Phenomeno:Case 02

Case 02: Self-responsibility-type

Wish

1

-- Darkness is as lukewarm as water and as bottomless as water.

So wrote an American mystery author in his only work translated to Japanese, "The Despair of the Baumkuchen." I found that book in my high school library, and it was seriously good. I don't usually read books, so for me to say it supports it. The author depicted a somewhat twisted world in a comical fashion, and it was a truly rare occasion where I could not put down the book. I tried to find that author's works after I came to Tokyo, but I could never find anything. I eventually found out that the book I read of his was the only one that had been translated into Japanese, and I also learned the unfortunate news.

Right around when I was reading his book in high school -- far away in America, that author fell from a dam and died after becoming drunk.

They say it was a rainy night. There are those who say it was a suicide and others that say it was an accident, but as someone who'd read his book, I'd always found myself fascinated by the night that he'd stood upon the dam before his death.

Just dark -- an endless, bottomless mass of water.

Perhaps he could not triumph against his desire to learn of the depth of the darkness?

I thought that--

As I stood smack dab in the middle of bottomless darkness.

Indeed, darkness was like water.

It surrounded me in a lukewarm way, covering, inhibiting the pitiful light from a penlight. And especially so because I was in an abandoned hospital on a mountain that hid the moon and clouds.

"-- See, lets go back? I mean, the shattered glass is dangerous, and the concrete is beginning to crumble. And there may be gangsters who're out for blood living here."

I tried laying out some reasons as I thought of them, but.

"There exists no safe haunted area."

Mitsurugi Yoishi said with as much emotion as she's never had.

She was in her school uniform and followed the penlight she held in one hand.

Her summer high school uniform with its black tie and white blouse half-melted into the darkness, reminding me of some movie scenes. If we weren't where we were, it may have been a fun event, but her beautiful but frozen face was scary.

It was just past 2AM.

Mitsurugi Yoishi and I were visiting a certain abandoned hospital in the mountains of Hachiouji.

The window glass was shattered and linoleum tiles were scattered about, covering the skeletal remains of clinical records. The posters on walls were half-torn and withering, and if you shone a penlight at them it would look like a bloodied girl was beckoning for you. Worst of all, even though there should be nobody around, it felt like plenty of people still lived inside.

"This abandoned hospital had quite a few bizarre rumors to begin with."

Yoishi's happy mumbling continued lowering the temperature of the area.

"That you can hear the rumblings of machinery from the basement, even though this place has no electricity; that you can see the ghosts of nurses wandering about; that an empty wheelchair begins chasing you..."

"Hey, stop with that here."

"But, there was just one rumor that was interesting among that rubbish."

Yoishi's voice was filled with vitality as it echoed through the darkness.

"It's a rumor in which the number of people visiting this place changes."

"The number -- changes?"

I asked back.

"Is that an odd rumor? Like, people going with four turn out to be five as some point? I hear those all the time."

I pointed out, but when seemed happy when she whispered, the other way around.

"What I heard was that the number goes down."

I braced myself, as it seemed the conversation was headed toward an ill-fated direction.

"If you go with four, you find three. If you go with five, you see four. While inside the hospital, the remaining people become frantic about where the other has gone, yet when they step out of the hospital, everyone is there."

I felt like I heard something snap in the darkness.

Come to think of it, I felt like I'd been hearing sounds not created by us as we walked.

"The interesting thing about this story is that difference in comprehension. When they asked the person who'd vanished, they would say that they were with everyone all along. Yet the others all say that the one was not there. Then, where did that other person go? Who were they with?"

I felt like the temperature was still dropping.

For a moment, I lost track of where I was. I should have been standing on concrete, but it felt like there was only pure darkness. And I could no longer be sure that I was speaking to Yoishi.

Ahh, why did I come here?

I thought I'd learned, but why was I doing this again?

I was supposed to have learned from my prior experience. When her voice and eyes began to show signs of life, it felt like things were slowly becoming warped. The belief, the conviction around me began making sounds of being torn apart, and I could feel myself slowly being dragged into the hole created by the ripping.

I pointed the light at my feet which were alternating in step as I followed Yoishi, who showed no hesitation in progressing--

And was already beginning to tear up.

【About horror spots to avoid!】

Everything began with that thread on the occult site "Ikaigabuchi."

The administrator Krishna had immediately deleted the thread, but for better or for worse, I had seen the thread by chance. And I noticed certain things.

* Far in the mountain of Hachiouji.
* Abandoned hospital.
* People who entered this hospital are hospitalized in a psychiatric ward.

And then I remembered. It was the offline meeting that Yoishi had once attended, for investigating horror spots. They mentioned it was for an abandoned hospital. And that something had happened there, and one person only mumbled "Yoishi," and that they were still in a psychiatric ward. Mitsurugi Yoishi had always posted psychotic things, but this incident had caused her to become an "accursed being." And then over the past few weeks, rumors about Yoishi caught wind, and now she'd become a real Sadako-type character online.

When you meet her, you die in seven days.

You become cursed just by talking to her.

Stories of her appearance circulated, such as being a one-armed man, or a bloody girl, and so on. I was exasperated by the rumors.

Having spoken to her a few times in the previous incident, I'd begun to feel that Yoishi wasn't as monstrous as she was made out to be. She was just an odd high school girl who was very knowledgeable about the occult. Of course, she did have psychotic moments.

And so I thought.

If I could figure out what exactly happened then, maybe her reputation would be restored a bit.

After finishing my lecture that day, I quickly hurried to the west gate of the university. It was about 3PM. The students from the feeder school would be going home then. I didn't think Krishna would tell me anything, and I figured asking the person directly would be the fastest.

"Ah, hey, Yoishi!"

Eventually, the black-haired, white-faced girl showed up, and I called out to her from the shadow of a lamppost.

"Wait, I want to ask you something."

I said as I ran to her, and Yoishi turned to me with a dazed look.

Her eyes were still like glass beads, I thought.

"Have you gone to the abandoned hospital in Hachiouji after an 'Ikaigabuchi' offline meeting?"

For a while, she looked like she was remembering a childhood friend, and then she nodded.

"Yes."

"What happened to the other members that went?"

"It was an offline meeting. I haven't kept in touch."

"You know. One of them is still hospitalized. In a psychiatric ward no less."

I told her what Zippo had told me at the previous offline meeting.

That someone he knew had gone with Yoishi.

And afterwards, he was still hospitalized, just mumbling "Yoishi."

After that, she just cocked her head to the side a bit.

"Nothing's wrong with you? What happened there anyways?"

"What... I heard it was a horror spot so I went, that's all."

"No, but, you knew that hospital was dangerous, right? Why didn't you stop them?"

"They're not people who would stop if I were to say 'this place is real.'"

"......... Mm."

True.

I would want to go too, if I heard that.

But, no no no. That wasn't the problem. I found out then, that she was special. She had a decisive difference from other occult-lovers. She must have known that hospital was truly dangerous. To know that, and to not warn anyways, what sort of person would do that?

And then she said, as if reading my mind.

"People are responsible for themselves at horror spots. Just like how it always is in this world."

She said coldly -- and I became irritated.

"Do you not care? That's why people act like you're psychotic."

I said.

But she simply sighed.

"You can't put a stopper to peoples' words. Especially on the internet."

She said, and continued walking.

Of course, I started feeling it was pointless. I was trying to support her after being worried, so her attitude was quite rude. Still, when I saw her thin back, I had a pang of sadness. She was like a stranger that walked a rough path alone. She seemed like she was carrying the burden of the world's misery and grief by herself.

-- God, fine.

I ran after her again.

And then following her, I decided to continue the conversation anyways.

"Then tell me the truth. What happened there. I'll post that."

And then Yoishi stopped, and looked at me with a curious look.

"I don't understand what the point is."

"Shut up. Tell me."

I said once more--

And something seemed to move at the back of her eyes.

"Do you really want to know?"

Her empty gaze terrified me.

Something was beginning to open in front of those dark eyes that seemed to entangle everything. At the same time, my safety device began blaring warning signs. Stop, someone yelled. I had a feeling a helpless story was about to start.

"If you want to know, no matter what--"

Yoishi continued, still staring into the distance.

"It's quicker if you were to go."

"Go, to that hospital?"

Yoishi nodded, and then scrunched her brows a bit.

"To be honest, I don't really get that place yet."

"... What?"

"My head hasn't been able to come with an answer that makes me go, ahh, so that's how it is. That sort of pattern is quite uncommon."

I'd become speechless, and my legs began to wobble, but she continued.

"From now on, it's just self-responsibility."

... and so, Yoishi and I had arrived her after taking a train.

I see, this is indeed self-responsibility. To have tried to help her without understanding my own level, that's what has led me to wandering this creepy place.

In the dense darkness--

We'd descended to the basement of the hospital, and had progressed along a dark, damp, and humid passageway.

My breathing had become heavier, possibly due to the dirty air. My heart pounded so heavily it almost felt like it'd rip through my clothes, and I'd thought countless times that I couldn't go any further.

But why was I still hanging on?

Why couldn't I grab Yoishi's hand and just say to leave?

That moment--

I heard a snapping sound somewhere, again.

I recoiled, as if something had taken hold of my heart.

"W- what was that sound? We've been hearing that for a while..."

I asked, but Yoishi simply said, who knows? as she continued.

"Who knows... you heard it, didn't you? It was pretty big."

I stood in a crouch, and kept moving my light about.

"Here."

Yoishi's voice came from ahead.

I looked toward her, and saw that she was standing in front of a room. I went closer, and saw that her penlight was illuminating a sign reading "Second Resources Room."

"What about here?"

"One person disappeared here."

"... Huh?"

I swallowed, then asked.

"In other words, what? That rumor about people disappearing--"

"Was real."

"... Say that earlier, please."

I snapped back at her, becoming exasperated, but things began making sense. In other words, Zippo's friend who was hospitalized was the one that disappeared. Of course they'd be stuck in a psychiatric ward if they were stuck here alone in such a creepy place. After all, my knees were about to give out just standing here-- no. Wait? Then, why would he have been mumbling Yoishi? Why would she end up having such a reputation?

And then Yoishi quietly shook her head.

"Wrong."

"... Huh?"

"The one who disappeared, was me."

Her words gave me goosebumps.

"I was with them the whole time, yet when we left the hospital they said I was the only one missing. We checked after we left the hospital, but our recollections matched perfectly up to this room. Yet, when we left the hospital we remembered things differently. To them, I wasn't inside, and to me, I remembered being with them the whole time. Then -- who were the people I was with the whole time?"

I looked at the side of Yoishi's face as she happily explained what happened--

And I really thought I should never have come.

"Why our memories became estranged, and why that happened. I want to know."

Yoishi went to the door with a bewitched look, then turned around once more.

"Hey, scared?"

She asked, gazing into my eyes.

"How does it feel to be scared?"

And with that, she disappeared into the room.

I was left alone in the dark room, and hesitated.

-- Yes I'm scared. Of course. So I'm going home, good luck.

How simple it would be if I could say that and leave.

However, when a human's level of fear passes a certain threshold, their legs become immobilized. To remove oneself from the flow, the action itself feels like it would agitate things that cannot be seen, and thus require a whole different set of courage. Furthermore, her existence as a high school girl was nasty. If I were to run now, I would never be able to escape from the title "King of Wussies," having left a younger girl alone in a dark hospital.

I had no choice as I slid through the slightly-ajar door.

