I was too tired to care. I just wanted to get inside and rest, but an angry-looking woman told us to take a bath before doing anything else. We did stink, so I guess I don’t blame her for that.

We were scared, so we bathed together. We didn’t have the courage to be alone yet. When we had finished, we were led into the room we had been brought to before.

“First, you need to get some rest,” we were told. I knew that we were in a safe place, and I was ready to fall over I was so tired. We fell asleep as soon as we hit the futons.

*When we wake up, we need to tell our friends we’re coming home*, I thought just as I was falling asleep. They had no way of knowing what us three had gone through and were probably fully prepared to come meet us at the hotel for vacation. Needless to say, we were canceling those plans.

In my near-unconscious state, I remembered the conversation Shoji and I had as we left the temple.

“Shoji, can you see anything?”

“No. I don’t see anything. I think we’re okay. Thanks.”

I promised not to tell anyone he pissed himself, and the conversation ended. We were saved. That fact was enough to ease my nerves a bit.

When we had all woken up, we spoke with the monk to find out what had really happened. That’s when we learned what the true horror of people and the strength of beliefs can bring about.

What Shoji and I saw. What Takumi heard. Upon hearing everything, we were even more determined to get away.

## Chapter 13

It was the priest who came to get us up.

“Can you get up?” Takumi, as usual, needed to be hit a few times. When we were all awake, though, we sat in front of the monk.

“You did very well yesterday,” he started, smiling kindly. “You are now safe; the cleansing has been completed.”

We weren’t sure what to say to that, so we smiled awkwardly back at him. There were so many things we wanted to ask, but none of us could speak.

“I must tell you everything,” he said sympathetically. “Come. There is something you should see.”

He stood up and then led us back to the temple. On the way up the stairs, Shoji glanced around cautiously, and I soon followed suit after recalling the thing we saw from inside the temple.

“Everything should be fine now,” the monk said after noticing our worried expressions. “Is something wrong?”

“No, everything is fine… I don’t see anything,” Shoji replied.

“Same here,” I agreed. The monk smiled at that.

When we were standing in front of the large temple, he told us that it was the main building. He led us into the back door into a room that was nearly identical to the room we had slept in. We were told to wait there, and the monk left. Shoji was still having trouble calming down and began tapping his foot nervously.

After a few minutes, the monk returned with a small wooden box in hand. He sat down in front of us and began to talk.

“I am going to show you the origin of what happened to you,” he said and opened the box. The three of us peaked over to see what was inside. What looked like a dried Judas-ear mushroom lie wrapped in a bunch of cotton.

*What is that?* We had no idea, but I had the strange feeling I had seen it before. I tried to recall, when suddenly it hit me.

When I was a kid, my mother would sometimes take a small, important-looking wooden box out of one of her drawers. When she finally showed me what was inside the box, I would get happy. Inside was cotton wrapped around some small black thing. I didn’t know what it, so I asked her.

“Well, it’s called an umbilical cord,” she said. “It’s proof that you and I were connected.”

*Why would you take care of something like that?* I wondered at the time. But the dried umbilical cord looked just like what the priest was showing us now.

“So what is it?” Takumi asked.

“This is an umbilical cord,” the monk replied. I guess I was right.

“I think this is the first time I’ve seen one,” Takumi admitted.

“I’ve seen one before,” Shoji said.

“Me, too.”

“Your parents probably showed them to you,” the monk commented. “Many people keep and treasure them… This umbilical cord was also valued and cared for.”

The three of us listened to his explanation in silence.

“Inside a mother’s womb, parent and child are connected by the umbilical cord. In order to commemorate that bond and the birth, many people keep the cord. There are many legends revolving around umbilical cords, and people believed them in old times.”

“Legends?” Shoji cut in.

“Yes, legends. Many years ago, people treasured these legends. But now they’re just considered to be superstitions.”

After the brief introduction about umbilical cords, he gave us more details, primarily about those legends that protect children.

