Ken Ikeda
December 20, 2017 — Wednesday morning (Old Hinode)
I walked and the corridor moved with me.
The ceiling was higher than I remembered from when I showed up in that place, the walls farther apart, and the space between things seemed to stretch every time I blinked.
Someone was pulling at the edges of that corridor while I wasn't looking. I was sure of it.
The slime covering the entire floor grabbed the sole of my sneaker and pulled my foot back every time I tried to move. It felt like stepping on a pile of loose tongues.
It was warm, alive, and it didn't want to let me go.
The only way forward was to throw all my weight into it. Gravity was stronger there. Even so, I kept going, because there was no other choice.
I kept walking.
The air inside that corridor didn't circulate. It sat still against my skin, much hotter than normal.
And the smell came all at once. Wet earth first, then rust, and finally the unbearable stench of dried blood, so strong I tasted it climbing up my throat.
Underneath all of it there was still a layer of hospital disinfectant trying to cover the rest, weak, unable to beat any of them. It only made everything worse, because it added a fake cleanliness to a place that had nothing clean about it.
The walls were covered in thick webs that shifted slowly, opening and closing in a rhythm that had nothing to do with me. Some pulsed. Others tightened when I got close.
I couldn't just stand there staring. I had to keep going.
But after a while I felt a drop run from above down to my shoulder. Warm. Thick. It wasn't water, not even close, and between one drop and the next, I could hear something dragging itself above my head.
It would stop, go silent, then drag itself forward again.
It was following me, or just watching me, with all the patience in the world, just waiting for me to do the wrong thing.
I tried to lift my head to see what it was, but my body wouldn't let me do something that stupid, no matter how hard I pushed. The muscles in my neck just locked. They knew something my head hadn't figured out yet.
I forced my mouth open to scream, shoved the air out of my chest with everything I had, and nothing came out. Just the wet sound of my own spit in my throat.
All I had left was to keep going, and that's what I did for a long time, until the sound of my footsteps became the only thing that existed, until I forgot why I was walking in the first place.
Until she appeared.
She was standing in the middle of the corridor, about ten meters away, blocking any way out. The light that existed there, if you could even call it light, came from nowhere and hit her in a way that made her silhouette look cut out from the rest of the corridor.
She wore the same uniform as my school, but there was something very wrong with it, or with her. It was impossible to tell right away what was standing there.
All I knew was that thing stank.
It smelled like graveyard dirt. The kind of smell that hit your nose and made you instantly nauseous.
Blood covered the uniform from the shoulder down to the hem of what looked like a skirt, mixed with a dark liquid running from her hands, the same slime that covered the entire floor. The white fabric had soaked up so much it had lost any trace of white, turned into a drenched piece plastered to her body, a dirty second skin.
She was the source of it.
Her hair fell over her face in long black strands, hiding whatever expression she might have been making. The ends dripped.
I tried to run and couldn't. My legs were planted in the slime, rooted, and the floor had tightened around my feet. My mouth moved on its own, and I didn't know if I was about to ask how to get out, beg for mercy, or just start crying.
No sound came out.
Then she started moving toward me.
Something cracked inside her every time she took a step, but the slime on the floor had nothing to do with it. Those were bones forcing themselves back into place under her skin, snapping one after another like someone cracking their knuckles without stopping. The sound echoed through that corridor and came back multiplied, from every direction at once.
Her right arm slipped out of place and spun a full turn before locking back where it should have been. The skin followed half a second late, stretching and then settling back. It looked like rubber.
It looked like anything but skin.
Her legs moved out of sync, one ahead of the other, and her body lurched like a broken doll that didn't know how broken it was. Every step was a negotiation between parts that weren't talking to each other right, and still she didn't stop, didn't slow down.
She just kept coming.
When she got close enough for me to see past the strands, there were two red points where her eyes should have been. Burning low and steady, embers at the bottom of ash.
And then the whole corridor went red with them, the walls, my hands, everything. The color spread on its own across every surface, stained the air between us.
I felt her breath on my face. It smelled like wet soil and something sweet underneath, sweet in the wrong way, fruit that rotted without anyone noticing.
