Chapter 18: We Need to Talk
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Cables groaned and steel squealed like a dying animal. With one last lurch, the elevator arrived on the third floor, shuddering before going still. Its pained wailing ceased. So too had the knell tolled for my last opportunity to turn back. It was pointless. Sooner or later, I’d be forced to see this through.
I pulled the scissor gate open. There was no longer anything else to wait for. No preparations to make. No reasonable excuse to delay. Even still, I hesitated. When I raised a foot to take a step, I halted halfway, nearly stumbling face first as the fearful part of my brain wrestled against rationality.
Clenching my jaw, I pushed through the mental barrier, leaving the sanctuary of the lift. At once, I felt uncomfortably exposed, as though standing in an open clearing within a dark forest where predators abound. It’s funny how even a metal box little better than a cage can feel inviting under the right circumstances.
After I closed the gate behind me, the lift clanged and came alive once more. It descended back the way it had come at twice the pace it carried me here, having no desire to remain on a cursed floor for longer than necessary. I was abandoned, left to fend for myself with one less path of retreat.
My attention turned to the corridor stretching out ahead. There were no outward signs of anything amiss, though it was unusually quiet for a dormitory. I’d already grown used to this. The first few days there were open doors, music, and chatter. People were eager to make friends and meet their neighbors. That jovial atmosphere didn’t last long. Just a couple weeks into the semester and everything was closed up.
The floor had ten dorms total, five on either side. Mine was the last on the left. As far as student housing went, there wasn’t much to complain about. If you discounted the rickety elevator and the laundry room in the basement, the building was pretty nice. It was comparable to the luxury off-campus apartments of my old university that were double the cost of a normal room.
There wasn’t much decoration beyond a small table and a vase with wilting flowers. The wallpaper was equally simple. Scholarly green with a repetitive geometric pattern. It was probably intended to have the same classy, vintage aesthetic most of Rosemont went for, but I was reminded of the Overlook Hotel more than a cozy Victorian study.
I strode forward, hushing the unease quietly bubbling in my chest. Focusing intently on the task at hand softened my anxiety somewhat, but I still felt goosebumps raise across my skin. As I went deeper down the corridor, there was a gradual shift in the ambience.
While at first glance everything appeared reasonably well kept, I started to notice subtle hints of neglect. A few places where the paint had chipped on the molding. A wall lamp with cobwebs clinging to its mount. Silver filigree that had dulled, unpolished for who-knows-how-long. The building had been renovated over the years, but those renovations were only skin deep, a facade hiding its true age.
The shadows deepened. By the time I reached the far end, rather than a boarding school, it felt more like I’d wandered into a long forgotten manor. The only pieces missing were the spooky organ music and the distant rumble of thunder.
I came to my door and stopped. Shoving a hand in my pocket, I fished around for my ID, but before I had the chance to swipe it, the lock unlatched and the door creaked open a hair on its own, beckoning me inside. I dithered for a few seconds before reluctantly accepting the invitation.
As I stepped inside, the door closed behind me. My eyes scanned across the room. Books laid open beside a notepad filled with chicken scratch. The desk was stained with numerous coffee rings. Dirty clothes piled in a heap like a human-anthill.
Everything was just as I’d left it. There were no signs of her presence, but I knew better. She was here. Steadying my nerve one last time, I called out to the empty room.
“Yuki. Are you around?”
The temperature immediately plummeted 20 degrees cooler. There was a faint sound like a sigh or raspy breath. Wisps of white vapor pulled together from the darkest corners. The very air itself coalesced, taking shape into a feminine silhouette.
For a moment, I forgot about my worries, absorbed with fascination as the metaphysical solidified into matter right before my eyes. This was new. I’d never seen Yuki appear. Was this the result after gaining another point of Insight? Before, she always seemed to just pop into existence outside my field of view, not unlike Michael Myers teleporting between camera cuts.
The girl apparated in the center of my room a few feet from me. Her head hung low, listing to the side. Waist-length locks dangling down over her face. She stood frozen, as still as a statue. Then, slowly, she raised her hand and brushed her hair behind her ear, revealing an eye.
Yep. Yuki was still as creepy and strange as ever. She had that look where it wouldn’t be too surprising to see her crawl out of a TV or come down the stairs upside down in a ’bridge’ pose. At least she was consistent… Well, mostly. There was something else to her mannerisms today that I’d never noticed before.
When she glanced at me, she did so for only a second or two, then looked down and to the side. That hand that had parted her hair now played with a few strands, twirling them around her finger. At the same time, her other tucked behind her back, fidgeting with the hem of her skirt.
It was kind of cute…
I was getting distracted. Shaking my head, I recollected my thoughts and reminded myself of my purpose: I needed to end things with Yuki. Technically, there wasn’t even anything going on between us to begin with, it was just a misconception on her part. A better way to say it was I needed to clear the air.
Adopting a serious, stoic countenance, I began to speak my mind. “We need to talk.” Later, I’d look back and realize that sounded like the cliche preamble to a couple’s spat.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Of course, she didn’t respond. Not with words. The only times Yuki ever made a sound was through a speaker or a phone. But her eyes turned up and fell on me with a deadly intensity. I was reminded of the first time I felt her discontent, that night in the computer lab. I hadn’t met many ghosts, so I couldn’t be sure whether the hellish, icy stare was a ghost-thing or a Yuki-thing. Either way, it was intimidating. She gave off an entirely different aura than she had a moment ago.
I swallowed my saliva and tried to keep the momentum I started with. Fuck me, talking to girls was scary. Without realizing, I instinctively softened my tone.
