The temple sat on a rise above the highway, its roof half-peeled by storms.
From far away the gold spire still caught light, but up close it looked like rust.
Hana said monks used to chant there every dawn until lightning struck the main hall.
Now, the loudspeakers that once carried their voices hummed all day even without power.
I don't know what we were expecting to find.
Maybe a new case.
Maybe proof that the last one hadn't followed us home.
We left the motorbike at the foot of the hill.
The air smelled of fried banana from a stall that shouldn't have been open that late.
The woman at the stall nodded when Hana bought two sticks and told us,
"Sometimes the sound comes from inside the statue."
I wanted to ask what she meant, but Hana had already started climbing.
Inside the main hall, the air shimmered with heat.
Hundreds of lotus petals, carved into the walls, caught the flashlight beam and looked alive.
My stomach was empty enough that the smell of burnt wax made me dizzy.
"Should we start recording?" I asked.
"Always," she said.
We set the recorder beside a cracked incense bowl.
For a while we listened.
Nothing.
Then a low vibration—not thunder, not metal.
A human tone, drawn out until it lost shape.
Hana frowned. "Hear that?"
"I feel it," I said.
It throbbed through the floorboards, through my hands resting on my knees.
Not loud, just everywhere.
I tried to joke. "Maybe the monks left a radio on."
She didn't laugh.
Her face looked pale under the flashlight, the skin almost translucent, like paper held to a bulb.
I caught myself staring too long.
When she turned, the light passed over her eyes and I thought I saw a reflection where there shouldn't have been one—like the beam bounced off glass behind her pupils.
"Don't look at me like that," she said.
"Like what?"
"Like you know what's coming."
The sound rose, a slow bloom from inside the walls.
I pressed my palm against the plaster.
Warm.
A faint pulse beneath it, almost like breath.
The hum grew until the candles along the altar guttered and went out.
I could still see Hana's outline, small and unmoving.
"Do you smell that?" I asked.
She nodded.
It wasn't smoke this time.
It was rain.
Wet pavement, iron, and something sharp—like ozone, like blood on metal.
Lightning flashed outside and the hum cut off.
In that second of silence, I heard a voice—mine—say, "Don't turn around."
I turned anyway.
Nothing.
Just the dark hall, and Hana blinking at me like I'd scared her.
"You okay?" she said.
"Yeah."
My mouth tasted of dust.
When I checked the recorder, the counter showed forty-five minutes gone.
We'd only been there twenty.
I played it back while Hana walked outside to breathe.
At first, just static.
Then a faint laugh.
Not mine.
Not hers.
Something in between.
I deleted it.
I don't know why.
Maybe to keep it from existing twice.
On the way down, we passed the food stall again.
The woman was gone.
Steam still curled from the oil pan, untouched.
Hana bit into one of the bananas she'd bought earlier, then stopped.
She held it out to me.
"Cold," she said. "It shouldn't be cold."
I tasted it anyway.
She was right.
It was cold like river water.
Back at the relay, I showered and tried to write the night into my notebook.
The words wouldn't stay.
Every time I looked away, the ink bled a little farther down the page.
I left the recorder running on the windowsill while I brushed my teeth.
When I came back, it had stopped on its own.
The tape clicked, rewound, and played.
My voice:
"Don't look at me like that."
Then Hana's, faint:
"Like what?"
Then both of us, overlapping, whispering something I couldn't make out.
I shut it off.
The air in the room was still, so still it felt heavy enough to rest on my chest.
I lay down, watching the ceiling fan refuse to spin.
Somewhere outside, the loudspeakers on the hill gave one last cough of static.
And then the night went quiet again.
Too quiet.
(End of Chapter 4 — "Static Bloom")