It was even darker inside. If there were density to darkness, it felt like this place had become even more dense. When I shone my light, I could tell it was a space of about fifteen to sixteen tatamis. In the middle was a desk, and various unfamiliar tools were scattered around it. At the edge were several fallen cabinets with shattered glass, and the papers stored inside were also scattered out onto the folder.

I kicked something as I shined my light. It was a beer can. When I looked around, I saw the remains of tobacco and snack bags. Probably the left-overs from the "thankless" that Krishna despised so much. On weekends this place probably became grounds for scare games.

"This must be a pretty popular spot."

I said, and far off in the darkness came back a bored voice, probably.

I pointed my light at her and found Yoishi next to a cabinet. She shone her light into the drawers, illuminating the fallen medical records, but eventually she ran out of things to do and walked over to me.

"We were looking at this together, before."

Yoishi shone a light on the thing she showed me, which was an old university notebook.

"What is this?"

I used my light as I opened it, and realized it was a journal. Letters were written from end to end inside. Most of it was in written in hiragana. Occasionally, cars and people were drawn using colored pencils, so I could recognize it was written by a child patient. I turned the pages and noticed that the writing stopped about halfway through one page. It was dated August 16, 1991. And then across the page was scrawled in large letters.

"Please fix my sickness."

Those words stabbed into my heart.

"The name matches, so it's probably that child's."

Yoishi handed me a sheet of paper as I started dumbfounded at the yellow notebook.

It was a medical record. There was a record of an eight-year-old boy's medical history.

And at the end was written, in a business-like fashion, "Deceased."

"He died."

I mumbled, and she nodded.

And then she pointed her light at the opposing wall and happily rephrased what I said.

"Yes, he was supposed to have died."

I was struck speechless when I saw the wall.

There--

In hiragana, in the same handwriting as the notebook.

"I'll do whatever you ask if you fix me."

The writing on the wall was enormous. Each letter was the size of two human heads. And it was written at a height where even an adult would have trouble reaching.

"Did... this boy write that?"

"Who knows?"

Yoishi said, as she shined her light from one end of the wall to the other.

"But, the problem isn't who wrote it when."

... Then what's the problem?

I thought, but it seemed like it would become even creepier, so I resolved to ask her only after we'd returned to a bright area. See, I've grown a bit.

But, that moment.

The light cut out.

Everything became covered with darkness, and I visibly recoiled.

"H- hey, why'd you turn off your light--"

But then I realized it.

... No. Yoishi wasn't the only one holding a light. I had a penlight too -- and I hadn't pressed the switch.

Regardless, for it to become dark...

I heard a snapping sound somewhere, again.

It seemed to echo from afar, yet it also seemed to sound close to my ear. It was like the sound of the air split, like a wall I couldn't see was cracking. And I smelled something at the same time. A rotting odor, like a river filled with dead fish.

"Hey, Yoishi--"

I said with a trembling voice, but there was no response.

"... C- Cut that out, hey."

I fumbled with the switch of my mini-light as I shouted, and then.

snap crack snap

Sharp sounds echoed around me.

This is -- that. The rumored sound of saran wrapping.

And then suddenly my arm was grabbed.

I was about to shriek, but it made me crouch on the spot.

"Silence."

I kept my mouth shut at Yoishi's sharp whisper.

And then, silence and darkness reigned over the area.

No--

At the edge of that silent world, filled with tension, I could feel something tilting. I could hear an endless stream of quiet noises. Was someone else here? Or was it an animal, a bug? I tried to think that way, but I felt like I could feel something definite. At the very least it wasn't an animal, as it was something that held the same helpless complexities of a human.

And I could tell that it was slowly coming to our room from the far end of the hallway.

I was completely in tears.

And I acknowledged that I was a wuss. If I could leave this place with my life. I would never enter a horror spot again. I wouldn't be enticed by Yoishi's bizarre words again. I would finish my letter to my mother, and I would live a proper life of a student, with filial piety and only school and work. Right. I'd come to Tokyo to turn around the fortunes of my family lumber business. Yet I was delving into an occult site, and was being punished for roaming around a place like this. This was punishment for not writing the letter to my mother as I said I would. I was wrong. I'll live a proper life from now on. So please. Please. I don't know what's going on, but be exorcised already. Go to that other world.

However -- as if to destroy my prayer to gods.

"Vanish!"

Yoishi's inexplicable shout boomed, and the desk by my side made an enormous sound.

It seemed Yoishi had kicked it. Something was shattered by that, and a large sound echoed through what used to be a quiet, abandoned hospital. At the same time, my body began moving again. The lights turned back on, and when the darkness was torn away -- I saw.

I saw.

In the hallway that you could see past the slightly-ajar door.

A sneaker with blue laces.

And then, stretched forth from the cut, worn sneaker -- a thin, bluish-white, rotting, crumbling leg of a child.

"U... uwaa."

I screamed, and so did Yoishi.

"It's not impossible."

She shook off my arm and shouted loudly.

"It's pointless. It's unnecessary."

She kept shouting something.

How was she making such a loud voice with that thin body of hers? Her loud voice cowed me. But her voice seemed to have agitated something I could not see. Countless things I could not see seemed to slither and move.

Simultaneously -- Yoishi began running toward the hallway. It may have been a challenge toward something I could not comprehend, or perhaps she was just trying to flee.

"W... wait, wait!"

What the heck, I thought as I followed her a moment later.

I stepped on the door she'd completely knocked down and stumbled into the hallway.

"Hey, wait, Yoishi!"

I pointed my light down the hall, but she didn't wait.

-- You bastard, fine.

I was in the basketball club during high school, and was even the point guard. I had confidence in my leg speed.

However -- Yoishi was even faster. There was no trace of her usual plodding speed. Her black hair tossed about as she ran like a young deer, and slowly distanced herself from me. On the way, because she never saw them or was doing it deliberately, she knocked down hospital partitions and withered vegetation. As a result, it reminded me of the ding dong ditches we did in Elementary School, making me forget a bit that this was a haunted area. Of course, I regretted it now, but at the time we were afraid of the angry, bald guy that would chase us, and it was hilarious. My excitement from then suddenly reawakened. And here it became nothing less than my savior. I blew away the obstacles that crashed into my legs and shoulders, and I kept running. Excitement triumphed over fear then. I ran down the basement hall, climbed the stairs, and did a quick turn at the first floor. I chased Yoishi who ran in the distance ahead.

"Hey, Yoishi!"

I kicked open the entrance door to the hospital and came outside--

However, there was no one there.

I could only hear the the sound of insects, and found myself in a parking lot with overgrown grass.

Under the moon that shined bluish-white -- I placed my hands on my knees and regained my breath. My heart felt like it would explode from my first serious run in a while. I had never felt so comforted by the moonlight before. As I regained my composure, black socks and black leather shoes appeared before me.

When I looked up, I found Yoishi looking down at me.

"Why did you run ahead of me?"

I complained, gasping for air, but Yoishi grumbled venomously.

"Pathetic."

"... Say again?"

"This place is pathetic."

In the darkness of night, she glared at the concrete building--

And then she vomited.

Suddenly, she was vomiting in the parking lot.

Her vomit sparkled under the moonlight.

And as I watched, dumbstruck, I thought it looked kinda pretty.

2

"Krishna? Are you there?"

It was about ten hours after leaving the creepy hospital.

I was knocking on the door of the headquarters of the "Ikaigabuchi," the Beatnik Research Club.

"Hello?"

I knocked several times, but there was no response.

"That's odd. She's always in at this hour."

I peered through the frosted glass on the door at the darkened room, and stifled a yawn.

It was sunrise when I arrived back at the Musashino apartment from the Hachiouji hospital.

I'd been meaning to amass as much sleep as possible today, so there was a reason for me having diligently arrived at school for the first period.

We'd walked back to the highway from the hospital, then to the Hachiouji train station. The moment we hopped onto first train on the main line, exhaustion finally caught up and made both of us fall asleep. I regained consciousness just in time for the Mitaka announcement and hurriedly jumped off, and for some reason Yoishi hopped off as well. After that, she wobbled about half-asleep, following me to my apartment and eventually toppling over in the hallway. Of course, I told her. Come on, wake up, go back to your home. I even tried pulling her cheeks, but she just stopped moving, as if her batteries had died.

Thus, I had no choice but to let her sleep in the apartment, giving her the only blanket I had -- and came to the university myself, like I'd been kicked out. I went to my first-period lecture for "Introduction to Law" to get some sleep, but when I thought about what happened last night, I had trouble actually getting myself to fall unconscious. No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't figure out what was going on with that hospital. The mystery of the vanishing member hadn't been solved, and I didn't know what Yoishi was calling "pathetic" either.

As I thought of those things, I lost my chance to sleep. Consequently, I attended my next class, but couldn't sleep in "Foreign Languages 2" as well. In the end, without being able to catch any sleep, I came here when the noon bell rang.

"Hello? Krishna?"

I knocked again, but there was no response.

There was no response, but I thought I heard something from inside.

"Seriously?"

I remember a posting on the bulletin about someone roughing up rooms.

I was worried and placed my hand on the knob, and found that it wasn't locked. I became suspicious, and decided to enter.

I took a breath -- and opened the door.

And when I saw what was inside--

I recoiled.

Completely took a step back.

Inside was a girl with a candle attached to her head using a headband.

She was in a white robe, in her left hand was a voodoo doll, and in her right was a hammer.

She held five-inch nails between her lips.

"Hoo haw."

The white-robed girl said.

Or rather, she probably meant to say "you saw."

However, it didn't sound that way because of the nails between her lips.

"K- Krishna?"

I asked, and the red-framed, white-robed girl -- Krishna took the nails away from her mouth, glared at me, and said "you saw." It was a beautiful voice, like the ringing of a bell.

"I knocked."

"Yes, I noticed."

Krishna said, angry.

"Unfortunately, I had nails in my mouth. That means I can't respond. I thought 'Whatever, I'll ignore it', but then the door was opened anyways. Thanks to that, my secret experiment is ruined. Who opens the door when there's no response, anyways? Thieves do, that's about it. So you're a thief, then?"

Yes, this style of talking, this small girl--

Was Kurimoto Shina, or Krishna, the administrator of the largest occult site in the country.

Incidentally, she's older than me, even though she looks like a middle school girl working part-time at a shrine as a shrine maiden. But in reality, she was a twenty-year-old, third-year university student, so you shouldn't be fooled by her loli appearance. Her incredible knowledge with regards to the occult and her charisma made her the object of much respect in the internet world.

"I'm sorry, I wanted to ask you something."

I said.

"I have nothing to say to you."

She quickly replied.

"I told you not to come her anymore, didn't I? Yesterday, the day before that too , I said the same thing but you seem to lack the capacity to learn. Or is this your way of annoying me?"

"Neither."

I bowed and let myself into the room.

I looked around the room again and became exasperated. A dark curtain was placed over the wall, and shimenawa adorned the room. Salt had been placed at each corner, and in the center flickered a single, large candle.

"I'm not sure, but --"

I looked and asked.

"Were you trying to curse someone to death?"

In response, she ripped the candle off her forehead and shouted.

"Fool! Do I look like someone who'd mess around with curses? It's a ritual for stopping curses. Or rather, for returning curses. There are quite a few violent verbal spirits plastered over 'Ikaigabuchi' for various reasons. So I'm gathering all of those malicious intents within this doll and burning it -- in other words, earth it. It's a ritual that can't be seen by others, but because of you --"

"Can't be seen... What happens when it's seen?"

"The person who sees it turns into earth."

"... Huh?"

