Phenomeno Read online

  As I sighed and glared, “I” quickly curled up in my bedroom. Even though Yoishi was there, it seemed I could not see her, as I turned off the light. Yoishi seemed to notice the light had gone off, as she closed her book and stared off into space.

  I'd floated down to Yoishi, thinking I'd turn the light on for her.

  “It's about time.”

  I had a bad feeling from Yoishi's words.

  And then – in the darkness, with only moonlight illumination, I heard that sound.

  From somewhere, the sound of something being scraped.

  An ominous melody ringing across the border connecting this world and the other.

  As if something was trying to crawl out of a sealed dimension, as I heard that sound, my body slowly froze. It was like watching those supernatural shows on TV, where they set up a camera in rooms that ghosts are rumored to appear.

  This dream, isn't it bad?

  I need to wake up as soon as possible.

  Because, if I stay here like this–

  I would see the “something” that was engraving numbers into this house.

  I frantically tried to wake up. I waved my limbs around trying to touch something, but I could not wake myself from the dream. It was like my body had been caught by some black hand seeping out of a different world. Feeling the despair of having been locked into a room with no exit, within the dream, only my panting echoed – and suddenly I found myself next to Yoishi.

  On the old, leather sofa, Yoishi and I were embracing each other.

  As if I were trying to stain both of my palms with Yoishi's body temperature, I played with her body. That was my wish, and yet, it wasn't. I mean, of course I had some interest in girls as a simple eighteen year old boy, but my lusting wasn't this twisted. I wasn't the type to release my sexual lusts by turning myself into an unseen existence. I was pretty sure I had that much reason in me, anyways.

  However – Yoishi showed no signs of fear.

  If anything, she was in a state of ecstasy. Her expression was dangerous. I felt my reason making sounds as it broke apart. I licked Yoishi's skin. I groped her breasts through her clothes. I lusted over her soft body with the tips of my fingers. I pulled up her long skirt, showing her white thighs. Yoishi's eyes were barely open. Her lips were slightly parted, and I could see her white teeth. Stop. Stop. Stop. I screamed from within my body, but I couldn't restrain my abnormal, extreme lusting.

  However, the moment I placed a hand on her white wrists–

  I almost screamed. My arms were not ones I'd become accustomed to seeing, but rather were long and thin, if anything like that of an aged man. Those sleeves were gray and worn. I was wearing an old suit. I felt like I faintly smelled some cologne. I stretched out my trembling arms and felt my face, my nose, my lips. And what I felt was, hideously, not mine. It was definitely that of someone else – and I knew whose it was.

  Him.

  That man existing at the edge of my vision. And finally my face tilted against my will. My face pointed toward the window ahead, toward the moonlight – and my eyes locked with the man covering Yoishi.

  That instant–

  I lost consciousness.

  Along with incredible trembling, I woke up.

  It was my new apartment with the abnormally bright lighting from the lamp.

  To my side was a coffee table with the empty box of the convenience store meal I'd just eaten, and an unfinished bottle of oolong tea. Near my pillow, textbooks and notebooks for university had been tossed about. There was a cheap curtain between me and the sash to the small veranda, and it swayed a bit from the night breeze coming through a gap in the sash.

  I breathed deeply.

  My heart was still pounding.

  I came home from work, ate a bit and then had fallen asleep.

  Fuck off with scaring me. I felt malice towards no one in particular and grabbed the bottle. I gulped down the third or so that was left of the oolong tea. I felt incredibly thirsty, and even the lukewarm oolong tea tasted delicious. When I finished, I felt a bit calmer, and I scratched my hair as I exhaled sharply.

  ”… Calm down. Just a dream. It was just two weeks ago. It's not surprising to have some fear still in my heart. That's why I saw that dream, that's all.”

  I mumbled to myself in an effort to persuade myself, but my heart didn't stop pounding. I could still feel Yoishi's soft body in my hands.

  Then I realized that something was ringing in my head.

  It was like a phone from next door, like a cell phone in my pocket was still ringing, a quiet, but definite warning sound. What… what's bothering you. I looked around. New white wallpaper surrounded me, and there was just a spacious, vacant room that I hadn't been able to fill with furniture. Nothing had changed between before and after I'd slept. However, the bell inside my head kept ringing.

  “What is it?”

  I stood up and looked around the room again. There was nothing out of the ordinary. The aftereffects of a scary dream were just bothering me, that's all. I was trying to think that when I noticed it. Next to the wall was a ladder leading to a small loft. The lighting for the loft was different, so it was slightly dark there. Just then, I felt something cold travel down my spine.

  Why did I pick a place with a loft?

  That dark area, where it felt like someone might jump out at me from, gave me bad thoughts. However, it felt like the warning inside me was directed straight at the loft. I mustered the courage to look up, and the warning sound grew louder. I swallowed once, and turned on the light to the loft next to the ladder. I placed a foot on the ladder, climbing it one step at a time. And then, I willed myself to look into the loft.

  Of course, there was no one in the loft. The only thing there was a cheap sleeping bag I'd bought instead of a blanket, and a number of books that were scattered about.