Her voice was clear, almost gentle, the kind of voice that didn't match anything I was seeing.
"You can see me? Very good. Let's get started..."
❖ ── ✦ ── ✦ ── ✦ ── ❖
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound made the corridor vanish. Floor, walls, ceiling, all at once, and I felt the weight of my own body come back before I understood I was just lying in my bed.
I opened my eyes and the ceiling of my room stared back at me. There was nothing there, just the same cracks as always, in the same places. The paint peeled in the corners where the damp had won a long time ago.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I reached into the dark and felt around the nightstand with fingers still numb, knocked something over, it hit the edge and disappeared under the bed. I kept sweeping my hand until I found the alarm clock and smacked the top until the noise finally stopped.
Most days, that alarm clock drove me crazy. That morning, I had the feeling it had just saved my life.
I stayed lying there for a lot longer than I would have liked, staring at the ceiling, waiting for it to give me some kind of answer. My fingers were still shaking against the sheet. Sweat had glued my T-shirt to my back, and the pillow was damp in the shape of my head.
"Calm down... You're fine. It was just a nightmare."
But I didn't believe that anymore.
My usual nightmares had changed. Before, they were loose pieces, corridors that led nowhere, scenes I forgot the second I opened my eyes, nothing beyond what doctors would call end-of-year stress.
But for the last three weeks, she'd been there every night. Sharper each time, and closer each time. At first I only saw a silhouette at the far end of the corridor, far enough that I could pretend it was nothing. Then she started walking toward me. And today, for the first time, she opened her mouth and spoke to me.
You didn't have to be a genius to see it was getting worse...
And fast.
I even brought my hand to my nose, wanting to check if I'd brought something back with me. I waited for the smell of blood, of that slime, or even the cleaning products, but all I got was the normal smell of my room. Worn clothes, old wood, and the cold December air coming in through the gap in the window I never fixed.
Speaking of knocking things over, I flung my hand sideways and hit that bottle of vitamin D, still in the same spot I'd left it last week, uncapped, with a few pills scattered around it. The bottle sat there staring at me every day, and I pretended not to see it.
I did take a few a day for a while. Didn't feel any difference, even after sticking with it, so I left the bottle open and never touched it again. Three months of saved allowance to buy medicine that didn't help me at all.
I still remember that trip to Tokyo, over two hours just to get there, watching Hinode's open fields turn into building after building through the train window. And then I spent ages planted in the office, forced to read a gardening magazine cover to cover in the waiting room. The cover had a purple orchid with a title in gold letters that I memorized from staring at it so long.
But the worst part was that gray-haired doctor who barely looked at my face, trying to hold that polite patience of someone who charges by the minute and knows you probably can't afford the next one.
"You need more sunlight, a vitamin D supplement, and above all, you need to start exercising. Walking, the gym, anything."
Yeah, right.
I sat up slowly and swung my legs over the side. The cold from the floor climbed through my bare feet and prickled my arms. My head throbbed with that same old pain, the one that followed me around all day most of the time, especially when I saw that thing in my dream.
I rubbed my face with the backs of my hands and looked at the ceiling one last time. Where the cracks crossed there were dark circles that looked like eyes staring down.
For a second, it really felt like someone was watching me from up there.
I squeezed my eyes shut until it hurt, and when I opened them again there was nothing but plaster and a bit of damp. Nothing there.
There never would be. I knew that.
I got dressed on autopilot.
That's when I started measuring the size of the problem. My uniform pants were still folded on the chair the way I'd left them when I got home yesterday, and my shirt still had the second button loose, needing to be sewn back on for ages and, from the looks of it, still destined to keep needing it.
My blazer needed a wash too. I pressed my nose to the shoulder and turned my face away. Needed one badly.
But that wash wasn't happening anytime soon, so we were even.
Right?
I went downstairs, and the third and seventh steps creaked loud, the way they did every day. I already stepped on them expecting the sound. The wood sank an inch under my weight and came back when I lifted my foot, a short breath the house took under me.
