Chapter 13: In the Dark

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My thoughts finally caught up to the present and I snapped out of my stunned state.

Before anything else, I needed a source of light. I wouldn’t accomplish anything if I was blind. This darkness was absolute. There was nothing, not even dim moonlight filtering through the windows.

I fumbled around the desk, forced to search by touch. I know I’d left my camera somewhere beside me. Once I found it, I pressed the power button and the viewfinder came on. The glow from the screen lit up my face, but failed to penetrate the deep black that surrounded me.

I cycled through the settings until I found ‘nightvision mode’. Unfortunately, it didn’t work as well as the high-tech spy goggles you see in movies. The picture was grainy and it gave everything a greenish tint. Really it was meant for low light rather than total darkness, but it worked for now.

Using the camera’s viewpoint in place of my eyes, I was able to navigate the narrow aisles between rows of workstations. Once I reached the light switch on the wall, I flicked it up and down a few times. No good.

When the computer shorted and the electronics fried, it must have tripped a fuse or something. I had no idea where the building's circuit breaker was and no desire to go searching for it either. Let that be someone else's problem. I’m getting the fuck out of here.

For all I knew, that girl was on her way. I didn’t have any way to know for certain, but I was pretty sure that voice belonged to the ‘Wraith’. And she didn’t sound very happy with me. I don’t know what she wants or why she started following me, and honestly, I’d rather not find out.

It was all fun and games when I was playing amateur sleuth and investigating a mystery, but now that I knew there was an actual undead spirit haunting me, I felt a little less enthusiastic about it. This was so fucked up. If ghosts really existed, what else might there be? Monsters? Demons? How did I get thrust into a world with supernatural dangers as a regular person?

Screech.

Somewhere behind me, something heavy scraped against the hardwood floor. The grating sound that came from what should be an empty room set my nerves on edge.

I whipped the camera around towards the source of the noise, but there was nothing there. Slowly, cautiously, I stepped deeper into the room. My eyes remained locked on the screen, unblinking, searching for signs of danger.

I noticed something where I had been sitting earlier. Not my chair, but the one just next it, had moved slightly. I’d overlooked it earlier, but why had there been another seat pulled up beside me in the first place?

My heart rate increased another level. I needed to leave. Now. Without thinking, I followed my instincts and bolted for the exit. Before I’d taken more than a step or two in that direction, the door slammed closed on its own. I froze in place.

The girl wasn’t on her way. She was already here.

At this point, I was on the verge of hyperventilating. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep from panicking further. In that moment, I knew true fear. The kind of dread that comes only from immediate mortal peril. A mistake here would mean my death.

My thoughts spun at a frantic pace, calculating what to do in this situation. Smash a window and dive through? Even if I managed it somehow, I’d slice an artery. Stand my ground and fight? How could I fight when I couldn’t even see?

A slow, creeping cold closed in around me just as it had earlier. I sensed an invisible presence draw near. My breath stilled. I strained my hearing to the max, searching for any little sound, but it was dead silent. The subtle scent of sakura petals tickled my nose.

I tensed up. Every muscle in my body pulled taut, ready to snap and lash out. Eyes fixed on the darkness. Watching. Anticipating. Time slowed down to a crawl. I waited and waited and waited, but nothing happened.

Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer. I called out to the void. “Hello..?”

No reply came.

With conscious effort, I peeled my gaze away from the empty black and shifted my attention back to the viewfinder. It fought against human instinct to look away from a threat, but what choice was there when the eyes were worthless? I used the camera to scan around, but still found only an empty room.

Frustration built up in my chest. It felt like I was being toyed with. This fucking wraith better stop messing with me, or I’d make them sorry. A man has limits to what he’s willing to endure.

When I lifted my eyes from the screen, a pale face was leaning in just an inch from my nose. We were so close that we shared the illumination from the only source of dim light.

“Fuck!”

My heart nearly leapt out of my chest. I flinched backwards and fell against the wall. At the same time, I squeezed the shutter-release. The camera’s flash went off and the room exploded with intense light. That brief instant was enough to burn her visage into my retinas.

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Wiry black hair hung down over her face like an obsidian curtain. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. Icy blue veins crawled up her neck, the blood within stagnant, lacking oxygen after the heart had long since stopped beating. Her lips too were white, but blacked at the corners from dried blood. And those eyes… They were hypnotic. Mesmerizing and utterly alien.

image [https://i.imgur.com/pF0U4Dv.png]

She was like a corpse. One perfectly preserved and belonging to a young girl, but cold and dead all the same. She was pretty, but in a way that was almost too perfect. The extreme symmetry of her features and her unnaturally flawless skin, gave her a porcelain doll-like quality that further added to her uncanny appearance.

Her expression betrayed nothing. Emotionless. No anger. No sympathy. Just the detached neutrality one uses when watching an ant crawl along the ground.

