Chapter 2 – The Things That Linger

The night after Sano Rika's death, I stopped sleeping.

It wasn't by choice. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her standing on the rooftop, bathed in the sickly glow of the streetlights. The wind twisted through her hair, making it look like black ink spilling into the sky. She never spoke in those dreams—never moved. She just stood there, watching.

And when I woke up, I always felt like someone had been in my room.

The first time it happened, I dismissed it as exhaustion. The second time, I blamed my nerves. But by the third night, when I woke up gasping for breath with the taste of something metallic on my tongue, I couldn't ignore it anymore.

Something was wrong.

The Classroom of Forgetting

At school, everything was disturbingly normal.

No memorial, no mention of her name. The teachers skipped over her like she had never existed, and the students went on with their lives as if nothing had happened. It made my stomach churn.

Her seat near the window remained empty. The sunlight poured over the desk, making the wood glow pale and ghostly. I kept catching myself staring at it, half expecting someone to sit down, half expecting to see something move in the corner of my vision.

"Yo, Haruki."

A hand clapped against my shoulder, jolting me out of my thoughts. I turned to see Takahashi, my childhood friend—or, at least, the closest thing I had to one. His expression was the same as always: bored, mildly annoyed, like everything around him was just a minor inconvenience.

"You look like shit, dude," he said, sliding into the chair beside me.

I didn't respond.

He followed my gaze to Rika's empty seat and sighed. "Don't tell me you're still thinking about that."

"She died three days ago," I muttered. "How the hell is everyone acting like nothing happened?"

Takahashi scratched the back of his neck, avoiding my eyes. "It sucks, yeah. But what do you want us to do? People die all the time."

I clenched my jaw. "She was in our class."

"She wasn't really in our class," he corrected. "She was just... there. I don't even remember hearing her talk."

That was what disturbed me the most. No one remembered her.

Even the people who had shared the same air, the same space, the same meaningless school life with her—none of them could recall anything about her.

Except me.

The Girl in the Hallway

After lunch, I went to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face.

When I looked up into the mirror, I froze.

The stall door behind me was slightly open. I hadn't heard anyone enter, hadn't noticed any footsteps. But through the narrow gap, I could see something—a single, pale eye staring back at me.

I spun around.

Nothing.

The stall was empty.

A shiver crawled down my spine. I pushed open the door, expecting to find a prank, some kind of joke—but there was nothing. No one.

I let out a slow breath, stepping back. Maybe I really was losing my mind.

But when I looked back at the mirror—

She was there.

Standing just behind me, her head tilted at an unnatural angle. Her eyes were blank, like the static of an old TV. Her mouth opened—wider, wider, too wide—like a silent scream.

And then she was gone.

I stumbled backward, my breath ragged. The room was empty again. But the mirror was different now.

There was a handprint on the glass. Small. Slender. Faint.

Like someone had pressed their palm against it just moments ago.

I ran.

The Whispering Dark

I didn't stop running until I was outside, my lungs burning from the cold air. My head was spinning, my heart hammering against my ribs.

I needed to breathe. I needed to think.

The schoolyard was empty, the sky a dull, gray sheet stretched over the world. I leaned against the side of the building, trying to convince myself that what I saw was just exhaustion. A trick of the light. A lingering nightmare.

But then—

A voice.

"You're late."

I turned so fast my vision blurred.

She was standing at the edge of the schoolyard, just beyond the fence.

Sano Rika.

Her uniform was the same as always, but something about her was... wrong. Her skin was too pale, her hair too still, like she wasn't really there. Like she was just an image, a memory projected onto the world.

My throat was dry. "You're dead."

Her lips twitched upward in a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I know."

I took a step back. The cold in the air deepened, sinking into my bones. "What... do you want?"

Rika tilted her head, considering me. "I don't think you should be asking that," she murmured. "The real question is... why do you still remember me?"

A chill ran down my spine.

Before I could respond, she was gone.

Like she had never been there at all.

Things That Shouldn't Exist

That night, I barricaded my door. I didn't know why—I just knew that if I didn't, something would come inside.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting.

And at exactly 3:33 AM, I heard it.

A soft, deliberate knock.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

It came from inside my room.

My stomach clenched. My fingers dug into the sheets. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.

Then, a whisper—right next to my ear.

"You're late."

The lights flickered.

And the door—**the one I had locked and blocked with furniture—**began to creak open.

Something had gotten in.