Phenomeno Page 9

  “Neither.”

  I bowed and let myself into the room.

  I looked around the room again and became exasperated. A dark curtain was placed over the wall, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimenawa shimenawa adorned the room. Salt had been placed at each corner, and in the center flickered a single, large candle.

  “I'm not sure, but –”

  I looked and asked.

  “Were you trying to curse someone to death?”

  In response, she ripped the candle off her forehead and shouted.

  “Fool! Do I look like someone who'd mess around with curses? It's a ritual for stopping curses. Or rather, for returning curses. There are quite a few violent verbal spirits plastered over 'Ikaigabuchi' for various reasons. So I'm gathering all of those malicious intents within this doll and burning it – in other words, earth it. It's a ritual that can't be seen by others, but because of you –”

  “Can't be seen… What happens when it's seen?”

  “The person who sees it turns into earth.”

  ”… Huh?”

  Krishna wordlessly grabbed my hair and pulled it toward her. She then relentlessly pounded my back with what seemed like a wooden stick with some runes on it. Apparently, it was something like an exorcism.

  ”… Ow, ow, it hurts!”

  “I'm the one in pain. I had to figure out a day and direction of the sun, then gather expensive equipment. How much money and time and effort do you think it took!?”

  Then don't forget to lock your door when you're doing something that important…

  I wanted to say that, but even as my back was being whacked by the stick, I was able to experience Krishna's well-formed breasts at close range, so I felt blessed. I thought her breasts were big, but when you're this close because she's grabbing your head, you can start to appreciate how big they really are. I wanted to enjoy the soft sensation a bit more, but after twenty-some odd strikes, she abruptly let go of me.

  Hmm? I raised my head, and she was looking at me suspiciously with furrowed brows.

  “You've been somewhere dangerous haven't you?”

  ”……. What?”

  “Strange. There should only be the two of us, but I sense a number of people.”

  “Wait… stop saying such creepy things.”

  ”Where.”

  Krishna began sauntering over.

  Her red-framed glasses crept up to my nose.

  “Don't tell me you're still seeing that Yoishi girl.”

  … Oh crap.

  Krishna had viewed Yoishi as an enemy ever since that incident. Well, she'd given me an answer that was unrelated to ghosts, but Yoishi had then made all of her effort come to naught, so it wasn't really surprising – but after that, she scolded me about dealing with Yoishi.

  I thought about coming up with a story to get around this, but–

  This person's intuition was terrifyingly good, and I was bad at lying to begin with.

  “I won't get angry, so just tell me.”

  Krishna began smiling, and I lowered my guard a bit.

  That Yoishi and I had gone to the rumor-laden abandoned hospital in Hachiouji last night. That the rumor about the number of people going down had been a true story from Yoishi. That I found a notebook in the resource room in the basement, and saw some large writing on the wall using the same handwriting. Of course, I kept hidden the fact that she was sleeping in my apartment like a corpse, but I explained everything else in detail.

  ”… I see.”

  When I finished confessing, Krishna's smile had turned into a grim facade.

  “You went to that hospital.”

  ”… Yes.”

  “And with Mitsurugi Yoishi, no less.”

  ”… Yes.”

  “And you saw something and ran home.”

  ”… Yes.”

  “You're incredibly–”

  She began articulating every syllable.

  “Hopelessly dumb.”

  I was suddenly grabbed by my collar and slammed into a seat. Krishna picked up a pen and paper that was lying on the table, and drew a single line down the middle.

  “Alright, listen carefully. This side of the line is where we live. In other words, this side of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanzu_River Sanzu River. And the other side of the line is the other world, or the other side of the Sanzu River. To learn about the other world is to pass this line. When you take a peek, they will always be able to see you.”

  She told me this every time we met, so I listed only partly.

  “See, they say if you come close to someone with spiritual powers, your spiritual powers grow stronger as well, right? Well, that saying isn't quite right. When you view a paranormal incident, it means you're looking into the other world, and the feeling of 'knowing' is dangerous. If you know, then you'll interact with ghosts, and that is a terrible thing. It's like having someone stare at you up close forever. Science isn't progressing much in contemporary Japan, and there are no organizations that will help you. You'll suffer alone, grow tired, and elect to die.”

  While that gave me chills, I looked at Krishna and said.

  “But… if that were to happen, you'd help me, right?”

  “You–”

  And then she blushed red and spat.

  “Idiot! Don't think of me as some superhero on TV. All I do is acknowledge the existence of the other side, and warn people. If a paranormal event occurs, all I can do is request help from those trained in that area, so in reality I can do almost nothing. Anyways, forget about that hospital. Also, you shouldn't see that girl again. Don't come here anymore.”

  Krishna said, trying to close the conversation in a one-sided manner. However, I wasn't one to back down that easily.

  “Then tell me one thing. Was Yoishi really the reason for that incident six months ago? Even though she's the one that disappeared, why was it Zippo's acquaintance that was hospitalized?”

  And then Krishna stared at me.

  ”… So that's how it is.”

  She mumbled, and then let out a long sigh. Then she sat in a chair, stared at the ceiling, scratched her hair, and finally spoke.

