The dream came first.
Koroe stood in the middle of a lotus field beneath a moon the color of old blood. Her hands were wet, though she didn't know why, and the wind whispered in Otaki's voice:
> "Wake her. Before the third breath."
She didn't know what it meant.
But when she opened her eyes, Shiki was already sitting cross-legged on the tatami mat beside her, gaze distant and somber.
"She called us," he said quietly. "The house is unraveling."
---
They arrived by dusk.
The Sakuma estate greeted them like a thing that had been starving—its shutters trembling, its walls humming with faint vibrations like a held breath. Shadows clung longer than they should. The sky above the house felt lower somehow, like the air was sagging.
Reiko opened the door. Her eyes were ringed with fatigue, her lips pale.
"You came," she whispered. "I was starting to think no one would."
Koroe entered first, her hands trailing incense powder from her coat. Shiki followed silently, though the wind around him pushed back the scent of decay that always hovered near the house.
They both paused at the old prayer altar in the west corridor.
"Otaki's altar," Reiko murmured.
The wood was blackened with age, the offerings dusty and shriveled. But as Shiki stepped closer, a sudden gust swept through the hallway. One of the floorboards creaked—a sharp crack.
Koroe's eyes narrowed. "There's something behind it."
---
They dismantled the altar carefully. Behind it, pressed flat into the wall, they found a thin square of blackened paper sewn to the wood with strands of white hair.
A seal.
Koroe whispered a charm and the paper turned to ash in her hand.
Behind it: a narrow hollow in the wall, wrapped in old prayer ribbons and dried camphor leaves.
Inside sat a ceremonial doll, wrapped in crimson silk.
Its mouth was sewn shut with silver thread.
And its eyes—black glass flecked with red—seemed to follow Reiko as she leaned closer.
Shiki didn't speak. His body stiffened.
Koroe reached in.
The moment her fingers brushed the doll's silk, it bled.
Thin lines of blood leaked from the corners of its sewn mouth. A single drop fell to the floor and sizzled, as if too warm for the world.
Reiko stepped back. The air turned sour.
"Whose… is it?" she whispered.
Shiki finally spoke.
"It's a vessel," he said. "Meant to contain a spirit. Or keep its voice quiet."
---
They wrapped the doll in prayer cloth and placed it in a warded circle. But that night, something changed.
The mirrors stopped reflecting Reiko at all.
The walls didn't scratch.
Instead, the house… breathed.
And in that breath, a new presence entered her room.
---
She woke to the sound of heavy breathing.
Not hers.
Slow. Wet. Rhythmic.
She couldn't move at first—paralyzed by the weight of something she could not name. Her eyes darted to the side.
There, on the floor by her futon, sat a figure.
Faceless.
Its body was the shape of a woman's, in old robes stained with mildew. Its hands rested calmly on its knees. Where its face should've been, there was only pale skin—smooth, blank, pulsing.
It didn't move.
It only breathed.
Reiko felt her own breath hitch. Her mouth was dry.
The air thickened. She felt a pressure on her chest.
And then—
The faceless woman turned her head slowly toward her.
Its breath grew louder.
Until she heard something beneath it—
A voice, whispering from its sealed throat.
"…you wore my hair… you broke my silence…"
The voice wasn't coming from the woman.
It was coming from inside Reiko's own throat.
She screamed—and suddenly, the room was empty.
---
Koroe found her sitting on the floor, sobbing into her sleeves.
The doll in the warding circle was still bleeding.
But now, the threads at its mouth were loosening.
Shiki stood at the window, unmoving.
"That wasn't Ayame," he finally said. "Not anymore."
Reiko looked up. "Then what was she?"
Shiki's voice was distant, ancient.
"A shadow fed by silence. By voice. By memory twisted too long in the dark."
Koroe bent beside Reiko and cupped her face gently. "She wants your voice. Your shape. Your place in this house."
Reiko's lip trembled. "Then what do I do?"
Koroe held up the doll.
"We find where her body sleeps. And burn the silence with her name."
---
To be continued…