Krishna wordlessly grabbed my hair and pulled it toward her. She then relentlessly pounded my back with what seemed like a wooden stick with some runes on it. Apparently, it was something like an exorcism.

"... Ow, ow, it hurts!"

"I'm the one in pain. I had to figure out a day and direction of the sun, then gather expensive equipment. How much money and time and effort do you think it took!?"

Then don't forget to lock your door when you're doing something that important...

I wanted to say that, but even as my back was being whacked by the stick, I was able to experience Krishna's well-formed breasts at close range, so I felt blessed. I thought her breasts were big, but when you're this close because she's grabbing your head, you can start to appreciate how big they really are. I wanted to enjoy the soft sensation a bit more, but after twenty-some odd strikes, she abruptly let go of me.

Hmm? I raised my head, and she was looking at me suspiciously with furrowed brows.

"You've been somewhere dangerous haven't you?"

"....... What?"

"Strange. There should only be the two of us, but I sense a number of people."

"Wait... stop saying such creepy things."

"Where."

Krishna began sauntering over.

Her red-framed glasses crept up to my nose.

"Don't tell me you're still seeing that Yoishi girl."

... Oh crap.

Krishna had viewed Yoishi as an enemy ever since that incident. Well, she'd given me an answer that was unrelated to ghosts, but Yoishi had then made all of her effort come to naught, so it wasn't really surprising -- but after that, she scolded me about dealing with Yoishi.

I thought about coming up with a story to get around this, but--

This person's intuition was terrifyingly good, and I was bad at lying to begin with.

"I won't get angry, so just tell me."

Krishna began smiling, and I lowered my guard a bit.

That Yoishi and I had gone to the rumor-laden abandoned hospital in Hachiouji last night. That the rumor about the number of people going down had been a true story from Yoishi. That I found a notebook in the resource room in the basement, and saw some large writing on the wall using the same handwriting. Of course, I kept hidden the fact that she was sleeping in my apartment like a corpse, but I explained everything else in detail.

"... I see."

When I finished confessing, Krishna's smile had turned into a grim facade.

"You went to that hospital."

"... Yes."

"And with Mitsurugi Yoishi, no less."

"... Yes."

"And you saw something and ran home."

"... Yes."

"You're incredibly--"

She began articulating every syllable.

"Hopelessly dumb."

I was suddenly grabbed by my collar and slammed into a seat. Krishna picked up a pen and paper that was lying on the table, and drew a single line down the middle.

"Alright, listen carefully. This side of the line is where we live. In other words, this side of the Sanzu River. And the other side of the line is the other world, or the other side of the Sanzu River. To learn about the other world is to pass this line. When you take a peek, they will always be able to see you."

She told me this every time we met, so I listed only partly.

"See, they say if you come close to someone with spiritual powers, your spiritual powers grow stronger as well, right? Well, that saying isn't quite right. When you view a paranormal incident, it means you're looking into the other world, and the feeling of 'knowing' is dangerous. If you know, then you'll interact with ghosts, and that is a terrible thing. It's like having someone stare at you up close forever. Science isn't progressing much in contemporary Japan, and there are no organizations that will help you. You'll suffer alone, grow tired, and elect to die."

While that gave me chills, I looked at Krishna and said.

"But... if that were to happen, you'd help me, right?"

"You--"

And then she blushed red and spat.

"Idiot! Don't think of me as some superhero on TV. All I do is acknowledge the existence of the other side, and warn people. If a paranormal event occurs, all I can do is request help from those trained in that area, so in reality I can do almost nothing. Anyways, forget about that hospital. Also, you shouldn't see that girl again. Don't come here anymore."

Krishna said, trying to close the conversation in a one-sided manner. However, I wasn't one to back down that easily.

"Then tell me one thing. Was Yoishi really the reason for that incident six months ago? Even though she's the one that disappeared, why was it Zippo's acquaintance that was hospitalized?"

And then Krishna stared at me.

"... So that's how it is."

She mumbled, and then let out a long sigh. Then she sat in a chair, stared at the ceiling, scratched her hair, and finally spoke.

"You're trying to clear Mitsurugi Yoishi's name."

"Well, um, how should I put it."

To be honest, that wasn't the only reason. I was probably also affected by my personality, in which I couldn't shy away from stuff that terrified me. But I did notice the winds had shifted a bit in my favor, so I decided to keep the conversation going.

"In any case, I can't imagine Yoishi was the reason. But the writing on the wall, the disappearing people, and then Yoishi said it, the word 'pathetic' -- I don't understand any of it."

Krishna nodded.

"Of course. I don't understand that hospital either."

I was stunned as the occult site administrator wearing a shrine maiden outfit explained.

"That place has too many stories. Abandoned hospital horror areas tend to have odd directions in general, but even so, that hospital has too many varieties of rumors. There are witnesses to wheelchair ghosts. There are inexplicable sounds. There are ghosts of nurses, ghosts of children. There are some that got lost, while others returned home but lost their souls in the hospital. And now, people vanish entirely -- the more information you get, the more inexplicable it gets... to be honest, I've never heard of this before."

Come to think of it--

Yoishi had same something similar.

That this situation was uncommon, that her head hadn't come up with an answer yet.

"I understand lots of rumors crop up at creeping areas, but horror areas generally tie everything together with a single line. For instance, the famous Hachiouji castle ruins spawn lots of witness accounts of ghosts of warriors, due to tragic tales of the fall of the castle, and near Meoto Iwa you get lots of reports of ghosts of young men and women couples. In other words, there's always a root behind the rumors. But the abandoned hospital lacks that. Instead, it's like a tree that branches out as it pleases -- and the speed of its growth is frightening. I've seen lots of horror areas, but even I don't know the truth to that one."

Even this person has things she doesn't know.

It was a bit of a fresh sense of surprise, and I felt the depth of the occult world, when.

"Furthermore."

Krishna furrowed her brows.

"Those words on the wall are bad."

"Bad? Why?"

However, Krishna didn't reply, instead abruptly asking.

"First of all, what do you think ghosts are?"

"Ghosts?"

I went, hmm, and said the first thing that popped to mind.

"Like, what's drawn a lot, those things with hands dangling in front."

"I see, the white-robed with white triangular handkerchiefs. Well, I figured as much--"

Krishna stood up and took an old album from a bookshelf.

"What does this look like?"

A third of the photo on the page she flipped to was a vast expanse of land, and the rest was a clear, blue sky. It was probably somewhere in Hokkaidou. A concrete-paved road stretched on, and to the side were densely packed areas of grass. After that came white clouds and a blue sky. It was a photo of a nice landscape that could be used in a tourist brochure.

"What does it look like? -- welcome to a summer in Hokkaidou, that sort of thing?"

"Look carefully."

Krishna's cute fingers pointed at the blue sky.

A cumulonimbus cloud parallel to the ground, and a cirrocumulus cloud far above--

"Huh?"

... do cumulonimbus clouds and cirrocumulus clouds appear at the same time?

When I realized that, I felt goosebumps.

... Wrong.

This wasn't a cirrocumulus cloud -- it was a face.

Countless, white, hollow faces floated in the sky.

"... uwawa."

I jumped back in my seat and she smiled as she closed the album.

"According to the person who is my teacher, people who die with lingering regrets stay behind with a certain form. Sometimes it's just an arm, sometimes just an eye. They say it's rare to have the shape of a person. And after some time, they begin to forget what they regretted in the first place. In other words, they just become hollow, floating things -- however, hollow, floating things can combine."

"Combine... like, together?"

"Yes. Dogs, cats, people, floating ghosts with no goal combine. And they grow without bound. My teacher said the biggest he'd seen was the size of Mount Fuji. A large clump of souls covered with painful expressions was wandering above the ocean."

I imagined that and recoiled.

A large clump of souls with countless dog, cat, and human heads. Countless negative emotions stretched out across the sky. Then the sky I often stared blankly at -- it meant there were tons of those pinned everywhere. Maybe the clouds I'd been looking at weren't even clouds.

"Who knows. In any case, those floating things eventually fade away with time. There are those who've seen ghosts of warriors, but I've never heard of sightings of neanderthals. There are apparently reasons for that, but it takes a significant amount of time, like a hundred years, for them to disappear. In other words, there are still countless, enormous globs of ghosts existing in this world -- and well, the problem is, if they run into some haunted, magnet-like location, they stop there. For instance, enormous haunted areas, or murder scenes with tremendous amounts of hates -- they have a tendency to stay at those places. So they become--"

Ahh, I finally understood.

That's what turns them into haunted spots.

Yesterday, the sense of countless people. The feeling of being watched by countless people.

I could still feel it on my skin, and when I recalled the sensation, I felt a chill crawl down my spine.

"And, the problem goes back to the words you saw on the wall."

Krishna pushed her glasses up and continued.

"I don't know what fool did that, but someone continued the words from the notebook, 'Please fix my sickness' with 'I'll do whatever you ask if you fix me.' It became communication. In other words, it creates meaning."

I swallowed, and Krishna asked.

"In a place that gathers countless ghosts that have no goal, what happens when you provide them with purpose?"

I felt something cold on my spine.

"They are desperate to seek a purpose. Because they are ghosts, they must seek meaning."

In my head, I imagined thousands of souls turning to look at me, altogether. Those countless faces, I probably imagined them from the photo I'd just seen -- but they overlapped with Yoishi's glass bead-like gaze.

"You wanted to clear her name, I can respect to the intent behind the action."

Said Krishna, as she seemed to stare into the distance.

"But there are things people shouldn't see."

I felt my heart freeze.

"In reality, this shore and that shore are designed to be separate. That girl, Yoishi, easily crosses between the boundary. That is an extremely dangerous thing. Her words include things that people must not know. No -- at their core, people know, but because they have chosen to forget, they remain people. Yet her words contain them."

Her words--

I felt like I finally understood why Yoishi's words bewildered me so.

Even though Krishna said the same thing and made me excited, when she said them, it felt like the world warped. As if everything I believed in was crumbling -- as if I didn't know where I was standing. Previously, and this time, I experienced that.

"Unfortunately, children like that are hard to save."

Krishna looked lonely--

And I thought.

She must have tried saving people like that in the past. But she was unable to, in the end. Maybe Yoishi looked like someone in her past, and even if I were wrong--

I'd lost the will to keep asking questions.

I somewhat understood my own limits. My mental strength, my assertiveness, my knowledge about ghosts, they were nothing compared to this administrator. Yoishi too, would continue jumping into the paranormal even if I were to try stopping her. It would be foolish for me to keep following her.

To clear Yoishi's name--

Was something way beyond my powers, I recognized once more.

"... Thank you very much, for a lot."

I stood up powerless, hoisting my bag over my shoulder, when she handed a white bag to me.

"This is coarse salt purified by Susanoo no Mikoto from the Imamiya temple. Place this by the entrance to your room for a week. If something odd happens, let me know immediately."

Yes, I answered and as I opened the door.

"Oh, yes."

Krishna said to my back.

"You didn't take anything from that hospital, did you?"

Stepping into the hallway, I laughed.

"I'm not that reckless."

I said, and closed the door.

After stepping into the hallway, as I walked down the dark concrete -- I clutched my head in my hands.

I wanted to tell her everything, but my inability to was due to my stupidity.

I opened my bag and took out a notebook.

That was the notebook with "Please fix my sickness" written in it.

Overlay

3

When I went back to my apartment, Yoishi was no longer there.

She'd noticed the key I'd placed on the table, as she'd locked it and placed the key in the post.

When I entered the foyer, I placed the coarse salt I'd received from Krishna at the edge of the door, and took a deep breath. I told myself that I would go see Krishna again tomorrow and talk to her about having taken the notebook.