  “You're trying to clear Mitsurugi Yoishi's name.”

  “Well, um, how should I put it.”

  To be honest, that wasn't the only reason. I was probably also affected by my personality, in which I couldn't shy away from stuff that terrified me. But I did notice the winds had shifted a bit in my favor, so I decided to keep the conversation going.

  “In any case, I can't imagine Yoishi was the reason. But the writing on the wall, the disappearing people, and then Yoishi said it, the word 'pathetic' – I don't understand any of it.”

  Krishna nodded.

  “Of course. I don't understand that hospital either.”

  I was stunned as the occult site administrator wearing a shrine maiden outfit explained.

  “That place has too many stories. Abandoned hospital horror areas tend to have odd directions in general, but even so, that hospital has too many varieties of rumors. There are witnesses to wheelchair ghosts. There are inexplicable sounds. There are ghosts of nurses, ghosts of children. There are some that got lost, while others returned home but lost their souls in the hospital. And now, people vanish entirely – the more information you get, the more inexplicable it gets… to be honest, I've never heard of this before.”

  Come to think of it–

  Yoishi had same something similar.

  That this situation was uncommon, that her head hadn't come up with an answer yet.

  “I understand lots of rumors crop up at creeping areas, but horror areas generally tie everything together with a single line. For instance, the famous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachi%C5%8Dji_Castle Hachiouji castle ruins spawn lots of witness accounts of ghosts of warriors, due to tragic tales of the fall of the castle, and near http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meoto_Iwa Meoto Iwa you get lots of reports of ghosts of young men and women couples. In other words, there's alwa
ys a root behind the rumors. But the abandoned hospital lacks that. Instead, it's like a tree that branches out as it pleases – and the speed of its growth is frightening. I've seen lots of horror areas, but even I don't know the truth to that one.”

  Even this person has things she doesn't know.

  It was a bit of a fresh sense of surprise, and I felt the depth of the occult world, when.

  “Furthermore.”

  Krishna furrowed her brows.

  “Those words on the wall are bad.”

  “Bad? Why?”

  However, Krishna didn't reply, instead abruptly asking.

  “First of all, what do you think ghosts are?”

  “Ghosts?”

  I went, hmm, and said the first thing that popped to mind.

  “Like, what's drawn a lot, those things with hands dangling in front.”

  “I see, the white-robed with white triangular handkerchiefs. Well, I figured as much–”

  Krishna stood up and took an old album from a bookshelf.

  “What does this look like?”

  A third of the photo on the page she flipped to was a vast expanse of land, and the rest was a clear, blue sky. It was probably somewhere in Hokkaidou. A concrete-paved road stretched on, and to the side were densely packed areas of grass. After that came white clouds and a blue sky. It was a photo of a nice landscape that could be used in a tourist brochure.

  “What does it look like? – welcome to a summer in Hokkaidou, that sort of thing?”

  “Look carefully.”

  Krishna's cute fingers pointed at the blue sky.

  A cumulonimbus cloud parallel to the ground, and a cirrocumulus cloud far above–

  “Huh?”

  … do cumulonimbus clouds and cirrocumulus clouds appear at the same time?

  When I realized that, I felt goosebumps.

  … Wrong.

  This wasn't a cirrocumulus cloud – it was a face.

  Countless, white, hollow faces floated in the sky.

  ”… uwawa.”

  I jumped back in my seat and she smiled as she closed the album.

  “According to the person who is my teacher, people who die with lingering regrets stay behind with a certain form. Sometimes it's just an arm, sometimes just an eye. They say it's rare to have the shape of a person. And after some time, they begin to forget what they regretted in the first place. In other words, they just become hollow, floating things – however, hollow, floating things can combine.”

  “Combine… like, together?”

  “Yes. Dogs, cats, people, floating ghosts with no goal combine. And they grow without bound. My teacher said the biggest he'd seen was the size of Mount Fuji. A large clump of souls covered with painful expressions was wandering above the ocean.”

  I imagined that and recoiled.

  A large clump of souls with countless dog, cat, and human heads. Countless negative emotions stretched out across the sky. Then the sky I often stared blankly at – it meant there were tons of those pinned everywhere. Maybe the clouds I'd been looking at weren't even clouds.

  “Who knows. In any case, those floating things eventually fade away with time. There are those who've seen ghosts of warriors, but I've never heard of sightings of neanderthals. There are apparently reasons for that, but it takes a significant amount of time, like a hundred years, for them to disappear. In other words, there are still countless, enormous globs of ghosts existing in this world – and well, the problem is, if they run into some haunted, magnet-like location, they stop there. For instance, enormous haunted areas, or murder scenes with tremendous amounts of hates – they have a tendency to stay at those places. So they become–”

  Ahh, I finally understood.

  That's what turns them into haunted spots.

  Yesterday, the sense of countless people. The feeling of being watched by countless people.

  I could still feel it on my skin, and when I recalled the sensation, I felt a chill crawl down my spine.

  “And, the problem goes back to the words you saw on the wall.”

  Krishna pushed her glasses up and continued.