‘If a child is on their deathbed with a grave illness, make a decoction with the umbilical cord, and have the child drink it.’

'If a child carries an umbilical cord with them, they will be protected from danger.’

He explained several old wives’ tales just like this, and they all seemed to involve parents worrying about their children. Hearing these explanations, all we could say was “Wow!”

The monk paused for a few moments and then smiled faintly as he continued.

“Before I go on, may I tell you about an old local legend? It is related to your situation, so I think you may want to hear it.”

We nodded at him, and he started the story. It was long, I don’t remember all of the details, and there are probably parts that I’m forgetting to write.

“People in this region strongly believed in legends involving umbilical cords. Many people made their livings by fishing. When a child was born to a fisherman’s family, they would be taken to the ocean with their parents from a very early age. It was a customary practice.

“But there was danger when working in the fishing business. I can only imagine how difficult it was for mothers to wait for their children’s return; it was extremely painful for them. At some point in time, mothers began to have their children carry umbilical cords as a sort of protective charm. These umbilical cords were said to protect children from the dangers of the ocean, and it also helped lost children find their way back home.”

“Back home?” I asked without thinking.

“Yes. I have heard it was common for small children to be swept away by the waves. After several days, they are typically considered dead. But mothers who suddenly lost their children couldn’t accept that fact. Sometimes they wait day after day after day.

“Because of that, umbilical cords were given to children. 'Just as we were connected before birth, no matter where you are, this will lead you back to me.’ It is said that the umbilical cord represented a sort of lifeline.”

It all sounded kind of ironic to me. Something that was originally meant to protect one from danger was also meant to act as a lifeline when danger did strike.

I wonder what those mothers felt as they sent their children off.

“In actuality, no children that went missing while carrying their umbilical cords ever returned.

“But one day, a mother crying tears of joy appeared, claiming that her child came back. No one believed her story, and people began to pity her; they thought she had gone mad. After all, she had lost her child to the ocean three years prior.”

“Had they washed ashore somewhere?” Shoji asked. “Maybe they were living with someone else.”

“That is what some people thought at first. Others demanded that the mother show the child to prove it.”

“And?” Shoji spoke up again.

“The mother told them 'Wait just a little longer, and then I can show him to you.'”

*What is that supposed to mean? If he was back, shouldn’t it be okay for people to see him?*

For some reason, that thought gave me goosebumps.

“Of course, when the villagers heard that, they felt sorry for her; ever since she had lost her child, she had been depressed. Nobody felt comfortable telling her that she must be wrong. They backed down and let her have her delusions.

“But the next day, another mother happily came forward and said the same thing. She also couldn’t show her child to anyone. Not yet. The villagers were at a loss.

“The first mother had already lost her husband, and there was no way to confirm whether or not what she said was true. But the second mother’s husband was still alive. The villagers went to him to talk about the story.

“'I don’t know anything about it’ he said. The father’s complete ignorance of the rumor was a stark contrast to the mother’s overwhelming joy. When the villagers tried to pursue their interests further, the father angrily told them to keep out of his family’s business.”

*Well, that makes sense*, I thought. It probably didn’t feel all that great to have everyone asking about his family’s personal life.

“One night, a few days later,”the monk continued, “the first mother was seen walking with a child along the beach. It was dark and difficult to see, but the child seemed to be quite happy. When the other villagers heard this, they decided to go and apologize for their doubts and to give their blessings to the returned child.

“When the group arrived at the house, the mother came to the door with a large smile on her face. They explained why they came, and many bowed apologetically.

“'Don’t worry about it! Since my son is back, I’ve been happy,’ she said and then pulled her son from behind the door where he had been hiding.

“Upon seeing the boy, the villagers went cold.”

## Chapter 14

Takumi, Shoji, and I stared at the monk, wondering what was wrong with the boy.

“The boy’s skin was the color of bruises, and his body was impossibly bloated. White eyes peaked out from the slits of his swollen eyelids. Barely visible were his irises, which pointed in opposite directions. As he breathed, something that looked like bubbles would come out of his mouth, and he let out a weird sound in response to his mother’s voice. It was just like a crow’s cawing. The villagers watched this and his mother, who giggled at the strange sounds and patted his head lovingly, and ran away in fear.

