A woman clothed entirely in white sat upon Yuki's chest.
It was the first time in his life he had ever endured such a terror. A violent shudder ran from the base of his spine to the crown of his head. His breath came in sharp, ragged gasps, each one thinner than the last, while panic closed around him like an iron clasp. The reality of his helplessness struck him with cruel clarity.
"AAAHHHHHH! HELP MEEE! MOM—"
His cry was cut short.
He felt it then.
A hand.
Cold, unyielding, pressing firmly over his mouth. And when his eyes darted downward in horror, he saw that the hand belonged to the very figure seated upon him.
He could do nothing.
His body lay pinned as though crushed beneath an unseen weight, some invisible force bearing down with relentless pressure. Not a single limb obeyed him. He could not lift an arm, could not turn his head. Even his breath felt rationed by something beyond his control.
It was as though his eyes had been commanded to remain fixed upon her.
Slowly, the woman's head began to move. Her long black hair followed the motion in heavy strands, cascading forward like a curtain drawn across a stage. The movement was deliberate, unhurried. She leaned closer.
Closer.
Now her face hovered only inches from his own, yet it remained entirely concealed beneath that dark veil of hair. Yuki could not see her features, only the suggestion of a face hidden in shadow.
His breathing, frantic and uneven, stirred the strands before him. He could see them shift and tremble with each desperate exhale, brushing faintly against his skin.
Then a voice emerged.
It was a voice of piercing coldness, thin and tremulous, yet distorted as though dragged through something unseen before reaching him.
"Leave."
The word fell from the lips of the woman before him.
Her head was angled downward, as though she were gazing directly into his eyes from behind the curtain of her long black hair. Yuki's heart pounded without rhythm, each beat colliding painfully against his ribs. He attempted to shake his head. He tried to force a scream from his throat. Yet his body remained a captive beneath her weight.
"I—I cannot move…" he thought desperately, though even his thoughts felt fragile and exposed under her oppressive presence.
"Leave this house."
She spoke again, and this time her tone sharpened, rising with an edge that seemed to scrape against his very mind.
Yuki refused to surrender. Though terror consumed him, he struggled with every fragment of will he possessed. He forced his body to respond, straining to move from side to side. The effort produced scarcely any result, only the faintest tremor beneath her. Still, he persisted.
Again and again he attempted to wrench himself free, his muscles screaming in silent protest. The motion was small, almost imperceptible, yet he clung to it as proof that he was not entirely powerless.
His breathing grew heavier. The strands of her hair shifted with each uneven exhale, brushing closer to his face.
As he continued to strain against the invisible force that bound him, the woman's hand slowly withdrew from his mouth. Air rushed into his lungs, sharp and burning, and at last he could breathe freely.
The first words that burst from him were wild and unrestrained.
"What do you mean, leave? This is my house! You have no idea what kind of hell I went through in America to obtain this place!"
All the resentment he had swallowed since being commanded to depart spilled out in a single, desperate cry. His breath struck the curtain of her hair, causing the dark strands to sway faintly before her face. The woman remained silent for a moment, unmoved by his outburst.
Then, with deliberate slowness, she began to raise her head.
The black veil of hair parted slightly, revealing her face in fleeting measure.
"Beautiful," Yuki whispered without meaning to.
Though he had seen it only for an instant, her face possessed a rare and unsettling loveliness, a delicate union of elegance and youthful softness. Her eyes, glimpsed beneath the shifting strands, were violet in hue, gleaming like polished jewels caught in dim light.
But something was wrong.
Her head tilted.
Not gently, not naturally.
It inclined to the left at an impossible angle.
Yuki strained to understand what he was witnessing, his gaze locked upon her. The motion did not cease. Slowly, inexorably, her head continued to twist as though compelled by some cruel mechanism beyond the limits of bone and sinew.
A sound followed.
Krek. Krek. Krek.
The unmistakable crack of turning joints echoed in the room.
Before his eyes, the once-beautiful woman's head rotated completely, until it hung inverted against her body. Her face now rested near her own chest, upside down, her features grotesquely displaced. Blood began to seep from the torn flesh at her neck, dark and glistening, spreading across the white fabric she wore. The scent of iron thickened the air.
Though terror consumed him, his gaze would not turn away. It was as though some unseen force held his eyes captive.
Her inverted face stared directly at him.
Blood dripped steadily, tracing crimson lines downward. Then her mouth slowly opened.
There were no teeth.
Only movement.
From within the dark hollow of her mouth, pale shapes writhed and spilled forth. Hundreds of small, squirming larvae tumbled outward, writhing upon her lips and falling against her garment.
"Wha—" The sound faltered in Yuki's throat.
Horror compounded upon horror before him, each second revealing something more grotesque than the last. He could neither look away nor close his eyes.
He was forced to witness it all.
Without warning, without the slightest gesture to herald it, the woman lunged.
Her body surged forward with violent force, her inverted face hurtling toward his own. The long strands of her black hair lashed through the air like living shadows. Her mouth opened impossibly wide, the writhing mass within spilling nearer and nearer, until his entire field of vision was consumed by her.
There was nothing else.
No room.
No bed.
Only her.
A scream tore from him, raw and unrestrained.
"AAAAHHHHHH—!"
And in that very instant, he awoke.
His body jerked upright violently upon the bed, the cry continuing beyond the confines of nightmare and echoing through the darkened chamber. His chest rose and fell as though he had been dragged from deep water, lungs straining, heart pounding with merciless force.
He was sitting upright.
As his vision steadied, he looked about him. The dim outline of the bedroom emerged in familiar stillness. The old walls. The faint crack near the wardrobe. The quiet air of the house he had only just begun to inhabit.
There was no woman.
No blood.
No grotesque horror crouched at the edge of his sight.
Only silence.
"Was it all merely a dream?" he asked hoarsely into the empty room.
The question lingered unanswered.
Yet his throat burned from the violence of his scream, and his heart continued to hammer as though it had not yet accepted that the terror had passed.
For several moments he remained seated upon the bed, attempting to steady the chaos within his chest.
Then a sharp pain struck him.
It came without warning, deep and sudden, as though something had pressed hard against his ribs from within. Yuki winced and lowered his gaze. With trembling hands, he pulled aside the fabric of his shirt.
There, upon his chest a reddish imprint spread across the very place where the woman had been seated in his nightmare. The shape was uneven, almost like the impression of weight long endured. His breath faltered.
This was no ordinary dream.
Fear crept back into him, colder than before. The rational arguments he had clung to only hours earlier crumbled without resistance. Hallucinations did not leave bruises. Nightmares did not press flesh into memory.
He did not dare lie down again.
The darkness of the room seemed altered now, no longer passive but watchful. Every small sound of the old house settling in the night sent a tremor through him. He remained awake, seated upright against the headboard, the lamp lit despite the late hour. His eyes refused to close. Each time his lids lowered even slightly, the image of her inverted face returned at once.
Thus he waited.
Minute after minute.
Hour after hour.
When at last pale light filtered through the curtains and morning announced itself with quiet insistence, Yuki realized he had not slept again.
The house, bathed in daylight, appeared almost harmless. Yet the mark upon his chest remained.
He rose at once.
There was no longer room for pride, nor for stubborn disbelief. Dressing hastily, he stepped outside into the cool morning air. The world beyond the old house continued as it always had, indifferent to his terror.
He would seek help from someone who understood matters unseen.
With hurried steps and an unsettled heart, Yuki set out in search of a monk, determined to rid his home of the woman who had claimed it before him.