I was given just a glimpse and then she was gone. Or rather, not gone, but unseen. A silhouette amongst the shadows. The flash thoroughly disoriented me and reset how my eyes had been trying to adjust to the dark. I was once again surrounded by nothing but pitch black.

Even if I couldn’t see her, I knew I wasn’t alone. She was right beside me. I could feel it. It was difficult to describe. It wasn’t quite true invisibility. More like my mind refused to acknowledge her existence. She was something I wasn’t meant to see, and so I didn’t.

Maybe she had been close for days and I just never noticed. Whenever I felt like I was being watched, but found no sign of my stalker, had she been there? Had she been trying to get my attention all that time? No wonder she was upset.

“You’re the girl from the entrance ceremony. And when I walked back to the dorms that night.” I spoke to the empty space in front me.

By now, I roughly understood. She couldn’t answer. At least not by normal means. Her ability to interact with the physical world must be limited. Although, given how she smashed the computer and slammed the door, clearly it wasn’t entirely impossible.

I didn’t understand the rules behind it, but she could certainly find some way to kill me if she really wanted. All it would take is a small piece of glass slicing my neck when I was blind and defenseless. Considering I was still alive, she didn’t intend to harm me… probably.

“I understand now. You’ve been trying to get me to notice you... But I don’t know what you want. If I’ve done something to make you angry, I didn’t mean it.”

Wetting my lips, I fixed my gaze on where she should be, assuming she hadn’t moved. I imagined our eyes meeting. It was an attempt to hide my nervousness and instead appear earnest. Any thoughts of fighting were forgotten. I switched tactics straight to negotiation.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot… Let’s start over. You already know I’m Isaac, but I don’t know your name.”

There were another few seconds where nothing happened. Then a shrill scraping sound broke the silence. When I directed the camera towards it, I found a message scrawled across the wall.

Yuki.

The letters were sharp and jagged. It was the kind of handwriting you might find decorating the padded cell of a sanitorium. I imagined her scratching them into the surface using her fingernails.

Okay. That was unsettling. I forced a smile and did my best to not let my discomfort show as I continued to address the invisible spirit.

“Yuki… That’s a pretty name.”

Hopefully even the dead were vulnerable to flattery. If I could make her think I’m sympathetic and on her side, she might let me go. Assuming she wasn’t here to eat my soul.

“I’m sorry I didn’t see you were trying to talk to me sooner. That must have been frustrating. To be right there and the person just ignores your presence.”

The temperature in the room dropped noticeably. My breath once again became visible and the tips of my fingers grew numb. Each time I inhaled the freezing air it made my lungs sting. I took that as a sign she wasn’t pleased, so I quickly amended my earlier statement.

“I promise that it wasn’t on purpose. And now that I’ve realized what’s going on, it won’t happen again.”

The chill gradually became less intense, returning back to how it was originally. Still uncomfortable, but not enough to give me frostbite. By feeling the direction that was the source of the cold, I could vaguely sense her location. I worked up the courage and took a few steps closer to her.

“I can’t imagine how lonely it must be. To be present in the world while everyone simply passes by. Treated like you don’t even exist.”

For the moment, I thought it best to avoid the topic of her being dead. Some issues were just a touchy subject like that. So instead, I spoke euphemistically.

“I don’t know why you haven’t moved on, but I’m sure you have your reasons. Maybe I can do something to help? If you can forgive me, I’ll try to make things right.”

There was another period of quiet tension after I’d spoken my peace. I’d said all I could think of to win her over. Now all I could do was pray it worked. As the seconds ticked by, I grew increasingly nervous.

My mind conjured up all manner of horrid images. I imagined my neck suddenly being snapped from behind or a clawed hand stabbing through my chest and tearing out my heart. Just when I felt certain I would die tonight, something entirely unexpected happened.

The silent oppression bearing down on me seemed to soften. A slender, pallid arm reached forth from somewhere unseen, deeper in the darkness. She held out an upturned palm, presenting a single flower.

As I stared with a mixture of confusion and disbelief, her hand hovered there expectantly. It would be pure madness to refuse the gift. Even still, I couldn’t fully hide my hesitation.

I slowly reached forward and took the flower. My fingers grazed against her palm. Her hand felt soft and smooth while it sapped my body’s heat greedily.

“Thank...you..?” I hadn’t meant to phrase it as a question, but it ended up coming out that way.

Her arm slipped back into the shadows without a sound. A few moments later, the chill in the air receded as well. Even the darkness itself seemed to release its hold over me, allowing my eyes to finally adjust. This time, she was truly gone.

I felt even more stunned than I had before, looking back and forth between the flower in my hand and where the girl had been again and again. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wrap my head around what just happened. There was only one way I could think to interpret the gift, but it seemed ridiculous.

Did I just get confessed to by a ghost?