"Home at last," Yuki said, stretching her arms.
The faint smell of bleach still clung to her fingers. No matter how much she scrubbed, it never fully went away.
She weaved toward her TV, stepping over a pile of crumpled clothes and a few empty instant noodle cups. Her mother used to nag her about leaving things on the floor.
That's when her chest tightened as a thought pressed into her mind. She didn't know how she could bring herself to see her parents in the hospital when all she had done was the bare minimum for them.
Three meals a day, water here and there. The basics that any human being need it to survive.
She never sat with them. Never gave them the attention they needed. She only called the ambulance when they stopped responding altogether. Because that's who she was. Selfish.
Yuki dropped onto the living room floor in front of the TV and pressed the power button. A pale blue glow washed over her filthy house.
A man in a sharp blue suit appeared on screen. The news anchor was standing in the middle of the streets of Kyoto. The man had short black hair and brown eyes. He wore a grey suit and black tie.
Below him, bright red letters screamed: KYOTO MASS DISAPPEARANCES.
The man started talking.
"Authorities have confirmed over twenty thousand individuals have gone missing across Kyoto, based primarily on clothing and belongings recovered from various sites."
The man's hand started twitching as he was holding the mic.
"Sources close to me have also reported that among the missing are my own parents and younger brother."
He gulped his dry saliva and said:
"But... personally, I don't remember ever having a family."
The remote slipped from Yuki's fingers and clattered against the floor. The screen flickered as the channel switched to a blonde woman in a red dress talking about the weather.
Yuki didn't hear a word of it. Her mind spun, faster than she could catch.
I understand it now. It's like a curse that makes you forget someone close to you the second they vanish. Like they were never a part of your life to begin with.
However, after thinking about it a little longer, she pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead realizing there was one big flaw in her theory.
"But...this does not explain why me and Riko still remember Igarashi Kenji."
Her hands dug into her sleeves, clutching as she grew annoyed that her theory was possibly wrong.
There might be something I'm missing. Damn it.
She turned off the TV and was about to head to bed when her phone buzzed. The sound jolted her, eyes going wide. She wasn't expecting a call from anybody, especially at 7 PM. Still, she snatched it off the floor without thinking and put it to her ear.
"...Hello?"
There was a long pause on the other end.
"Ayano, I'm sorry for calling so late. I wanted to apologize for punishing you today. I know it must've felt unfair." Miss Nishimura said.
Yuki stayed quiet, her eyes locked on the dead TV screen.
"But... as a teacher, I had to do something. When someone disrupts the class like that... even if I understand you had your reasons... I still have to take control."
Yuki squeezed her phone tighter. There was no point in getting angry. Miss Nishimura was just doing her job and it's not like she was faking her reaction. She truly didn't know Igarashi anymore.
"You're right. Sorry. It won't happen again," Yuki said.
Miss Nishimura let out a sigh of relief, almost like she had been holding it the whole time.
"Thank you, Ayano."
Another awkward beat of quiet passed.
"So... how did your therapy session go? Was it helpful?" Miss Nishimura said.
Yuki's mind flashed back to her dolls. The way they moved, while their disfigured faces watched over her.
Her throat tightened.
"It was... okay, but... can I ask something?"
"Of course," Miss Nishimura said.
Yuki twisted her skirt between her fingers, holding on tighter than she realized.
"Did you tell Sasaki Shin anything about me before I met him?"
"No! Of course not. I only recommended his clinic to you. I didn't even give him your name," Miss Nishimura said, sounding genuinely surprised.
She didn't sound like she was lying. The only conclusion left was that Sasaki really could read minds. It had to be the case.
Miss Nishimura hesitated, then gave a nervous laugh.
"He's just... strange. The kind of strange where he can figure you out just by looking at you."
Yuki closed her eyes.
"Tell me about it," Yuki said.
"You've been through a lot. Please take it easy tonight, okay?" Miss Nishimura's voice softened again.
Yuki mumbled a goodbye and ended the call.
Yuki sat on the ground, staring at her dead phone screen, her mind whirring so loud it made her skin crawl.
Across the edge of her vision, just beyond the TV screen, something moved.
Yuki stiffened. Slowly, without turning her head, she shifted her eyes toward the living room window.