  “Hahah.”

  I breathed with relief, and was just about to climb back down, when I noticed it. On the other side of the sleeping bag, at the furthest wall, I saw something. Wounds. Two lines had been violently drawn.

  I screamed a silent scream as I tumbled from the ladder. I made a loud sound as my knee and shoulders struck the ground but I didn't care. Somehow I managed to grab my wallet and cell phone, and I jumped out of the door.

  Not lines. Those weren't lines – that was..

  ”二” (2).

  The number ”二.”

  I had even moved – but the countdown continued.

  I jumped into the night city and ran to a convenience store in search of light. As I ran, I tapped at my cell phone, accessing “Ikaigabuchi.” And then I looked at the forum from end to end. I didn't care if it was Karasu or Suu or Yoishi or anyone. I desperately looked for someone I knew. And then I saw it. In a thread titled “Mysterious dimension ☆ Isejinguu, a mere thirty minutes ago, “Yoishi” had posted. Ignoring the serious discussion of how to see Yata no Kagami at the Koutaijinguu, I posted there.

  “Hey, Yoishi. Help me!”

  The occult maniacs who had their debate interrupted laughed at my spontaneous post, but I ignored them.

  “Yoishi! You're reading this aren't you? Talk to me. He's still following me.”

  But, of course, Yoishi never answered, and it just angered the Isejunguu maniacs. Even after reaching the convenience store, I looked around “Ikaigabuchi” while I was in the parking lot. I tried writing in places that Yoishi might find interesting. To contact me immediately. But maybe I'd posted too often, because the entire forum rose up in arms calling me a spammer. If I got banned, I'd have trouble contacting her, so I started responding, “No, I'm not a spammer. I'm seriously in trouble!” but people just coolly responded that that was spamming. Eventually, others began calling me “wannabe” and I got pissed off and shouted at them “you scum occult maniacs” and the flames continued. It was like 100 vs 1 as the flames continued being spat. Right as I was feeling like the world was against me, and I was about to slam my phone against the ground:

  “Are
you Nagi?”

  Someone wrote that.

  When I looked at the name, it said “Krishna.”

  That name was like a miracle descending upon me, and I almost crumbled to the ground. I tried to type a response, but my fingers were trembling too much.

  As I struggled like that, Krishna posted again.

  And–

  It said.

  “Come to the place written on the card I gave you this afternoon.”

  5

  It was past 2AM.

  I'd left my bicycle behind, so I plodded my wait to the university on foot.

  Of course, the front gate was closed, and the security guard looked at me suspiciously. In an effort to escape from that look, I took a wide arc and then went along the fencing toward the line of Zelkova trees on the left. After you walk a bit here, you get to the western wing, which housed the Beatnik Research Club room.

  “Kurimoto Shina – Krishna.”

  I was so careless.

  I noticed nothing.

  That the administrator of “Ikaigabuchi” Krishna was a person who attended the same university–

  And for that baby-faced girl to be Krishna was unimaginable.

  I went straight to the furthest room, and was shocked when I entered. There were still some students inside chatting with each other. I felt a bit exasperated, as though this was some sort of never-night castle, but I guess this was just the way it was for students, and so I felt a bit embarrassed about myself still being afraid of ghosts. My feet felt heavy as I arrived at the Beatnik Research Club on the third floor, and I saw light on the other side of the smoked glass. I knocked on the door and heard a familiar voice, so I said.

  “It's 'Nagi.' Yamada Nagito.”

  “It's open.”

  “Excuse me.”

  When I opened the door, I found myself facing an empty, concrete-walled room of about ten tatamis.

  There was a single steel cabinet placed against a wall.

  In the middle was a relatively large worktable.

  And there were four seats placed around the table, and three people seated.

  In the middle–

  Was the baby-faced girl who'd given me a business card in my classroom.

  The red-framed glasses were as odd as usual, but she was wearing what seemed to be a priestess outfit stained in black, had on a takageta, and sat on a seat. This suited her too well. I had no interest in such types, but I could almost understand how people who liked lolis and people who liked cosplay felt, which was scary.

  “Um, you, I mean, are you Krishna?”

  I asked, and the girl made a disdainful face and nodded.

  “I warned you to leave that house immediately.”

  “Huh?”

  “Karasu told you nothing?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  And then Krishna cutely clicked her tongue and said “well, come in.”

  I looked around the room again and – next to the small occult site administrator was a woman who seemed to be in their late twenties and did not seem like a student wearing simple, white eastern clothing, and a bald, middle-aged man wearing monk attire who no matter what looked nothing at all like a student.

  “Eh… huh… um.”

  I didn't know how to greet them, so I just stood bewildered at the entrance, and Krishna made a motion with her small chin to “sit there.” I sat down on the chair that had been prepared for me, when the middle-aged monk stood behind me and grabbed my shoulders with his thick arms.

  “Um… hey, what's going on?”

  And then Krishna pushed her glasses up and asked.

  “Why are you trying to see the other side on your own accord?”

  And then she began lecturing me in a stern voice.