When I went to the living room, I found that my blankets had been folded. She may be well-raised after all, I thought, and then I also worried about her constant outings.

Where did she live, anyways? What high school year was she, was she a part of any clubs, what subjects was she good at? What were her hobbies, did she have any pets, what books did she like?

I know nothing about Yoishi.

I didn't know where she lived, her phone number, even her mail address.

Even if I wanted to contact her, I'd have to make a post on the "Ikaigabuchi" forum. We were that unrelated, yet between us, we'd been through problems involving life and death between this shore and that shore. It was like a castle tower date right off the bat.

"Well, I'm probably thinking of dumb examples because I'm tired..."

I resolved to sleep.

My body felt as heavy as lead.

It was still just a bit past seven, but I changed out of my clothes from yesterday and washed my face. I brushed my teeth, and feeling a bit refreshed, I lay down on the blanket. I then jumped up immediately. No, it wasn't that I'd been mesmerized by a flowery scent of a high school girl.

-- The pillow reeked.

An extremely sour scent was soaked into the pillow. That was pretty harsh considering I just wanted to sleep. That bastard, the next time I see her I'm going to force her to take a bath. I lay back down after rolling up a blanket to serve as a makeshift pillow, but the odor was so strong that I couldn't sleep.

Since sleep was out of the question, I remained lying down and looked up the Hachiouji abandoned hospital online. I'd taken a look on my computer before, but hadn't checked using my phone. And the results blew me away. Even on a cell-phone-specific search site, or perhaps because it was because of being a cell-phone-specific search, I found an absurd number of hits.

"That place is actually pretty famous."

I began opening pages from the top.

For the most part, they were community forums, or some region-specific occult sites. But I found a single common thread between them all.

The phrase that it was "a hospital that grants wishes."

I'd heard that phrase somewhere, I thought, and realized it's what had been tossing me about just a while ago. Fool, there are no shortcuts for granting wishes. I mumbled to myself the words Krishna had left me, and grinned as I looked at the posts. I felt like I was looking at cute underlings--

"My height grew!" "I got a girlfriend!" "My hernia got better" "I got a job" "I won a lottery!"

Every forum had those types of posts.

"Hey, hey, are you serious?"

I'd stood up and kept reading.

It seemed those words written on the notebook and the wall -- "Please fix my sickness" "I'll do whatever you ask if you fix me" had caused such rumors to spread. There was even a wiki with information, so I took a look.

* There's a resources room in the basement of the abandoned hospital
* There's writing on the wall saying "I'll do whatever you ask if you fix me"
* Say "〇〇〇〇 will fix you" three times at the wall, using your real name
* Say your wish, "In return, give me △△"
* Afterwards, return something in the hospital back to its original position
* Say to the wall again, "〇〇〇〇 fixed it"
* Your wish gets granted

Was how it was summarized.

"Pathetic."

I groaned.

And as I read other related sites, I slowly became depressed.

I found someone screwing around inside that hospital. Someone burning medical records. Someone peeing next to that, and another making a peace sign with a beer can.

"I see. No wonder Krishna would be enraged."

She always said.

-- Recently, Japanese people have been rapidly losing their sense of ethics.

Traditionally, the Japanese were a race that paid the unseen quite a lot of respect. That probably lead to Shinto, and in any case, Japan had a lot of gods. As with the phrase "if you die, you become a saint," no matter how much you may hate it, there are lots of festivals for gods during life. For contemporary people like us, our devotion to such festivals may have thinned, but I didn't dislike the Japanese way of respecting the unseen. Of course, at my rural place, we believed in the mountain god quite fervently, and so it may just have been more normal for us to believe in the sun god and such.

And then I looked at the bag I'd left near the living room door.

I crawled over and took out the notebook. It was the journal filled to the brim with the clean writing of the eight year old who had departed from this world. I opened the yellowed, worn pages and read it from the start.

The boy had apparently first come to the hospital for a check-up. He was eager to go back home. But his stay lasted longer, he underwent more examinations, and his words lost their energy. After that, he began writing mostly about what he'd do when he left. Ride a bike. Play soccer with friends. Go out with his family. Go fishing for crayfish. Play video games. Run hard. He began wanting things that children normally do. When I got to the half-way mark of the notebook, he began just wanting to go home. He wrote that the examinations were tough. He wrote often about his seizures. I held my breath at the heavy expressions used by this patient.

And then I realized.

Why I'd clutched at the notebook in the darkness.

And why I brought the notebook out and never let it leave my side.

I couldn't stand it. That this boy who had died young would be left in that dark room.

He was -- me.

I had infant asthma when I was child.

It went away as I grew up, but at the time I panicked just from the onset of symptoms. It felt like air was being sucked away from my surroundings, that I'd been smashed into a bottomless, deep ocean alone, as I was beset by a severe inability to breathe. That blinding despair -- it still remained soaked into me. When I was sleeping and felt an onset, I'd run crying to my parents. And when that happened, I found one thing more comforting than any doctor or medicine -- my mother's palm. That warm palm petting my back gave me a mysterious sense of comfort, and my seizure would stop.

I dropped my hand on the last page of the notebook.

"Please fix my sickness."

I had a mother, but I wondered if this boy had someone to ward off the suffering.

Did he have a safe place to run to?

That was probably the reason why I brought this notebook with me.

Suffering until death and continuing to suffer in a haunted spot, I couldn't forgive that.

However, I sighed.

I still didn't know what to do with this notebook. If I were to take care of it to the end, it would probably be best to wipe away the letters on the wall, but I didn't have the courage to return.

"Sheesh... I'm such a worthless wuss."

I scratched my head. And then.

Suddenly, my cell phone vibrated.

I jumped a bit and answered without checking who the caller was.

"Yo! Little Nagi!"

The bright, carefree voice echoing from the receiver froze me.

"It's me, me. How ya doin'?"

"H... Hi, sis."

-- Yes.

It was Yamada Akira, genetically my bigger sister.

"Whaddaya mean, 'hi, sis'? I toldja to lemme know when you're coming home for summer."

Incidentally, my big sis was a bit of a gangster back in the day, so she still talks like that.

"Ahh, sorry, um, about going home. Umm, how about around the [Bon festival]? Like, around July."

"Hey."

Her voice dropped an octave across the phone line, and I shivered.

"Said tell me an exact date. I work, y'know, I need ta ask for paid leave. Yessir?"

Akira, four years older than me, graduated with a two-year degree at a university near our home in Shizuoka and worked at a company near home. I'd never won against her in a verbal spat, and I don't think I could win against her in a physical brawl either. I'd also become indebted to her because of the previous incident. Basically, I was in the worst position in terms of leverage.

"Mum and dad are waiting for their useless son, and you're all grown up now. Learn to pay your elders respect."

"... I know."

"Hmm? What's with that crappy answer?"

"I'm sorry. I understand."

"So, when? Around July?"

"Umm. They should post the exam dates next week, so I'll call you immediately after that."

"Mm. Next week. If y'don't call me by next weekend I'ma beat you."

"Yes."

"Ahh, also."

"Yes?"

"The bonfire this year, we're takin' care'a it. Get home before Bon festival."

And she hung up. I stared at the time displayed on the cell phone LCD reading 1 minute 37 seconds and sighed.

My sister Akira, who changed the atmosphere of the room in a mere 1 minute 37 seconds -- terrifying.

I looked up at the ceiling again.

-- I had my hands full. I was carelessly sticking my hands into lots of things and then leaving them be once I'd gotten in over my head. I'd try living at a cheap place and run away, becoming indebted to my sister in the process, and it wasn't even like I was paying much attention in school, nor was I intending to spend my life studying the occult like Krishna. And now I didn't even know what to do with a notebook I'd taken from a haunted spot.

Briefly, I thought of Yoishi's white, sullen face.

She was incredibly beautiful, but her emotionless, machine-line face was like that of a doll.

There was no way I'd be able to handle her.

I rolled over and fell asleep at some point.

I was in a white, foggy place.

There, Yoishi was laughing, an expression I'd never seen before.

-- Hey, you can laugh, after all.

I said, but she didn't seem to hear. Not noticing me, she happily mucked about. She was playing about with something that was slithering about below. I thought it might have been a dog or something, but when I looked toward her feet, I was aghast. There was a snake.

Or -- could I call it a snake, as only its torso was incredibly long. At the end of the torso was a face. And, it looked like Yoishi. Yoishi's normal, melancholic, darkened face was stuck there. And then human Yoishi just kept kicking it, laughing to her heart's content. And both of them said at once. Why. Why -- it shouldn't feel good kicking a person. I said, but the human Yoishi just laughed. The snake Yoishi went silent, as if saying pathetic. It's alright, this child is a bad child. So said human Yoishi as she resumed kicking. It's alright, I'm bad. The snake Yoishi said that and continued suffering while being kicked. I kept shouting and shouting to stop. But the more I shouted, the more they invested themselves in kicking and being kicked.

Eventually, snake Yoishi's stomach was kicked open, and reddish-black blood began seeping out--

I opened my eyes.

... What sort of dream am I watching?

The room's light remained on. I looked at the cell phone for the time in a daze, and it said 1AM. I'd been sleeping for just about six hours. My throat felt thirsty, so I stood up and was about to get some water from the kitchen.

I heard a bizarre sound from the apartment hall. Something that sounded like dragging. Was it my neighbor? I thought of leaving it be, but eventually that something went thud and bumped into something. And then silence.

"...Now what?"

I fearfully crept to the door, looked through the peeping hole, and was shocked.

There was a revenant.

No--

Mitsurugi Yoishi, who looked like a revenant, was standing there in her school uniform.

"H... hey, what're you doing?"

I asked through the door, but she didn't respond.

I had no choice but to unlock the door, and open the door, and there was Yoishi wobbling in place.

"I'm asking what you're doing there."

When I said that again, Yoishi seemed to have finally recognized me. Her glass bead-like eyes turned to me, and she mumbled, "Oh, you."

"What do you mean 'oh, you.' Don't act like you've coincidentally met me when you're standing in front of my house. Since when were you th-"

-ere I was about to finish, and then I realized.

Yoishi was drenched from the top of her head down. Her drenched blouse became transparent and I could see her undergarments, which made me want to turn away, but I could see brown water dripping from her skirt.

And -- putrid. It was the most putrid she'd ever been.

"Were you cleaning mud or something?"

I asked, pinching my nose.

"I have never done such work."

She answered with a serious look. Good god, it was impossible to have a conversation with her. In any case, shouting at each other in the hallway this late at night would bother others, so I let her in. And when I closed the door her odor was even more painful. I immediately decided that there was nothing I could do about the contamination of the hallway. But henceforth, I needed to protect this. I decided to eliminate the rotting odor before it reached the living room.

Come, I grabbed her sleeve, and then dragged her into the unit bath. On the way, her hair, her uniforms dripped brown droplets and I rolled my eyes.

"I'll find a jersey or something so take a bath."

I said and pushed her in and shut the door.

I heard "I hate baths" from inside, but.

"I don't care, get in. Wash your body at least three times."

I shouted, and then I started going through the cardboard boxes I'd left unopened since moving in.

Even if it were the cusp of summer, she'd catch a cold like that. And the biggest problem was this sewer stench. I'd just moved into an apartment with new wallpaper, so this was too much. From the back of a cardboard box, I found a pair of jersey clothes that had been sent from home, and went back to the bathroom. But I knew the moment I went closer. The sharp odor wafted in the air, and the bath door was open.