“That evening, the villagers who visited the mother gathered at the chief’s house. Nobody could agree on exactly what horrible thing it was they had seen. Upon hearing this, the chief said that it was beyond his control and brought them to a head priest. That priest was one of my ancestors…

“Upon understanding the gravity of the situation, the priest went immediately to the family’s home. When he saw the child, he dragged the mother from her house and to the temple. The child followed them, making those strange noises the entire time.

“They arrived at the temple, and the priest forced the mother into the room with the strongest barriers in place. He tried to talk to her, but she was unable to speak after being separated from her child, even for only a moment. She was too uneasy. She ranted threateningly, demanding the priest to return her child.”

“What happened?” Takumi asked.

“Mothers in fear for their children are powerful. The priest tried to restrain her, but she broke free and fled from the temple.”

The priest paused and made a face that resembled disappointment.

“After that, several people went back to the mother’s house, but both she and the child were missing. When they searched the house they found several charms plastered about, and there were piles of rotten food lying in one of the corners. A stench filled the air.”

I thought of what I saw on the second floor of the hotel. It sounded like what the monk was talking about. He continued talking.

“Everyone there was thinking the same thing. The mother, who was still grieving over her lost child, must have performed some sort of ritual in that room. The unbelievable happened; her efforts birthed a monster. The villagers thought long and hard and decided to come together to find where she and her child went.

“The priest brought his attendants and went to the second mother’s house, but again they were too late. The father was frightened of his wife who had called that thing by their child’s name. The priest began to chant sutras as he approached the monster. The mother, wanting to protect her child, glared at the priest and began to scream obscenities in an eerie voice.”

I was sweating, even though it was just a story.

“The villagers were too frightened to move any closer, but the priest and his attendants steadily moved towards the mother and child without hesitation. They subdued the mother in order to bring her back to the temple. She struggled as they carried her out, and they continued their chants directed against the thing that followed, casting salt along the road as they slowly made their way to the temple.

“The priest brought the mother to the small temple you three stayed in. She was bound and locked inside.”

“That’s awful…” Takumi said, taking pity on her.

“There was no other option,” the monk replied. “Their first priority was separating the mother and child. Without those precautions, they couldn’t move forward.”

Even though the monk who we were speaking to now wasn’t the same as in the story, Takumi turned away from him. After a short silence, the monk continued the story.

“Measures were taken to assure she did not try to kill herself, but I do not know those details. The temple was wrapped with *shimenawa*-styled Shinto ropes, and the priest and his attendants surrounded the temple, sat down, and began to recite their sutras. They could hear the mother’s cries from inside the temple. To keep the child from hearing her shrieks, they recited louder and louder, drowning her voice out.

“As they desperately chanted, the child finally appeared. He was looking for his parent; he began to walk around and around the temple. Unsure whether or not their chanting would be of any use, they continued to chant as the thing searched for its mother.”

The priest stopped to take a breath.

“And then what happened?” Shoji asked. His voice sounded frightened.

“As the thing circled the temple, it seemed to have more and more difficulty walking. Eventually, it dropped to the ground and began to crawl. And after that, its joints bent in unnatural ways; it began to creep around like a spider. It was like watching the degeneration of a human being. As it grew weaker, it lost its limbs and began to roll around.

“As the night wore on and dawn approached, it became smaller and smaller until, finally, all that was left was an umbilical cord.”

I was completely absorbed in the story. It was like hearing a retro version of our own experiences.

“Wait, that umbilical cord…” Takumi looked at the monk inquisitively.

“It was what I showed you earlier,” he replied quietly.

“No way…” Shoji was stunned.

“Why? Why us?” I needed to know.

“I don’t know,” the priest said regretfully. “Records from former priests remain, but there are no known cases of this phenomenon occurring unless a mother invokes those powers.

