Phenomeno Page 7

  But then–

  I realized one of them was staring at me.

  Her black hair was pretty, she had white skin, and was slender. Her uniformed figure was blinding, and just by standing, she looked like she was from a different world…

  “Wait… what?”

  I eventually realized that I recognized that girl, and couldn't restrain myself from running to her.

  “Wait, are you Yoishi?”

  And then girl turned her glass bead-like eyes to me.

  “Oh, you.”

  Her sleepy response made me realize she wasn't looking at me.

  Yoishi was wearing a school uniform, and perhaps as a fault of her looks, stood out. Even in such an appearance, she seemed distant from daily life.

  “Hey, what a coincidence. You attend our feeder school? What year are you?”

  I spoke to her with a full smile.

  “That has nothing to do with you.”

  Yoishi's response was quite cold.

  There was none of her bedazzled, vitality-filled look anymore that she had when looking upon the paranormal.

  “I hadn't come to school in a while – and I shouldn't have come at all.”

  She said with annoyance, and I noticed she didn't have the sharp smell from before. It seemed she'd taken a bath. Glossy hair, an ironed white blouse, a black tie. I narrowed my eyes as I gazed at the contrast from before, and said.

  “Pretty good.”

  “What is?”

  “Your looks, you look more clean, and your uniform suits you.”

  However, Yoishi turned her back to me, saying I was pathetic.

  I intended to praise her, but it apparently just annoyed her.

  “If it's nothing, I'm going.”

  She turned on her heel, and I hurriedly stopped her.

  “You were staring over there, did you want something from Krishna?”

  ”– Krishna.”

  She seemed to react to that word, as life seemed to return to her glass beads.

  “I see – 'Ikaigabuchi' is here.”

  Her response to the occult was pretty good.

  I felt like I was being driven mad as I continued talking in that direction.

  “I'm indebted to you a bit, too. I heard all about that house. I didn't know there were things like subconscious confusion over a building. Man, I freaked out a bit when I learned the truth.”

  I was probably on a high from having been released from my fears. I kept talking. I talked on and on. Everything I'd heard from Krishna, the truth about the incident. About the architecture of the house, about the will of the architect, and even about the problems of contemporary Japan.

  However, Yoishi didn't react at all.

  Without even glancing at me, she said that's good, and continued walking without any trace of emotion.

  That made me feel a bit lonely, so I chased after her, bothered by her body language.

  “What is it? You seem pretty depressed. Is there anything else on your mind?”

  And when I said that, I remembered.

  Come to think of it, that day, she said at that house.

  “Have you noticed?”

  … Right. What did she notice at that time?

  I asked her, and she stopped.

  And then she slowly turned around, and asked back.

  “Do you really want to hear?”

  I felt like those black, cold eyes would swallow me–

  And I heard something inside my urging me to stop.

  That I shouldn't learn any more, it warned.

  “You can still turn back.”

  Said Yoishi.

  “You know what they say – if you peer from this side, they can see you, too.”

  Krishna had said that as well, and I felt goosebumps.

  But–

  I wonder why.

  That moment, I had a bizarre sense of excitement. That I wanted to see the world as she viewed it. That I wanted to stand where she stood. That I wanted to know why her words always seemed to sway my world.

  “I'll listen. Tell me.”

  When I said that, was I seeing things, or did Yoishi seem to have a slightly forlorn look?

  However–

  I would realize later that this was a fork.

  A story about wading in the bizarre and grotesque, helpless darkness of man.

  The boundary between that world and this world – the journey around the “Ikaigabuchi” began this moment.

  After a moment, Yoishi nodded and then began speaking.

  “I was always wondering. What it was called 'the house that grants wishes.'”

  “Why? Because–”

  “The title lacks a subject. Whose wish?”

  And those words gave me chills–

  And I immediately began regretting my decision.

  “That house isn't a house of hope. I just felt an incredible source of malice.”

  Yoishi whispered – with the expression of a queen who'd been locked away in a dark castle along for a thousand years.

  “The architect that had disappeared while loving strange buildings. The countdown that began with 'color_text_七_c_red.' The mysterious space under the stairs. The house that grants wishes. There's a single answer that ties everything together.”

  My goosebumps wouldn't go away.

  What was she trying to say? What was about to show itself?

  The girl Yoishi's dark eyes glimmered as she spoke.

  ”The architect is still inside those stairs.”

  “W… wait.”

  “Of course, he isn't alive. But then everything ties together. Why there's a meaningless space under the stairs. Why it became named the house that grants wishes. And why the numbers began with ”七.”

  “Wait, it doesn't explain anything? It didn't start from '七,' because it was originally '十,' and I had just coincidentally written it over a scratch–”

  “Wrong.”

  Her words twisted my world.

