I toss the manga on the floor and thump down on Haruka’s bed. I just can’t seem to catch a break. Every time something strange happens they blame me, and no matter how much I try to explain they never listen to me. I finally find proof that might prove I’m not crazy and my cousin calls it trash.
Something makes a faint scratching noise behind me. I twist my head around to see if it’s Haruka coming back to call me a freak or give me another lecture about Matt. She was right there, she saw me save Satomi, and yet she still refuses to believe me. When the door doesn’t open, I turn back to my brooding.
She didn’t even give me a chance to explain, just stormed off to tell Grandfather that I’ve gone crazy. He’s probably going to show up and start accusing me of breaking the door or landscaping the yard or whatever. Acting like the only reason I came here was to redecorate his precious house. And all because Grandmother has some beef against me and my not-so-imaginary friend.
I hear the scratching again and choose to ignore it.
Misa. Why must she be involved with everything that goes wrong in my life? She just had to go and pull her little poltergeist act and wreck things. Any time things start to get better, there she is to drag me into some fresh new hell. What was she even doing out there tonight?
There’s that scratching again. I wish it would stop already.
Why can’t everyone just leave me alone? I didn’t ask to come here. They made me come. It’s not my fault they stuck me with a family that hates me. They’re probably out there thinking up new things to blame me for.
The scratching noise grows more frantic. Like nails on a coffin lid.
It’s Rin’s fault the door is broken, it’s Rin’s fault the kitchen is a mess, it’s Rin’s fault Grandma is a loon, it’s Rin’s fault I’m old. Everything is Rin’s fault. Let’s pack her up and treat her like a prisoner. Nothing she does will ever be good enough. She deserves to die.
We should kill her.
The scratching becomes a loud banging, making me lose my train of thought. What was I even thinking about? I dart my gaze around, hoping that whatever it was has stopped. Probably just a cat.
Another loud crash and I see the closet doors strain on their hinges. Haruka hasn’t come back, and I don’t hear any sounds indicating she will any time soon. I feel a chill as the scratching resumes followed by heavy, raspy breathing coming from the direction I’m looking. From inside the closet.
Pushing myself to my feet, I urge my wonky legs to keep me upright. I make my way towards the closet, worried I’ll end up a pile of mush on the floor. Dragging my feet along the floor, I flinch when the thing inside the closet slams against the doors again. It’s probably Misa having another one of her temper tantrums. I’m seriously going to yell at her when I find her.
The sound of wet, raspy breathing grows heavier the closer I get to those doors.
Ignoring the shaking in my hands, I reach out and grasp the handles. I pull on the wooden doors, but they don’t budge. I can hear that wet, hungry panting on the other side of the wood grow quiet in anticipation. Whatever is waiting inside knows I’m here.
“Rin, no!” Misa screams from behind me as I give the closet doors one final pull. I tumble over as they swing open, sending myself crashing to the floor.
Straightening up, I peer in and am disappointed with what I find. There’s nothing there. It was just Misa playing some sick, little joke. I turn around to yell at the tiny girl, still standing on the other side of her line of ash, but freeze when I see the look of abject terror plastered across her face. What the—?
A bony hand shoots out of the closet, latching onto my shoulder. With one hard yank, it drags me backwards. Screaming, I can only watch as the doors swing shut, sealing me in darkness.
Chapter 14
“Do you want to play a game?”
Six faces sparkling with excitement turn to face the girl who spoke. They’re all around my age, six or seven years old. Everyone’s having too much fun to turn down a new game.
“What sort of game?” I feel the words fall from my mouth, trying not to sound as excited as I really am.
“It’s a game my older sister showed me. She called it Nightmare Closet,” the girl says, pulling a box of matches from her pocket. The girl’s gaze passes over everyone in the circle, a practiced look of deadly seriousness in her eyes. “You have to be brave to play this game, but I don’t think anyone in this room is.”
As if they’d practiced, all the girls nod in grave unison, “We’re in.”
The girl gives a short laugh. “Fine, fine.” She shakes her head, letting her dark shoulder-length hair whip across her face. “But you have to do everything I say.”
“Why are you in charge?” The words leap out of my mouth as if I’m following a script. “It’s my birthday!”
The girl places her hands on her hips. “Because I know the rules and if you don’t follow them exactly we could all die.” She exaggerates the word ‘die’ and raises her hands dramatically above her head as if she’s a mad scientist trying to raise a monster.
Squeals erupt around the room, everyone reacting to the announcement of impending doom with fake screams and pretend cowering. Pretending the big bad is coming after them, just seven little girls having fun at a birthday party.
“Are you ready to play?” the girl asks running over to the light switch. “Okay, then let’s get started.” She flicks off the lights, drowning the room pitch black.
“Why’d you do that?” a girl to my right asks. Her voice is familiar. My cousin.
“You need to play this game in darkness,” The girl in charge says, holding a match up to her face before blowing it out. “Absolute darkness.”
“So,” another girl says, “What do we do?”
“Why doesn’t the birthday girl go first?”