Down here, the fridge motor rattled the way it always did. Late at night, when I couldn't sleep, it was the only thing making noise in the whole house, and it got strange when it decided to stop vibrating for a few seconds. The silence that took its place was worse than any noise.
I looked at the corner of the living room and made a face that probably landed somewhere between a smile and crying. There, leaning against the wall beside the door, were my mother's suitcases.
Two travel suitcases she'd left there because she wasn't going to need them. My mother always traveled light, basically a backpack, the clothes on her back and one suitcase at most, and for someone in her line of work that made sense.
Well... she was getting to Hinode today. In about twelve hours, if the flight wasn't delayed.
I stopped in front of the suitcases and did what I was used to doing every morning.
"Morning, Mom."
My voice sounded small in the silence of the room. It was completely ridiculous to talk to suitcases, the kind of embarrassment that would die with me because I'd never do it if anyone were watching.
But they were the only things of hers left in that house.
"I'm heading to school, so no complaining about my absences this month, okay? I know I overdid it. But classes are unbearable, and you weren't here to make me go every day, so part of the blame is yours and I'm not hearing objections."
I waited for an answer.
I did that every time. I wanted a scolding for the absences, a comment about my hair thrown together any which way, anything that would give me the feeling she cared.
"Being honest, Mom, sometimes I don't even know if you're still alive when you go that long without any news. Three months without a message. Not even an 'I'm alive, don't worry.' Nothing."
My mother had the kind of job most people didn't retire from. Most of them just disappeared. Or lost their minds.
So in the silence that greeted me when I came home from school, I kept wondering if maybe this time the phone wouldn't ring again, if her silence was already the answer and I was just taking too long to understand.
Until, once every however many weeks, the phone would ring and her voice would show up on the other end, intact, asking generic questions to pretend she cared.
She was just pretending, right?
In the kitchen, three days of dishes were waiting for me in the sink. Exactly the way I'd left them, and since then every plate, every coffee cup, every fork just kept piling up. The sink was a problem I could deal with later. And later. And later after later.
The pot with rice stuck to the bottom had already become a whole different level of problem. The crust had darkened and hardened so much it seemed like part of the pot now.
I didn't even try.
The faucet dripped in a rhythm that had also become part of the sounds of the house. I knew I needed to call someone to fix it, but a plumber cost more than I could pay, and money was one of the many things I didn't have much of.
No... that's not true.
I had the allowance my mother sent, but I didn't want to admit I'd spent all of it trying to get medical help that did nothing.
I took a breath and washed the dishes, plate by plate, cup by cup. The cold water squeezed my fingers and I kept opening and closing my hands between one plate and the next to keep the feeling in them. I left the hardest for last, but the pot with the rice stuck to the bottom didn't budge, not even with the sponge. I left it soaking and walked away.
Problem for later.
All I had left was breakfast. I ate standing up, leaning against the counter. Nothing fancy, just two slices of bread with margarine I scraped from the bottom of the tub until the plastic showed through, strong black coffee with no sugar that burned my tongue on the first gulp, and I stood there with my mouth open blowing on the roof of my mouth while I chewed.
Outside, the day was gray and still. Through the kitchen window I could see the yard with weeds growing over the low fence and the empty clothesline swaying in a wind that didn't reach inside.
When I finished, I looked at the counter and there was already another dirty cup and another dirty plate right where I'd just cleaned. I washed both and put them on the rack.
I went back to the living room and stopped in front of the suitcases again.
I wanted to believe this time would be different, that she'd stay longer, that she wouldn't get a call from some temple on the other side of the world on the second day and run off with that "sorry, I have to go" face before she'd even finished unpacking.
With everything done in my "incredible" routine, I stopped in front of the Acala statue near the door and did something I'd never done before, in all the time since my mother rented that house for me.
I put my hands together and closed my eyes.
"Please, make her stay longer this time. I don't care how."
I opened my eyes and looked at the statue one last time. He still had that same irritated expression as always. That was the so-called Immovable King, the entity that, according to my mother, protected that house.
Honestly, I didn't know what to expect from making that prayer.
❖ ── ✦ ── ✦ ── ✦ ── ❖
I only realized it was raining when I stepped onto the sidewalk.
