After a few minutes, Yui had calmed down enough for us to continue on. She now held on to the back of my sweater, both hands and half her face almost buried in the thick cloth. As we neared the hill, Yui let out a small gasp. The clouds that had been mostly covering the moon for the last several minutes had shifted out of the way, allowing the brilliant orb to cascade it’s soft light on the land around us once again, giving way to a startling discovery.

The hill was a graveyard. Hundreds, perhaps a couple thousand western style tombstones dotted it’s surface. How had we not noticed until that moment? Perhaps the light from our phones had limited how far we could see. Or perhaps they hadn’t been visible from a distance when that cloud had rolled in. Either way, my sense of foreboding grew. Kaede looked over her shoulder.

“No reason to get worked up over a cemetery. They are quite common, you know.” Trying to calm our nerves, or perhaps her own, she simply pointed out that, in and of itself, a graveyard was just that; a yard filled with graves. “The dead are...well dead. Considering how old this place must be, who knows if there’s even anything left of the bodies down there.”

But that’s exactly what’s so terrifying. There might be bodies underground on this hill. Too many zombie movies. That would be my guess as to why I was so worked up. Yui gripped my sweater tighter. Without thinking I reached up and under my arm to cover one of her hands. I have to stay calm for Yui.

Despite the unphased air she was putting on, Kaede slowed a considerable amount on the final approach to the rotting wooden fence that encircled the hill. Two head high, metal gates blocked our way. They were rather simple in design, something you’d expect to see on a ranch, no more than a few vertical bars. The left gate was hanging from it’s lower hinge, the top one long gone. Kaede gingerly grabbed the other, giving it a tug.

It let out a horrible wail, rusty hinges screeching shrilly into the night. She managed to get it open just enough for us to squeeze through before it locked up, coming to an eerily still halt. Kaede frowned. I could see from the way her weight shifted back and forth that she was attempting to move it again, but it made no signs of budging. Not so much as a single, wobbly motion came from it.

“Shhhhhh...” The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and a chill ran down my spine. What was that? Had I actually heard it? I quickly looked down at Yui, but she gave no sign of having heard or made the noise. Her lips were sealed. In fact, she looked too terrified to make any noise at all. No no, I’m just freaking myself out because it’s a graveyard. That was all. If I put too much thought into it, I would just feed the fear.

Kaede let go of the gate after a few more moments of tugging on it, unaware of my discomfort. Glancing back at us, she squared her shoulders and set about squeezing through the opening. Once through, she motioned for us to follow.

“Come on, let's get on with it,” the sharpness of her words let slip that she too was rattled by our situation. I turned towards Yui, placing my hands on her thin shoulders.

“You go through first,” she opened her mouth to protest. “No buts, Kaede is already through, and I am on the outside. I won’t have you standing on the other side of a fence I have to squeeze through with no one to support you.”

Her eyes darted between the gate, Kaede and myself. Rocking on the balls of her heels, she closed her mouth, looked down from my gaze, and finally nodded.

“Good.” I gently led Yui to the gate. She walked straight through, with room to spare on both sides. Well THAT’S not going to help my self image. Kaede pulled Yui’s back up against herself, wrapping her arms around the little frame, before looking up at me expectantly. I knew it was my turn, but that noise had set me on high alert and my fear was building, locking me in place. I checked my surroundings; left, right and behind. I stepped towards the gate, paused, and glanced up.

“No one ever looks up,” dad had always said. Feeling certain I was safe, I angled my shoulders and began to squeeze myself through the opening. Even as my foot crossed the threshold into the graveyard, my arms lit up with goosebumps, all my senses flaring to life on high alert.

“Be…wa…” the whisper seemed to come just inches away from my trailing shoulder, and I felt the gate sway. Heart in my throat, I struggled desperately to pull myself through the opening. My imagination screamed of danger, conjuring all manner of terrifying creatures that might be standing behind me. Every part of my mind reeling, I fell through at last, landing on all fours. My fathers training kicked in, and I quickly rolled to the side bringing the gate to my front. But there was nothing to see. Only the gate and a frightened looking Yui standing in Kaede’s arms, who frowned deeply at me.

“Hinata! What’s wrong? Are you alright?” Yui squeaked out, fear pushing her already high voice several octaves higher. She had her hands held in their usual position with one turned towards me, partially in the act of reaching out. I continued to stare at the gates, unwilling to accept nothing was there. I had heard something. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind something, or someone, had whispered in my ear.

“I...I don’t know...I thought I he…”

“Hinata, perhaps the situation has gotten to you more than you initially thought?” Kaede cut across my response before I could finish. She had an intense look on her face, as if to warn me against finishing that thought. I saw her pull Yui in tighter, causing the smaller girl to look up. Understanding her meaning I simply nodded.

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I stood, brushing off my hands and uniform, still looking warily at the gate. That off putting sensation I had been feeling until now had morphed to full blown fear. I had sensed something was off about this town from the get go; this experience was doing nothing to alleviate that. I felt the sudden urge to look over my shoulder. I only just managed to check my fear.

Keep a level head. Keep a level head. I repeated these words to myself several times to try and calm my frayed nerves. It was times like these that rationality must win out. If I were to get worked into a frenzy without a tangible reason, then I would be too far gone to handle an actual emergency. Despite myself, I glanced over my shoulder, though I managed to do so at a measured pace rather than a frantic one.

“Shall we?” Kaede walked Yui over to me, passing the baton. I enveloped my precious friend in a quick hug, took her hand and looked up towards the top of the hill.

