Chapter 4: The Ghost Peering from the End of the Corridor
Someone was watching them from the left?
Yotsuya Miko rubbed her ears, a wave of disbelief washing over her. For a moment, she was certain she had misheard. How, in any version of reality, could that possibly be considered good news?
Her entire body went rigid. Using only her peripheral vision, she cast a terrified, sidelong glance toward the left passageway. It was a gaping maw of absolute blackness; she couldn't see a single thing.
"Actually, I probably shouldn't have said 'person'," Haruto corrected himself, his voice a conspiratorial whisper that did nothing to soothe her frayed nerves. "After all, a normal person's head can't rotate a full one hundred and eighty degrees."
"Stop talking!" Miko hissed, her voice cracking as she hurriedly cut him off.
The surrounding darkness was thick and suffocating, broken only by the single, unwavering beam of the flashlight in Haruto's hand.
A bead of cold sweat traced a path down her fair neck, the sensation making her skin crawl, but Miko didn't dare scratch it. She didn't dare move a muscle. In her mind's eye, she could already vividly imagine the grotesque form of the 'person' Haruto had described.
A faint, ethereal chill brushed against her skin, the unmistakable feeling of being stared at from somewhere just beyond her sight. She jerked her head away, no longer daring to even face the direction of that oppressive darkness. With trembling lips, she turned to Haruto, her voice barely a whisper.
"Are you sure this is good news?"
"I only said it was half-good news," he replied calmly. "Think about it. The path to the right is our only way forward. The ghost is on the left, and it isn't blocking our route. From a purely practical standpoint, isn't that a good thing?"
Yotsuya Miko was rendered momentarily speechless by his absurd logic. Words failed her. Instead, she grabbed Haruto's sleeve and began pulling him urgently toward the right passage, her only thought to put as much distance as possible between them and the thing lurking on the left.
The path was unnervingly long.
They walked at a brisk, almost jogging pace for what felt like an eternity but was likely just over two minutes before finally reaching the end.
The corridor opened into a living room, with doorways branching off on both sides. It was here that Miko saw the light Haruto had mentioned.
A television was on.
Its screen cast a flickering, ghostly glow across the room, showing a cartoon rabbit playing a cheerful game of hide-and-seek with two of its friends.
A children's channel?
Haruto felt a familiar sense of foreboding, the kind that screamed this was nine-parts wrong with a ten-part guarantee of trouble.
A television left on inside a haunted house, conveniently tuned to a children's program—no matter how you sliced it, the entire setup was textbook eerie. In every horror story he'd ever encountered, scenes like this were the classic prelude to a haunting.
Yotsuya Miko glanced back down the long, dark corridor they had just traversed. After a tense moment confirming the ghost hadn't followed, she summoned a sliver of courage and began searching the area around the TV for clues.
After a bit of rummaging behind the stand, her fingers brushed against something solid. She had actually managed to find a small notebook.
"Found it!" she announced, her voice a mixture of relief and pride.
"What's written in it?" Haruto asked, walking over.
"Hide-and-seek."
"Anything else?"
"Nothing. The entire notebook just has the words 'Hide-and-seek' written in it."
Miko flipped to the last page, confirming it was empty, and handed the notebook to Haruto.
He took it and began flipping through the pages. She was right, and also wrong. It wasn't that the book only contained those three words once; rather, those three words filled the entire diary.
Every page, every available inch of space, was covered in a dense, frantic scrawl of "Hide-and-seek." The words were written in various sizes, overlapping and crammed together in a chaotic, obsessive mess.
As for how he could tell it was a diary...
Haruto's gaze fell to the notebook's rabbit-themed cover and the simple, three-digit combination lock holding it shut.
"It seems this child really likes playing hide-and-seek," he murmured, a thoughtful frown on his face.
He glanced back at the corridor they had come from. "I have a new piece of bad news. Do you want to hear it?"
"Did it follow us?" Miko's voice shot up an octave, her eyes immediately darting back toward the left corridor in a panic. She took a half-step back, her right foot poised, ready to bolt at a moment's notice.
"No."
Haruto shook his head. Just as Miko let out a shaky sigh of relief, he casually added, "But it's close enough."
Miko's heart, which had just begun to settle, leaped back into her throat. She fixed a watery, pleading gaze on Haruto. "Big brother," she said, her voice trembling, "can we please stop speaking in riddles?"
"Fine." Haruto shrugged, casting another look down the left corridor before taking a slight step back himself. "It's actually quite simple. We just walked at a brisk pace for about two minutes. Based on our stride, that puts this corridor at roughly 120 meters long."
He scanned their surroundings. "That's just one side. If both corridors are the same length, that's a total of over two hundred meters. And look at all these rooms."