The first drops hit my face and seemed like nothing, but when I looked down my shirt was already plastered to my chest. The December wind got under my blazer and stuck to my skin, and there was no getting rid of it.
I ran back inside and searched the cabinet by the entrance. The only umbrella I found was tossed behind the shoe rack, hidden by a pair of my mother's old boots. The boots still had dried mud on the soles, from who knows what country.
I pulled it out and looked at the thing in my hand.
The fabric had about twelve yellow ducks printed on it, all smiling with giant beaks taking up half their faces. It had been a birthday present from years ago, from a time when I still didn't know what embarrassment was and my best friend still didn't know what good taste was.
Come to think of it, she still didn't.
I tested the mechanism and the umbrella popped open with a snap. I looked at the ducks, looked at the rain, and walked out.
Let's go.
Out on the street, the wind pushed rain up under the umbrella and soaked my shoulder and the sleeve I couldn't protect no matter how I angled the handle, and with every stronger gust the whole frame bent and I held it with both hands, feeling the thin metal flex under my fingers. The puddles on the sidewalk had already swallowed the gaps between the stones and merged into a brown mirror reflecting the gray above.
My neighborhood was empty. Everywhere I looked, there were houses with tended gardens, pale fences, and nobody anywhere. A window here and there with the curtain open showed a lit room, and that was it. Most of my neighbors were old enough to be my aunts and uncles or grandparents. Hinode was the kind of place young people left at the first chance and never came back to.
I'd probably be left behind because, well... I wasn't that good at school either, and my mother was going to take me to some other city sooner or later anyway.
No point in trying.
In the middle of those thoughts, a voice cut through the sound of the rain behind me.
"Keeeeen! Wait for me!"
I stopped and turned around.
My best friend, Akane Kasumi, came running down the sidewalk with the urgency of someone who had a deadline to catch me. Her short hair stuck to her cheeks, the plaid ribbon on her uniform was already slipping out of its bow, and her backpack bounced on her back. Her uniform skirt slapped against her knees with every stride, heavy with rain.
A few students turned their heads as she went by, taking in the scene.
"Damn, Ken." She finally stopped when she reached me, hands on her knees, breathing hard, her chest going up and down fast, mouth open pulling in air. "You walk fast for someone with legs that short. Looks like you're running from somebody."
"Morning to you too, Akane-chan." I tilted the umbrella toward her, covering her wet head and leaving my shoulder more exposed to the rain. She didn't even notice. Her eyes were glued to the fabric.
"You still have this umbrella? I don't believe it!" Her tone shot up into something between a yell and a celebration, and she grabbed the shaft with her free hand to get a closer look. "I knew it. Everybody said you'd throw it away and I said no, you'd keep it, and look. Look! I win!"
"It was the only one in the house. If I'd had any other option, believe me, I would not be going to school carrying this. Can you imagine what people are gonna say?"
"Who cares what people think?" She pointed a finger at my face with the seriousness of someone defending a thesis. "Besides, I know you've kept this umbrella for years because I'm the one who gave it to you. Just admit it, Ken. It doesn't hurt."
"I'm not admitting anything that isn't true."
She punched my right shoulder. It came fast and hurt more than she meant it to. I rubbed the spot without complaining, because complaining meant hearing apologies for the next five hundred meters.
"Let me guess what happened last night." I changed the subject as we started walking again. The sidewalk was narrow, and the two of us under the duck umbrella barely fit side by side. "You stayed up reading some romance manga until three in the morning and almost overslept."
"Maaaybe something like that happened." She stretched the syllables out in a sing-song, facing forward with that smile that didn't even try to hide anything. "But don't come lecturing me. You have zero moral ground here. Did you even look at yourself in the mirror today? You look terrible, if you'll allow me the honesty."
"Not only do I allow it, I appreciate it. And no, I didn't look. I'm avoiding mirrors and any reflective surface until further notice."
Her brow tightened, her lips pressed to one side, and she leaned toward me to study my face up close. I felt her gaze pass over every detail, the dark circles, the skin, the eyes, cataloging everything.
"Nightmares again, Ken?"