“What is essential is that a mother performs the ritual, but the details of the ritual are still a mystery to us.”

“Didn’t they ask the mother?” Shoji asked.

“It’s not that they didn’t ask,” the monk looked at us gravely, “but that they couldn’t ask.”

We stared at him, our mouths hanging open as he went on.

“The priest and his attendants opened the door to check on the mother; she was completely exhausted, probably because she spent the entire night screaming for her child. She received treatment as soon as she was taken out of the temple, but when she woke up they realized she had gone mad. Perhaps it was because she lost her child a second time, or maybe it was because of the horrors she experienced. We can’t be certain.

“As for the other mother, the villagers searched for her through the night. Sometime the next day, they sent word to the priest; they had found her body washed ashore. It looked as if something had tried to eat her body, but somehow she looked happy. I don’t know what happened. The records only say ‘Despite being devoured by her child, she was smiling in her last moments.'”

The story was hard to swallow, but little by little we processed what he was telling us.

“The villagers agreed to destroy the cannibalized mother’s house. In the process, they discovered notes that she had written.”

He then told us the contents of the notes. To put it simply, it was a record of the child’s life after the ritual was completed. I don’t know exactly how it was written, but this is what I imagine it looked like. Sorry if it’s difficult to understand.

Day 1: Started to prepare the temple

Day 29: No changes

…

Day 37: (Child’s name) came home

Day 39: He is having trouble moving

Day 45: He grew legs

Day 49: He started to crawl

Day 51: He’s moving around on all fours

Day 54: He started talking

Day 58: He can stand

She apparently took a very detailed account of his growth.

Incidentally, the other mother had set up a temple in her attic; her husband knew nothing about it.

“I don’t understand everything myself,” the priest admitted, “but comparing her notes with the priest’s records, doesn’t it seem like this thing essentially reversed its growth patterns when it died?”

That is exactly what it sounded like. The priest continued talking.

“Records such as this are extremely rare, but phenomena have happened. But… none of the records mention any details about the mothers’ ritual. All mothers who have been connected to this ritual died or lost the ability to speak shortly after.” He obviously regretted not knowing more.

“Your case is the first I personally have handled, so I too am perplexed by the situation. Why was it you and not the mother who found the monster? The mother is supposed to be the one who assists with the child’s growth; even those who live under the same roof should not be able to partake in the process.”

*Well obviously that’s wrong*, I thought. Shoji wanted to know more, and he nervously asked a question.

“Um… The mother. Would that be Makiko, the proprietress?”

## Chapter 15

“You are correct,” said the priest after a brief silence. “Makiko is not originally from this village. She only came here after she married Ryuichi. They had one son together. They were happy.”

After that, his story went about as you might expect. One day, many years ago, their son disappeared after going to the ocean. A large scale search and rescue attempt was made, but he was never found. Makiko was overcome with grief. The villagers tried to comfort her in her time of need, and slowly she became herself again. Their hotel even began to prosper. The villagers were just forgetting about the event when suddenly Makiko closed off the top floor of the hotel.

People thought it was strange, but they didn’t feel comfortable asking about it. So, in the end, they just ignored it.

And then everything happened.

Apparently no one knows where Makiko got her information, but she created a sort of temple in the stairs leading to the top floor and held the ceremony there. What she created possessed us, which is where our story splits from the usual cases. Rather than clinging to Makiko who conducted the ritual, the spirit attached itself to us.

What the monk believes was different was that she did not have her son carry his umbilical cord with him. Even now, some of the villagers continue that custom, but Makiko didn’t know about it—Ryuichi even testified to that.

And, strangely enough, despite closing the second floor she decided to hire three workers for the summer. Ryuichi was against it at first, but Makiko insisted.

“I miss my son! If we have some kids here who are about the same age, it’ll be like he’s come back to me!” She was in tears, and Ryuichi begrudgingly accepted.

That’s just the monk guessing about what happened, but he suspected that she thought her ‘son’ might latch to us from the beginning. After telling us about Makiko, he apologized to us.

