Chapter 8: Kimura’s Ordeal (Part 4)
“The border of Nagano and Fura Wards? Just how far are we talking? And what time was it, exactly?” Ōgami Yōsuke, still a newcomer to the city’s geography, pressed for specifics, his voice tight with a dawning unease.
“There’s a small, unassuming park right where Nagano and Fura Wards meet. It’s got an entrance in each ward. When Kimura clawed his way back to consciousness, he was sprawled on one of its cold, hard benches.”
“It was the dead of night. Pitch black. Kimura had no clue what time it was. He just knew he was in his pajamas, feet bare except for flimsy slippers. His phone, his wallet, everything… gone.”
“The park was a ghost town. Utterly silent, eerily deserted. A single, flickering streetlamp cast a sickly yellow glow nearby, doing little to dispel the oppressive darkness. Not even a homeless man stirred on the other benches. It felt, he said, like the world had just… ended, and he was the last person left alive.”
“So, this was it? The ‘sleepwalking’?” Takada Shōji’s question was a hushed breath.
Itō Takuma nodded, his face grim. “Yeah. His first time. When he finally got his bearings, all he could do was walk. That park, even if you drew a straight line on a map, is a good eight kilometers from his house. A two-hour trek, easy.”
“Eight kilometers!” Ōgami Yōsuke’s eyes widened. “You’re telling me Kimura-san, dead asleep, navigated eight kilometers of city streets in the dark? Dodged every lamppost, every car, every obstacle, then just… lay down on that specific park bench like it was his own bed?” The sheer impossibility of it hung heavy in the air.
“That’s about the size of it. When he finally stumbled home, he had to lean on the doorbell for what felt like an eternity before his mom heard him. It was four in the morning. He was a wreck, still in his PJs, shivering. His mom nearly had a heart attack when she saw the state of him.”
“But Kimura… he couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth. Not then. He mumbled some lie about going out for a late-night snack and forgetting his keys. His mom read him the riot act, of course, but eventually, she let it drop.”
Yomikawa Tsuko, who had been listening with a detached, analytical expression, finally spoke. “If that was the extent of it, one might dismiss it. Stress, perhaps. A severe anxiety attack manifesting in an unusual way. Not necessarily connected to the cave on Mount Karasu-Go.”
“With all due respect, Senpai, you’re mistaken.” Normally, Itō Takuma would never dream of contradicting a third-year, especially one with Yomikawa’s… presence. But now, his voice was firm, edged with a chilling certainty. “If it had just been that once, maybe. But after you hear the rest… you won’t think it was just stress.”
“When Kimura got home that first night, he was beyond exhausted. Mentally, physically… just shattered. He crashed into bed and was out like a light. Didn’t stir until ten the next morning.”
“But even then, a cold knot of dread was twisting in his gut. He knew that sleepwalking episode wasn’t a one-off. He’d never sleepwalked before in his entire life. He spent hours online, researching somnambulism, reading accounts from other sufferers. It wasn’t until later that afternoon that Fujita and I went over to his place.”
“He told us everything. Showed us the photos from the cave, those blurry, useless smudges. To be honest, Fujita and I… we didn’t really get it. Not then. We tried to calm him down, told him it was probably nothing, just a bad dream, a weird coincidence. Fujita even joked about us all going up to Karasu-Go the next weekend and tearing that creepy sacrificial site apart with our bare hands.”
Junko piped up, “So, after that, you and Kimura-san kept in touch by phone?”
Itō Takuma held up a hand, signaling for patience. “Before dinner that day, Fujita and I left his place. We were actually kind of laughing about it on the way home, teasing Kimura. He was usually so tough, so fearless. Seeing him that spooked… we even talked about pulling some prank on him, trying to give him a real scare.” His voice faltered. “We were idiots. We had no idea… no idea he wouldn’t be at school the next day.”