"Slept two and a half hours last night. Half an hour more than the night before, so technically I'm on an upward curve. If I keep this pace, by next week I'll hit the recommended eight and be able to look in a mirror without a scare."
Akane stopped walking.
The line of students behind us went around, and she stood planted in the middle of the wet sidewalk, gripping both backpack straps until her knuckles went white, just standing in the rain. Water ran down her face and she didn't move to wipe it.
"Ken..."
"My mother gets in today." I cut in before the lecture could start, the one I'd heard so many times I could recite it along with her. "She'll know what to do. I've been to every doctor you told me to see, Akane, and every one of them cost money I didn't have to tell me things I could've read online for free."
"Ah... I see. So, how long has she been gone this time?"
"Three months."
We stood in silence for a few seconds. The rain filled the space between us.
"She said this time she'll stay home a few days." I adjusted the umbrella to cover her again, and the rain went back to soaking just my shoulder. "Almost a whole week, I think. That's what she said on the last call..."
"She always says that when she's about to come back, Ken." Her voice dropped, lower, more careful. "And these last few years she barely stays long enough to unpack."
"This time is different."
I didn't believe what I'd just said, and Akane didn't either. We walked a few meters in silence, her shoulder bumping mine every now and then. The duck umbrella covered each of us halfway, and the rain took every gap it could get.
It was during that silence that I saw her right hand rise slowly to her neck. Her fingers touched the skin without her noticing, a gesture that already existed on its own, and I followed the movement from the corner of my eye without turning my head.
Three parallel marks near the base of her throat.
Thin, almost healed, but still red. She hid them with her hair when she could, with the collar of her uniform when she couldn't. I asked the first few times. The last time, she went quiet in a way that made me understand that question had a price I didn't want to pay.
She stared at the street for a moment, distant, then her elbow nudged me in the ribs.
"Speaking of scary things." Her voice went back to normal volume, steady, putting a wall between what had happened two seconds ago and what came next. "Have you ever thought about joining a school club?"
"You're picturing me doing extracurricular activities with other people? Voluntarily? Did someone push you this morning and you hit your head?"
"Cut it out. I'm tired of seeing you alone everywhere, Ken. In class, at lunch, on the way home when I'm not around. Nobody can take that. Having just one friend is way too few."
"I have a social life. I'm having a social interaction right this second. You're a person, I'm a person, we're talking. Simple."
"That doesn't count and you know it."
We walked a few more steps. The rain picked up and I tilted the umbrella forward. A deeper puddle swallowed half my sneaker and the icy water got in through the side seam.
"Maybe there's a club I'd be interested in." The sentence came out quieter than I wanted, almost swallowed by the rain. "That creative writing one up on the higher floors. I saw some flyers around school and it looked interesting. But I heard it's all girls and I felt kind of weird about showing up out of nowhere asking to join."
Akane froze mid-step. Her foot hung in the air for a second before lowering slowly to the wet ground.
"Ken." Her voice jumped a full octave and she turned her whole body to stare at me with her mouth open. "Ken Ikeda. That is my club. I am the vice president of the Creative Writing Club. How did you not know that?"
"What? Since when?" I stopped too, the umbrella tilting the wrong way. "Why have you never told me you were vice president of anything?"
"Because you never asked, you idiot!" She slapped her hand against her backpack with enough indignation to make the straps jump. "We only have four members. Four! I talk about this club every week."
Did she?
"Anyway." Akane grabbed my sleeve, pulling me toward her. Her hand was cold and wet and I felt her fingers through the fabric. "You write better than a lot of published authors, and I know because you showed me those pieces, so don't pretend you don't know. Come to the club today."
"Me? Today?"
"Yes. Come on, Ken. Just one meeting. You meet the girls, see how it works, and if you don't like it I swear on my entire romance collection that I'll never bring this up again for the rest of my life."
"Akane, I really don't—"
"Please?"
Her brown eyes held mine without blinking once. Rain ran down her face, over her cheeks and off her chin, and she didn't move.
There was no way to say no to Akane. There never was. It had been that way since the day she decided the quiet boy sitting alone in the corner of the classroom was going to have a friend.