"I said wash-"

"I figured out the identity of that abandoned hospital."

Said Yoishi, whose eyes were tired but twinkling.

-- Ah, why.

I'd forced Yoishi to sit in front of the bath tub in the unit bath, and was washing her hair with a shower. I'd been spraying her with hot water for some time, but the brown water kept leaking out like a sewage drain.

It seemed Yoishi had gone back to that hospital alone. She'd returned the moment she woke up at noon, but after doing some investigation it took her until six to leave, and everything was dark by then. Her penlight battery had died, and after wandering the night mountain for a bit she fell into the river.

"Use a taxi or something."

I said, and she fell silent.

"... Don't tell me, they turned you down?"

"......"

... I guess it couldn't be helped with her this drenched.

Probably, she'd walked to the train station like this, and ignored all the shocked looks as she came here. I sighed, imagining Yoishi sitting soaked, with her immediate vicinity vacated.

"Alright, Yoishi."

I said as I kept spraying her hair with hot water, as a senior.

"In this world, taking care of your looks is important. They say people aren't what they look like, but the first impression is quite important. You can get a good start just from that. So at the very least, take a bath every day. If you're going to someone's house, go at a normal hour. I'll tell you now because you look like you don't care about the time, but it's 1:30AM. Normal people are asleep."

But Yoishi wasn't listening.

She'd clasped her long eyelashes together and looked like she was comfortable staring somewhere else.

This was starting to become silly, but the brown water had finally returned to being clear, so I put shampoo all over her head and forcefully rubbed. Bubbles rose, and the unit bath was filled with the scent of shampoo.

"So what'd you find out about that hospital?"

When I asked that, Yoishi answered, eyes still shut.

"I have nothing to do with the incident that happened there."

"You mean -- about Zippo's friend?"

Yoishi nodded slightly.

"Then, what about you disappearing?"

"I don't want to talk about that."

... don't want to talk about that?

Then why'd you come here?

I thought, as I kept washing her hair.

"There's a ghost online."

She said, words that made no sense.

"Have you read self-responsibility-type horror stories?"

"You mean those ones that say 'it's your own responsibility if you read past this'?"

Those were famous online, horror stories that were said to curse you just by reading them. There were several patterns, like becoming possessed by knowing the story, or being possessed if you understood it, those types. But I didn't really believe them."

"Those are make-believe, right?"

I said, but she began explaining, "not all of them."

"Ghosts are very sensitive to things that notice them."

The way she said it gave me goosebumps.

"If you talk about ghosts, ghosts gather. If they know you can see, they come. All of those stories involve that concept. I said amusing stories always have some sort of oddity to them -- but that's why. If something says the truth about ghosts, they begin having strange wordings. After all, they depict the truth of the other side, that humans can't understand. That's why when a story has some incompleteness, it's actually complete."

She always spoke at length whenever it came to ghost stories.

"I don't get it, but --"

I asked anyways.

"What do self-responsibility-type horror stories have to do with that abandoned hospital?"

"It's the same type, when it comes to being possessed once you know the truth."

At those words, my goosebumps crept from my neck to the bottom of my feet.

In other words, she wanted to say that I shouldn't ask anymore. Krishna always said, if you peer into the other side, they would also see you. They were saying the same thing, but they had different effects.

"Basically,"

Yoishi added.

"The person who became hospitalized had nothing to do with me. I'm fine with just figuring that out."

She closed her eyes again and went silent.

After that, she wouldn't answer me anymore.

... So to summarize.

She felt some level of responsibility for what had happened in the past. That someone who'd gone to the horror spot with her had become hospitalized. And that she knew the place was dangerous. Even if she couldn't stop them, she wanted to know the answer, and had visited the hospital and learned enough to satisfy herself.

I didn't understand the identity of the hospital, but, for better or for worse, I was busy. I was enjoying washing Yoishi's hair as the shampoo bubbled like a summer cumulonimbus cloud.

No shame in admitting it, I enjoyed cleaning. I enjoyed the feeling of watching something dirty becoming clean. People around me said I was weird, but I liked cleaning ventilators, which are considered tough to clean. Using a toothbrush to remove the oil stains: I felt a lot of excitement whenever I could see the original metal. Look, this thing is actually this pretty, that sort of feeling. I didn't really get it, but like the last scene of the ugly duckling: when the duckling is actually a swan, I like that sort of thing. The old European story, about bear hide, and such. In that sense, Yoishi's dirty, dirty head was a fun challenge to me.

In the end, I ended up shampooing her hair three times. Afterwards, I rinsed it too, and almost felt regretful that my house had no treatment, because Yoishi's hair had become so polished and smooth. I placed a tower on her head and wiped.

"See, look. If you clean it properly, it becomes this pretty."

I wiped the fogged mirror in front of us with the towel to show Yoishi her face.

As our eyes met in the mirror, my heart skipped a beat.

Yoishi, with her clean, wet hair, was incredibly beautiful. Her smooth skin, her thin shoulders were incredible, and her clear, black eyes were as beautiful was the night sky. She was probably just dazed, but her half-opened lips had a seductive curve.

You could call it -- a waste of treasure.

However, instead of saying "thank you," Yoishi curled her lips and said.

"You're useful."

I was about to say are you serious.

I smelled something strange. Ahh, I looked at her uniform. Come to think of it, she was still wearing her muddy uniform. I wanted to take it off and clean her all over, but that was way beyond what I could do.

"You do the rest. You can use the soap there."

I stood, but the strange odor grew stronger. It was like the smell of rotting fish from the factory near the river. Odd. The ventilator was on inside the unit bath, so it should smell like the shampoo I'd just used--

And then Yoishi suddenly said.

"Did you take something from the hospital?"

"... What?"

She stood up, and then began walking somewhere--

And vomited.

Again, she vomited.

There was a toilet nearby, but she vomited the sparkling intestinal liquid right onto the floor.

"Hey, you, Yoishi!"

I was about to shout, but I recoiled in terror.

I could see through the mirror, which was still a bit foggy, on the other side of the unit bath--

In the hallway, a blue-laced sneaker.

The leg had turned bluish-white, and it was cut up like a drowned body.

Unlike me, frozen in place, Yoishi suddenly shouted.

"Get out!"

Or rather than a shout, it was like a howl, and I jumped up.

Still dripping saliva, Yoishi had turned around to the other side of the mirror -- to the hallway.

"H, hey, Yoishi."

I fearfully looked in the direction Yoishi looked, but there was no one there anymore.

Only the droplets from Yoishi remained on the hallway.

"Ah, hey, wait."

But she didn't stop, stomping across the hallway.

A river of water formed by the drops from her hair and clothes. She walked into the living room. Invading my new carpet, she continued. And without any hesitation, she went to the bag I'd tossed aside, and went through it.

"This."

She took that notebook out of the bag and looked at me.

"So you were holding it."

I didn't know how to explain it, and Yoishi looked at me.

"That's why I landed here."

4

"Hey, where next?"

I was frantically pedaling the bicycle, and yelled out the question.

"Somewhere with no people."

Yoishi said, her hip resting on the carriage box of the mama-cycle.

She held in her hand that notebook, which was wrapped in newspaper.

"So the reason why you came straight to my house from the hospital."

"Yes -- I was following this."

After that, Yoishi quickly ran down the hall to the kitchen, and rubbed the coarse salt from the shrine that had been left on the coffee table over her hands. She then covered her hair and her drenched clothing with it. And then, with astonishing speed, she said, "I'm borrowing this for reading," and covered the notebook with the newspaper that had been left there. However, she had a bedazzled look. She was sealing something terrible, yet her joyous look made me realize how dangerous things had become.

"So that notebook's dangerous."

"This is the root of everything."

"Root? But that's just a journal."

"Yes -- but, everyone put a meaning to it."

"Meaning--"

And then I remembered Krishna had said something similar.

"Hey, shouldn't we contact Krishna?"

But Yoishi rejected that.

"This notebook shouldn't be seen by any more people."

Those words gave me goosebumps, and she suddenly pointed ahead.

"Turn that corner."

"What?"

"There's a place I want to stop by."

I followed her order and turned into a narrow path off the main road.

There was a small shopping center. They were all closed, of course, since it was nighttime, but it was so quiet that I wondered if it was even open during the day. The streetlights were sparse and unreliable. I'd been trying to stick to roads with lots of people, but why we were going here?

"Hey, where are we headed?"

"There should be a shrine up ahead."

"You want to seal it there?"

"No."

She said naturally.

"I want to get a shimenawa there."

--Shimenawa? Get?

However, as Yoishi said, we soon saw the arch of a shrine.

Beyond the dark, tree-lined path to the shrine was the light for the main building.

I slid the bicycle into the narrow parking area, and Yoishi jumped off. She ran under the arch to a big gingko tree beside the main building. I parked the bicycle, ran to her, and quickly looked around.

"Are you sure you can do that?"

"Do you want to be cursed or anger a god? Choose."

... I didn't want either.

Yoishi must have realized that pulling on the shimenawa would yield no results, as she ran off again. She went into a shack to the side, and came out with a sickle in her hand. Before I could stop her, she cut off the shimenawa. During all this, I prayed toward the main building. Sorry, sorry, she's psychotic. She's probably not a bad person but she's psychotic.

"There's no such thing as a god, so don't worry."

She said, holding the newspaper wrapped around the notebook in her left hand, and the shimenawa in her right.

"Then why do you need shimenawa?"

"Things that people have prayed to for a long time contain an equal amount of power."

It wasn't the first time I didn't understand what she was talking about.

In any case, I frantically followed Yoishi, who ran back to the bicycle.

When we were both seated, I took off, as if escaping.

I sped up, pointing the bicycle from the shopping center to the main road, and went back full speed.

However--

I was beginning to have a strange feeling. As if the shopping center was not the same as before -- right, as if the number of shops had increased. Just as was the case when we'd come, all the shutters were closed. However, I felt like only a few of the stores had signs, but this time there was a sign on almost all of the houses. No, that wasn't all. I could see dim lighting past the windows of some of the buildings. I could sense people inside. There was enough activity that it was almost as if the stores would open any moment.

"Quickly."

Yoishi whispered to me.

I didn't need her to tell me: I was pedaling at full force.

Something was wrong. Strange things were happening around me -- no, were about to happen.

I could sense people in the narrow alleys between houses.

I could sense them looking at me, but I could no longer look back. I could feel the shutters of the stores I was passing beginning to open. I felt like the area behind me became slightly brighter, but I diligently ignored everything. I just kept pedaling and pedaling.

-- Give it back.

Suddenly, I felt like I heard that voice. I could feel countless hands reaching toward me. Sorry, sorry, sorry, I repeated in my heart as I tolerated it. My whole body was covered in sweat. I sped the bicycle toward the end of the shopping center that had begun to feel endless, and flew onto the main street.

That moment.

Blinding light stretched everywhere. I could hear a horn sound. A truck. It was about to hit us from the side.

"U... wawawah."

I quickly turned. But it wasn't enough. I couldn't get out of the way.

We were going to be run over -- right as I thought that, my cheap mama-cycle performed a feat of agility I never thought possible. It felt as if time stopped, and when I looked back Yoishi was hanging on for dear life. Her long hair flowed, and our center of gravity had gone so low that my face almost scraped against the ground.

"Pedal!"

That word snapped me back to reality, and I pedaled with all my might.

Both wheels were sliding, but at the last moment, they clipped the asphalt, causing both wheels to regain their traction.

"NUOOOOOOOH!"

It was just by a hair.

