The silence in the house the next morning was different. It wasn't the usual predatory quiet, but a heavy, awkward one, thick with unspoken words and the ghost of a hug that had said too much. Ethan moved through the rooms like a sleepwalker, his usual sarcastic commentary replaced by a hollow silence that was, in its own way, far more disturbing.
Kaori watched him. She saw the way his eyes would fixate on nothing, the way his hands would occasionally still, clutching the edge of a counter or the back of a chair as if for balance against a memory. He was crumbling, and his refusal to acknowledge it was the most terrifying crack of all.
So, she acted. It was not a decision born of lengthy deliberation, but a sharp, instinctual strike, like parrying a blade.
"We are going out," she announced, her voice cutting through the stagnant air.
Ethan looked up from where he was staring into the empty fridge. "Out? Out where? To the cult church for a reunion tour? To the bus station to see if it's still cursed? Hard pass."
"To the town," she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. "To places that are not this house."
He opened his mouth, likely to list a dozen catastrophic reasons why this was a terrible idea, but then he saw the look in her eyes. It wasn't a request. It was a prescription. He sighed, the sound deflated and weary. "Fine. But if I see a single person in a black robe, I'm using you as a human shield."
"Noted."
Their first stop was the Nolite Galleria, a monument to suburban consumerism that felt like it had been airlifted from a saner world and deposited here as a cruel joke. The fluorescent lights hummed a bland tune, and the air smelled of pretzels and sanitizer. Ethan, who usually mocked such places with relentless zeal, walked through the sliding doors and put on a performance worthy of an Oscar.
"Wow! Look at this place!" he exclaimed, his voice a notch too loud, his smile a fraction too wide. "So many… things to buy! And the colors! It's an assault on the senses in the most wonderfully capitalist way!"
He marched them into a sports store, picking up a weighted basketball with feigned reverence. "The craftsmanship! You could probably bludgeon a minor demon with this!" He then spent ten minutes at a sock kiosk, debating the existential merits of argyle versus cartoon animals with a sales assistant who looked deeply concerned.
Kaori said nothing. She walked beside him, a silent shadow, her eyes missing nothing. She saw the way his laughter didn't reach his eyes, how his "enthusiasm" was a frantic, desperate energy meant to burn away the stillness inside him. He was building a cage of noise and motion to trap his grief, and she was forced to watch, unable to pick the lock.
Next was the cinema, a multiplex that smelled of stale popcorn and industrial carpet cleaner. Kaori had never been inside one. The scale of the dark room, the towering screen, the collective intake of breath from the audience—it was a strange, communal ritual.
They watched a big, loud, explosion-filled action movie. Ethan bought the largest tub of popcorn and a soda so gigantic it could have housed a family of hamsters. He laughed at all the right places, flinched at the jump scares, and offered a running commentary on the physics of the car chases.
"See that? Totally unrealistic. The shockwave from that blast would have turned his internal organs to pudding. Fun, though! Great pudding-based effects!"
But during a quiet moment between the hero and a fallen comrade, Kaori saw his face go slack in the flickering light. The hero's guilt was a mirror, and for a second, Ethan's mask slipped. She saw the raw pain beneath, the image of Ben superimposed over the actor on the screen. Then, just as quickly, he shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth and mumbled, "Should've worn a thicker plot armor."
The arcade was next, a cacophony of digital screams and synthesized music. Ethan immediately beelined for a zombie light-gun game. "Finally! A relatable scenario!" He shot pixelated undead with manic glee, his score skyrocketing. "See, Kaori? This is how you handle a horde! Aim for the head! Not that hard! Take notes, reality!"
He won a truly grotesque stuffed animal—a neon-green lizard with one eye sewn on crooked—and presented it to her with a flourish. "For you, m'lady. A creature almost as mysterious and inscrutable as yourself."
She accepted it, holding the garish toy with an unreadable expression. His performance was a masterpiece of deflection, but it was costing him. The energy was draining from him, his movements becoming slower, the cracks in his facade growing wider.