  “I don't know what fool did that, but someone continued the words from the notebook, 'Please fix my sickness' with 'I'll do whatever you ask if you fix me.' It became communication. In other words, it creates meaning.”

  I swallowed, and Krishna asked.

  “In a place that gathers countless ghosts that have no goal, what happens when you provide them with purpose?”

  I felt something cold on my spine.

  “They are desperate to seek a purpose. Because they are ghosts, they must seek meaning.”

  In my head, I imagined thousands of souls turning to look at me, altogether. Those countless faces, I probably imagined them from the photo I'd just seen – but they overlapped with Yoishi's glass bead-like gaze.

  “You wanted to clear her name, I can respect to the intent behind the action.”

  Said Krishna, as she seemed to stare into the distance.

  “But there are things people shouldn't see.”

  I felt my heart freeze.

  “In reality, this shore and that shore are designed to be separate. That girl, Yoishi, easily crosses between the boundary. That is an extremely dangerous thing. Her words include things that people must not know. No – at their core, people know, but because they have chosen to forget, they remain people. Yet her words contain them.”

  Her words–

  I felt like I finally understood why Yoishi's words bewildered me so.

  Even though Krishna said the same thing and made me excited, when she said them, it felt like the world warped. As if everything I believed in was crumbling – as if I didn't know where I was standing. Previously, and this time, I experienced that.

  “Unfortunately, children like that are hard to save.”

  Krishna looked lonely–

  And I thought.

  She must have tried saving people like that in the past. But she was unable to, in the end. Maybe Yoishi looked like someone in her past, and even if I were wrong–

  I'd lost the will to keep asking questions.

  I somewhat understood my own limits. My mental strength, my assertiveness, my knowledge about ghosts, they were nothing compared to this administrator. Yoishi too, would continue jumping into the paranormal even if I were to try stopping her. It would be foolish for me to keep following her.

  To clear Yoishi's name–

  Was something way beyond my powers, I recognized once more.

  ”… Thank you very much, for a lot.”

  I stood up powerless, hoisting my bag over my shoulder, when she handed a white bag to me.

  “This is coarse salt purified by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanoo Susanoo no Mikoto from the Imamiya temple. Place this by the entrance to your room for a week. If something odd happens, let me know immediately.”

  Yes, I answered and as I opened the door.

  “Oh, yes.”

  Krishna said to my back.

  “You didn't take anything from that hospital, did you?”

  Stepping into the hallway, I laughed.

  “I'm not that reckless.”

  I said, and closed the door.

  After stepping into the hallway, as I walked down the dark concrete – I clutched my head in my hands.

  I wanted to tell her everything, but my inability to was due to my stupidity.

  I opened my bag and took out a notebook.

  That was the notebook with “Please fix my sickness” written in it.

  ~overlay

  3

  When I went back to my apartment, Yoishi was no longer there.

  She'd noticed the key I'd placed on the table, as she'd locked it and placed the key in the post.

  When I entered the foyer, I placed the coarse salt I'd received from Krishna at the edge of the door, and took a deep breath. I told myself that I would go see Krishna again tomorrow and talk to her about having taken the notebook.


  When I went to the living room, I found that my blankets had been folded. She may be well-raised after all, I thought, and then I also worried about her constant outings.

  Where did she live, anyways? What high school year was she, was she a part of any clubs, what subjects was she good at? What were her hobbies, did she have any pets, what books did she like?

  I know nothing about Yoishi.

  I didn't know where she lived, her phone number, even her mail address.

  Even if I wanted to contact her, I'd have to make a post on the “Ikaigabuchi” forum. We were that unrelated, yet between us, we'd been through problems involving life and death between this shore and that shore. It was like a castle tower date right off the bat.

  “Well, I'm probably thinking of dumb examples because I'm tired…”

  I resolved to sleep.

  My body felt as heavy as lead.

  It was still just a bit past seven, but I changed out of my clothes from yesterday and washed my face. I brushed my teeth, and feeling a bit refreshed, I lay down on the blanket. I then jumped up immediately. No, it wasn't that I'd been mesmerized by a flowery scent of a high school girl.

  – The pillow reeked.

  An extremely sour scent was soaked into the pillow. That was pretty harsh considering I just wanted to sleep. That bastard, the next time I see her I'm going to force her to take a bath. I lay back down after rolling up a blanket to serve as a makeshift pillow, but the odor was so strong that I couldn't sleep.

  Since sleep was out of the question, I remained lying down and looked up the Hachiouji abandoned hospital online. I'd taken a look on my computer before, but hadn't checked using my phone. And the results blew me away. Even on a cell-phone-specific search site, or perhaps because it was because of being a cell-phone-specific search, I found an absurd number of hits.

  “That place is actually pretty famous.”

  I began opening pages from the top.

  For the most part, they were community forums, or some region-specific occult sites. But I found a single common thread between them all.

  The phrase that it was “a hospital that grants wishes.”

  I'd heard that phrase somewhere, I thought, and realized it's what had been tossing me about just a while ago. Fool, there are no shortcuts for granting wishes. I mumbled to myself the words Krishna had left me, and grinned as I looked at the posts. I felt like I was looking at cute underlings–