  “Alright? As long as we don't look, they can't see us either. You can have interest in the occult. It's natural and unavoidable of people to have interest in things that are little understood. Still, the other side has the other side's business. To them, not being able to see does not count as an excuse. Even if yo ucan't see them, humans have enough power to be able to feel them. This is eerie, then immediately understand that there's something you can't see and pay it due respect.”

  In the face of her stern look, I the fool could understand.

  “So, basically, I've been possessed.”

  I asked tearfully.

  “At this rate you're pretty screwed.”

  Her expression became ever sterner, and I froze.

  “Krishna.”

  Said a woman in white clothes. She had no make-up on, and held a strangely-shaped rosary in her hand.

  “It's already gotten a bit inside.”

  … What? What inside?

  “Can you pull it out here?”

  “I'll try.”

  The two of them finished their strange conversation.

  “Wait, Krishna. Who are these two?”

  I asked as I tried to escape from the strong monk.

  “Investigators for 'Ikaigabuchi.'”

  Answered Krishna bluntly.

  “Investigators?”

  “I'll explain later. Just shut up and stay still.”

  “It's not use. The host isn't here.”

  I heard a female voice from far away.

  “We have to go to that house.”

  “You're right.”

  The middle-aged man and Krishna's voice also echoed a bit, like a record that was losing some speed.

  I'd begun to slump down. The monk was strong, but that wasn't the only reason. It was as if I had never noticed that I was on the verge of toppling over under extreme weight – and as soon as I realized that, my body's senses frantically tried to show me the level of exhaustion I felt. I felt that sort of exhaustion, one that tried to sink me into a bottomless pit.

  “You can't move? Then don't move.”

  Krishna said in a mysteriously kind voice, and then I lost consciousness.

  To be honest, I don't remember much after that. I think I was loaded into a car. And then I think there was a lot of shaking. My consciousness came back because I felt a familiar sense of cold on my skin, one that seemed to want to wring me dry. My body was still heavy and my consciousness felt like mud, but my life instincts seemed to shout, this place is bad.

  When I came to, I was in front of that house.

  The middle-aged man was carrying me on his back, climbing up the stairs to the second floor.

  – No, no, I don't want to come here anymore.

  I wanted to shout, but in reality I couldn't even move my fingertips. Not caring for my will, I was carried forth by the middle-aged man, and stood in front of the entrance to that house alongside Krishna and the white-clothed woman. Krishna easily opened the door. I thought I'd locked the door, but it opened without a key. Inside glowed an ethereal light.

  “Who.”

  Said Krishna sharply.

  I forced shut my resistant eyelids.

  – No. I don't want to see.

  I didn't care who was inside, I didn't want to deal with anymore. I give up. I decided right there and then. If I were able to wake up safely tomorrow, I would go straight back home to Shizuoka. In the end, it was impossible for me to live alone in the demonic city Tokyo. I wanted to turn around the fortunes of my family business, and came to Tokyo to study for it, but I'm too much of a wuss to live alone. I'm better off living in the rural area surrounded by family and friends. My father and sister who opposed my decision were right, after all. Ahh, mother supported me but I felt apologetic toward her. But I tried. I tried my best. But these happenings, I couldn't expect them, and I could do nothing–

  “Come inside and close the door.”

  Someone said, from inside the house.

  I recognized that voice. Cold, clear, but somehow decisive.

  “If you want to know what's to happen, then you should do that.”

  Right – this voice.

  “Yoishi.”

  My whisper echoed through the silence.

&nbs
p; “Yoishi?”

  Yoishi's lackadaisical voice saying “good evening” overlapped Krishna's incredulous voice.

  “There was a spare key near the sewer entrance below, so I used that to come in.”

  “Let's go in.”

  At Krishna's voice, the middle-aged man entered the foyer while carrying me. And then he took off his shoes and continued to the living quarters. Krishna and the white-clothed woman followed behind. When I looked past the middle-aged man's shoulder, I saw Yoishi already sitting in the middle of the empty living quarters with a candle inside an empty can. The dim light came from that.

  “Who are you, and what are you doing here.”

  Krishna sounded as if she were scolding, but Yoishi answered lackadaisically again.

  “Quiet. If you brought that person here, then you too already understand what's going on in this house.”

  “Yoishi… I see.”

  Krishna groaned.

  “You're 'Yoishi.' You're the child posting on 'Ikaigabuchi.'”

  Yoishi continued her silence, but Krishna clicked her tongue and continued.

  “I have no problem with you having interest in the occult. But having interest and actually tip-toeing the edge is different. You should realize that you're playing in a hazy boundary.”

  “No worries.”

  Yoishi flatly responded to Krishna's harsh tone.

  “I have confidence only in that conviction.”

  … Wow. She's undeterred by this angry Krishna.

  This is why girls are scary. My big sis was scary, too, and when mother snapped she was scarier than father.

  However, Krishna sounded a bit lonely.

  “I know – I know. I've seen children like you before. That's why I say it. People who harbor expectations from the depth of the darkness, they always drag humans into the darkness, too, even if they don't mean to. That's – extremely dangerous.”