Outside, across the street, a figure stood under an old streetlamp.
The individual wore a long brown trench coat and was completely faceless, nothing but darkness where features should have been.
Yuki's hands grabbed at her skirt. She blinked a few times and scrubbed her eyes, trying to make out something, anything.
Maybe I'm just tired. I should really go to sleep.
Then the streetlamp started flickering.
On the third flicker, the figure disappeared.
Her eyes widened. When the streetlamp light re-illuminated, the figure was standing a few feet closer to her window.
Yuki's mouth went dry.
No, no, no... Not again. Not another monster!
She scrambled for her shoes with shaking hands, shoving them on without tying the laces, and ran toward her backyard, feet slamming against the overgrown grass.
She circled wide, cutting across the cracked sidewalk without looking back.
Yuki kept running, her chest rising and falling fast. Eventually, after making some distance she turned her head back.
Wait...It's not following me?
A shaky breath escaped her lips.
Before she could untangle her thoughts, something wet echoed behind her. A slimy, dragging sound against the pavement.
What is going on, I'm i hearing things?
She stopped moving, standing still in the middle of the broken sidewalk, heart hammering against her ribs.
Then, out of nowhere two black, slimy tentacles shot out from the shadows and wrapped around both of her ankles.
She screamed, stumbling as she tried to kick free.
"Let go of me!! Let go!!"
She beat at the tentacles with her fists, but it was like punching wet rubber.
The tentacles yanked hard, dragging her backward across the rough street. Her screams tore into the empty night.
"Heeeelp!! Heeeelp!!"
But no one answered.
Her skin scraped raw against the concrete as she thrashed, arms flailing, legs kicking.
The trench coat figure stood ahead, unmoving as the tentacles dragged her toward it.
I have to do something. I have to—
Frantic, her eyes scanned the ground and caught on a loose rock, it was the size of her palm.
She grabbed it and slammed it against the tentacle wrapped around her leg.
It flinched but didn't let go.
Gritting her teeth, Yuki kept swinging again and again, tears stinging her eyes. She was getting closer to the creature. Only a few meters separated them.
"S-stop it!!" She said, as she kept slamming the rock against its tentacle.
The creature loomed right in front of her before she even realized it. Fear swallowed everything else, locking up her body until the rock slipped from her hand.
It stood at least seven feet tall, more tentacles spilling from underneath his coat. The creature reached down and grabbed Yuki by the neck using its claw-like hand.
She gasped, her fingernails scraping at its wrist. She couldn't breathe.
i-i'm about to die... i-i-I can't breathe...
The world blurred into a gray haze. The creature's grip tightened, squeezing harder around her neck until Yuki stopped resisting, her body hanging uselessly in its grasp.
Then the creature's head snapped toward something in the distance. It let out a guttural screech, like something had provoked it.
Its grip loosened as she crashed onto the pavement, coughing violently and gasping for air.
What...I—I'm alive...?
Yuki blinked through her tears, vision blurred, as the trench coat monster turned and bolted in the opposite direction, its slimy tentacles slipping back inside its coat as it ran.
She crawled to her knees, mind still reeling, when a red flash tore across the street. A glowing red cage of energy crashed down over the creature, snapping shut around it.
The creature let out a horrible screech as it was thrashing against the cage. Its coat tore apart, revealing a mass of dark tentacles.
That's when a swirling portal tore open beneath the creature.
It clawed at the cage bars, trying to hold on, but its tentacles burst into flames and it screeched louder this time before the portal swallowed it whole.
Yuki covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. She stayed that way until the noise stopped.
When she opened her eyes again, the streets were completely empty.
However, after a few seconds a rustling in the bushes cut her attention in the distance.
Her head turned quickly, just in time to catch a shadowy figure slipping behind one of the other bushes on her right.
Something was glowing red in that figures hand. It almost looked like the same red energy that had saved her.
"Hey! Come back here!!"
But the figure kept running.
Was that... Sasaki? That can't be right...
She tried to get up, but her legs buckled beneath her.
Her socks were soaked in blood, and every cut along her legs burned like hell. The pain caught up to her now that the chaos had faded. Her eyes grew heavy, dragging shut on their own, until everything went dark.