“Yuki, I think we need to make things clear. You hanging around me, moving into my dorm. Don’t you feel it’s inappropriate..?”
I tiptoed around the point, struggling to find the right way to voice what I wanted to say. Yuki burned a hole straight through my skull and shook my psyche with those menacing eyes of hers. Her silence held the same edge as a sharpened blade.
My instincts were screaming to stop before it was too late. Self-preservation especially was struggling, kicking, and squirming, but I held it back. No, I had to do this. I wanted a return to normalcy.
“I know you’ve been alone for a long time, but there needs to be some boundaries. Whatever you think’s going on between us isn’t happening… I’m not your boyfriend.”
My words grew heavier with each second. I could barely stutter out the last few, but once they were released, it was like I’d dropped a burden I’d been carrying on my shoulders all week. However, that relief lasted only a moment.
Yuki, who had remained perfectly still until now, finally showed a reaction. Her shoulders trembled and her head twitched in a jerky, twisting motion. From the way she was shaking, it almost seemed like she was hyperventilating, but that couldn’t be. I knew she didn’t breathe.
Both her hands balled into tightly clenched fists. Blacked nails dug into the tender flesh of her palms and squeezed out a trickle of blood. A few crimson droplets slipped between her fingers and dripped onto the floor.
Bad. Very bad.
That was the only thought that crossed my mind, before an overwhelming sense of danger filled my intuition. I hurriedly ducked down, covering my head. It was a good thing I did so.
There was a brief whistle through the air and then a thunk. Looking back, a fork taken from a half-eaten bowl of rice stuck into the wall, embedded three inches deep. If my instincts could talk, they’d say something like, “I told you so.”
I had no time to acknowledge the error of my ways. She had already closed in.
Her bloody fingers gripped my shoulders tight, making me wince. I felt my weight leave the floor. Yuki, though thin as a waif, somehow managed to lift me over her head as effortlessly as if I were a toddler. I knew all along that a civilized and mature discussion was wishful thinking, but it wasn’t until I found myself dangling off the ground like a ragdoll that I truly realized just how much trouble I was in.
“W-wait a sec–”
Before I could finish, I was thrown backwards and crashed into the wall. Plaster cracked and crumbled. There was a sickening noise like the crisp snap of a stick of celery. Oh god. It wasn’t my arms and legs that made that sound, right? No. My whole body ached, but I didn’t think I’d broken anything.
The wind had been knocked from my lungs and my vision was blurry. I was too disoriented to properly process what just happened. When my head finally stopped spinning, I found myself embedded in an Isaac-shaped indent in the wall. Now I knew how the fork felt.
Yuki had me pinned in place. Or rather, the Yuki-creature did. I call her that because whatever this thing in front of me was, it wasn’t the same girl. Not anymore. Her face hadn’t changed, but everything else had.
Most noticeable were the additional arms. I watched as another sprouted from her side, making four in total. It tore through both her uniform and the flesh underneath, as if something inside her body were clawing its way out. There was another stomach-churning snap as bones broke, reshaping and lengthening. The process didn’t look particularly pleasant.
The nails on the new appendages were longer and razor sharp. As they dragged across the ground, they left deep grooves in the floorboards. Along with that, spiked spines protruded from her back, stretching the skin thin as it struggled to accommodate. What was once a normal(ish) girl had transformed into a grotesque spider-like monstrosity.
One of those limbs raised over the center of my chest. It drew back like a scorpion’s stinger, readying a strike that would surely impale me through the abdomen. I was about to be just another ornament nailed to the wall.
“Yuki, wait! Please!”
Death did not come. Not yet, at least. She paused to listen to my plea.
It wasn’t clear if Yuki was still in there somewhere or if another being entirely had taken over. I chose to believe the former. It was, after all, my own hope for survival. If I wanted to live another day, I needed to appeal to the original girl.
My thoughts spun at an unbelievable speed. In just seconds, I quickly weaved together an excuse I thought might bail me out of this situation. Putting on a saddened expression, I met her gaze.
“Yuki… You’ve misunderstood.”
Her features twisted, rapidly shifting back and forth between rage and disponent agony.
“What I meant was… How could I be your boyfriend yet if we haven’t even gone on a single date?”
That brought a change. The two halves of her face stopped fighting against each other. Instead, they cooperated to display a combination of confusion and curiosity.
“Wouldn’t that be better? To go on a date first before we put a label on things? It would be a shame if we rush and miss out. A first date is a memory that’s supposed to be cherished. So that someday we can look back fondly on our early moments.”
Yuki leaned in closer until our noses touched, staring straight into my eyes. Straight into my soul. Searching for any signs of deception.
I tried my best to keep up the performance. My life literally depended on it. However, I grew flustered as I became acutely aware of our intimate proximity.
The sweet scent of sakura petals tickled my nose. Her lips hovered just an inch apart from mine. Despite their pale color, they seemed soft. I couldn’t help but wonder what they might taste like… Catching myself staring, I quickly returned to her gaze.
Yuki suddenly pulled away several feet. She shrunk into her shoulders and took on the same timid traits that I’d seen in her earlier, except now with more hands to tug at her skirt. The girl must have noticed how suggestive our position had been as well.
The tense atmosphere vanished and was replaced with an awkward one. We both avoided the other’s eyes, feeling rather embarrassed.
Not long later, the transformation Yuki underwent began to revert. Her spines folded down and the extra limbs slunk away. Even the fabric of her uniform knit itself back together until it was as good as new. The same couldn’t be said for the destruction done to my room. I wouldn’t be getting my deposit back at the end of the school year, but it didn’t seem like the right time to complain about it.
…
I guess I had a date to plan.