The truck honked again and grazed us as it passed by.

The air pressure of the truck passing by struck us, but I kept our balance. For a while, I couldn't think, and Yoishi was silent.

From ancestors to whatever--

I gave my thanks to every god I could think of.

\\

We entered through the torn fencing, and I found myself on a wetland with wildly-growing grass.

The surrounding area was dark. Whenever the moon hid behind a cloud, we couldn't even see each others' faces.

The ground was soft, and the area was filled with the displeasing odor of sludge. I could hear only the sound of insects.

We were north of Musashino, at a waste dump that was not used anymore.

I looked around, speechless, when Yoishi placed the penlight between her lips and placed a random stone in the middle of the notebook. She tied the shimenawa she'd just vandalized around it.

"What're you doing?"

"Sinking it."

She said, matter-of-factly.

I looked at the blackest areas of the darkness again -- at the waste dump.

That lake, a square shape of about thirty meters on each side, seemed still in the darkness.

"Hey."

As the insects kept cried, I asked.

"Do we really have to do that?"

Yoishi's white face, with light reflecting back at her, looked this way.

"He has nothing to do with this, right? He just died from an illness. So why does he have to be sunk in such a lonely place?"

"You're just feeling sorry for him."

"Have you read this notebook? He just wanted a healthy body. And yet--"

My eyes had gotten used to the darkness, and all I saw was a lake of sludge.

"And yet he has to be sunk in such a lonely place?"

"Those that fall into darkness, must be treated as darkness."

"... What?"

"All criminals have a history that causes them to stain their hands with crimes. They may have been abused by their parents. They may have been raised in an environment shunned by civilization. They may have been hurt to the point where their souls broke. And yet, once you've fallen to the darkness, you can't come back."

Yoishi never stopped, and I just watched.

What to do. What should I do? Yoishi quickly continued her work. There was no hesitation in her actions. But her slender back stole my eyes away again. It looked to me like she was tying herself. Like she was trying to eliminate her dirtied self. Like that dream--

Where human Yoishi was kicking snake Yoishi.

"Stop."

When I realized it, I was holding Yoishi's hand.

"Lets think of something else."

"There is nothing else."

"Like a temple, or an exorcist."

"It's not something they can deal with."

I couldn't stand her decisive tone.

"Why can you say that?"

I looked at her white face.

"You don't know until you've tried."

"I do know."

She pointed her obsidian eyes, darker than the surroundings, and said.

"Those that know darkness once, are drawn into their depths."

I became speechless.

I thought of the author who disappeared into the damn on a rainy night. I thought that was just romanticism that existed in stories. I thought it was just middle school delusions. But when she said it, I could only accept that there was weight behind them.

Still--

Still, I shook my head.

I wanted to ask, is it alright be drawn in, to be swallowed.

What's the point of knowing the identity of darkness? What's the point of sinking to the bottom of the dam? People die eventually. You can leave the joy of darkness to that occasion. I love the mysterious. I'm excited by the depth of the world shown by the impossible. But just like my father prays to the mountain god when he cuts lumber from the mountain, the existance that we can't see, that reigns supreme over mere human strength -- you can call it nature or whatever -- it was like paying respect to them.

I learned that from mother. When I was a kid, I trembled in fear of the seizures that I couldn't predict. One morning, I was awakened at sunrise, and was taken to Mount Eboshi. We entered the mountain in the darkness, and I clung to mother's hand, rubbing my sleepy eyes as we climbed. I remember we couldn't see the foot of the mountain at night, and I was terrified by the demonic screeches of inexplicable animals. I climbed, terrified, clinging to my mother's hand as my only source of dependability. I didn't know why mother brought me to the mountain. But when we arrived at the summit, when mother pointed her finger at the rising sun, I made a voice that was no voice. The darkness was split asunder, and the sight of light staining everything in overpowering light made me experience awe. The miracle that created this world, the life on this world, I was shown proof that overpowered prophecies, that we were just allowed to live.

As I thought such random things--

"You should come to Fujieda one day."

I said.

"I'll show you the light of sunrise on Mount Eboshi. If you can still say that then, say it."

Yoishi's eyes were opened a bit wide in surprise.

-- Ahh.

I'm stupid. I'm really stupid.

I thought, but I couldn't take back my words.

I stuck out my chest.

"That's that."

"What you say lacks any logic whatsoever."

She sighed, and I couldn't fault her for it.

"Anyways, I'm not sinking him."

I took the notebook from Yoishi, and embraced it.

Yoishi silently looked at me for a bit, and then.

"Do as you wish."

She left those words coldly, turned her back to me, and left.

I know.

I know that I'm a wuss beyond saving, I know that well.

Basically, that was it. As you'd expect, I ignored Yoishi's warning and brought the notebook back home, and within a week, strange happenings popped up one after another.

For example, one raining morning.

On the bus ride to university, I saw it.

When I was holding onto the strap, I saw it just a bit away.

A man wearing a kamishimo, like you'd see in a historical drama. The color was faded, and he stood there. He wore a white hakama to go with the stained blue, which made him stand out, yet no one so much as glanced at him. Of course, cosplay was all the rage these days, so I looked away. However, when the bus arrived at a stop and I looked in that direction again, he was gone. I thought he had merely gotten off. Then I looked outside, and almost fainted. For some reason, he was standing on top of a building next to the main street. He was nonchalantly walking on top of the fencing on the roofs of buildings.

And then, during a lecture:

I heard the sound of a whistle. It was light and lonely, being carried by the wind. A wind chime, I thought, but then I realized that it wasn't coming from outside. It was emanating from the classroom, or more specifically, from beside me. I hurriedly glanced around, but, of course, no one was playing a flute. Or rather, if someone were blowing a flute during a lecture, the professor would shout in anger. I quickly suppressed by pounding heart and breathed deeply a few times. However, I still heard the flute. The melody wasn't long enough to follow, but it was also not short enough to ignore. And yet, the tune was firm and lingered in your head. I became scared and covered my ears. That moment, I felt goosebumps down my back. I could still hear it. I could hear it even though I was covering my ears. When I realized I was hearing it from inside my head, I covered my mouth to stop myself from screaming, and leaped out of the classroom.

During noon recess, it happened again when I was playing basketball with some university friends of mine in the gymnasium.

When I'd cut off the ball and was dribbling through opposing territory, the opposing player, who was part of the basketball team, did a quick cover. That moment, I saw someone raise their hand in the corner of my vision. I tossed a pass intended to bypass the opposing defense. However, what I heard was an out-of-bounds whistle, and my teammates asked, "What're you doing?"

"Huh? You were running there weren't you?"

I asked back, but my teammates answered, that's the wrong way.

I was confused as I kept playing, but during the match, I tossed a pass to someone only at the edge of my vision twice, to the irritation of my teammates.

... What was going on?

I figured something was wrong, and wandered outside the gymnasium. I went to the fountain at the side of the entrance, turned on the water and drank a gulp. Then I sat on the bench to the side, and raised my head. The sky was blindingly clear. But despite it being clear, I felt like something was dark. As if the world I was used to seeing was slightly foggy. Like an aged photo, there was a world I wasn't related to. It was as if I'd bid farewell to the world I used to be living in.

"I guess it's that thing's fault."

The notebook was still in my house.

I brought it home in the end, but I kept it tied shut with Yoishi's shimenawa out of fear, and placed it at the back of my closet. So far, I had been resting peacefully, as nothing had happened since -- but I must still have parts of me worried about it. This is probably why I was seeing strange things.

Just then, someone sat next to me.

I subconsciously slid over a bit for them--

But when I saw the shoes being worn, my heart skipped a beat.

It was a worn sneaker. Tied with blue laces, worn without socks.

My whole body froze, and I couldn't move.

I don't remember how I was even breathing.

Sound disappeared, and the world was covered with white fog--

I just continued sitting next to that.

"Nice weather."

I heard a voice as what felt like an eternity passed.

I snapped my head up, and saw Ishikawa, who attended the same language class as me, smiling.

He was a pretty typical university student for this fairly well-to-do university.

"You okay?"

"... Uh, yeah."

My body was able to move again. When I glanced to the side, there was no one sitting there anymore. I opened my fist, closed it. It moved. However, my palms were covered with sweat.

"Just off work?"

"No."

"It looks like you haven't gotten enough sleep."

Hahahah, Ishikawa laughed. He was incredibly capable at getting good work, good company, and good connections, so when I looked at him, I felt a bit ashamed at how silly my worries were.

"Hey, Nagito, listen."

He put a moment's break before saying.

"That's edible."

Those words made me intestinal juice churn. It felt like dirty factory liquid had been poured into my stomach. Overcome by a feeling of vomiting that was rising from my gut, I ran from there.

When I stood up and looked at Ishikawa's face, it looked different. Like a pure, black, inhuman thing. I was going nuts. In any case, I was at my limit, I thought.

That moment, the sky became cloudy. I thought the clouds had come out and looked up, but it was still bright and sunny. The clear sky stretched on forever. But it was dark. Just the area around me was dark. I kept running, pressed by that sensation. I ran through campus, heading toward the west wing.

Having broken off ties with Yoishi, there was only one person I could rely on.

"Krishna!"

I arrived in front of the room and banged on the steel door, but there was no response. I peered through the foggy glass, and listened, but I didn't sense anyone inside. I leaned against the wall and pulled out my cell phone. And then I called Krishna's cellphone, the number that had been written on the business card. The time it took until she picked up felt like forever, and I waited, gathering my breath.

"... Hello?"

I became teary at the voice I heard.

"Krishna, I'm in trouble."

I felt like I was about to scream.

"What? What happened?"

"I think someone's possessing me."

This time I definitely told her everything.

That I took the notebook from the hospital. That I'd kept silent about it. That Yoishi was going to throw it away, but I brought it back home. And that my life was crumbling apart.

I told her everything, and begged.

"Save me, please."

On the other side of the phone, Krishna went silent.

I was prepared to hear her, "you're hopeless." I didn't care how much she scolded me. I didn't care if she insulted me. Even then, she should be able to come up with something.

"Well, what I can say."

I heard Krishna's voice.

"Is that I can't help you."

"Huh? Why?"

"I'm in Aomori."

"-- Huh?"

Come to think of it, her voice did sound distant.

"Wait... why'd you go to Aomori?"

"To correct my spine."

"Why'd you go to Aomori to correct your spine--"

"The spine is an air duct. Well, it'd be a long explanation, so whatever. Anyways my teacher's going to talk."

-- Teacher?

Ahh, Krishna did mention having a teacher... is she with that person?

As I was sorting things out in my head.

"Yo! G'day."

I heard a bright male voice. I heard Aomori, so I expected some stoic voice, imagining a grandmother-like teacher, so this took some air out of me.

"Well, first I want to check your situation. Is there water nearby?"

"Water."

I looked around, and saw a sink at the end of the hall.

"Yes."

"Alright, wash your hands. And the back of your neck."

I dashed over and did as he told.

"Done."

"Good. Now when you've washed yourself well, put out your left arm."

I did that, too.

"Lightly close your fist, and then repeat the sutra I'm about to tell you seven times."

I frantically nodded, and repeated the sutra he whispered seven times.

"Done? Now write '鬼の字' (letter of ogre) with a finger from your right-hand on each of your fingers, then blow hard on them, and as you do that, listen carefully."

I didn't understand. I didn't understand, but I listened.

My opened hand was drenched in sweat, and my fingers twitched from stress.

"-- now."

His voice suddenly became lower.

"Which finger is trembling?"

... Umm.

