“What is this…?”
She realized the walls weren’t covered in ordinary lines at all.
The lines made up a drawing of people—four bloodstained people.
The biggest one held a knife and was attacking the two smaller figures. Both the ones being attacked were blotted out in bright red. The smallest one of the four was on the ground and also covered in red like the other two.
“Wh-what is this? No… Nooo!!!”
Madoka was so frightened, she rushed right out of the room.
“Dad! Help!”
As soon as she was out, she ran to her parents’ room.
“What’s wrong, Madoka?”
Her mom and dad got up from bed and looked at her, wondering what was going on.
“I saw a horrible drawing in this small room! And I can’t find Yurika!” Madoka told her parents all about what had happened.
They looked dubious as they stared at her.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m telling you, there was a small room! And I don’t know what happened to Yurika!”
When Madoka said that, her dad looked puzzled. “Who’s Yurika?”
“What?”
“We don’t have another daughter, sweetie.”
At that moment, Madoka’s eyes went wide, and all she could do was let out a long “Uuhhh…”
Madoka hadn’t known a girl named Yurika until she’d moved into this house.
“Then who was she…?” Madoka said.
While Madoka stood there confused, her mom asked, “Madoka, what’s that you’ve got in your hand?”
Madoka suddenly realized she was still holding the teddy bear Yurika had dropped.
“What?!”
At some point, the bear had become ragged and mangled. It was even covered in bright red, but this time, the color wasn’t from the red crayon. It was blood.
The teddy bear had been dyed red with blood.
“Aaaahhh!!!”
Filled with terror, Madoka fainted on the spot.
A whole month had passed.
Madoka and her family had practically run from the house in their haste to move out.
Right around the same time, a rumor had started to spread around her elementary school. This rumor claimed there was a part to the story of the red crayon that few people knew.
About a decade ago, a thief had broken into a house and killed the family that lived inside. The mother, father, and their six-year-old oldest daughter had all been killed.
But oddly, no one had been able to find the youngest daughter, who was a preschooler, no matter where they looked. That little girl had loved drawing with crayons, and supposedly, she was still hiding in the house to this day. Those who witnessed her claimed to see her drawing the scene of her family’s murder.
This story was called The Truth of the Red Crayon, and it became yet another urban legend to be passed around.
Not long after, someone sneaked into the house Madoka’s family had abandoned.
It was the boy in the red hood.
The boy climbed up to the second floor of the house and walked over to the wall at the end of the hall.
The boards had been put up again to seal the small room that lay beyond, so the boy pried a board loose and entered the space. Once he was inside, he shone a flashlight all around the room, as though he was searching for something. Eventually, he found something in a corner and approached it.
A strange mark had been carved there.
“Found it…”
The boy inspected it, then pulled a bright-red notebook from his pocket. He opened it and held it over the mark.
Then he chanted a spell:
In the next moment, the mark glittered, inverted, and appeared on the open page of the notebook.
Meanwhile, the mark on the wall disappeared.
Once the boy made sure everything looked as it should, he snapped the notebook shut.