Chapter 1: The Town That Shouldn’t Be

A sharp, metallic taste filled Renji’s mouth.  

His breath came out in uneven gasps as he opened his eyes to a sky  choked with fog. The air smelled wrong stale, heavy, suffocating. His body felt light, almost weightless, as if he weren’t truly there.  

Slowly, he pushed himself up from the ground. The pavement beneath him was damp, yet his clothes were dry. That was the first inconsistency. The second was the silence__a total, unnatural absence of sound.

No wind. No birds. No distant hum of cars.  

Only his own breathing.  

“…Where am I?” His voice cracked, hoarse and uncertain.  

He turned his head. The town stretched before him empty streets, old-fashioned lampposts, and rows of buildings with shuttered windows. It looked like a forgotten fragment of the past, yet… there was no dust, no decay. As if time itself had been paused.  

Then, he noticed the first unsettling detail.  

A bookstore stood at the street corner, its sign swinging slightly. It looked exactly like one from his university neighborhood—down to the same cracks in the bricks. Impossible.That bookstore had burned down years ago.  

Renji’s pulse quickened.  

"Think logically." His mind, trained by solving a lot of murder mystery cases, tried to rationalize. Am I dreaming? Hallucinating?  

The silence pressed in. Then, finally a sound.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Footsteps.  

He turned sharply.  

A figure moved through the fog—a girl, her long, unkempt hair covering her face. She walked stiffly, her head tilted at an unnatural angle. Her dress was torn at the hem, the fabric swaying even though there was no wind.  

She was watching him.

Renji took a step back. The moment he did, she mirrored him—taking an identical step forward.

His breath caught.  

She wasn’t just watching. 

She was following.

Forcing himself to remain calm, Renji turned away from the girl and walked toward the center of town. His instincts screamed at him 'don’t run, don’t acknowledge her.'  

The streets were lined with people now silent townsfolk moving in eerie synchronization. Some sat on benches, flipping the pages of blank books. Others walked in perfect, rhythmic strides. But none of them reacted to him.

Renji clenched his fists. This was wrong.

As he passed a fruit stall his gaze caught on an old man standing behind the counter. The man’s expression was blank, his hands repeating the same motion picking up an apple, setting it down, picking it up again.  

Renji stopped. The old man’s fingers twitched. His lips parted, and in a hoarse whisper, he said:  

"Run."

Then, as if a switch had flipped, his expression reset. His eyes dulled, and he resumed his mechanical repetition. 

Renji felt cold sweat trickle down his back.  

What the hell is this place?

The fog around him thickened. The girl was still following him never speaking, never stopping.

Then, a new presence.  

A figure emerged from the mist a woman in a black Victorian-era dress, her posture elegant yet unnatural, as if she were slightly out of sync with reality.  

She was smiling.  

"You shouldn’t be here," she said softly.  

Her voice wasn’t a sound, it was a whisper inside his head.

Renji stiffened. “Who are you?”  

“You may call me Lily.” She stepped closer, her boots making no noise against the pavement. “And you… you are lost, aren’t you?”  

Renji narrowed his eyes. “What is this town?”  

Lily tilted her head. For a second—just a second—her face flickered. Like a distorted image on a broken TV screen.  

“You’ll find out soon,” she murmured.  

Then, the shadows moved. 

From the edges of the fog, something shifted. 

Dark, elongated figures slithered across the walls and streets humanoid, yet wrong. They moved without form, without features. Watching.  

The air grew heavier, pressing against Renji’s chest.  

“Do you know why no one acknowledges you?” Lily whispered. “Because if they do… they vanish.”  

As if to prove her point, one of the townspeople, a woman with a vacant stare turned her head toward Renji.

The moment her eyes met his, her face twisted in horror. She opened her mouth to scream  

And then she was gone.

No sound. No trace.  

Just… erased.

Renji took a sharp step back. His heartbeat pounded in his skull.

Lily’s expression didn’t change. “This town has rules,” she said. “And you, dear visitor, have already broken one.”  

The shadows crept closer.  

Renji felt his own existence waver.

And in the distance deep within the fog something whispered his name. 

                                      **End of chapter 1**