Chapter 9: The Ballad's Clues and the End of Hide-and-Seek
Tap… tap…
The footsteps were no longer cheerful. They had slowed, each step deliberate and heavy with intent, as if their owner had finally discovered her prey.
Yotsuya Miko's delicate body couldn't stop trembling. The footsteps were right beside them now, just outside the wardrobe. Her vision had been forcibly stolen, plunged into darkness by the firm press of Haruto's hand over her eyes. A cold, phantom grip seized her heart, and had it not been for the absolute trust she placed in Haruto, she would have bolted long ago.
Haruto wasn't feeling much better, though for entirely different reasons. Bathed in the faint, ghostly light spilling in from the adjacent room, he finally got a clear look at the girl—Wanwan.
She wore a white dress, so immaculately clean it seemed to repel the dust and grime of the decaying house. Her skin was a stark, porcelain white, so pale it was almost translucent, revealing the delicate web of bluish-purple veins just beneath the surface.
But the most unsettling feature was her eyes. They weren't eyes at all, not really. They were more like two polished pieces of obsidian, the blackness of her pupils having consumed the entire socket, leaving no trace of sclera or iris. It was as if someone had violently gouged out her real eyes and forcibly stuffed a doll's plastic replacements into the empty sockets.
Haruto forced his breathing to remain steady, one hand propped against the wardrobe's inner wall for balance, the other gripping Miko's wrist with a reassuring tightness. If his guess was wrong, if anything went even slightly awry, he was prepared to drag her out of there and into another room in an instant.
The girl didn't bother searching anywhere else. She skipped straight to their hiding spot.
"Under the bed, in the wardrobe," she sang, her voice a chilling, melodic whisper.
"Shadows drag long across the floor."
"Found you~ Found you~"
"Your voice is a whisper in my ear~"
The song stopped. She stood directly before the wardrobe, and with an unseen force, the doors swung open on their own.
Rip… rip, rip…
A knife flashed in the dim light, repeatedly stabbing into the hanging clothes. With every vicious tear of fabric, Haruto felt a phantom jolt, his muscles tensing in sympathetic response.
Ten seconds passed.
She put the knife away and skipped into the room on the right, her eerie ballad starting up once more as she hopped along.
"Count to fifteen and then begin,"
"Never, ever to be apart."
"Come stay with me, come stay with me,"
"This game is so much fun~ Slice by slice, red, white, and yellow~"
Only after she had finished her search of every room on the floor did the sound of her footsteps finally drift toward the kitchen, and then fade down the main hallway. After another thirty seconds of absolute, unbroken silence, Haruto finally removed his hand from Miko's eyes.
Miko had pieced together most of what happened just from the horrifying sounds, but seeing the clothes now riddled with dozens of small, vicious holes still made her scalp prickle with dread.
Haruto cautiously pushed the wardrobe door open a crack. The kitchen was brightly lit; it seemed the ghost had indeed gone far away. But he didn't lower his guard.
'There's more than one ghost in this house,' he mused. It was one of the main reasons he hadn't chosen to hide in an open area, even knowing Wanwan was functionally blind. If some other, unforeseen entity appeared during the game, they would be forced to run. On these old wooden floors, the sound of sprinting would be a dinner bell. Caught between a wolf in front and a tiger behind, their situation would become critical.
Haruto's gaze drifted to the floor. After confirming that the human skin doll hadn't mysteriously returned, he grabbed another bag of flour from the pantry and carefully spread a thin, even layer across the kitchen floor.
Then, the two of them hid again, ready for the final two rounds of the game.
This time, however, they didn't return to the wardrobe. They crouched behind a large, dusty crate in the corner. The ghost's eerie ballad had been more than just a song; it was a rulebook. Wanwan would always find anyone hiding in the wardrobe or under the bed, and she would attack indiscriminately.
"Come stay with me, come stay with me~"
The nursery rhyme echoed from the hallway again, accompanied by the crisp pitter-patter of returning footsteps. Having deciphered the basic rules of hide-and-seek, their initial panic had subsided into a manageable, simmering nervousness.