My middle finger was trembling a lot, and my medicine finger was trembling with it.

I told him my middle finger, and the man on the other side of the line went silent.

"Um... hello?"

... Don't suddenly go silent, man, it's scary.

"Hey. Can you hear me? Is it bad if it's the middle finger?"

I shouted, and from the other side of the phone came a stupidly bright voice.

"OUT!"

... Hey.

"... Hello? Um, Nagi!"

"... Ah, Krishna."

"Can you hear me? Are you ok?"

I had lost consciousness for a moment from that OUT! shout, apparently.

I'd slumped over the sink.

"... Where'd that bastard go?"

I felt anger bubbling forth and asked.

"Teacher's using spiritual vision on you right now."

Krishna said from the other side of the phone.

"Well, we don't have a photo so all we're doing is gathering information and thinking of a direction. We can't figure out what's possessing you and why."

"Is that teacher someone trustworthy?"

I asked, and Krishna laughed a bit.

"Who knows, he's an oddball. But his opinions are never wrong. I can guarantee that."

I didn't really get it, but the way she said that annoyed me. Was it jealousy of the trust she showed? Or maybe it was because that bastard shouted OUT! like it was not his business. I didn't get it, but I decided not to trust that guy.

"So, what was with the trembling finger?"

"That was a Japanese type of curse for Shisoushikibetsunodaiji. It lets him figure out what type of ghost is possessing you."

"What did he mean by out?"

"Teacher said he didn't really believe it, but -- the middle finger isn't a normal ghost."

"Not a normal ghost... then what?"

"If I had to give a word, a god."

"... Huh?"

"A high god or a demonic god -- whatever the case, it's not a normal aimless ghost."

Wait. Why's that possessing me -- I thought, but then I remembered.

Come to think of it, Yoishi and I had snuck into a shrine at night and cut off a shimenawa. But wait, I wasn't the one that cut it, and I apologized plenty. I understand it's not a forgivable offense, but this is pretty over the top.

"In any case, we'll come back to Tokyo immediately. It'll be night by the time we arrive I think, so take a memo of what what we're going to tell you."

I checked my pockets but there was no paper, so I bowed to a female student that was passing by, and borrowed a paper and pen.

And I said go on, to Krishna on the other side of the phone.

"First, throw away that notebook."

She said.

"The location should be somewhere people don't go. The waste dump that you and Yoishi went to should be fine."

But I still had some resistance.

"Do I really have to do that?"

"I sort of understand how you feel. But that's the root of everything."

"Why? What did that child--"

"Probably, the clump of countless souls are stuck to that notebook."

I felt like a lot of scattered things were becoming connected by those words.

"I told you ghosts that have lost their purpose seek purpose? I don't know who wrote the words onto the wall. But together, they gave ghosts purpose, and it's probable that that's what's causing everything."

-- I see. So that's how it was.

That's why Yoishi said to throw that away.

And Krishna said the words were bad.

Still, I had to swallow my refusal that was just at the tip of my tongue.

He was, me. He was just suffering. He just wanted help. He just wanted to jump around and laugh with everyone.

"Nagi, listen. That kid's already dead."

She boomed.

"He's not in this world anymore. As long as you keep acting compassionate to that kid, you're never going to be able to shed the ghosts."

I.

I.

I--

I was about to say something back, when I noticed. I opened my trembling left hand. And the medicine finger was beginning to tremble even more than the middle finger.

"Um, Krishna."

I said with a trembling voice.

"Um, my medicine finger is trembling really hard, too."

"-- Huh?"

"Is this."

And then the cell phone became filled with static.

Suddenly, I could hear something that sounded like bubbling on the surface of water.

"Huh...? Hello?"

"H... hello...?"

Somewhere far away, I could hear Krishna's voice. But it was no longer a conversation.

Static, then bubbles. And mixed in, I heard a low voice. Countless human voices combined--

"Don't listen!"

Krishna suddenly shouted.

"D- don't listen, then what should I do?"

And then the phone cut out.

"K- Krishna?"

I tried calling back a number of times, but the phone never connected.

5

... What should I do?

The sun was setting, and I'd been desperately clinging to sunlight, but I was about to run out of places to go.

Anyways, to where people are -- to a noisy place with lots of people--

All of a sudden, I'd dragged myself to the lecture hall across from the courtyard.

However--

My feet stopped in front of the glass door to the lecture hall.

Inside the classroom, a hundred-some odd students were seated, and a professor was writing on the blackboard on the podium. I could hear the sounds of notes being taken. I could hear the sound of chalk against the blackboard. The lecture hall was filled with the silent fervor of people doing what they're supposed to be doing.

I couldn't go in.

I felt ashamed. I was shamed toward my parents. I clawed at my hair. I was in Tokyo against the will of my parents, and was even indebted to my sister. It wasn't easy for my household to pay for tuition. And yet, what was I doing? I'd been mesmerized by the occult, gone to a place I wasn't supposed to go, abandoned everything in a half-assed way, and gotten possessed. An idiot was just being an idiot and living an idiotic life.

Could I still return?

Could I still return to where I belonged?

As Yoishi said, as Krishna said, I should just throw away the notebook. But the immaturity inside me refused. It shouted that it still didn't feel like the right thing to do. Part of me wanted to throw it away, and another part wanted to hang on, and it was also me that stood here dumbfounded. It was me that was tormented by those complex feelings, and it was me bothering lots of people, and it was me that stepped further and further away from the path I should be taken. Many of me killed each other inside my head, punching each other, stabbing each other, tearing at each other, tearing them apart. A vicious war continued, and all of me died. At the end, I stopped. I stopped thinking, and the me that was no longer anything stared at the classroom -- and saw the me I didn't know.

The seat I was always sitting in -- the far right seat on the fifth row from the front.

I was sitting there.

With a carefree look, looking bored, I was attending the lecture.

That moment, it felt like something inside me crumbled.

-- Was it reversed?

-- Was I the ghost, and he the real thing?

I could no longer see things as reality. I felt like something that had been created after the movie had been completed. My reality was just connected to the world through a thin strand. It was that simple to cut it off. Like Zippo's friend, the strand was cut one day, and you could never go back.

I wobbled away from the lecture hall, and sat down on a bench.

I clutched my hair with both hands. I could hear the sound of cars, like white noise, and the dark trees and bulletin boards and flower pots in front of me, they all looked like giant, made-up tools.

The normalcy of this place was suddenly extinguished.

I finally understood how terrifying that was. My values shook. I didn't know where I stood. I realized I was completely pointless. That moment, I didn't even have any tears. Because it was pointless. What was the point of a pointless thing doing something pointless? Emptiness only gave birth to emptiness.

-- How does it feel to be scared?

Yoishi had asked me.

Yoishi, I get it.

This is fear. To lose your place.

-- This.

I raised my head, and in front of me was a white face.

Mitsurugi Yoishi's long, black hair was flowing in the wind, and her big eyes were looking at me.

"At this rate, you're going to die."

The high school girl in a uniform stood out on the evening university campus.

The university students walking by glanced in our direction as they went.

"Why do you wish to carry that person's darkness -- to the point of suffering this much?"

Yoishi's glass bead-like eyes lacked the usual hollowness.

Instead, there was light that wanted to know something other than "fear."

"Why..."

Why? I didn't know. I didn't know, that's why I was suffering. I couldn't answer that question now. So I just talked, not knowing why.

"... isn't that normal?"

"-- what?"

"If someone's carrying something that heavy... don't you usually help?"

"Even if it's beyond your control?"

The words left me speechless.

I didn't know. That's why I'd been sticking my hand in so many things and then leaving them half-assed. Then should I not have stuck my hand in them? Is that it?

"Beyond my control -- eh, shit."

I clawed through my hair.

"It's not like I'm sticking my hand into everything I see. There's a basis--"

"Basis?"

"Because, if I were to do that naturally -- it'd only be for friends."

I said that word, and was surprised.

To be honest, the death boy wasn't a friend. I don't know how he looks and I'd never talked to him, of course. But I shared his pain. I was in the same state of suffering. As a kid, to have felt death nearby, his wish wasn't someone else's business. Please fix my sickness. When I first saw those words, I had felt that in my soul.

-- I can't do anything, but I can be with you.

That's why I took the notebook with me. The way my mother had stayed with me, holding my hand until the seizure had passed for hours. It was the only port for me in the middle of a sea of fear. Just by having one person by your side, people can overcome things, I wanted to teach him.

"-- I'm an idiot."

I'd started crying.

"An idiot," I was repeating.

"Indeed, it's not logical."

Yoishi silently whispered, and then she suddenly pulled a cell phone from her pocket.

I thought she was going to call someone, but suddenly she began moving her fingers at a frenetic pace.

I thought she was sending someone a message, but her finger speed was unthinkable. Without blinking, Yoishi continued pounding away with her thumb, like a broken automated doll that was repeating the same motion. A drop of sweat appeared on her forehead, then stuck to her hair, and she stood there without moving, standing with her legs slightly apart. Only her thumb roared at a high speed.

I stared, jaw agape--

And it continued for almost an hour.

Our surroundings had become entirely covered in darkness, and sometimes a patrolling security guard came by, and I would bow my head, saying, "Wait a bit for her please." That's how much urgency her fingertips seemed to have.

The typing that seemed to go on forever suddenly stopped.

And Yoishi's limbs immediately lost strength, having cut off the immense level of concentration. Yoishi crumbled to the ground -- and I quickly caught her. For the first time, I found out she was extremely light.

"Hey, are you okay?"

I asked, and she nodded slightly.

"...What were you doing?"

But she didn't answer, instead saying an inexplicable, "How comfortable."

"But, this should solve everything."

And with that--

Yoishi's eyes rolled up and she lost consciousness.

Late at night that same day.

"Are you alright?"

Krishna shouted, jumping into my room, and when she saw Yoishi lying in my blanket, she began opening and closing her mouth.

"Ah... oh... you."

"... Yes?"

"You, a high school girl... are you serious! What're you doing bringing a high school girl into your room! And sh- sh- she's sleeping in your blanket!"

She began blushing and shouting.

Maybe this person was extremely weak to that type of topic?

"Well well, Krishna, calm down."

Karasu arrived then.

Changing the wet towel on Yoishi's forehead, she explained for me.

"When I'd come to pick up my belongings, Nagi was carrying this girl on his back and crying 'she collapsed she collapsed.' And when I looked, she had quite a fever. My room's a warehouse and has no blankets, so we gave her medicine and lay her down here."

That's how it is, and still seated straight, I shot Krishna an insulted look.

"I- I see -- sorry. And, are you alright?"

She said, and Krishna placed a big travel bag at the edge of the room and looked at me. I noticed that there was a bit of displacement between her shoulder and her head.

"I don't know... but Yoishi was saying that everything should be solved."

"Say what?"

"I don't know what she's doing, and I really don't know what she did this time."

Krishna sank to her butt on the spot, and sighed. She must have really rushed over from Aomori. I felt sorry for her faintness.

"I'm sorry. I've bothered you quite a bit."

I lowered my head deeply, and she venomously replied, definitely.

"It was quite hectic. I couldn't connect to your cell phone anymore, and our cell phone got wrecked a bit -- anyways, I'll tell you what teacher said. The results of your spiritual vision."

She pulled out a thick memopad from her bag and began reading.

"First -- the result of the "Shisoushikibetsunodaiji," you said your middle finger trembled. The middle finger, as we mentioned over the phone, is a high god or a demonic god, but afterwards you said your medicine finger also moved, right? If you said that earlier we would have reacted differently."