"Fine. I'll go. You win."
Akane hugged me with everything she had, her arms squeezing my back, her chin fitting into my shoulder and her wet hair freezing my neck. The umbrella hung between us covering nobody. The rain fell on both of us the same, and neither of us cared.
"Finally your isolated antisocial protagonist arc is over!" Her voice came out muffled against the fabric of my shirt. "It was time, Ken Ikeda. It was time!"
"You're crushing me. I need air to keep existing, if possible."
She let go and started clapping in front of her own face, singing a song she made up on the spot, no rhyme, no melody, about me joining the club and stopping being sad and learning to live and making friends.
Other students walked past watching us, and Akane sang at full volume without caring about any of them. One of them laughed. Another shook his head. Akane didn't see any of them, or saw all of them and didn't care.
❖ ── ✦ ── ✦ ── ✦ ── ❖
Hinode Central High showed up at the end of the street the same way it did every day, five floors of gray concrete with identical windows in rows. The kind of building that didn't try to be anything more than what it was.
Somewhere between a school and a prison.
The courtyard was almost empty. Most students had already gone on break, and only the few who still had to show up for remedial work or some pending obligation were left. The courtyard benches were wet and empty, and the flagpole swayed on its own with no flag, the rope hitting metal in an uneven rhythm.
I was one of them. The absences I'd stacked up forced me to show up even in the last days, sitting through lectures about nothing in a half-empty room, staring at the wall clock I swore was moving backwards.
I was looking at the building in that automatic way you do when you're just checking the place is still there, and that's when I felt it.
It started at the back of my neck.
A prickling climbed from the back of my head to my temples and slid down along my jaw. I felt something pushing my head upward, thin fingers under my chin, and my eyes landed on a third-floor window before I decided to look.
At first, that window looked the same as all the others. But the pressure under my chin wouldn't let go, no matter how hard I tried to force my face down.
A voice ran through my mind, a whisper.
"Relax. Don't worry. Stay calm."
I squeezed my eyes shut until my vision burst into white and black spots. The pressure vanished and my body went lighter. Something had gotten off me and gone.
I felt the blood draining from my face, my breathing failing, and—
"Ken?"
Akane's voice pulled me back. She was already a few steps ahead, almost at the building entrance, looking at me with her head tilted. Her backpack hung from one shoulder and her hand held the strap against her chest.
"You froze out of nowhere in the middle of the courtyard. You okay?"
"Thought I saw something up there. Just my imagination."
Akane turned her whole body and looked up, going over each third-floor window one by one, lingering on each before moving to the next. Rain hit her face and she blinked between windows, but she didn't stop until she'd gone through the whole row.
After a few seconds of finding nothing, she shrugged.
"This insomnia is making you paranoid, Ken. You need at least six straight hours of sleep. Six. Not two and a half. Six full hours."
"You're probably right. See you later, Akane-chan. Good luck in remedial."
"Wait, I'm not done." Her hand came up toward me, index finger raised. "I have remedial math, yes, but the second I'm done I'm coming straight to get you. And then we're going to the club together."
"Relax. I'll be waiting. I'm not going to run."
"You better not. If you try to run, Ken Ikeda, I swear on my life I'll hunt you to the end of the world. Don't. Test. Me. Mister."
"I was the one who suggested the club, remember?"
"You change your mind more than your socks. I know you."
I waved and smiled at her, and Akane studied me for one more second with narrowed eyes, calculating. Her index finger was still up, pointed at me, and she only lowered it when she decided I was being honest.
She ran off toward the annex building, her ribbon flying loose behind her, mouth singing something the rain swallowed before it reached me. Her silhouette got smaller between the columns of the covered walkway until she turned the corner and disappeared.
I turned back toward the main building and started walking, but before going in, I looked up one more time.
And there, a dark shape pulled back into one of the third-floor rooms the exact instant I looked.
It was fast, but I saw it.
I was sure I'd seen something, and for some reason I felt like I shouldn't have looked.
No... the truth was, I felt like I was making a mistake. Even so, I pushed the door open and went inside.