That was the gimmick—it only started moving when the second member of a couple walked past it!
My rational analysis of the situation only lasted a split second; my legs had already started working before I’d even worked anything out. I sprinted as hard as I could, ready to bolt up the stairs.
“Wait.”
I was stopped in my tracks by Mashiro, who was holding a finger to her lips.
“Stay quiet. You shouldn’t run either.”
“Are you kidding? It’s coming after me!”
“Don’t you remember the rules? Keep noise levels down, and don’t run in the hallways.”
“Oh...”
“You know what that means, right? If you break those rules, they’ll probably send even more monsters after us.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, that makes sense.”
I’d asked Ozu to program a similar system into Koyagi. At one point the scenario cautioned the player to “listen carefully” while showing scary imagery accompanied by loud noises. If the player then turned down the volume on their phone, they’d be shown a host of even more terrifying images.
Was I a bastard or what?
You couldn’t deny it was a pretty clever trick to make the game more immersive. I was still mad at having the tables turned on me, though.
Mashiro and I held hands as we slowly scaled the stairs towards the third floor. We kept our footsteps light and stayed completely silent, and soon the ghost behind us slowed down as well.
“They’re holding hands... I’m so jealous...”
The ghost lamented as it clawed at the floor. I felt bad for it. If only it knew we weren’t a real couple.
Wait. Hold up. I just realized something. Let me go back a few lines... Mashiro and I held hands? Oh crap, we were! We started holding them so casually, I didn’t even notice till now.
Were we...allowed to be doing this? We weren’t pretending to be a couple anymore.
“Um, Mashiro?”
“Shush.” She glared at me.
This was twice she’d told me to shut up now; I didn’t really have a choice but to do as told.
We kept climbing the gloomy stairs, and all I could think about was the warmth of her hand in mine. The hellscape continued to live up to its name, what with the eyeballs in the walls and some guy’s decapitated head rolling around the landing, but my mind was filled with the softness of Mashiro’s hand, her face beside me, the subtly sweet fragrance coming off her... Everything about her was so distracting, I was even starting to forget how terrifying the ghost we ran into just now was.
I was feeling her hand especially keenly because we weren’t saying anything. I knew my body temperature was strangely elevated; it felt like I was burning up. I tried to tell myself it was just my internal environment working over time because I was in a high-stress situation, but I knew what was really going on. It was because of what happened with Midori last night; because I could square this situation up against the feelings I’d acknowledged within myself. I was feeling off-kilter in a way that was difficult to describe.
We arrived at the third floor, still holding hands. The hallway was pitch black—literally pitch black. It had been gloomy on the lower floors, but I’d still been able to make out Mashiro’s face, and the position of the walls and floor. Here, I could barely make out her profile. I couldn’t tell how long the corridor was, and I couldn’t see any of the traps that may or may not lie ahead.
“Uh, I’m pretty sure this is why we needed the flashlight.”
Mashiro gave no response. She just stared into the darkness ahead. And then I felt her hand fall from mine. The sudden loss of warmth made the coming chill just a little more biting. At the same time, my eyes were getting used to the dark, and I could see the lines of her face with a little bit more clarity.
“Huh?” My voice cracked when I gasped at what I saw.
Her face was practically glowing, like a kid who’d found the item that let their favorite hero transform in the toy store. She brought her free hand up to the side of her face—no, up to her mouth.
Wait, isn’t that like the stance you make when you’re at the top of a mountain, or when you’re cheering at field day, or—
“N-No... M-Mashiro, hold it right there...”
The rules were clear: keep noise levels down. Breaking that rule meant inviting tremendous terror. The reverse was also true, that so long as we kept to the rules, the fear level would stay relatively low. The reverse of that meant breaking the rules would raise the fear level. It was already clear to me which of the two options Mashiro was after.
“Come and get us!!!”
“The mad lass actually did it!”
Mashiro shouted as loudly as she could, using her hands to amplify her voice like a mountaineer or sports fan. Even her usually quiet voice grew loud against the dark corridor, spreading through the space like waves.
“Buoooooorgh!”
A stampede of ghosts flickered into life among the darkness.
“Yeah. This is it, Aki. There’s no point going to a haunted house if you’re not gonna crank the fun level up to eleven.”
“Earth to Mashiro! You know your eyes are spinning around like crazy, right?!”
The ghosts rushing towards us were pushing Mashiro to peak levels of excitement. She flung her arms wide to welcome the onslaught, a smile on her face as she walked forward.
“In case anybody was still in doubt...”
“Uh, yeah, right here! Me! Thanks!”
“This is it. This is my inspiration. Give me more! Give me all the fear!”
“M-Mashiro, you’re getting kinda far away from me!”
Having gone full adrenaline junkie, Mashiro broke into a run, laughing all the while. Running in the hallways—another rule broken, another penalty triggered—she’d completely disappeared into the darkness now.
“Wait... Don’t leave me... W...” I was right on the cusp of raising my voice when I quickly clamped my mouth shut. I swiveled my neck around to check my surroundings, and it seemed to creak with the movement.