Thud. Thud. Thud.
Yui's heartbeat overlapped perfectly with the sound of her knocking. Every strike on the door felt like it was landing directly on her heart, making her scalp prickle and go numb.
The old wooden door was rough under her knuckles, the peeling paint on the panel mottled and cracked like dried blood. The last light of dusk slanted in through the high window of the bathroom, slicing the space into an eerie checkerboard of light and shadow. A damp, moldy smell hung in the air, mixed with dust that had built up over years and refused to fade. Every breath she took made her chest feel heavier, tighter.
Her friends, the ones who had so confidently promised they would all go "together," were now hiding at the corner of the stairwell dozens of meters away. Only a few small heads poked out, like a cluster of frightened prairie dogs. Their nervous stares did nothing to comfort her; instead, they were like invisible ropes, binding her to the center of this stage and forcing her to complete this stupid little "test of courage."
"If you don't want to go, then don't force yourself."
Natsume's calm, clear voice rang out in her mind without warning.
Yeah... Why did I not refuse? Yui asked herself bitterly. She was extremely scared, her legs were shaking so bad she could hardly stand, and yet the word "no" seemed harder for her to say than facing whatever unknown thing might be waiting ahead.
She was afraid of being isolated, afraid of standing out, afraid of the disappointed looks on her friends' faces. Right now, that fear was stronger than her fear of ghosts or spirits.
She shut her eyes tightly, as if that could cut off all the ominous atmosphere around her. Her long, curled lashes trembled faintly, betraying the extreme uneasiness she felt.
"Ha... Hanako-san... are you there?"
The words squeezed out from her trembling lips, thin as a mosquito's buzz and edged with a sob. In the dead silent bathroom, though, the question sounded unnaturally clear, even carrying a faint echo.
The instant she spoke, she regretted it.
Time seemed to stretch out endlessly at that moment. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds...
Nothing happened.
The taut string of nerves inside Yui loosened just a fraction. She let out a long, shaky breath, a surge of relieved gratitude washing over her like she had just survived a disaster.
So it really is fake. Just a pointless rumor.
She almost could not wait to turn around and run, to get as far away from this suffocating place as possible.
However, just as she started to move her foot...
"...I... am... here..."
A faint, wavering voice drifted out from behind the closed stall door, as if it came from somewhere deep underwater.
It sounded like a little girl whining playfully, yet it carried a coldness that cut to the bone. It pierced straight through Yui's eardrums and struck her most vulnerable nerves.
!!!
Her mind went blank.
Yui felt all the blood in her body freeze in an instant. She stood rooted to the spot, every part of her body losing sensation. Only her eyes still moved, wide and round, reflecting nothing but raw, bottomless terror. She forgot to scream. She forgot to breathe.
That voice... it was real.
She did not know how long it took, maybe only a heartbeat, before her survival instincts finally kicked in.
"Aaaahhh!!"
A shrill scream ripped through the silence of the old school building.
Without a second thought, Yui spun around and bolted for the stairwell where her friends were. She ran like a madwoman, putting every ounce of strength she had into her legs. She did not dare look back, did not even dare flick a glance at the third stall out of the corner of her eye. She could feel it, feel a pair of hateful eyes boring into her back, feel a damp, icy breath sticking to the nape of her neck like a shadow, making every hair on her body stand on end.
"Yui! What happened?"
"What did you hear?"
When her friends saw the terrified wreck she had become, they were scared out of their wits too and rushed to surround her.
"T... there was a voice... there really was a voice..." Yui stammered, grabbing onto Yumiko's arm. Her body was shaking like a leaf trapped in an autumn wind.
"Let's go, let's go! We need to get out of here!"
Their little expedition ended in complete chaos. The girls screamed, clung to each other, and fled the old building in a panic, as if some monstrous beast were chasing them from behind.
They did not stop until they burst out of the school gates and into the warm lights of the street. Only then, surrounded by the noise of cars and people, did that stabbing chill along their spines finally ease a little.
On the way home, Yui stayed completely silent. Her friends tactfully chose not to bring up what had happened. But she knew something had already changed. That icy feeling... it had not disappeared completely. It lingered, like a thin, clinging shadow draped over her shoulders.
That night, Yui had a nightmare.
In the dream, she was lying on her familiar bed. Her room was pitch black, with only a sliver of moonlight slipping in through the window. She could clearly hear the sound of her own steady breathing. Everything felt so real.
Suddenly, she heard a faint scraping sound from under the bed.
Sha... shaa...
Then, a small, cold, wet hand slowly reached out from the darkness beneath the bed and wrapped around her ankle. The hand was swollen and deathly pale, as if it had been soaked in water for a very long time, black grime wedged deep into the gaps beneath its fingernails.
She could not move. She could not call for help.
Overwhelming terror clenched tightly around her heart. She could only watch as that hand tugged hard and dragged her off the bed. The freezing floor scraped against her back as she was pulled along. Step by step, she was dragged out of her bedroom, inching closer and closer to the bathroom in the hallway, its open door like the gaping maw of some enormous beast waiting to swallow her whole...
"No, stop...!"
Yui jolted awake, gasping for breath, sucking in air in ragged gulps. Cold sweat had already soaked through her pajamas, and her heart was pounding so fast it hurt.
She looked around. Her familiar pink-themed room felt strangely eerie and hostile in the dark. The moonlight outside was the same as in her dream. Everything was exactly how it had been at the beginning of the nightmare.
"It... it was just a dream..." she whispered, trying to calm herself down.
But when her gaze swept across the floor, her pupils shrank violently.
In the faint moonlight, she saw them.
Starting right from the side of her bed, leading all the way to the bedroom door, there was a clear trail of tiny, wet footprints.
Each step was marked with water, leaving a distinct print on the wooden floor, as if a small child drenched in water had just crawled out from under her bed and walked, step by step, out through the door.
Toward the bathroom.