They bought takoyaki from a street vendor near Nolite Lake, the savory balls a welcome contrast to the synthetic junk food. The lake itself was the first truly peaceful place they'd visited. The water was a sheet of dull steel under the overcast sky, and the trees stood silent sentinel along the shore. The performance finally wound down. The frantic energy bled away, leaving behind a profound exhaustion.
They walked along the path in silence for a while, the only sound the crunch of gravel under their feet and the distant cry of a gull.
"You do not have to pretend," Kaori said softly, her gaze on the water.
"Pretend?" Ethan forced a weak chuckle. "Who's pretending? This is great! A day out! Fun! We're having it! See?" He gestured vaguely at the scenery. "Fun."
She didn't reply. She just looked at him, and the quiet understanding in her eyes was a heavier burden than any accusation.
The walk back home as the sun began to dip below the horizon was a somber affair. The artificial cheer had been completely spent, and what was left was the man beneath: tired, sad, and carrying a guilt he refused to name. He trudged beside her, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his shoulders slumped. The neon lizard dangled limply from her hand.
They were two blocks from the safety—or the relative, familiar danger—of the house when Ethan stopped.
It was a small side street, cramped between two old brick buildings, perpetually stuck in shadow. A dumpster overflowed with black bags, and a single, flickering streetlight cast more doubt than illumination.
And there, leaning against the brick wall, was a woman.
At first, Ethan's brain, exhausted from its day of forced normalcy, registered her as a statue, a piece of modern art. Her body was swathed in bandages, not the clean, white kind from a first-aid kit, but stained, yellowish cloth, wrapped tightly from her neck down to her wrists and ankles, like a mummy from a low-budget film. The bandages were blotched with dark, fresh crimson blooms that seeped through the fabric in Rorschach patterns of pain.
Then, his eyes traveled upward, to where her head should have been.
There was nothing. Just the top of the bandaged column of her neck, ending in a ragged, bloody stump. No face. No hair. Just… absence.
A cold that had nothing to do with the evening air seized Ethan's heart. His breath hitched in his throat, a tiny, pathetic sound.
Kaori, walking a step ahead, noticed he had stopped. She turned. "What is it?"
He couldn't speak. He could only stare, his finger trembling as he pointed a shaky hand towards the alley.
Kaori followed his gaze. Her brow furrowed. She saw a dirty alley, a dumpster, a flickering light. Nothing more.
"There is nothing there, Ethan," she said, her voice calm but firm.
But for him, it was everything. The headless woman pushed herself off the wall. The movement was stiff, jerky. She took a single, shuffling step forward, the bandages on her feet making a soft, rasping sound on the pavement that only he could hear. She stopped, her headless form oriented directly towards him.
It was more horrifying than the ghost in his house, more terrifying than the chainsaw killer. This was a quiet, personal horror. A wound that walked. A silent scream made flesh and bloody linen.
Kaori saw the absolute, unvarnished terror on his face. It wasn't the performative panic he used as a shield. This was real. Primal. His face was a ghastly white, his eyes wide with a horror so profound it seemed to swallow him whole.
"Ethan?" she said, her voice laced with a rare urgency. She stepped closer to him, placing a hand on his arm.
He flinched violently at her touch, his eyes still locked on the headless woman. A single, bloody tear welled up from the nothingness of her neck and traced a path down the stained bandages.
He finally found his voice, a broken whisper. "You… you really can't see her?"
Kaori looked again, her senses stretched to their limit. She saw only an empty alley. "There is nothing there."
The headless woman took another step, then dissolved into the deepening shadows between the buildings, vanishing as if she had never been.
The spell was broken. Ethan swayed on his feet, his body trembling. The entire day—the forced laughter, the fake smiles, the monumental effort to feel normal—shattered into a million pieces, leaving him exposed and raw before this new, unseen terror.
He looked at Kaori, his eyes filled with a devastating loneliness. She had been with him all day, but in that moment, facing a horror only he could perceive, he had never felt more alone.
Without a word, he turned and began walking quickly towards the house, his head down, the illusion of a lightened mood utterly destroyed, replaced by a cold, silent dread that was entirely his own to bear.