The rest of the school day passed in a fugue state. Yuki moved through the halls like a sleepwalker, his body present, his mind trapped in the dusty shed, replaying Hana's silent scream. The psychic echo lingered, a low hum of agony beneath the surface of every sound, every sight.
He avoided Aoi, slipping out of the classroom before she could approach him again. Her kindness was a beacon he couldn't afford to follow. It would only illuminate the darkness inside him, attracting things that thrived in shadows.
Home was worse. The apartment felt like a mausoleum. His parents worked long hours, leaving the space hollow, filled with the ghosts of happier times and the oppressive weight of Hana's absence. Her bedroom door remained closed, a silent monument. Yuki couldn't bring himself to open it. Not yet.
He dropped his bag by the genkan, the familiar ritual feeling alien. The air was still. Too still. He walked towards the kitchen, needing water, anything to wash away the phantom taste of copper and the lingering vibration of Hana's scream.
Then he felt it.
A drop in temperature. Not gradual, but sudden, like stepping into a walk-in freezer. The air grew heavy, thick with the scent of damp earth and something faintly sweet, like overripe fruit left to rot. He stopped dead in the hallway, his breath misting in the sudden chill.
Slowly, he turned.
Hana stood at the end of the hall, near the closed door of her bedroom. She was fainter than she'd been in the shed, almost transparent, but the details were sharper, more horrifying. The wound on her throat wasn't just a gash; it was a ragged tear, revealing glimpses of dark, pulsating tissue beneath. Her empty sockets weren't just weeping shadows; they seemed to exude them, tendrils of darkness curling away from her face like smoke.
She wasn't screaming this time. Her face was contorted in an expression of desperate, frustrated agony. Her mouth worked silently, forming words that wouldn't, couldn't, come out. Her translucent hands clawed at her own throat, a futile gesture against the silence that bound her.
Hana… Yuki's mind whispered. The psychic scream from earlier had been a broadcast of pain. This was different. This was communication. A desperate, frantic attempt to tell him something. Something vital.
He took a hesitant step forward. "Hana?" His voice was barely a croak.
Her head snapped up, her empty sockets locking onto him. The intensity of her focus was palpable, a physical pressure. She stopped clawing at her throat and pointed a trembling finger, not at herself, not at him, but past him, towards the living room window.
Yuki turned, dread coiling in his gut. The window looked out onto the narrow alley below, the same alley where… where it happened. It was getting dark outside, the streetlights casting long, distorted shadows.
At first, he saw nothing. Just the alley, the dumpsters, the graffiti-covered wall. Then, movement.
Not in the alley. At the window.
Pressed against the outside of the glass, just below the frame, was a shape. It was composed of the deepening twilight shadows themselves, given form and malice. It had multiple limbs – too many to count – jointed in impossible ways, bending and twisting like broken spider legs. They scrabbled silently against the glass, leaving faint, smoky trails. Where a head should be, there was only a denser patch of shadow, but Yuki felt its attention. It wasn't looking at the window. It was looking through it.
Looking at Hana.
A wave of cold fury, sharp and terrifying, cut through Yuki's fear. This thing. This shadow-spawn. It was watching her. Watching them. Was it the same one from the bathroom mirror? The one that had made her flicker? The one whose presence felt like a physical weight? He didn't know. But the predatory hunger radiating from it was unmistakable.
He took another step towards the window, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. "Get away from her," he growled, the sound low and guttural, surprising even himself.
The shadow-thing didn't react to his voice. It couldn't hear him. But it felt his anger, his defiance. The dense patch of shadow that served as its head seemed to tilt slightly, focusing on Yuki now. The scrabbling limbs stilled. The air grew colder, the scent of decay intensifying.
Hana's ghost flickered violently beside him, her form becoming wispy, insubstantial. The shadow-thing's attention was like a corrosive acid, eating away at her already tenuous existence. She pointed again, more urgently, her silent mouth forming the word Run!
Yuki didn't run. Rage, hot and blinding, surged through him, momentarily burning away the fear. He took another step forward, raising his fist. He didn't know what he intended to do – punch the glass? Scream at the shadow? It was futile, pathetic. But the need to do something, to strike back at the thing that haunted his sister, was overwhelming.
As his foot came down, the floorboard beneath him creaked. A small, insignificant sound in the silent apartment.
But it was enough.
The shadow-thing recoiled. Not in fear, but in surprise. Its multiple limbs contracted, pulling it back from the glass with impossible speed. It flowed upwards, melting into the deeper shadows of the building's eaves, vanishing as if it had never been there.
The pressure in the room eased instantly. The temperature rose a few degrees. The scent of decay faded, leaving only the faint smell of dust and Yuki's own sweat.
Yuki stood frozen, fist still raised, staring at the empty windowpane. The rage drained away, leaving him cold and trembling. He lowered his arm slowly.
He turned back to Hana.
She was gone.
The hallway was empty. The only sound was the frantic thumping of his own heart.
He sank to his knees, the fight draining out of him, replaced by a profound, aching weariness. He'd faced it. Or tried to. And it had fled, not from his strength, but from a chance noise. It was a stark reminder of his powerlessness. He couldn't touch it. He couldn't hurt it. He couldn't even protect his sister's ghost from its gaze.
He couldn't understand her. Her desperate pointing, her silent pleas – they were fragments of a message he couldn't decipher. Was she warning him? Begging him? Accusing him? The frustration was another layer of hell.
He stayed there on the floor for a long time, the silence of the apartment pressing down on him, broken only by the echo of Hana's silent scream and the memory of too many limbs scrabbling against the glass. The ghost who couldn't speak had shown him the watcher. But what good was knowing, if he was helpless to act?