I feel a pair of hands shove me forwards as the first girl thrusts the box of matches into my hands.
“I don’t know how to play,” I try to keep my voice steady, not wanting to show any fear—it’s only a game after all. I don’t even really want to play it. “You’re the one that knows how to play.”
“It’s not hard,” the girl whispers in my ear. “You have to stand in the closet for two minutes and then light a match while saying ‘Give me the light or keep me in darkness’. If you don’t, bad things will happen.”
My feet shuffle along the tatami and my toe bangs against the wooden panel at the edge of the cupboard. “Is that all?”
“The one thing you have to remember is that you mustn’t turn around, no matter what happens.” She spins me around to face the door and I can hear her start sliding it closed. “Ah, and one more thing. Don’t light the match until you hear us whisper. Once you do you have to keep it lit. If it goes out you will die.”
The doors slide shut, and I can hear the other girls giggling softly from outside. I grip the box of matches tight in my hands as silence comes crashing down around me with a sudden pang of claustrophobia. I try to count the two minutes, but my jackhammering heart makes thinking hard. Time drags on and I hear the girls chanting softly from the other side of the doors.
I stand in the cramped space—darkness hanging over me like an inky black drape—for what feels like years, feeling foolish for letting them talk me into this.
Then I hear the girls whispering for me to light a match and, taking a deep breath, I mumble, “Give me the light or keep me in darkness.”
An icy breath brushes across my neck and I force my gaze to stay fixed on the imaginary spot in front of me.
My ears prick up and a cold shiver of dread washes over me. Faint voices hiss in my ear, saying things too soft for me to understand.
I fumble with the matchbox. Sliding it open with shaky fingers, I draw a match and start trying to light it. Brief blue sparks flash before my eyes but the flame never catches.
The hisses grow louder and louder as their rushed sentence becomes blaring screams in my ear. The unlit match tumbles through my trem
bling fingers as their meaning becomes clear. “Keep you in darkness!”
I feel myself being turned as I fight to pull another match from the box. I can sense the monstrous form looming up before me and, with a flick, I strike the match, illuminating the small space around me. Nothing there.
I let out a frightened giggle as I hold up the burning match, feeling behind me for a way to open the doors. An icy breeze rushes out of the gloom, and my fragile flame dies.
The darkness rips apart as a pair of maddeningly red eyes blaze into existence before me, the terrible want in them sending chills through my body. “Keep you in darkness!”
* * *
“Rin-chan, Rin-chan,” Haruka screams my name over and over again as she yanks the closet doors open.
I inch my eyes open and find myself cowering at the bottom of the closet.
“Are you okay?” She extends an arm down towards me. “What happened?”
In response, I can only shake my head. I have no idea what just happened. I accept her help as she pulls me out of the closet. With shaking legs I move over to the bed, each step sending fierce tremors up my spine. I throw myself down on it.
“Are you okay?” she repeats the question, looking at me with furious concern.
“I’m f…” I start, but then change my answer. “I don’t know.”
“What were you doing in the closet?”
“I don’t know.”
Haruka gives me a look like she’s choosing between resuming our earlier argument and worry over how frightened I must look. After a pause, worry wins out. “I heard something break up here, and when I came to check I heard you screaming. What happened?”
I give silent thanks that Misa was able to find a way to help me, even though I’ll probably get blamed for whatever she had to break. I hope it wasn’t expensive.
“You probably wouldn’t believe me, but I thought I heard something inside the closet. I went to look and … I think something grabbed me.” I feel my face redden at my weak explanation. I’m not even sure what actually happened.
She moves to the open doors and peers inside. “There’s nothing…” Haruka stops midway through turning to face me after her inspection of the closet. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” I reply, busily staring at the bedspread. I’m too creeped out to even look at the closet. I can’t seem to get those glaring red eyes out of my head. I’ve seen them before. In all those nightmares I keep having. I don’t know why but something about that horrifying gaze seems familiar.
“That. The thing you’re holding.” She moves over to the bed, and points down at my hands. “It looks like a birthday card.”
I stare at the charred and faded piece of cardboard I hadn’t noticed I was holding. A smiling cartoon girl in a kimono beams up at me front the cover, standing next to a big number seven and a handful of smudged and blackened kanji. Sprawled beneath the image are the words ‘Happy Birthday’. The card is streaked with black, and the edges are curled and singed. Like someone pulled it from a fire seconds too late.
“Wh, where’d you get that?” I glance up and see Haruka visibly pale when she gets a look at the card.
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “I must have picked it up in your closet.”
Haruka just shakes her head and stumbles back a step. What’s gotten into her?
I open the card, and I almost choke as I suck in a sharp breath. My name is written in big letters across the top of the card, but that’s not what gives me chills. Glued inside of the card, looking just as worn and damaged, is a photograph. Seven little girls smiling up at the camera. All of them around the age of six or seven. Their bright, happy faces shining back at the camera as if the photo was taken on the best day of their lives. All of them have big, dark, Japanese eyes. Except one. The girl in the very centre stares back at me with haunting blues eyes that bore into me with their familiarity. I don’t need a dream to know those eyes. They’re mine.
