She tried to call for help but couldn’t get a sound out.
A-am I paralyzed?! Izumi could only think.
Help, Kenji! Help! She tried to cry out, but she couldn’t make a sound.
Why am I paralyzed?!
Izumi tried to will herself to move as if her life depended on it, but she couldn’t budge an inch. The only thing she could control was her eyes. She searched desperately with them and somehow tried to turn her head, but the paralysis was too strong.
It was 1:05 PM.
Rattle, rattle!
Suddenly, someone was relentlessly trying to open the door.
It must be Kenji!
She was convinced her brother had come to rescue her, and she turned her eyes toward the door.
Rattle, rattle! Rattle, rattle!
She’d locked herself in, though, so no matter how much he tried the doorknob, it wouldn’t open.
What do I do?! Kenji! Kenji!
As Izumi began to regret ever locking the door, she yelled Kenji’s name in her mind.
Rattle, rattle! Rattle, rattle! Rattle!
The door abruptly grew quiet. Then, the lock slowly clicked. For some reason, it had unlocked all on its own.
But how? It can’t be opened from outside!
Izumi had no idea what was going on. All she could do was open her eyes even wider.
Right at that moment, the door swung open. From the gap created by the ajar door, the hand of a woman emerged.
The nails were long and bright red.
“Heh-heh-heh-heh. Heh-heh-heh-heh.”
She heard the shrill sound of a woman’s laugh from behind the door.
It was Little Nanoka.
It was the six-and-a-half-foot-tall faceless woman dressed in all black.
Little Nanoka was cackling as she entered the room.
She slipped right up to Izumi.
No! Get away! Izumi tried to scream, but she couldn’t make a sound.
She couldn’t move in the slightest, either.
“Heh-heh-heh-heh. Heh-heh-heh-heh.”
Once Little Nanoka was right in front of Izumi, her faceless head loomed above her.
Then on the monster’s blank face, two gargantuan eyes peeled open.
They were red and oh so sinister.
With those terrifying eyes, Little Nanoka ogled Izumi.
“Heh-heh-heh-heh.”
Next, her ominous and cavernous mouth parted and began to close in on Izumi.
The inside of her mouth was filled with lots and lots of sharp teeth, like a shark’s.
No! Help me! Please! Help!
Little Nanoka continued to cackle away as her large, large mouth loomed ever nearer…
No! No! Noooooo!!!!
Izumi prepared herself for the end…
Riiiiing!
Suddenly, she heard an earsplitting noise.
Izumi whipped up her head and realized her alarm clock was ringing.
“Izumi! Are you okay?!”
Kenji and her parents had run to her room after hearing the sound.
“I-I’m fine,” Izumi answered.
At the same time, she realized she could speak again. She could move, too.
“Izumi! Thank goodness! It’s the seventh day!”
“What?!”
When she looked at her clock, she saw it was past 1:10 PM.
The alarm had rung because Izumi had set it earlier.
“What happened to Little Nanoka, then?!”
Izumi remembered the monster had almost gotten her. She looked all around the room in a panic, but she didn’t see any sign of the creature.
“Maybe…it was all a dream?”
Izumi had no idea if what had happened was a nightmare or not.
But when she spotted her doorknob, her stomach lurched.
She saw bright-red stains on the knob.
“So it really wasn’t a dream, then…”
Izumi’s pale face was reflected in the metal doorknob.
Monday, the next day.
Izumi, Sayuri, and Rio headed to school together. The other two had also survived all seven days.
Izumi told them about how Little Nanoka had almost gotten her in the end.
“Was that because Little Nanoka was reflected in the doorknob?” Sayuri suddenly asked Izumi.
“Yeah, I think so…”
But the doorknob had been curved, which warped the reflected world, so Little Nanoka couldn’t easily maneuver around. That was how Izumi had survived.
“But we’re fine now!”
The seven days had passed, and they could leave their fear of Little Nanoka behind them.
As Sayuri smiled and said that, she pulled out her phone.
“We can start taking pictures again today!”
Izumi and Rio also smiled.
“You’re right! Okay, let’s take one now.”
“Yeah!”
They immediately prepared to snap a pic with Sayuri’s phone.
“Are you ready? Give me your best smiles, girls!” Sayuri held her phone out, and the three of them grinned at the camera lens. “Cheese!”
The shutter sound went off…and in that moment—a bloody hand reached out of the screen.
“What?”
The hand grabbed Sayuri’s face and dragged her right into the phone.
“Sayuri!”
It had all happened in an instant. Sayuri had disappeared without a trace.
“Sayuri! Sayuri!”
“Izumi, what just happened?!”
“I have no idea. But that hand—it was…”
Its nails were long and bright red from blood.
That had been Little Nanoka’s hand.
“Wait, does that mean…?” Izumi suddenly realized something. “Seven days still hadn’t passed for Sayuri!”
Little Nanoka had been in Sayuri’s picture on Monday evening the week before. In other words, she still needed to wait until that night.
“No…”
Izumi felt a shock run through her as she realized that.
Little Nanoka had gotten what she wanted.
“Heh-heh-heh-heh.”
They felt as if they could hear Little Nanoka’s shrill laughter from far off…
A few days had passed since then.
A boy was waiting at a bus stop.
That was Fushigi.
He held a bright-red notebook in his hands. It seemed he had collected the mark in that town and was heading off to the next place.
He studied his notebook intently.
Then all of a sudden, an older person lined up behind him peered into Fushigi’s face.
“Oh my.” The old granny wouldn’t stop gawking.
“What?” Fushigi asked, seeming peeved.
“Haven’t we met before?” she asked him. “Don’t you remember? In that town during your trip. I think you might have been wearing a black hood back then.”
“A black hood?!”
“Oh? That wasn’t you then? I didn’t get a good look at the little child’s face, so I was convinced it was you based on your clothes and height…”
Fushigi stared right at the granny. “Which town was that?”
Eventually, the bus arrived, and all the people who had been lined up at the stop boarded.
Only Fushigi showed no sign of getting on. He was looking at his notebook instead. A single beat-up black-and-white photo was sandwiched between the cover and first page. In the photo, Fushigi was smiling beside a girl who looked just like him.
“I’m going to catch you eventually, Himitsu…”
Fushigi murmured to himself, then closed his red notebook and started walking off alone to the town the granny had told him about.
To be continued…