“Mmm” was all the response I gave.

As we worked our way up the hill, following the remnants of a rough stone path, Kaede meandered from side to side, examining gravestones, flowers, rocks and even, seemingly, the ground. I caught random snippets of her mutterings from time to time “Marble?...no animals...never seen this flower...weathering on this…” To some it might sound or appear as though she was simply enjoying the novelty. I knew her well enough to figure otherwise.

The hill was a gradual incline, almost flat, for the first fifty or so yards after entering the gate. It was only after that point that the ground truly began to rise up. Just before that point, a large crypt sat a few feet to the side of the path. As I had expected, Kaede made an immediate beeline for it. I felt a slight resistance from Yui’s hand, and I gently tightened my grip. I hoped it served to give her courage, for I was beginning to question my own.

Stairs led down some two or three feet from ground level to the base of a door facing out towards the town. The door itself was a solid, dark metal affair with what appeared to be the moon over a crossed warscythe and battleaxe. The part of the door frame that lay above ground had robed figures holding what appeared to be a bar on their shoulders carved into the stone. Above the center of the doorway, a raised plaque had been sculpted from the stone. Strange, harshly angled symbols adorned it, carved deeply into the face of the material.

The corners of the structure had been shaped into Greco-Roman pillars, supporting a flat roof. Along the edges of the overhang above these pillars, the different phases of the moon had been painstakingly etched into the white stone. I peered more closely at these moons.

“Eew, that’s disturbing,” I muttered, noticing the strange, skeletal faces that seemed to adorne the moons.

“Yes, it almost looks like the symbol of some deity,” Kaede responded, squinting at the door. “Or perhaps deities,” she amended, looking up at the assortment of moons above her. Her response drew my attention back to the door. It was only upon closer inspection that I saw a chain, also carved into the stone, led from the bar above the door, and continued onto the metal where it seemed to be “holding” the moon aloft.

I jerked back a bit as I noticed the twisted, tormented face that decorated the doors’ moon. It held the visage of a skull, like the ones above, except the eyes were far too small for the sockets, giving an extremely sunken appearance. A heavily arced smile of large, unevenly lined teeth made up the lower half. It gave the air of a half mad, sadistic demon.

“Oh my god, that is sooo creepy!” Yui exclaimed. I was surprised to find her leaning forward with her mouth open, examining the moon closely. “I really really like that thing, whoever made it did a really good job blending the eyes and teeth into the overall shape, it almost comes off as a normal moon if you don’t pay enough attention.”

“I thought you were scared of this place?” Kaede smirked. Yui blushed, pulling back behind me. She glanced around the graveyard.

“I am! But that doesn’t mean I can’t be surprised by a good piece of art when I see it…” she trailed off as she continued to study the structure before us, now from the safety of my back.

“You’re tastes are so strange Yui,” I giggled. “Odd how grim, evil, twisted depictions are what you love most, while looking and acting like the neighborhood loli. Even stranger still, you didn’t seem to want to walk through the gate into a real graveyard, instead of just looking at pictures on your phone at lunch.” I couldn’t help but tease her a little. Her reaction to the crypt and Kaede’s quip had lightened the air a bit, and with the release of that tension I felt the need to laugh.

“Gehhhh! Don’t call me that, I can’t help how small I am!” Yui huffed at me, thumping my side a few times. That strange, hungry chuckle came from Kaede again, though she immediately turned away. “And there’s a difference between the vibe of these areas in pictures, and actually being here. You guys said it yourself, some things just aren’t right here.”

“Well I think our closeted loligoth is adorable,” Kaede muttered as she stepped along up to the wall, bending over to look at the plaque above the door. A small amount of dirt crumbled from the edge onto the stairs. The air grew cold. I felt a pair of eyes upon me. Again my nerves were set on edge, and I quickly looked up. A dark figure appeared to be standing on the other side of the crypt, staring at me. It happened so quickly I hadn’t had time to register that something was there before it was gone.

I never spoke of it, or liked to share it with anyone, but I had always been sensitive to the paranormal. My mother told me it ran in the family. She, her mother, and her mothers mother, had all been able to see and hear that which others could not. Apparently when I was five years old, shortly after my Japanese grandma had passed away, my mother overheard me talking with someone in my room. When she had opened the door to investigate, I had been sitting on my zabuton looking at my bed. She had questioned me about the conversation and I had responded that grandma was saying her goodbyes “to her precious little granddaughter”.

I never thought of it, in part, because my dad had thought it all a bit rubbish. He admitted he couldn’t prove or disprove the supernatural, but he had always said it did the living no good to heed their existence. Why fear or give energy to that which can no longer touch you? I had agreed and pushed the idea away. I do not remember when, but I had stopped sensing the “others”, as I referred to them, quite as much as when I was a child.

This was different from any similar experience I had been through before. It was far more tangible; I was more certain I had heard and seen them. And there was...emotion. Not my emotions. No. These felt external, and were at odds with what I would expect to be feeling in the situation. There was a sense of anger, hatred, sadness and a truly bone chilling fear that seemed to come from outside my own body. As if it hung in the air. As if the fog were the manifestation of those emotions.

Now, as I kept my eyes riveted to the spot the shadow had just inhabited, thoughts of my sensitivity came to mind. How long had it been since I had heard or seen anything? At least as long as we had been back in Japan. But here, tonight, in this place, I had heard something twice already. And now I would willingly bet everything I owned, something was watching us from the other side.