It must’ve been around one thirty on a Saturday. I remember, ’cause it was a half day that day. The first thing that struck me was how nice Mirei’s house was. Her dad’s employed at some big hospital, and her mom’s a doctor, too; the two of them work together. She’s kind of the black sheep of her family. She’s got two brothers, both older than her, and they’re real honor students. She’s basically left to fend for herself most of the time. I know she’s not the smartest girl in the world, and her temper can be real nasty sometimes, but I just can’t hate her, y’know? She’s got her good points, too. But I’m getting off topic.
The point is, it’s real luxurious, that house of hers. It’s got a big black front gate with spikes on the top. It’s the kind of place with a separate front yard and courtyard. My family’s not poor or anything, but her house really felt like something from a different world than what I’m used to.
I knew Mirei’s folks wouldn’t be at home during the day, so I thought I had a good chance of seeing her. I’d tried going the day of the accident, but her mom turned me away. She was all, “Please refrain from coming to the house until my daughter is ready to see you.” She was really intense about it, too. I decided to wait until she wasn’t around before I made my second attempt.
Well, my little bet paid off. I rang the doorbell, and Mirei answered. She didn’t say anything at first, but I could tell it was her. If it had been her mom or a maid or something, they would have said something, right?
“Mirei, it’s me. Let me in.”
She didn’t reply, but I could just barely hear her breathing over the intercom. There was also this weird, like, background noise. Kind of a grinding, like there was a machine on in another room. I was just about to ring the bell again, maybe tell her I had some limited edition donuts from Mister Donut for her, but then the gate opened.
Mirei was waiting for me at the front door, and she looked terrible. All thin and worn-out. Her face had this yellowish tinge to it, and her skin was dry and flaking; she looked like she’d aged about thirty years since I saw her last.
“Mirei, what happened to you?”
She didn’t answer, just beckoned me toward her. I figured that meant it was okay for me to come in, so I followed her inside. We went up the stairs, and I think I tried to make small talk, but I don’t really remember if she said anything at all. That grinding sound was really loud, which made it hard to concentrate. It was a little more bearable when we got inside Mirei’s room and closed the door.
“Why did you stop coming to school?”
I didn’t want to sit on her bed without permission, so I took a seat on the floor instead. But when I looked up, she wasn’t there. I did kind of a double take, but she definitely wasn’t in the room anymore. At first, I thought she’d slipped out to get us some snacks, and I just hadn’t noticed. I waited a while, but it didn’t seem like she was coming back.
“Mirei…?”
I opened the door and called out to her. There was no answer. The grinding noise was louder than before, too, since the bedroom door wasn’t muffling it anymore. I got scared and closed the door again, but it still didn’t get any quieter. I tried telling myself it was just construction work going on nearby. Sometimes, I can’t hear the TV at my house when there’s maintenance work happening with the drains outside. This was a lot louder, but I figured it might be something like that.
“They adding another wing to this house or what? Is it not big enough for them already?”
I was muttering that to myself, when I heard a quiet laughing behind me. Not a happy laugh, though, more like someone was laughing at me. I thought Mirei had hidden in the closet to watch me bumbling around, and that seriously ticked me off. I spun around to give her a piece of my mind.
But Mirei wasn’t in the closet. She was in bed, all wrapped up with only her head showing above the blankets. I was going to say something, but then I saw her face. She looked pale, and she was shivering. That wasn’t the face of someone who’d been making fun of me a few seconds before. In the end, I still complained a little. I might have been harsher than I needed to, so she wouldn’t notice how scared I’d been.
“Wh-why? Why…?”
Mirei was shivering even worse now; her lips were practically blue. She was so quiet, I wouldn’t have been able to make out what she was saying if she hadn’t been repeating the same word over and over again.
“Uh, why what?”
She pointed at me.
“Why…are you here, Hirona…?”
She was talking in this weird, disjointed way. I didn’t understand what she was trying to say. I tried to get her to speak to me, but she just kept repeating herself.
“Why…? It’s not right… Why?”
That’s when I started getting impatient and snapped at her.
“We just came up the stairs together! What, are you going senile?”
Those words had barely left my mouth when she screamed. It was way louder and more high-pitched than I was expecting. It even drowned out the grinding noise for a second.
“Seriously, what is going on with you?”
Krsh, krsh, krsh…
“It’s not right… Not right… Not right…”
Krsh, krsh, krsh…
“Just talk to me.”
Krsh, krsh, krsh…
“Why… Why… Why?”
Krsh, krsh, krsh…
“I don’t understand.”
Krsh, krsh, krsh…
“I locked the door, and it didn’t do any good!”
She yelled that last part and broke down crying. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person cry that hard before. It wasn’t like she was sad, more like she was going crazy. And the whole time, that grinding was getting louder. I’d been able to shrug it off as construction work when I was feeling calm, but with the way Mirei was acting, it was too much for me. All I wanted was to get out of there and let her deal with whatever it was on her own.
“You mean you locked the door, but I came in anyway? Sorry about that. I’ll leave.”
Krsh, krsh, krsh…
I turned to go, but Mirei grabbed my arm and squeezed really hard.
“You’re hurting me!” I said.
“Don’t go!”
Her face was one big mess of snot and tears at this point.
“You let her in! You can’t leave me alone now!”
“Huh?”
You know how thin Mirei is, but I couldn’t shake her off.
“There!”
She grabbed my head and turned it toward the door. All of a sudden, the grinding stopped. There was a tall woman standing in the doorway. Mirei screamed. Then the tall woman laughed. She laughed, and she thanked me for letting her in. She moved her jaw back and forth, and I had this moment of clarity where I realized the noise I’d been hearing was the grinding of her teeth. I think I was too scared to focus on anything else. Her jaw looked wrong, like it was dislocated. It didn’t look like a normal human face at all.
Mirei screamed again, and I fainted.
Fainting is really weird, you know. It’s like your consciousness just cuts out. When I came to, someone was shaking me by the shoulders. I opened my eyes, and it turned out it was Mirei’s mom. I was so surprised, I got back on my feet before I knew what I was doing. I looked around, but the tall lady wasn’t there anymore. As for Mirei, she was back in bed. She was still pale, but she seemed to be sleeping peacefully.
“How did you get in here?” Mirei’s mom asked, her voice as cold as ice.
“I, uh… Mirei let me in…”
“That’s not possible. She’s been asleep all afternoon.” Her mom sighed. “Anyway, I believe I told you before I don’t want you coming around here. Didn’t your parents teach you any manners? You’re causing a lot of trouble for us.”
Normally, I’d have gotten mad at her, but it had all been too much for me. I said sorry and ran straight out the door. I had no idea what was going on anymore. My mom and my brother said I must have been dreaming, but I don’t think I was. Look, I still have the marks on my arm from where Mirei grabbed me.
Also, when I was leaving her house, I heard it again. That krsh, krsh, krsh noise.