"Is there a problem with that?" Miko asked, still not grasping his point. "Are you saying the terrain is too large and it'll be difficult to explore?"
"Wrong!" Haruto shook his head again. "Why would you design such a long corridor? There's only one reason: so you have room to run. I suspect there's going to be a chase sequence later."
Hearing this, Yotsuya Miko shuddered violently.
A... a chase?
The mere image of being pursued down that endless, dark hallway sent a paralyzing chill straight through her soul.
"Then... then what should we do now?" she stammered, her hands twisting the hem of her shirt. Her gaze remained locked on the mouth of the left corridor, terrified that something would come charging out at any second.
"Naturally, we continue searching for clues," Haruto said, already exploring the living room. "We don't even know what the objective is yet. Only by gathering more information can we figure out how to get out of here alive."
He made his way to the window and tried to wrench open the rusted iron bars. They wobbled and rattled loudly under his efforts, but ultimately remained firmly in place. Through the grimy glass, the world outside was a featureless blur, completely obscured by a thick, unnatural fog. It clearly wasn't an accessible area, not to mention all the unexplored rooms still inside the house.
Haruto then tried the door at the end of the left corridor, which looked like it should be the main entrance, but it was locked tight and wouldn't budge. Realizing that a brute-force exit was off the table, he gave up and tried flicking a nearby light switch, which also yielded no response.
"Let's split up and see if there are any other clues. We'll cover more ground that way."
"Split... split up?"
Yotsuya Miko's voice trembled at the suggestion, but after a moment of internal struggle, she gritted her teeth and nodded. Shivering, she began to feel her way along the cold wall, stepping cautiously into the darkness. Just as she reached the door to one of the bedrooms, a hand suddenly landed on her shoulder.
Miko was so scared her legs gave out, and she nearly crumpled to the floor. She whipped around to see Haruto's face, and only then did a ragged sigh of relief escape her lips.
"Weren't we splitting up?" she asked tentatively, a secret hope blooming in her chest that he had changed his mind.
"Of course we're splitting up. Searching together is too slow."
Hearing him insist, the hope that had just risen in Miko's heart plummeted back into the abyss. In the next moment, however, a flashlight was thrust into her hand.
She was momentarily stunned. She looked down at the bright flashlight in her grasp, then back up at Haruto. A surprising warmth spread through her chest. Though she was still terrified, a new resolve hardened within her. She resolutely thrust the flashlight back into Haruto's hand and, with a determined set to her jaw, stepped into the pitch-black room.
Haruto scratched his head, looking down at the two flashlights now in his hands, utterly confused.
Could Miko be taking this opportunity to train her courage?
Haruto decided that was the most likely explanation. Shrugging, he stopped overthinking it and walked into the adjacent room, both flashlights blazing.
This room was decorated in soft shades of blue and pink, giving it an exceptionally cozy feel. Toys were scattered across the floor—dinosaurs, toy soldiers, and a small plastic basketball.
"The room of the child from the diary?"
Haruto took a quick scan of the room. When his gaze fell upon the crib in the right corner, however, he immediately dismissed his own guess.
It clearly didn't match. The minimum age for literacy was around three years old., the diary he'd found was pink and cute with a rabbit pattern; its owner was almost certainly a girl.
"This family must have two children," Haruto concluded.
He did a quick search, and after confirming there were no other clues, he left to check the room on the left. It was just a bathroom, and he found nothing useful. As he came out, Yotsuya Miko happened to finish exploring the room on the far right.
"Was that a little girl's room?" Haruto asked before she could speak.
A flash of surprise crossed Miko's eyes, clearly not expecting him to have already guessed. She nodded. "From the photos, she looks to be about six years old."
She handed over another notebook. It was the same style as the previous one, likely a second diary.
"There's a diary here, but it's too dark, so I haven't read it yet."
"Another diary? It seems this child really liked keeping records. This is perfect for helping us understand this place." Haruto took the book and began to read aloud.
"January 2nd—Wanwan was praised by the teacher at school and even rewarded with a Little Red Flower. Wanwan told Daddy, but Daddy didn't praise Wanwan."
"January 3rd—Wanwan got another Little Red Flower, but it was stolen by a nasty fellow. Daddy ignored Wanwan again. Since a little brother grew out of Mommy's belly, Daddy and Mommy don't care about Wanwan anymore."
"February 4th..."
"February 5th..."
"February 6th—Wanwan got yet another Little Red Flower. That fellow is so nasty. Wanwan even took a different way home, but the Little Red Flower was still stolen. This time, I don't want to tell Daddy."
"February 8th—Daddy and Mommy aren't home. Wanwan is so hungry."
"February 11th—I accidentally tripped today. My knee is all scraped up and bleeding a lot. It hurts so much."
...
"February 13th—Daddy and Mommy finally came back. They brought back some food and... another little brother."
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