The air thickened like tar.
The moment Rika called forth her book, the house changed. Shadows bled from the ceiling, crawling down the walls like ink spilled across old paper. The staircase groaned, bending under the weight of the figure dragging itself downward—Kayako, her long black hair dragging across the steps, her head tilted at an impossible angle.
But she wasn't alone.
Her body fractured again and again, splitting into crawling doubles. Some dragged across the walls, others scuttled across the ceiling like broken insects, their pale hands scratching wood with a sound that set Rika's teeth on edge. Their hollow eyes all turned toward her at once.
The croaking voice—low, guttural, endless—rose from every direction.
Uh… uh… uh…
The book on Rika's back trembled, glowing brighter, as if eager but straining against the weight of what it was about to consume. She raised her hand, reality bending like glass under her command.
"Come to me."
The pages flared open. Light and ink shot forth, lashing at the crawling women, dragging wisps of their forms toward the book's mouth. A few shrieked as they were pulled apart, their hair unraveling into smoke, their faces melting into black stains of ink across the paper.
But for every Kayako torn away, another emerged from the shadows.
The house was birthing her endlessly.
Rika grit her teeth. Her heartbeat thundered in her chest, but her voice was steady. "You will not break me."
She pushed harder. The floor shuddered as if the house itself resisted her power. The walls warped, swelling like lungs, groaning with every breath. The crawling women moved faster, scuttling with inhuman speed, their fingernails reaching, clawing.
One leapt from the ceiling.
Rika twisted reality in an instant. The ghost's claw passed through the air as though it had turned to stone, her body snapping into pieces before dissolving into mist.
Another surged from the floorboards, her face inches from Rika's own. She smelled damp earth, rotting wood, and blood. With a flick of her wrist, Rika bent space, and the spirit was folded like paper, crushed into ink that splattered across the floor and disappeared into the book.
But then she froze.
The croak deepened. Louder. It shook her bones.
From the staircase, the true Kayako moved—not fractured, not multiplied. The original. Her mouth hung open in a void of black, her eyes wide and unblinking. Her long hair slithered like snakes across the wood as she crawled down, step by step, each movement jerking with unnatural rhythm.
The fractured copies froze, vanishing into the walls, leaving only her.
Rika tightened her grip on reality. The air trembled. The book's glow pulsed violently. She could feel the other spirits inside stirring, screaming. Some begged her not to do it. Others laughed. The book itself seemed afraid.
Kayako stopped halfway down the staircase.
And smiled.
The sound she made was not a croak this time. It was a whisper.
"Rika…"
Rika's blood ran cold. Her throat locked, her chest tightening. That voice. That word. Her name.
Her hand shook for a fraction of a second.
Kayako lunged.
In an explosion of speed, she dropped from the staircase, her body snapping forward like a beast. Hair whipped outward in a storm, wrapping around Rika's arms, her throat, her legs. She hit the floor hard, coughing, the weight of Kayako's hair pinning her down.
The croak rattled against her ear. Hot, wet breath brushed her face.
Uh… uh… uh…
Rika fought to speak, gasping against the suffocating strands. "Reality… bends… for me."
The words were a command.
The floor beneath her cracked, light searing through the wood. The hair binding her burst apart, writhing like cut serpents. Kayako shrieked, her face splitting with rage as the book flared open.
Rika forced her hand upward. Pages whipped violently, and a tidal pull of reality tore through the room. Kayako's body strained, her limbs jerking as invisible chains dragged her toward the book. Her nails clawed the floor, gouging deep marks into the wood, her croak stretching into a scream that rattled the entire house.
The walls shook, pictures falling, glass shattering.
Kayako fought harder. Her form warped, elongating, splitting into shadows and fragments, each one clawing for freedom. They swarmed Rika, hands reaching, pulling, whispering her name again and again.
"Rika… Rika… Rika…"
Her vision blurred. Blood ran from her nose. The book's weight was unbearable, like holding a collapsing star against her back. But she pushed harder, bending reality itself like a bowstring stretched to breaking.
"Get inside!" she screamed.
The pull intensified. Kayako's body convulsed, twisting unnaturally, her mouth opening wider and wider until her jaw snapped with a sickening crack. Her scream became one with the roar of the collapsing house.
Then—
Silence.
Kayako's form shattered into black smoke, sucked into the glowing pages. The book snapped shut, its glow fading into nothing.
The house groaned, walls sagging, ceiling dripping shadows that dissolved into dust. The silence that followed was suffocating.
Rika collapsed to her knees, her breath ragged, sweat and rain and tears mixing on her face. Her hands shook violently. The book settled heavy against her back again, as though mocking her.
For the first time in years, she doubted if she could carry its weight.
But then she heard it.
Not Kayako. Not the fragments.
The other voice.
The one that haunted her nights. The one that had stolen her parents.
It whispered through the empty house, soft and low, curling into her ear like smoke.
"You are getting closer…"
Rika's stomach turned. She forced herself to stand, every muscle aching. She stepped out of the ruined house and into the night, the street silent as if nothing had happened.
But her chest was heavy.
Because she knew—this wasn't victory. This was only a warning.
The deeper she hunted, the closer she came…
And the more dangerous the whispers grew.