  “You originally wrote '十.' You're right to that point. But there was never a scratch to begin with. Someone added a scratch and changed it to '七.'”

  “Why… why can you say that?”

  “I saw.”

  “What.”

  “That on top of your '十,' someone had added a scratch to make it '七.'”

  “Then… then when Krishna said that there was no ghost in that house–”

  And then Yoishi looked in the direction of the west wing with sadness.

  “There's no better fortune than living with bliss.”

  … Hah.

  “That is that person's kindness, and what I lack.”

  … Hahahah.

  Hahahahahahahahahahahahahah.

  I was going to go mad if I didn't laugh.

  “You're lying, aren't you? You're making this all up, aren't you? Or it's that. An occult story you'd read somewhere.”

  I laughed, praying that that was the case.

  Yoishi gave me a sympathizing look, a grieving look.

  “Everything's the truth. Because–”

  I could no longer respond, and Yoishi quietly landed the final blow.

  “When you were carried out, some man I'd never seen before was clicking his tongue on the stairs.”

  As the world spun around me–

  Yoishi's cold, sweet voice reverberated.

  “Welcome to the world on this side.”

  case:02 Self-responsibility-type

  ~wish

  1

  – Darkness is as lukewarm as water and as bottomless as water.

  So wrote an American mystery author in his only work translated to Japanese, “The Despair of the Baumkuchen.” I found that book in my high school library, and it was seriously good. I don't usually read books, so for me to say it supports it. The author depicted a somewhat twisted world in a comical fashion, and it was a truly rare occasion where I could not put down the book. I tried to find that author's works after I came to Tokyo, but I could never find anything
. I eventually found out that the book I read of his was the only one that had been translated into Japanese, and I also learned the unfortunate news.

  Right around when I was reading his book in high school – far away in America, that author fell from a dam and died after becoming drunk.

  They say it was a rainy night. There are those who say it was a suicide and others that say it was an accident, but as someone who'd read his book, I'd always found myself fascinated by the night that he'd stood upon the dam before his death.

  Just dark – an endless, bottomless mass of water.

  Perhaps he could not triumph against his desire to learn of the depth of the darkness?

  I thought that–

  As I stood smack dab in the middle of bottomless darkness.

  Indeed, darkness was like water.

  It surrounded me in a lukewarm way, covering, inhibiting the pitiful light from a penlight. And especially so because I was in an abandoned hospital on a mountain that hid the moon and clouds.

  ”– See, lets go back? I mean, the shattered glass is dangerous, and the concrete is beginning to crumble. And there may be gangsters who're out for blood living here.”

  I tried laying out some reasons as I thought of them, but.

  “There exists no safe haunted area.”

  Mitsurugi Yoishi said with as much emotion as she's never had.

  She was in her school uniform and followed the penlight she held in one hand.

  Her summer high school uniform with its black tie and white blouse half-melted into the darkness, reminding me of some movie scenes. If we weren't where we were, it may have been a fun event, but her beautiful but frozen face was scary.

  It was just past 2AM.

  Mitsurugi Yoishi and I were visiting a certain abandoned hospital in the mountains of Hachiouji.

  The window glass was shattered and linoleum tiles were scattered about, covering the skeletal remains of clinical records. The posters on walls were half-torn and withering, and if you shone a penlight at them it would look like a bloodied girl was beckoning for you. Worst of all, even though there should be nobody around, it felt like plenty of people still lived inside.

  “This abandoned hospital had quite a few bizarre rumors to begin with.”

  Yoishi's happy mumbling continued lowering the temperature of the area.

  “That you can hear the rumblings of machinery from the basement, even though this place has no electricity; that you can see the ghosts of nurses wandering about; that an empty wheelchair begins chasing you…”

  “Hey, stop with that here.”

  “But, there was just one rumor that was interesting among that rubbish.”

  Yoishi's voice was filled with vitality as it echoed through the darkness.

  “It's a rumor in which the number of people visiting this place changes.”

  “The number – changes?”

  I asked back.

  “Is that an odd rumor? Like, people going with four turn out to be five as some point? I hear those all the time.”

  I pointed out, but when seemed happy when she whispered, the other way around.

  “What I heard was that the number goes down.”

  I braced myself, as it seemed the conversation was headed toward an ill-fated direction.

  “If you go with four, you find three. If you go with five, you see four. While inside the hospital, the remaining people become frantic about where the other has gone, yet when they step out of the hospital, everyone is there.”

  I felt like I heard something snap in the darkness.

  Come to think of it, I felt like I'd been hearing sounds not created by us as we walked.

  “The interesting thing about this story is that difference in comprehension. When they asked the person who'd vanished, they would say that they were with everyone all along. Yet the others all say that the one was not there. Then, where did that other person go? Who were they with?”

  I felt like the temperature was still dropping.

