*
Kisaragi Chiyo turned on the flashlight and stepped forward. The tapping sound of the umbrella hitting the ground echoed through the stairwell. Then he paused, hesitating for barely a second, as the flashlight's beam began to flicker, he increased his pace and hurried up the stairs.
The freezing temperature that had previously receded approached from behind once more, far colder than before, even turning his breath into white mist.
The white mist rolled and condensed in the darkness, gradually appearing as if it were forming a physical net that would envelop him entirely.
Kisaragi Chiyo frowned slightly. His footsteps did not falter in the slightest due to these minor obstructions, because he knew that it was right behind him, not far away.
*
In the end, Kisaragi Chiyo managed to temporarily shake the opponent off, though it came at the cost of losing the flashlight.
Just as it was about to catch up to him, Kisaragi Chiyo swung the flashlight backward with all his might. The evil spirit, which had been nearly pressing against his back, suddenly paused at that moment. It seemed to be hesitating, as if judging something, but in the end, it gave up on Kisaragi Chiyo and, like a moth to a flame, turned and flew toward the falling light.
The reason he judged the opponent to be an evil spirit was because the aura emanating from it was far too dangerous and ominous; as it approached him, a sudden, skin-crawling sensation of being targeted by a large predator instantly surged through Kisaragi Chiyo's entire body.
At the same time, he also knew that this childish trick would only delay the opponent for a short while at most. Soon, when the opponent realized that the light they were chasing was nothing more than a lifeless object, they might feel a sense of irritation or even shame at being fooled—and perhaps, what awaited him would be an even more intense retaliation?
Kisaragi Chiyo thought with some uncertainty; at the very least, most of the ghosts and monsters he had encountered before had unstable temperaments, especially the evil spirits lingering due to obsessions, which were almost impossible to communicate with.
Taking advantage of the moment the evil spirit behind him left, Kisaragi Chiyo pivoted his steps and randomly chose one of the rooms on the current floor to hide in.
The originally tightly closed door was skillfully picked open by a hand holding a piece of wire; this was a skill Kisaragi Chiyo had specifically learned from others, as he had heard it was a basic ability that almost everyone in the metropolis of Tokyo possessed.
At least, that's what the real estate agent he had consulted had told him.
*
Kisaragi Chiyo lowered his breathing. In the darkness and silence, he heard the steady, rhythmic beat of his own heart. He kept his eyes cast down, hiding behind the apartment door, counting numbers in his mind as he waited.
Waiting for the rhythmic tapping of footsteps to emerge from the other end of the hallway.
Thump, thump, thump
“Is anyone home?”
The sound of footsteps approaching from a distance stopped unerringly outside the door in front of him, just as the forum post had described; after three knocks, the inquiry rang out.
But if there was one thing that was different, the inquiry Kisaragi Chiyo heard did not sound like the old, jammed cassette tape or the harsh, grating noise of fingernails scraping across a blackboard as described in the forum post.
The male voice from outside the door sounded calm and gentle, more like that of a vigorous young man.
Excuse me, is anyone there?
The second time, Kisaragi Chiyo silently repeated in her heart.
Perhaps it wasn't his hallucination; he could clearly feel that the force of this knocking was much heavier than the last time.
“Excuse me, is anyone in there?”
The third knock sounded, with even more force than the last, yet there was still no response.
"Is there really no one.. are they not home?" a male voice murmured alone outside the door, a sentence that had not appeared in the description.
But Kisaragi Chiyo didn't pay it much mind; after all, such a minor discrepancy fell within the normal range. Perhaps the person involved had been too nervous before, causing them to miss it.
"Well, if that's how it is.." The words that followed were too quiet for Kisaragi Chiyo to hear clearly, so she could only wait in silence for the other person's next move, eventually leave when no response came.
However, even after Kisaragi Chiyo had counted sixty seconds in her heart, the footsteps that should have signaled a departure failed to appear.
Both sides seemed to be at a standstill. Even though it was silent outside the door, Kisaragi Chiyo knew that it was standing right at the entrance watching her, perhaps, if she just lowered her head, she would see eyes peering through the gap under the door.
The current situation had become completely different from what was described in the post; Kisaragi Chiyo pondered this. If that were the case, then had this Hazama urban legend, which was originally judged to be safe and non-harmful to humans, become dangerous?
It truly is a baffling question.
But the only thing for certain was that Kisaragi Chiyo did not want to remain silent like this any longer; he reached out his hand, carefully groping the door for the position where the peephole should be.
With a click, the somewhat rusty peephole was rotated open from the inside. Kisaragi Chiyo squinted slightly, peering through the tiny peephole to check the situation outside.
As expected, once he opened the peephole, he saw a dark purple, dim eye that was like a dizzying vortex; just one glance was enough to make one's head spin.
"I see you." Its voice carried a hint of laughter, seeming to hold a sense of joy, as those dark purple eyes stared intently at Kisaragi Chiyo through the peephole.
Good child," it said. "Please open the door.
Polite, even in terms of honorifics, there was nothing to be criticized.
Kisaragi Chiyo stared blankly at that dark purple vortex, his hand resting on the doorknob, his mind no longer thinking of anything else, as if his entire being was focused solely on obeying the other's command.
Obey its words, do as it says.
With a click, the doorknob was turned from the inside, the white, cold mist rushed in from outside, surging like a tide.
What was hair-raising was that something resembling long, slender tentacles was constantly writhing and crawling within the mist, silently sealing off every possible escape route bit by bit.
The door was pushed wide open, it stood outside, smiling as it waited for the enchanted prey to walk straight into the trap.
“So fragrant..”
