Shiro Nakamura of Ward 5, Tokyo, took pride in not fitting the norm. His parents constantly nagged him, "Quit this energy drink addiction." Shiro, however, believed the habit might pay off—or maybe not.
He had a ritual: chug Thunder Bolt before homework. Why? Mostly for an instant speed boost. Tired of arguing, his parents mistakenly signed a paper letting him buy one can a day. That slip of paper became his shield against complaints.
As weeks flew by, his hope slowly dimmed. He would sit at his desk, mumbling, "Just please... work this time."
But tonight felt different. Shiro had been saving cans for a long time and decided to gulp all of them today, with the hope that it would pass, and he would leave the addiction. He sat surrounded by six empty Thunder Bolt cans. Math homework glared from his desk. In his tired mind, the notebook seemed to yell at him, No cheat codes allowed this time.
Science worksheets seemed to dance with joy with a song mocking him. And that English essay was one laughing at him for three days straight. It was still there, unchanged and merciless.
"Okay. One more try," he muttered, cracking open his sixth can of the night. "Energy drink gods, prove if you're real and have the power to you're not flavored water, IN-THIS-MOMENT." He chugged it in one swallow, slammed the empty can down with unnecessary force, and grabbed his pencil like a samurai gripping a sword.
Nothing happened.
Shiro stared at the pencil. "These energy drink gods must be asleep. Getting fat. Selling their fat back to us as energy drinks."
He sighed and turned to the window to distract himself.
That's when everything stopped.
A section of his neighbor's rooftop glowed red.
Shiro's first thought was, My neighbor installed the world's brightest laser to mess with me. But then he looked up at the sky itself.
The moon wasn't right.
Half of it blazed crimson.
He rushed to his phone in the far corner of his bedroom and searched anxiously. 'Crimson moon events Tokyo?' It seemed like a red dot was slowly infecting the moon, and social media was exploding on it, but no one knew anything. Yes, on that full moon day, the snowy white moon had a red center.
"What the..." he was confused.
Old school folklore gave him flashbacks. That line, 'They come on the Bloody moons as the environment around them is negative,' hit him hard. Shiro had always dismissed such tales as superstition.
The air in his room suddenly thickened.
A sharp ringing erupted in his ears. It grew louder. And louder.
Then he saw it.
A shadow on his wall. "Impossible. Wrong." Shiro mumbled.
The shadow's limbs twisted at angles that shouldn't exist. The joints bent inward, backward, and sideways, which were geometrically impossible. And there was nothing in the room casting it.
His heart hammered.
'That's not a shadow on the wall,' his brain screamed. 'That's IN the room.'
He slowly turned his head around.
Nothing.
"HUMAN..." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It sounded like grinding metal mixed with screaming wind.
Shiro's heart pounded as his teeth were shaking. "Please don't shake my teeth out of fear, one of them is about to break… AAA!!!"
"I CAN TASTE YOUR FEAR..." the shadow screamed louder.
Ice flooded Shiro's veins.
His brain short-circuited for one moment. Then it rebooted with a single, primal instruction:
RUN
"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!" he screamed, scrambling backward.
He threw himself sideways. His desk chair toppled. Thunderbolt cans exploded across the floor, rolling in every direction. Homework was scattered like party poppers of white paper with blue and black ink. His pencil gave him a smack on his head.
"MOM! DAD! SOMEONE!" he screeched.
Silence.
It was as if his voice couldn't penetrate beyond his bedroom walls.
This isn't real. Energy drinks. Too much caffeine. Heart attack. I'm hallucinating
"YOUR SOUL WILL FEED ME WELL," it growled again.
"No. I have to move. I can't let Mom and Dad get involved. They're sleeping. I have to handle this."
He felt a charge, like electricity building behind his ribs. "Full force, KICK!" he yelled, not even sure what he was hitting. His foot touched something. Something solid. Something wrong.
Adrenaline flooded him.
His entire body erupted with electricity.
That's when he saw it clearly. It was a ghost. Completely black, like shadow given form. But its eyes were like twin crimson orbs that burned like dying stars.
The kick landed dead center. He heard ribs crack like branches. The creature screeched very inhumanly with no emotion. But it was still a sound that turned Shiro's blood to ice. The ghost then dissolved into nothing, fading away to... well, who knows where things like that go.
"W-What was that?" Shiro gasped in the empty room.