Why don’t I remember this picture being taken? Why don’t I remember that day? Why the hell can’t I remember my seventh birthday?
I glare at the picture, trying to make it make sense. Even though over ten years have passed, I can still see the familiar face of my cousin standing beside me—her arm wrapped around my shoulder—and after a few seconds of staring I recognise the girl standing on my other side as Miki. One of the other girls, towards the far side of the picture, looks familiar too, but I can’t quite place her. I have no idea if I’d know any of the remaining three though. Each of them have a large X drawn over their face in dark red ink—at least I hope that’s ink. This can’t be a good sign.
“Why do you have this?” Haruka’s voice comes out in a mumbled slur.
“I don’t know,” I say, unable to take my gaze from the photo. “Do you remember when this was taken?”
She remains silent for a long while, and I have to force my eyes away from the photo to ensure she’s still breathing. She finally speaks, “It was taken at the party my mother threw for your birthday. You’d been staying with us a few months, so my mother invited a bunch of girls from our class. She wanted you to make some friends.”
“What happened?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t like to talk about that day.”
“Please. I have to know.”
“There was an accident. A fire. We were all so scared. It was like a monster. And my mother… my mother…” Haruka cuts off looking like she’s on the verge of tears.
I get up and put my arms around my cousin. After a few moment of silently weeping onto my shoulder, Haruka excuses herself and darts out of the room. I probably shouldn’t ask her about that day again. I don’t think I’d get much more from her even if I did.
Looking back at where I dropped the card, I repress a shudder when I see it has landed right next to the manga. Something tells me the two things are connected somehow. Whatever is going on with the manga has got something to do with the birthday I can’t remember. I need to find out what before anything else can happen.
Chapter 15
“Where are you going?” Haruka calls after me as I rush away from the bus the moment I set foot off it.
“I’m sorry, but there’s something I need to do.” I quicken my pace, leaving Haruka and Miki staring after me in confusion. I need answers, and there’s only one person who can give me them. Matt. I need to know what he knows. I need him to tell me everything: where the manga comes from, who wrote it, and most importantly, what does it have to do with me?
I duck into the school and start racing up the stairs. I have no idea where I’m going. I could try the classroom but homeroom’s not due to start for another twenty minutes, and I doubt he’ll be there yet—No one is that anxious to get to class. I start running down random corridors hoping to spot him. Where is he?
This is impossible. I have absolutely no idea where to find him. How is it that he can always find me, but when I need him he falls off the face of the planet? I’ve never really had to go looking for him before. He usually just shows up wherever I am. Like he knows where I’m going to be before—Oh!
Pulling the manga out of my bag, I flip through the pages until I find a page where it looks like my character’s standing under a tree talking to Matt. I know that tree. It’s right outside the front entrance. Back near the bus bay. I must have run passed it on the way in.
I run straight back to the tree and wait for Matt to show. So, this is how he does it? Maybe I’ll be the one to catch him off guard for once. Finally get some payback for all the times he’s pulled this stunt on me.
The minutes tick by and still no sign of Matt as I wait for him under the tree. If he doesn’t show up soon, I’m going to be late for class. Why couldn’t the manga give me the time he’d be here? I reach into my bag to retrieve the book, maybe I’ve got the wrong tree or something. My fingers brush the charred birthday card and a shiver rushes down my spine. Even in broad daylight the thing still gives me the creeps.
&nbs
p; “Hey, Rin!” a voice yells out behind me, startling me into dropping my bag.
“What the hell, Matt? Are you trying to kill me?” I scream in clear—and rather loud—English as I try to keep my heart from shooting out of my chest and taking off down the street.
“Sorry,” he says, also in English, as he bends down to help me collect my things. He looks tired, like he hasn’t slept since I last saw him on Friday. “So, you believe me then.” He points at the manga in my hand.
“What makes you think that?” I straighten up and put my back against the tree, half-hiding the manga behind me.
He stares at me like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Why else would you be waiting for me? You saw what the manga can do, didn’t you? What did it show you?”
“Like you don’t already know.” I look at him.
He gives me a sly smile that fills his face. “I only know up to the point it told me to give the manga to you. Anything after that is a complete surprise.”
I shake my head, not bothering with thinking up a comeback to that answer, and flip to the page that shows the incident at Akihabara.
Matt snaps the manga out of my hands—frowning slightly at its less than stellar condition—and stares at the images displayed. He quickly flips back and forth through the involved pages like they hold the meaning of life. I take the chance to glance around the rapidly emptying area.
When Matt turns to flip through the three or four pages another hundred times, I say the one thing that has been bugging me since the accident. “Please tell me you weren’t there last night.”
“Don’t tell me you think I did this?” He points at the falling billboard on the page.
“I don’t know what to think.” I shake my head. “You haven’t exactly done anything to make me trust you. All I know is that someone was watching us.”
“Well, it wasn’t me. I was at home all night watching a marathon of Kamen Rider. I can give you a run down of everything that happened if you don’t believe me.” He flashes me a cheeky smile.