The three girls tilted their heads, trying to figure it out. They had no idea what caused the headaches in the first place or what had made them feel better. Either way, they all were afraid the terrible pain would come back, and they hurried home.
The next day.
Natsuna’s head hadn’t hurt even once since then. Other than feeling a little uneasy, she was in tip-top shape, so she went to school just like usual.
While she was walking, Natsuna suddenly remembered everything that had happened the day before.
What was that white thing?
She was passing by the rice paddy just then.
It might still be here…
Natsuna cautiously looked over at the field, but all she saw were plants—nobody was there.
I guess it really was someone playing a prank on us.
Still lost in thought, Natsuna kept walking toward school.
When she got to the classroom, Rin was already sitting in her seat.
“Good morning,” Natsuna said, and Rin greeted her back, so Natsuna asked her, “Rin, how’s your head?”
“It’s fine. No pain since yesterday.”
Natsuna felt relieved to hear that. She looked around the classroom and realized Yurie still wasn’t there.
“Where’s Yurie?”
“She’s not here yet,” Rin answered.
“Huh… That’s not like her.”
Yurie was usually at school before the two of them.
“Maybe her head started hurting again?” Natsuna said.
Rin gave her a worried look. “What? No way…”
Right then, the classroom door opened, and their homeroom teacher, Mr. Aoyama, came in.
“Everyone, please don’t panic, and listen to me carefully.” Mr. Aoyama, who was normally smiling and cheerful, looked very serious. “Your classmate Yurie Miyamoto was in a traffic accident this morning.”
“What?!” Natsuna’s eyes went as wide as saucers.
“She was taken to a hospital, but she’s still unconscious,” Mr. Aoyama continued.
All the students started to talk at the same time:
“What?!”
“Yurie is in the hospital?!”
Meanwhile, Mr. Aoyama looked at Natsuna and Rin, who was sitting next to her.
“Natsuna Aikawa, Rin Oomori, you’re very close with Yurie Miyamoto, aren’t you?” he said.
“Yes, we’re best friends,” Natsuna answered.
“Then you might understand what she yelled right before the accident.”
Mr. Aoyama stared at the two of them. The other kids also stopped chattering and looked at them, too.
“She was apparently running away from something on a road near her house,” Mr. Aoyama said. “Then she ran into an intersection and was hit by a truck. When she ran into the road, she yelled, ‘The blank is after me.’”
“The blank?”
Natsuna immediately thought of the white figure. Panicking, she looked at Rin, who seemed to have thought the same thing and was staring back at her. All the blood had drained from Rin’s face.
“Do the two of you know anything about this?” Mr. Aoyama asked.
“Well… Um…”
Neither Natsuna nor Rin knew how to explain it, so they both stayed silent.
After school.
Natsuna and Rin were in the middle of a gloomy walk home. In the end, they hadn’t been able to tell Mr. Aoyama about the white figure.
“He wouldn’t believe us even if we told him.”
“Yeah, I don’t think he would…”
Rin and Natsuna were both terrified. The “blank” thing Yurie had shouted about had to be the white figure they’d seen the other day. The more Natsuna thought about it, the more terrified she became.
“Hey, you two.”
They heard a boy’s voice come from behind them.
When Natsuna and Rin turned around, they saw a boy around their age standing alone in the road. He was dressed in red, and a red hood covered his head. Natsuna was taken aback when she saw that. He perfectly fit the description of an urban legend Yurie told them about the day before.
“The faceless kid wears a red hood…”
“There’s no way…,” Natsuna started to say.
But when she peered under his hood, she saw a boy with pale skin, large clear eyes, a straight nose, and thin, pretty lips. He was actually kind of handsome. At first, Natsuna felt relieved to see he was just a regular boy, but then she started to feel doubts as she wondered why he’d called out to them.
“Um, do you need something from us?” she asked.
“Yes, I do.” The boy eyed Natsuna and Rin as he walked over to them. “You two are friends with Yurie Miyamoto, the girl who was in an accident, aren’t you?”
“Huh?! Do you know Yurie?” Natsuna asked, but the boy shook his head.
“I don’t know her, but I do know about the being that was following her.”
“The being?” Natsuna looked puzzled by the boy’s phrasing.
Rin was also stunned, and her eyes widened.
As he observed them, the boy said, “Did your heads suddenly hurt after you saw something yesterday?”
“After we saw something?” Natsuna was suddenly startled. “That did happen! Right after the three of us saw the white figure!”
Now that he’d mentioned it, they’d felt the head-splitting pain right when the white figure had appeared.
“I thought so…”
The boy nodded slightly as though he’d come to some sort of conclusion, then stared intently at Natsuna and Rin.
“I think the thing following her was a monster from urban legends called the wriggler.”
“The wriggler…”
Natsuna and Rin had never heard of it before.
“It’s usually seen in fields moving just like how it’s named. And when anyone sees it, they suddenly hear metal clanging and get a headache. But you absolutely shouldn’t ever look at it. If you do, the wriggler will follow you and you’ll suffer a terrible fate.”
“A terrible fate…?”
“That’s right, and it has another name: the Blank,” the boy said.
“That’s it!” Natsuna exclaimed.
When Yurie was in the accident, she’d also shouted about something “blank.”
“Then that’s what happened to Yurie?!”
Natsuna was suddenly filled with fear. Yurie had been chased by the wriggler and ended up in an accident. Natsuna was frightened, and even Rin started to tremble as she grabbed Natsuna’s arm. It seemed like Rin was just as scared as she was.
But it turned out Rin was worried about something different.
“If it was chasing Yurie…,” Rin said, “does that mean it’ll go after us next?”
“What?” Natsuna said.
“Since we both saw the wriggler, too,” Rin added, which startled Natsuna.
Rin was right. Yurie wouldn’t be the only one the wriggler was after.
Natsuna looked Rin in the face and couldn’t help but feel anxious. At this rate, they would both be attacked by the wriggler like Yurie and something terrible would happen to them.