Phenomeno
/ Phenomeno Volume 1 Chapter 7-8
-- 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.
Chapter end
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