Spencer felt the inscription on the stone tablet was important, but he wasn't sure why. He could only frown and silently memorize the ominous words. After all, it had nothing to do with his purpose for coming here—or so he thought.
After asking a few more mundane questions about local customs and handing over the rest of his small change to the elderly woman, Spencer left the abandoned park.
Before walking completely out of earshot, he couldn't help but look back. The three vagrants huddled around the fire were arguing in hushed tones.
"The Seven-Day Ritual? Why tell that to a foreign tourist? Aren't you afraid of scaring him?"
"Speaking of which... it seems a few homeless people have disappeared from the district recently. We should be careful."
"Bullshit! What disappearance? They clearly returned! I remember it perfectly—after seven days, they were all found dead!"
"Don't talk nonsense, it's just an urban legend. Those people were probably murdered by the yakuza..."
"Sigh, we should leave Daikanyama as soon as possible..."
The Seven-Day Ritual.
Seven days until death...
Deep in thought, Spencer unconsciously pulled his trench coat tighter. He instinctively reached for the cross on his chest, but found nothing—he had thrown it away that morning. He shook his head. His preconceived notions about the Japanese fondness for superstitious ghost stories deepened.
He wandered through the winding streets of Daikanyama for a while. Finally, his gaze swept over a faded address plate on a rusted iron gate: No. 72.
The surrounding area was completely desolate. A large, enclosed industrial building stood at the foot of a small hill, looking like a long-abandoned, unfinished municipal project. Spencer walked through the rusted gates with a guarded expression.
Nobody. Not a single person in sight.
He traversed the garbage-strewn courtyard and entered the main building. Frowning, he looked around. Still no one. Was the person who invited him here playing some kind of disrespectful game to assert dominance?
Left to wander alone, Spencer began to observe the building's interior. It seemed... it used to be a highly classified laboratory.
He stumbled upon a secluded, open-plan workspace filled with several desks. It looked like a scene from a tech company that had gone bankrupt and been evacuated overnight. Papers and classified documents were scattered haphazardly. Office chairs were overturned, and filing cabinets were left ajar.
Hmm?
He ran his gloved hand over the edge of one of the desks. Flakes of dark red residue clung to the metal. Bloodstains. They had already congealed and dried into hard scabs.
Alerted by this grim discovery, he examined the area more closely. Spencer noticed a considerable amount of dried blood pooled on the linoleum floor, leading away into the shadows. A sharp chill ran down his spine.
The deeper he went inside the building, the more the natural light from outside faded. The environment became so dim that he had to pull out his mobile phone to use its flashlight for illumination.
Finding no further clues in the main area, Spencer was about to turn back and leave when a sudden, harsh cacophony of electrical static stopped him in his tracks.
He shined his flashlight toward the source of the sound. It was coming from a secluded manager's office.
Inside the glass-walled room stood a grotesque, deformed doll. Directly behind the doll sat an open, glowing laptop computer.
That's it. A surge of adrenaline filled him. Spencer believed he had finally found the dead-drop left by the political mastermind. He hurriedly entered the office, casually kicked the buzzing, creepy doll out of the way, and bent over to examine the laptop screen intently.
This was… an experimental log?
Spencer's heart pounded. Industrial and scientific secrets were never trivial. If he could take the results of this covert Japanese experiment back to Great Britain, it would be a massive intelligence victory. He began to read.
[October 11th] Daikanyama No. 72. This is our newest base. That woman brought the will of the Boss; we need to conduct an experiment unlike any before.
[October 12th] Seven-Day Ritual? A strange experimental code name. It feels like something out of a religious scam. But I don't care about that; Sherry is the main person in charge. It's said our progress is lagging far behind—at least far behind the official Japanese authorities. Japan is also researching these religious rituals? That's a joke I could laugh about for a year…
Carefully pondering the meaning of the log, Spencer hesitated. Stealing this for Great Britain was a must, but it depended on the scale of the experimental results. If the data pie was too big, extracting it would require a dedicated Black Ops team. But no matter how Spencer looked at it, an experiment based on "religious rituals" seemed entirely frivolous. It sounded like superstitious nonsense.
He continued scrolling.
[October 25th] Strange. Two colleagues are said to have been transferred to another experimental site for research. Weren't the higher-ups taking the Seven-Day Ritual very seriously? Reducing manpower at this critical time? Something seems a bit off.
[October 26th] Sherry is missing. And that woman has disappeared too! How could that be? How can this experiment work without high-level oversight? Did the Boss discover something dangerous? There's a problem. I need to apply for a transfer as soon as possible...
[October 27th] Damn it! The higher-ups decided to close the experimental site! Could it be a bio-virus leak? The remaining management said everything would continue as usual, but I know there's definitely a deadly problem with the experiment!
[November 1st] I've been having severe insomnia lately. I always seem to hear some kind of static noise in the middle of the night. Like some old-fashioned instrument leaking electrical current? Also, several more colleagues have been 'transferred' overnight without packing their things. Damn it! I need to get out of here too!
Spencer squinted at the glowing screen.
There was something terribly wrong with this experiment. What was recorded on the computer was less of a scientific log and more of a pitiful wretch's descent into madness and paranoia.
As a diplomat of considerable rank, Spencer knew all too well the ruthless character of those in high positions. This was clearly an experiment gone horribly wrong; to prevent the disaster from leaking out, the entire site had been abandoned and quarantined with the lower-level staff still locked inside. It had become a slaughterhouse to tie up loose ends.
He scrolled down to the final, frantic entry.
[November 2nd] The atmosphere is ominous. The few of us left are starting to lose our minds with fear. What exactly is this Seven-Day Ritual? Looking through the fragmented data Sherry left behind, I still can't figure out what the higher-ups were trying to achieve. They just ordered us to monitor and record an ugly doll? What the hell is there to record!?
An ugly doll!?
Spencer's heart skipped a beat. He quickly spun around and shined his flashlight at the deformed puppet he had casually kicked to the floor moments ago.
The puppet was sculpted to look like a little girl wearing a frilly dress and pigtails. If you ignored the head, it looked like a vintage toy a child might love. But the face was horrifically distorted, cast in deep, unnatural shadows regardless of where the flashlight beam hit it. A carved smile played on its wooden lips—mocking, malicious, and dripping with wanton cruelty.
The continuous "buzzing" sound of electrical static seemed to be coming from deep inside the puppet's hollow body.
This…
Spencer couldn't fathom the depths of the absurdity. What was so important about studying a deformed puppet? What was its connection to the "Seven-Day Ritual"?
A thick fog of supernatural dread seemed to settle over the dark room, and Spencer hesitated, taking a slow step back from the toy. He suddenly remembered the old homeless woman's folktale from the park.
The Seven-Day Ritual.
Death upon the completion of the seventh day…
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