  For a moment, I lost track of where I was. I should have been standing on concrete, but it felt like there was only pure darkness. And I could no longer be sure that I was speaking to Yoishi.

  Ahh, why did I come here?

  I thought I'd learned, but why was I doing this again?

  I was supposed to have learned from my prior experience. When her voice and eyes began to show signs of life, it felt like things were slowly becoming warped. The belief, the conviction around me began making sounds of being torn apart, and I could feel myself slowly being dragged into the hole created by the ripping.

  I pointed the light at my feet which were alternating in step as I followed Yoishi, who showed no hesitation in progressing–

  And was already beginning to tear up.

  【About horror spots to avoid!】

  Everything began with that thread on the occult site “Ikaigabuchi.”

  The administrator Krishna had immediately deleted the thread, but for better or for worse, I had seen the thread by chance. And I noticed certain things.

  • Far in the mountain of Hachiouji.

  • Abandoned hospital.

  • People who entered this hospital are hospitalized in a psychiatric ward.

  And then I remembered. It was the offline meeting that Yoishi had once attended, for investigating horror spots. They mentioned it was for an abandoned hospital. And that something had happened there, and one person only mumbled “Yoishi,” and that they were still in a psychiatric ward. Mitsurugi Yoishi had always posted psychotic things, but this incident had caused her to become an “accursed being.” And then over the past few weeks, rumors about Yoishi caught wind, and now she'd become a real Sadako-type character online.

  When you meet her, you die in seven days.

  You become cursed just by talking to her.

  Stories of her appearance circulated, such as being a one-armed man, or a bloody girl, and so on. I was exasperated by the rumors.

  Having spoken to her a few times in the previous incident, I'd begun to feel that Yoishi wasn't as monstrous as she was made out to be. She was just an odd high school girl who was very knowledgeable about the occult. Of course, she did have psychotic moments.

  And so I thought.

  If I could figure out what exactly happened then, maybe her reputation would be restored a bit.

  After finishing my lecture that day, I quickly hurried to the west gate of the university. It was about 3PM. The students from the feeder school would be going home then. I didn't think Krishna would tell me anything, and I figured asking the person directly would be the fastest.

  “Ah, hey, Yoishi!”

  Eventually, the black-haired, white-faced girl showed up, and I called out to her from the shadow of a lamppost.

  “Wait, I want to ask you something.”

  I said as I ran to her, and Yoishi turned to me with a dazed look.

  Her eyes were still like glass beads, I thought.

  “Have you gone to the abandoned hospital in Hachiouji after an 'Ikaigabuchi' offline meeting?”

  For a while, she looked like she was remembering a childhood friend, and then she nodded.

  “Yes.”

  “What happened to the other members that went?”

  “It was an offline meeting. I haven't kept in touch.”

  “You know. One of them is still hospitalized. In a psychiatric ward no less.”

  I told her what Zippo had told me at the previous offline meeting.

  That someone he knew had gone with Yoishi.

  And afterwards, he was still hospitalized, just mumbling “Yoishi.”

  After that, she just cocked her head to the side a bit.

  “Nothing's wrong with you? What happened there anyways?”

  “What… I heard it was a horror spot so I went, that's all.”

  “No, but, you knew that hospital was dangerous, right? Why didn't you stop them?”

  “They're not people who would stop if I were to say '
this place is real.'”

  ”……… Mm.”

  True.

  I would want to go too, if I heard that.

  But, no no no. That wasn't the problem. I found out then, that she was special. She had a decisive difference from other occult-lovers. She must have known that hospital was truly dangerous. To know that, and to not warn anyways, what sort of person would do that?

  And then she said, as if reading my mind.

  “People are responsible for themselves at horror spots. Just like how it always is in this world.”

  She said coldly – and I became irritated.

  “Do you not care? That's why people act like you're psychotic.”

  I said.

  But she simply sighed.

  “You can't put a stopper to peoples' words. Especially on the internet.”

  She said, and continued walking.

  Of course, I started feeling it was pointless. I was trying to support her after being worried, so her attitude was quite rude. Still, when I saw her thin back, I had a pang of sadness. She was like a stranger that walked a rough path alone. She seemed like she was carrying the burden of the world's misery and grief by herself.

  – God, fine.

  I ran after her again.

  And then following her, I decided to continue the conversation anyways.

  “Then tell me the truth. What happened there. I'll post that.”

  And then Yoishi stopped, and looked at me with a curious look.

  “I don't understand what the point is.”

  “Shut up. Tell me.”

  I said once more–

  And something seemed to move at the back of her eyes.

  “Do you really want to know?”

  Her empty gaze terrified me.

  Something was beginning to open in front of those dark eyes that seemed to entangle everything. At the same time, my safety device began blaring warning signs. Stop, someone yelled. I had a feeling a helpless story was about to start.