"What do you mean?"

"The medicine finger means a living ghost."

"... Huh?"

No, wait.

Living ghost? Like, where jealous or hatred become a spiritual form...

"Yes, that living ghost. The person who fired it doesn't realize it either, a rather bothersome spiritual obstruction."

Krishna continued, but it didn't make sense to me.

"In other words? I was going through this, but the person who fired that off is just living happily every day?"

"Well, yes."

I instantly became angry. I'd been put through this much despair and fear, so I was overcome with rage.

"Who? I want to punch them."

I said, and Krishna shrugged her shoulders, that'd be pretty tough.

"Feel like going around punching every occult-lover around the nation?"

"........ Around the nation?"

"Well, to be specific, probably almost everyone around the Tokyo region. Because the rumors about the 'hospital that grants wishes' spread quite oddly around the Tokyo locale. In other words, every person who feels a hint of hope from the idiotic information that the hospital grants wishes -- their wishes became a living ghost, gathered together with that hospital as a home, and became an incredibly large spiritual clump."

"Then, the man I saw wearing a kamishimo--"

"Probably a ghost floating about in the area. For a clump of spiritual forms, the ones that have the most memories are the ones that gain superiority. I said ghosts float about when they've lost sight of their purpose, but basically, that means the true suspect behind this incident is that huge spiritual form. The large, floating ghost and the living ghosts then further combined, gathered around the urban legend that 'wishes come true,' and became as powerful as a god."

I was aghast, and Krishna turned the page and began reading the next page.

"And another. There's a device that amplifies living ghosts."

"Device?"

"The internet."

Krishna pushed her red-framed glasses up with her middle finger, and stared at me.

"Ahh, it's pretty stupid -- the fuss over that hospital on the internet. It's not like putting something randomly in the hospital in the proper position would be enough to grant a wish, and nobody's wish really came true. However, it is a place with that much focused emotion. I'm sure one or two ghosts existed. So they go there for a selfish wish, and then end up hurt. What do people do, then?"

"... Scum."

Everything was coming together.

Slowly, the feeling of hope would inflate. They would go there, braving fear. Yet, nothing happened. Wishes were never granted. I would feel ashamed for believing such a thing -- but there are people who refuse to let themselves be the only ones fooled.

"Yes -- such a pitiful, helpless gathering of malice in letter form. The twisted desires transform into malice, and those call even crueler thoughts. The urban legend of 'the hospital that grants wishes' was born this way."

That's why Yoishi said it was pathetic.

That's why she said ghosts exist on the internet.

-- I'd understood to that point, but I realized there were still other mysteries. Like the incident last year at that hospital. Where Yoishi alone had disappeared from the others, but there was a difference in their memories. How was that explained?

I asked, and Krishna shot me a doubtful look. She was probably worried about my mental stability. But I begged.

"Tell me. I mean, if that mystery isn't solved, I feel like I'm going to die of shock from the imagination inside me."

"Well, yes... maybe. You're quite delusional."

She said, insulting me, and then explained.

"It's simple. Because everyone Yoishi was with was a living ghost."

Those words gave me goosebumps.

Within that endless darkness--

I imagined Yoishi walking alongside living ghosts enjoying evil delusions.

"The members other than Yoishi had probably gone there to have a wish granted. In other words, when they saw the words on the wall, they wondered what was needed to grant their wish. And they wished on their hearts quite heavily. Yoishi probably saw that."

And then with a big of an envious look, Krishna looked at the sleeping Yoishi.

"This girl can probably see ghosts."

"Then Zippo's friend, only mumbling Yoishi--"

"Living ghosts are a clump of dirty ego that people don't want others to know. Imagine having this girl whisper those to you."

I remembered Krishna's words some time ago.

That Yoishi easily crosses the boundaries.

Yoishi's words are filled with things humans must not know.

So her words always sway us, who live on this side.

I was still fortunately standing on this side, but--

There was always the possibility that I would not make it back to this world.

And Zippo's friend was not able to.

"Anyways--"

Krishna said, scratching her head.

"In this case, we have to admit fault, too. Compared to the horror stories of old, that took time to change and grow in strength, urban legends these days spread quickly along the internet, and eventually, result in explosive growth. There's no root behind them. It was just an irresponsible post by someone that causes reactions and thus a landing spot. They end up summoning a real one. They say the darkness lacking any source whatsoever is the real thrill of the occult -- but in this case, a symbol appearing where things gathered to begin with was the start of everything."

"That was, the words on the note?"

I asked, and Krishna sadly nodded.

"That's how compelling his feelings were."

-- Please fix my sickness.

Those lonely words reappeared in front of my eyes.

Wanting to play outside, wanting to leave the hospital, wanting to go to school, wanting to eat a lot, wanting to play games.

To the bitter end, he returned with those wants.

"Pure, yet powerful words -- the Japanese people of old called that the power of language."

Krishna concluded.

Silence filled my room, and we could only hear the low rumbling of the refrigerator.

"But still."

Karasu said, as we were sitting there in silence.

"Does that, really, solve everything?"

... That was it.

To be honest, I'd been wondering that myself. Was it possible to exorcise a god-class spiritual form? What did Yoishi do on her cell phone? Why did she look so satisfied before losing consciousness, saying that it was comfortable: that still bothered me.

Indeed, said Krishna, and she glanced at Yoishi's white face, as she slept like she was dead.

"She said she solved everything, right?"

"Yes."

"Hmph."

Pushing up her glasses, which had slid down a bit, she snorted.

"Well, we'll see. Truthfully, I don't sense much from you right now, and I'm personally curious as to how Mitsurugi Yoishi exorcised all of that."

I had also grown tired of thinking about all of these complicated things. My body still hurt, still felt heavy, and my mind wasn't fully cleared yet. I could sleep at any moment.

"Nagi, if you want to sleep, you can use my room."

Karasu laughed, as I stifled a yawn that probably came about from relief.

"You'd be overwhelmed if you were to sleep in the same room as a high school girl, right? What youth."

W- w- what is she talking about?

I was about to say, but Krishna was the one who spoke.

"Y- you shouldn't, Nagi! How... vulgar... you can't you can't."

She was blushing as she flailed about, and Karasu calmed her down a bit and sat next to Yoishi. Then, she turned the towel over and smiled.

"I see -- this girl is Yoishi. Even though she looks so cute asleep."

Whispered Karasu, with a fond look, but--

Well, as long as she stops vomiting and takes a bath every day, I would agree.

"Nagi."

Krishna said to my back.

"You've done plenty."

"......."

"I'll responsibly send off that book where it belongs. I won't treat it with disrespect. Understand?"

I suddenly felt like crying--

So I looked away, and nodded repeatedly.

After that, my body felt lighter day by day.

Strange things stopped happening. I didn't see the man in a kamishimo. I didn't hear the sound of flutes. I didn't sense creepy people. And more than anything, the world was bright enough for me to want to skip around.

On such a day, when I'd recovered quite a bit, I passed by the main gate of the feeder school on my way to Krishna's room in the west wing. I gazed at the high school students passing by, and wondered about Yoishi.

The next morning, when Karasu and I had gone back to my room from the warehouse, she was already gone. There was no letter or anything, but the blankets were folded neatly. I fearfully took a whiff, but only the scent of my shampoo remained. That was the last I saw of her.

-- In any case, I should give at least a word of thanks.

Is what I thought, as I waited for Yoishi to come out, but she didn't. Eventually I gave up and asked a random student about Mitsurugi Yoishi.

"She's probably still in the library."

I heard. She was apparently a problem child that rarely came to school. And she emitted an aura which suggested that she didn't want to interact with other students, which I could totally imagine.

So, I hurried to the city library, which was under five minutes away, on my mama-cycle.

I passed by the receptionist, and glanced through the reading seats, and found Yoishi by the far window. She was mesmerized by a thick book.

"Yo, what're you reading?"

I called out, and she answered without lifting her head.

"Kürten's manuscript."

"Who's that? An author?"

I sat across from her and asked, and she shook her head.

"A famous German serial killer. His murders were so abnormal people couldn't arrest him until he turned himself in."

I was exasperated, but she continued with a bewitched expression.

"Kürten's orgasms, where he ejaculates while killing, are very interesting."

I took a peek, and it was a book with gross monochrome photographs that made you want to look away.

"Oh, well."

I mumbled, and said what I had come to say.

"I don't know what you did, but my body feels lighter. I stopped seeing weird things, too. And Krishna took care of that notebook. In any case, you saved me quite a bit. Thanks."

I bowed my head.

"That's good."

She mumbled, and she grabbed the book and bag as she stood up.

She carefully returned the book to the shelf, and began walking to the entrance.

-- So, what did you do?

I was about to ask, but this time I restrained myself. Krishna said I had no capacity for learning, but that wasn't true. I had room to grow. I understood that this was as far as I could go. This time I really, painfully learned. So I restrained myself, and saw her off as she walked away.

However, after a few meters, she seemed to remember something, as she turned around.

She came back near me, leaned in, and whispered in my ear.

"You shouldn't look at websites related to that abandoned hospital for a while."

"... Huh?"

"Farewell."

And with that, she walked away.

I stood there dumbfounded for a bit--

But something bubbled forth, an immense level of curiosity.

No, wait, stop that. I'm the type that goes when I'm told not to go. I'd been like this all my life. And of course, I could already imagine myself crying from this, but -- I'd realized I'd already taken my cell phone from my pocket. Just a bit. Just let me take a quick peek, and if it was dangerous, I'll run away. I told myself.

I immediately accessed the internet, and randomly did a search for "Hachiouji" "abandoned hospital" "wish." A bunch of pages I'd looked at before appeared, and I opened the first one.

However--

"... What the hell."

I was surprised, and checked other sites.

"... the same."

Each site had the respective threads abandoned after a flurry of posts. The day they stopped being posted in was exactly a week ago. They matched the time and date that Yoishi had been typing into her phone.

"She wrote this?"

Fearfully, I read the post.

And at the top of the post, I immediately understood.

They all began with that famous line.

"You alone are responsible for reading this story. Please understand as you continue."

The self-responsibility-type horror story that was famous around the internet.

They say that just by reading, you begin experiencing the paranormal, and they always have odd lacks of closure. Some say that the text itself contain the words for summoning ghosts hidden within, and others rumor that the words are designed to ward away guardian spirits.

I read a bit more and immediately understood. No matter who read it, it was apparent the story was related to the "abandoned hospital."

"... I see, that's a nifty idea."

To remove the will hovering about the abandoned hospital, you just needed to make it taboo.

It was a story of a girl attracted to the "abandoned hospital" that slowly stepped foot into a world of madness.

I was drawn in from the beginning. The words were filled with reality, and the depictions of personalities crumbling apart were powerful. The somewhat twisted backdrop felt very real, and the horror stories she spoke of, the real ones with a bit of a strange feeling, were written in such a way that there was an odd sense of discomfort left by them. Yoishi was able to write like this? I was surprised, but at the same time, I wanted to read the end.

In the library, as the sun set, I found myself clutching my cell phone to me as I read, entranced by the story. Her usage of hiragana to depict the crumbling minds was terrifying. It was like Algernon. Even as I thought that, I held my breath and kept reading. I felt a bit of coldness as I kept reading. And then, as the girl faced destiny and was stepping into the basement of the hospital--

Suddenly, the screen of my cell phone was covered.

When I looked up, Yoishi had returned and was reaching out with her hand.

And with her dark, deep eyes gazing upon me--

"You shouldn't read the end."

And those were the most terrifying set of words I'd ever heard.

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