The footsteps drew closer, passing through room after room, until they finally arrived at theirs. The lights overhead began to flicker violently, plunging the space into a strobe-like sequence of light and shadow.
To be safe, Haruto didn't risk looking at her. Like Miko, he kept his head down behind the crate, using only his hearing to track Wanwan's position.
She stopped in the middle of the room. Motionless.
An anomaly.
Haruto's expression soured. Beside him, Miko's grip on his left hand tightened painfully. His entire body went rigid, every muscle coiled and ready to flee at a moment's notice.
Then, in the next moment, a new sound reached his ears, and his tense nerves finally relaxed.
"15."
"14."
"..."
"3."
"2."
"1."
The skipping footsteps resumed, moving on to the other rooms. After completing her circuit, she returned to the room where they were hidden.
Click… The door was gently pushed open. The humming of the nursery rhyme gradually drifted away, finally disappearing at the far end of the corridor.
The lights stabilized.
"The game is over," Haruto announced, brushing the dust from his clothes as he stood up.
Miko suddenly grabbed his arm, her finger trembling as she pointed to the floor. At some point, a line of small, dusty footprints had appeared in the flour, leading directly to the cabinet under the kitchen stove.
Haruto simply nodded. Under Miko's bewildered gaze, he followed the footprints to the cabinet and, without a shred of hesitation, pulled the door open.
The human skin doll sat upright in the center, a bizarre, fixed smile on its face, as if it had been waiting there for them all along.
Only then did Miko snap out of her daze, her eyes widening in disbelief. Was he really this bold?
"It won't hurt us," Haruto explained, though his eyes remained locked on the doll, ready to react to the slightest movement. "Or rather, the restrictions on this doll are very high. As long as we don't trigger any specific rules, we're probably safe from it."
He reasoned that if the doll were truly hostile or couldn't be touched, they would have died countless times already., the final stage of the game was explicitly tied to it.
Just as Haruto was mentally preparing himself to be the one to pick up the creepy doll, Miko beat him to it. She reached in, grabbed the doll, and forced a shaky smile.
"If it's not dangerous, then I'll take it," she said, her voice strained but determined. "Just like you said, Haruto. If the doll couldn't be touched, it wouldn't be part of the final level's game."
She projected an air of incredible confidence, as if she had absolute faith in his analysis. But her tightly pressed lips and the faint, uncontrollable tremor in her shoulders betrayed the terror she was fighting to suppress.
Haruto didn't call her out on it. He just gave a simple nod. "Let's go."
The two of them stepped back into the long corridor. It was pitch-black and seemed to stretch on forever, the oppressive darkness feeling as though a pair of unseen eyes was watching them from just beyond the reach of the light. They moved quickly, making their way back to the utility room.
The iron door was still slightly ajar, just as they had left it. There was no sign of movement.
After they slipped inside, Haruto closed the door to prevent Wanwan from spotting them if she happened to pass by. He didn't shut it completely, however, leaving a small gap just in case they needed to make a quick escape.
Miko placed the doll back on the wooden table. Then, she found the steel needle lying nearby and picked it up. Before being teleported to this horror instance, she had just come from a hospital visit; she recognized it as a medical-grade needle, but the tip was one of the largest gauges she had ever seen.
Taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, Miko raised the needle high.
"Stop," Haruto said abruptly.
Though confused, Miko's trust in him was absolute. She immediately froze.
"Let's go to the kitchen area," he said, his tone serious. "There are more rooms there. It'll be easier to escape."
Just as Miko was about to ask why—hadn't the Ouija spirit board specified the utility room?—Haruto was already pulling her toward the exit and closing the door behind them.
Patter… Patter patter…
Haruto's footsteps were slightly louder than usual. After walking a short distance down the corridor, he suddenly stopped, took off his shoes, and motioned for Miko to do the same.
Once they were both in their socks, Haruto immediately doubled back, leading them toward the utility room they had just left. This time, their pace was much slower, their steps nearly silent on the wooden floorboards.
They crept back to the door of the utility room. Instead of stopping, Haruto guided Miko past it, pressing them both flat against the wall on the left side of the doorway, hidden from view.
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