The bus groaned as it rolled along the narrow coastal road, its old engine straining with every climb. Yui Nakamura sat by the window with her cheek resting lightly on the cool glass. She watched the waves crash against the black rocks below, white foam spilling upward like claws reaching for the land. The horizon stretched out forever, a pale sheet of grey sky blending into the restless sea.
This was her first visit to the town, and yet there was something in the air that felt strangely familiar, like a half-remembered dream. It was not welcoming. The landscape looked worn down, eroded by salt and time, as though life here had been scraped away layer by layer until only silence remained.
When the bus finally stopped in the center of town, Yui was the only passenger to step off. The driver gave her a brief glance in the rearview mirror before pulling away, leaving behind a thick silence that clung to her ears. She stood for a moment with her bag in hand, looking at the street before her.
The town was not abandoned, yet it carried the stillness of one. Old wooden houses leaned against each other in crooked rows. Their paint had peeled to reveal dark wood beneath, and the tiled roofs sagged slightly at the corners. Curtains hung in most of the windows, drawn so tightly that no light escaped from within.
A few people walked the narrow street, but they did not speak or greet one another. Their steps were slow, their eyes fixed ahead, their expressions faint and restrained. Yui watched one man pass with a basket of fish at his side. His face was pale and smooth, without the little creases of expression that most people carried. His eyes looked past her, not at her, and he continued on without a word.
Yui tightened her grip on her bag and began walking toward the small house her family had rented for the year. Each step echoed more loudly than it should have. The sound of the waves reached faintly from beyond the hills, but in the streets there was little else. Even the wind seemed muted, as though the air itself was reluctant to move.
At one corner she paused. An old woman was standing at the far end of the road. She was dressed in a long black coat, her silver hair tangled around her shoulders. Her head was turned in Yui's direction, but the angle was odd. The longer Yui stared, the more it seemed as though the woman was not looking at her at all, but rather looking through her, focusing on some unseen point beyond.
A shiver traced Yui's arms. She blinked, and in that instant the woman was gone. The street was empty, as if she had never been there at all.
Yui told herself she was imagining things. She was in a new place, tired from the long ride. Her nerves were playing tricks on her. She adjusted the strap of her bag and walked quickly until she reached the house.
Her parents were already inside, unpacking the boxes that had been delivered earlier in the week. The house smelled faintly of damp wood, but her mother's cheerful voice tried to fill it with warmth. Yui helped for a while, placing books on shelves and folding clothes into drawers, yet she could not shake the feeling that the silence of the town had seeped in with them.
That night, lying in her new room, she stared at the ceiling and listened. The wooden walls creaked as the sea wind pressed against them. Somewhere far away a dog barked once and then fell silent. She could hear her parents speaking in the next room, their voices muffled.
Her sketchbook lay on the desk beside the bed. Yui reached for it, flipping through the empty pages until she found one that called to her. Without thinking, she picked up her pencil and began to draw.
She sketched the narrow street, the sagging houses, the air that seemed too heavy to breathe. Her pencil moved almost on its own, carving shadows and edges. Then she drew the old woman. The long coat, the silver hair, the stillness. But when she reached the face, her hand hesitated.
She pressed the pencil to the paper, but no matter how she tried, the features would not come. Instead she shaded lightly, filling the face with smooth skin. No eyes. No mouth. No lines of age. Just a blank surface, pale and unnatural.
Yui stared at the drawing, her throat dry. The longer she looked, the more it seemed that the face was not missing, but erased. As if someone had reached into the memory and rubbed it clean.
Her hand trembled slightly. She set the pencil down, closing the sketchbook with a soft snap. She turned off the lamp and pulled the blanket around her, but sleep came slowly.
In the darkness, her mind drifted back to the silent townspeople she had passed earlier. She remembered their still eyes and their quiet steps. She imagined them one by one, and in her imagination their faces smoothed away, leaving nothing but pale skin where life had once been.
When she finally drifted into sleep, the last image she carried was of the old woman at the corner of the street, staring not at her but through her, as if she were already fading into the same blankness.