How long had it been since it had smelled an aroma like this? Amidst nothing but thick smoke and burning flesh, it had been far too long since it had smelled anything other than those scents.
Even though the need to eat had long since been lost, seeing the other person caused the hunger and thirst—which had already become accustomed to being constant—to be instantly magnified a hundredfold, far exceeding the limits of endurance.
Everything was teetering on the edge of danger and collapse.
His throat instinctively made a swallowing motion, he licked his somewhat dry lips, sharp canines flashing between his lips, longing to bite into something to fill the emptiness in his soul.
“Please, come closer to me.”
It opened its arms like an airtight net, as obscurity surged within its dark purple eyes, forming another abyss.
It could say for certain that it looked forward with a mood that could almost be described as jubilant, to swallow the young man before it whole, not wasting a single drop of blood from his body or his soul.
Watching the dazed prey approaching it step by step, the smile on its face grew wider and wider, the white mist and tentacles surrounding its body surged violently along with its excitement.
It could no longer wait. The fascinating scent lingered at the tip of its nose, merely breathing it was enough to make its entire spiritual form tremble.
Hurry, hurry, come into my embrace!
It reached out with a look of infatuation, wanting to touch the young man's face, but in the next second, a gun with a round chambered pointed directly at its forehead.
The hand in the black glove pulled the trigger without the slightest hesitation.
With a bang, a bullet, seemingly engraved with some inscription, burst from the gun and instantly shattered its form.
The white mist that had originally surrounded Kisaragi Chiyo also dispersed completely at this moment.
Author's Note:
----------------------
Thanks to all the little angels for your support, mwah 030
Chapter 4
Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp! It was like hundreds of birds making incessant, noisy cries together. The damage that this indistinct, eerie, distorted whispering caused to the human psyche could not be easily ignored.
By now, Kisaragi Chiyo already felt a bit of a headache and a ringing in his ears from the noise.
As he dispersed the evil spirit's form and prepared to turn and head downstairs while the opponent was regrouping, he suddenly sensed several more gazes lurking in the dark shadows, peeking at him surreptitiously.
Those gazes held no malice, only pure curiosity, so Kisaragi Chiyo had no intention of paying them any mind.
At first, when he turned around warily, they would hurriedly hide and cower. But now, they hardly even bother to hide anymore; they gather in clusters like rare animals behind a zoo's glass window, making a noisy racket at his every meaningless movement.
That noise felt like being trapped inside a solid black glass dome, with the constant sound of things tapping against it; it was also like a jammed cassette tape, or a television emitting static because it couldn't receive a signal; in short, it was a collection of all those obnoxious sounds that made a human's head throb.
"Excuse me." Kisaragi Chiyo truly could not endure it any longer and stopped his descent down the stairs to turn around, his gaze locking tightly onto that row of completely pitch-black heads peeking out from behind the corner of the hallway wall.
They had neither hair nor facial features, their clothes were in tatters, making it possible only to vaguely discern a humanoid shape.
This was exactly as the forum posts had described; they were clustered together, as one approached, a distinct smell of something having been burned could be detected.
It was a peculiar scent, a mixture of gunpowder, smoke, the smell of everything else being burned to ash, pungent and carrying a sharp, acrid sting.
They followed close behind him, leaving pitch-black marks on everything they passed, in the hallways and on the walls.
"Could you please be a little quieter?" Kisaragi Chiyo looked at the dark shadow that was only five or six steps away from him. Although he didn't mind being followed, it didn't mean he could accept being forced into becoming the center of gossip and speculation.
Even if you really want to gossip about him, please at least be a little quieter; that should be basic common sense and politeness, right?
Kisaragi Chiyo felt that even after death, one had to follow certain rules—at the very least, one shouldn't be so unrestrained to the point of being this intrusive.
Surprise, curiosity, eagerness.. I really don't know how I managed to read those emotions from a face shrouded in pitch darkness, where I couldn't even make out the features.
After Kisaragi Chiyo said the words "please be quiet," the continuous, murmuring, indistinct sounds suddenly ceased for a brief moment.
Then, what followed was a high-pitched scream, one that did not belong to a human, sounding like two coarse stones being violently rubbed together.
[How cute..]
【Is he talking to us?】
Us?
It's been a long time since anyone spoke to me.
【】
The distorted voice, which should not have been intelligible, stabbed sharply into Kisaragi Chiyo's brain like a piercing bayonet, causing him to frown instinctively from the pain. In a daze, he seemed to smell the thickening scent of smoke and dust, as flames burned before his eyes and the rapidly rising heat rushed toward him.
Kisaragi Chiyo stood in place, his misty gray eyes calmly watching everything that had instantly vanished within the raging flames.
The flames were so massive that they stripped away the sound of everything else, leaving nothing in the ears but a world-shaking roar, then, nothing could be seen.
Be quiet.
As the words fell, a chilling temperature, carrying a ghostly fragrance, enveloped him from behind. Pale hands, like those of a marble statue, hovered vacantly over his eyes.
Even though the opponent, being an evil spirit, could not even touch him, in that instant, the flames burning before Kisaragi Chiyo's eyes were snuffed out in a flash, the piercing sounds and scorching heat vanished along with them.
At this moment, Kisaragi Chiyo could see nothing before him but pitch darkness; only the continuous chill coming from behind and the damp, ghostly fragrance lingering at the tip of his nose told him the truth.
It was right behind him.
*
I'm sorry." Its voice sounded softly in Kisaragi Chiyo's ear. "They are just too excited; they didn't mean anything else by it.
Perhaps they misunderstood you were playing a game of musical statues with them.
“If you get caught, you have to stay,” Kisaragi Chiyo said coldly.