“I am truly sorry for leaving you in the temple, but I needed to rescue you three and Makiko. While you three were in the rear temple, my attendants and I had Makiko bound in the main hall. Just like my ancestors did, we recited sutra after sutra. We didn’t know if the spirit would go to the back temple or come to the main hall.”

So, going from what he told us, we were possessed, but Makiko was also in danger. I honestly didn’t think he had anything to apologize for. I mean, he saved our lives.

I looked at Shoji. His shoulders were shaking as he glared at the monk.

“Am I supposed to buy into this bullshit?” he demanded. “It’s perfectly okay to kill someone else if it means you get your son back??”

The monk was silent.

“Tell us the rest! Why did this happen to us? If you can’t tell us, I’ll ask them myself. Ryuichi knew, didn’t he? Why the hell didn’t he tell us?”

“Ryuichi didn’t know,” the monk said.

“Don’t lie to me,” Shoji said angrily. “He certainly talked like he knew what was going on.”

“This phenomenon has very deep roots in this region. All he knows is the folklore that was passed down to him.”

I didn’t think the monk was lying, but Shoji couldn’t control his anger.

“Stop jerking me around already. I want to see him now. Hurry and bring him here!” Takumi and I tried to calm him down, but the monk didn’t move an inch. He listened to Shoji’s rant in silence and then spoke.

“When we decided to talk to you about this, we knew we would tell you everything. I will bring you to Makiko, and you can see for yourself…” He stood up, and we followed behind him as he walked. I thought she would be in the main hall, but we passed through a hall in the main temple and ended up in another small building just outside. As we got closer, I heard groaning and what sounded like several people chanting. And with those voices was a loud *BANG! BANG!* sound.

As we stood in front of the door, I could tell that the voices were definitely coming from inside the building. I feared whatever was happening inside.

The monk opened the door, and several priests surrounded Makiko. None of us could say a word when we saw her.

She was… I don’t know, flopping around? Kind of like a shrimp. I can’t explain it well, but she was lying on the floor wriggling around wildly. I had never seen a human move like that before. Sometimes she would let out a pained cry as she shook.

I was so scared that I couldn’t look at her face. It was a different kind of fear from what I felt the night before, but it was just as strong. We were dumbstruck.

“She has been like this since this morning,” the monk commented.

“I can’t stay in here anymore,” Takumi admitted, and we all left at once. But even hearing those sounds was difficult. It was like looking at a different person from the Makiko we had talked to just the day before.

The monk took us to another part of the compound, and we asked if the exorcism actually succeeded.

“It believed you three to be its parents, but we were able to cleanse you. You are all here, and the umbilical cord has also been retrieved. But…”

“That’s right…” Shoji said, picking up where the monk left off. “I saw more than one of the things.”

At first, I didn’t know what he was saying, but suddenly it struck me. When I was up on the second floor, didn’t Shoji say he saw a lot of shadows?

“There was more than one?” the monk asked, surprised. Shoji looked like he was about to answer, but then seemed to think better of it. The monk was in thought for a few moments when suddenly he seemed to realize something.

“Please, return to the house and into the warded room,” he said hurriedly. “Don’t set foot outside of that room. I will send someone for you shortly.”

## Chapter 16

He left us, completely confused, and went back to where Makiko was being held. We again felt abandoned, and stood there silently for a few moments. We saw several priests leave the building Makiko was in, carrying out something large wrapped in a sheet. Whatever was inside the fabric was squirming around and seemed to convulse every so often.

We were all thinking the same thing—it was Makiko. We were speechless as we watched her being carried to the temple we had spent the night in. We looked at each other and suddenly became scared again. We hurried back to the house.

Once we got there, things were fairly normal. We went to the room, and after a little bit a different priest came and told us to spend the night in that room. He stayed in the room with us through the night. The atmosphere of the room was strained as the for of us waited for morning to come.

When morning came, we woke up early and feeling somewhat refreshed. The monk came in soon after, and we sat in front of him to listen to what he had to say.