“The next day, last Monday, when we heard Kimura had called in sick, Fujita and I were floored. We asked the teacher what was wrong. She just said he was ‘unwell.’ And the weird part? It wasn’t even Kimura who’d called. His mom had done it.”
“During lunch, Fujita and I put our heads together. Decided to call Kimura, see what was really going on. But his phone just rang and rang. No answer. We didn’t know what else to do but hope he’d turn up the next day.”
“But Tuesday came and went. Then Wednesday. Still no Kimura.”
“That’s when Fujita and I started to get a really bad feeling. Like, really bad. We figured something serious must have happened. So, after school, we went straight to Kimura’s house. He wasn’t there. Just his mom. And she…” Itō paused, swallowing hard.
“She looked like a ghost. It had only been a few days, but it was like she’d aged a decade. Her eyes were hollow, her face drawn and pale. She used to be so… vibrant, always perfectly put together. But that day… no makeup, her clothes were rumpled. She barely spoke to us, just met us at the door, mumbled something, and practically pushed us away.”
Yomikawa Tsuko’s gaze sharpened. “What exactly did Kimura’s mother say?”
“She said Kimura’s dad had taken him to a specialist, a doctor. That they’d be late. Then she just thanked us for coming, looking like she was about to shatter into a million pieces. We could see she was on the edge, so we didn’t press her. We never expected… later that night, around ten, my phone rang. It was Kimura.”
“And on that call, Kimura poured it all out. Everything. The horrifying, inexplicable sleepwalking episodes that had plagued him for three straight nights: the previous Sunday, then Monday, and again on Tuesday.”
The unspoken dread in the room was thick enough to choke on. Three consecutive nights.
Even Yomikawa Tsuko felt a sliver of something akin to… intrigue. Could such a bizarre, relentless affliction truly exist? And the crucial question, the one that made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle: could this, somehow, be connected to the shadowy legend of Lord Mask-Taker? The masks in the legend, the carved faces in the cave… Coincidence? Or something far more sinister?
The group leaned in, their faces a mixture of fear and morbid fascination. Itō Takuma continued, his voice barely above a whisper. “That Sunday night, Kimura had forced himself to stay awake as long as possible. The memory of the first sleepwalking episode was a raw terror, making him dread the moment his eyes closed. But exhaustion, eventually, is a battle no one wins.”
“This time, when he slept, he dreamed.”
“In the dream, Kimura said he was walking down a long, narrow path, swallowed by an impenetrable darkness. And on either side of this path, lining it like grotesque sentinels, were faces. Blurry, indistinct, but undeniably faces. He could sense human-like forms attached to them, but their bodies were shrouded in shadow, their features lost in the gloom. All he knew was that they were watching him. These… things. And all he could do was walk forward, deeper into the oppressive black.”
“Kimura was adamant about the word ‘things.’ It was more than a feeling; it was a certainty that resonated in his bones. Whatever those entities were, they weren’t human. They might wear a human shape, but they were cold, utterly devoid of the warmth of life.”
“As he stumbled on, he saw it – a faint flicker of light in the far distance, at the very end of the path. And with it, a strange sense of comfort, of warmth, like the promise of home. He even thought he heard voices, calling to him from the light.”
“Kimura!”
“Shōta—”
“Just like that. The same chilling calls from the cave.”
Ueno Junko visibly shivered, her shoulder bumping against Ōgami Yōsuke’s as she unconsciously tried to shrink away from the story. “The voices… from when he was leaving the cave?”
Itō Takuma’s voice dropped even lower, so low they had to strain to hear. “Drawn by those voices, Kimura walked and walked in his dream, until his legs felt like lead, until his mind was numb with fatigue. And then, with a violent jolt, his eyes snapped open.”
“Again, the dead of night. Again, the cold, alien surroundings.”
“This time, Kimura found himself in the westernmost reaches of Fura Ward.”
“He was at the very foot of Mount Karasu-Go.”
Comments (2)
Please login or sign up to post a comment.