He grabbed his phone with trembling hands and searched with the last bits of mobile data he was left with. 'Black ghost crimson eyes Tokyo?' 'Creature attack Ward 5?' Nothing. No reports. No matches. No explanation.
He sat back at his desk, trying to convince himself. "Hallucination. Caffeine overdose. I need to stop these energy drinks."
He exhaled slowly and looked out the window.
That's when movement caught his eye.
His neighbor's dog, Woopy, was standing outside in the yard.
On two legs.
Standing perfectly upright like a human.
"What?" Shiro blinked.
"That's... not normal."
He rubbed his eyes. "Focus, Shiro. Focus on the assignments!" But even as he scolded himself, something felt wrong about the dog's posture. The way it stood. The way it moved. Before he could process it further, he heard voices from outside.
Shiro rushed downstairs and peered through the peephole of his front gate. Two figures stood in the street.
"Welcome to Ward 5, Professor Kamaha," a woman's voice said. It was creepy, along with an unsettling cheerfulness.
Randomly, a thick layer of mist formed around Woopy. After some time, the mist slowly faded away. The dog was gone. In its place stood a young woman in her twenties. She wore Pink glasses and a pretty yellow dress, and her face held a smile that could terrify the bravest warrior. Soon, another man walked in the street from nowhere. He also seemed like his twenties, but his entirety was more mature. He had perfectly combed black hair along with a short yet bushy white beard. He wore not a pair but a single glass, along which was attached to a golden colored rod which was hanging in the air. His white suit was perfectly stainless, along with the red tie and black uniform.
"Why are you here?" Professor Kamaha inquired. "Master ordered me to handle this mission alone."
"Come on! I've worked so hard to keep this disguise as a dog. Now tell me, do you have interest in me?" the girl, in her cute yet creepy voice, asked.
Kamaha, "It's my fifteenth time saying: absolutely NO interest. Not in your missions. Not in any 'romantic alliance' nonsense."
"Aww, Professor Kamaha, don't suppress your emotions. Even Master I-D-K has feelings." Shiro pressed his face closer to the peephole, trying not to scream out of fear.
Kamaha, "Moony, that's why you can't become a proper sorcerer. Go train. Now." Moony, "No way I'm leaving! Please, just let me do this! I promise I'll make you interested in me!"
Kamaha, "You don't understand. But if you insist on taking the risk, do it at your own risk."
Moony, "Did I lose your trust recently?"
Kamaha, "You never had it to begin with."
They whispered something Shiro couldn't hear. He leaned closer, desperate. "I wish I could hear what they were saying. Wait, would I be invited to a ghost wedding?"
Soon, Professor Kamaha turned to leave as Moony trailed behind him. But before they departed, Shiro's small ear caught fragments of their conversation:
"The black ghost died," Moony said. "Someone was nearby."
"Keep your voice down," Kamaha replied.
Shiro's blood went cold.
'They know. They know about the creature. They know about me.'
He waited until they disappeared into the night fog. "Opening," He quietly opened his door. Moving carefully, he crept across to his neighbor's house and rang the doorbell.
A furious voice erupted from inside, "Augh! Who disturbs me at eleven o'clock midnight?!"
The door cracked open. Aunt Olivia, Shiro's British neighbor, glared out with pure irritation. "Why have you decided to disturb a proper British person at this ungodly hour? I'm tired of the noise going on outside! Even closed windows won't make you stop? Just let me sleep!"
"I know you're capable of starting World War III with a single fart, but for now, I just want to ask about Woopy. Your dog. I saw him outside just now."
Aunt Olivia blinked. "Outside? Now? That's impossible. Woopy has been asleep since eight o'clock. Nothing wakes him up."
"Then—"
Shiro felt a smack on his shoulder. He clearly saw the picture of Aunt Olivia's sweaty face. She quickly got inside the house and slammed the door so hard that it formed multiple cracks. He spun around, heart nearly stopping.
Moony stood directly behind him, grinning that unsettling smile. A random sound erupted. He looked back. The cracks earlier caused the upper part of the door to fall down. Full of fear, she turned back and grew unconscious. Her dog came running from inside and charged towards Moony. "No advantage." She blocked Woopy's paw attack along with his sharp nails, which were known to have injured over twenty muscular people without any effort. He grew unconscious, too. "Dogs, Cats, Aunt Olivia, Olives, what do I have to do with those? Well, to remind you, Good morning, Shiro," she said cheerfully.