He said that our cleansing was complete, and only one of the things had attached itself to us. He had confirmed that it retrogressed completely and disappeared.

We were relieved to hear that, but he continued talking.

They weren’t able to save Makiko. I don’t know if he wanted to cry or if he was angry at himself, but his expression was deep with emotion. We asked if she had died, and he replied that she was still alive.

I remembered her squirming body, wondering if she was still like that. I asked, but the monk only frowned in reply. He told us that it was no longer a matter of banishing the spirit and that the cause of her state was something else. The ritual she performed was apparently a sham version of the one from village folklore. He wouldn’t tell us much more than that.

Somehow, though, she heard of the ritual and how to do it. In her sadness, she tried it in hopes of bringing her dead son back. But the umbilical cord, which was essential to complete the ritual correctly, was with her all along. The priest believed that she was using a trial and error method and somehow managed to complete it based on the power of her faith. From that, something unexpected was brought into this world.

In the second floor temple, there were several of the things; maybe one of them was her son.

In the end, the ritual birthed something innately cruel. Fully aware of this fact, Makiko would go upstairs to the temple anyway. I can only imagine how painful it is to lose a child, but I guess using such a ritual as a way to deal with that sort of loss is something that could happen in generation.

Shoji continued asking about what would happen to Makiko, but the monk insisted he didn’t know. We were being left in the dark.

When we had finished talking with the monk, Ryuichi came into the room. I was completely surprised.

He looked deathly pale, and it was obvious that he was completely worn out. He sat down in front of us. He apologized and began to cry. I couldn’t understand everything he said through his sobbing, but it didn’t feel right saying anything about it with how upset he was.

I wonder if he was crying because he was sorry for us or because of what his wife brought on? I still don’t know the answer to that.

After hearing Ryuichi’s apology, we asked the monk several times whether or not we needed to worry about anything happening to us. He looked troubled, but each time he told us we would be okay.

He called a taxi for us, and we finally were able to head home. The middle-aged man from the day before rode with us to the station.

It turned out that he liked to talk. A lot.

He didn’t seem to notice how sad we were. Instead, he talked and talked about everything we had experienced.

“A kid eating their parent… It’s like we’re talking about spiders, you know?” His words were making us all feel pretty disgusted, but he kept on talking about everything that led up to our experiences.

“Don’t you three go and try doing this ritual. If you do, you’re on your own!” He laughed.

I don’t know if he was trying to make us feel better or if he was just stupid, but I did learn one thing from the long, one-sided conversation.

The priest was hiding the truth from us. The ritual and the expected results were both passed down in the area.

It seems strange that this guy would know that, but the priest wouldn’t, right? After going through all of that only to find out such important information was hidden from us… I was shocked. The part of me that had believed the priest grew very angry.

When we got to the station the man offered to cover our fare, but we declined. We only wanted to get away as soon as possible.

I wondered if the monk telling us everything was alright was also a lie. But none of us had the courage to go back to the temple. We waited in silence for our train.

~~

Since getting back home, nothing has happened. Well, I guess that’s pretty obvious since I’m here writing this.

“We’re never going back there,” we vowed when we spoke about it later. It was a pretty traumatizing experience.

Ever since then, Shoji can’t even bear to look at spiders. It reminds him too much of the thing’s growth process.

Personally, I’m currently working a job, just like any normal person… But I’ve grown to fear the dark.

‘Once ashore, we pray no more.’ I guess the old saying isn’t completely wrong.

This is kind of a follow up, I guess, but we ended up telling our other two friends—the ones who were going to visit the hotel while we were working—everything. They took one look at us and believed everything. But…

This is really bad, but I guess they got really curious about our story. They called the hotel to check things out. The person who answered the phone sounded like a regular old woman.

They told us about it and tried to get us to see if it was Makiko. They said they could hear something that sounded like a crow cawing in the background.

No. No way am I calling. I don’t care if she’s okay or not. I know too much already.

*The end*