CRADLE OF THE CURSED

The moon hung low over Yomiga Lake, a pale, spectral eye watching from the heavens. The water shimmered beneath it, calm, almost unnaturally so , mirroring the dark trees that bowed toward its surface like mourners at a grave.

The air was colder tonight. It wrapped around Rei Kuzunoha like a funeral shroud as he stepped past the familiar torii gate and made his way down the overgrown path toward the lake's edge.

Rei's breaths came out in white wisps, his flashlight barely piercing the darkness ahead. The woods here always seemed to hold their breath , like they knew what had happened. Like they remembered.

"Haruki..." he whispered to the silence. "I'm here again."

It had been a month since that night. Since his brother vanished into the stillness of this lake, leaving behind only a whisper and a nightmare. But tonight... something felt different. He couldn't explain it. A sense of gravity pulled at his chest, not unlike the sensation of being watched.

Rei knelt by the water, fingers brushing the icy surface. He looked into it and for a moment..just a split second, he thought he saw something moving beneath. Not a fish. Not a ripple. A shape. A pale hand.

He staggered back, heart pounding. "Get it together," he muttered, shaking his head.

But then the water surged.

Without warning, long tendrils of liquid shot from the lake like grasping arms, coiling around Rei's legs. He screamed as he was yanked forward with inhuman strength, hitting the surface hard and being pulled into the dark depths below.

The cold was instantaneous , biting, punishing. Rei fought against it, thrashing wildly. But the lake had no mercy. Down he went, deeper and deeper, the surface a shrinking blur of moonlight above. He opened his mouth to scream and only drank in the freezing silence.

And then the world shifted.

Like a dream being forced into his mind, a vision bloomed behind his eyes. The lake vanished. The cold faded.

He stood at the edge of a village from long ago.

The trees were younger, the lake smaller and clearer. Lanterns burned along a dirt path. People in old clothing whispered and pointed at a young woman.

She stood hunched, her hands cradling her swollen belly. Tears stained her face.

"She defied the village's ways," someone murmured.

"A cursed child... born of an outsider."

"She'll bring ruin."

The woman , Aika , looked up. Her eyes, so full of sorrow, met Rei's. She couldn't see him. But something inside him felt her pain.

The vision shifted again.

She was locked inside a shed, surrounded by talismans nailed to the wood. Her cries echoed into the night. Her baby had been born,small, frail, breathing only barely.

The village elder stood outside. "The child is an omen. You cannot leave."

Time skipped.

Aika, her child in her arms, stumbled toward the lake under a bleeding moon. Her feet were bare, her hair unkempt, eyes hollow.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to the baby. "Maybe... maybe we'll be reborn. Somewhere kinder."

She waded into the water. The baby whimpered once, then was silent. Aika let out a soundless scream as the light left the infant's eyes.

She did not surface again.

The vision shattered.

Rei's eyes flew open underwater, lungs burning. He saw her now. Aika's spirit, twisted by grief, her once-gentle face drowned in shadows, her hair floating like kelp. She reached for him...not out of rage, but desperation.

"Help... me..." she gurgled, voice distorted by water and sorrow.

"No!" Rei kicked, thrashed,panic taking over. Her hands brushed his chest, and for a moment he felt warmth... then the weight of her grief crashed into him like a wave.

But something cracked.

A final whisper of her child echoed in the dark, as if time itself sighed. Aika's grip loosened. Her eyes met his again, haunted, hollow. The lake trembled.

And then...he was free.

Rei shot upward, breaking the surface with a gasp that tore through the night. He coughed violently, crawling onto the shore, his limbs trembling. The cold was replaced by pain, by fear, by something deeper.

He scrambled to his feet, heart thundering. "That wasn't just an Onryō," he muttered. "That was.."

Rei stumbled through the underbrush, lungs burning, soaked to the bone. Each breath rasped like fire in his throat, his chest heaving as if his body still hadn't accepted he was alive. The forest blurred around him, twisted silhouettes of trees flashing past, branches tearing at his soaked clothes and skin. The only sound was his heartbeat, deafening in his ears.

He didn't know where he was going. Only that he had to get away, from the lake, from the pale hands that had dragged him under, from the sorrow that had nearly claimed him whole.

But then… he saw it.

Through a clearing, half-hidden by weeping foliage and years of neglect, stood a shrine.

Ancient and decaying.

The wooden torii gate was splintered, leaning to one side like it was moments away from collapsing. Moss and ivy curled around its base, reclaiming it. Beyond the gate, the shrine itself slouched under a sagging roof, its walls discolored by rain and rot. Yet something about it remained untouched, as if time itself had dared not step any closer.

Rei's breath hitched. His steps slowed.

"What… is this place?" he whispered, voice hoarse.

The doors were shut tight, sealed with thick straw ropes...shimenawa , that were brittle and sun-bleached, but still pulsing faintly with a sacred presence. Dozens of ofuda (paper talismans) fluttered faintly in the breeze, their ink faded, edges torn, like they'd been slapped on in desperation long ago.

Rei felt a strange pressure in his chest, like invisible fingers coiling around his ribs. A whisper of dread laced the air, ancient and heavy, but beneath it...curiosity. That same pull he'd felt since he'd first returned to the lake. A thread tugging at him, leading him here.

He staggered forward, breathing hard.

"This shrine… was it always here?" he muttered, scanning the clearing. "No one mentioned it. It's like the forest itself was hiding it."

Instinct screamed at him to leave. Every step toward the shrine felt like he was approaching the edge of something vast and unknowable.

But then his hand moved to the small blade he kept in his coat, his last line of defense, dulled by salt and time.

He gripped it tightly, the metal cold against his palm.

"I shouldn't be doing this," he said aloud, his voice cracking with uncertainty. "But if this has anything to do with Haruki… with what's happening to me…"

He raised the blade.

The wind stilled.

And with a sharp motion, he slashed through the shimenawa.

The ropes snapped apart, slumping like dead vines to the ground.

A breathless second passed, then the talismans ignited. Not with fire, but with decay. They turned to black ash instantly, disintegrating midair in a quiet storm that danced around Rei's feet like cursed snow.

The very air shifted, like something had just exhaled from deep within the shrine.

Rei stumbled back instinctively. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. Every inch of his skin crawled.

"What… did I just do?"

A gust of frigid wind swept through the clearing, almost knocking him off balance.

From behind the shrine doors, there was a faint creak.

As if something had just stirred.

But nothing moved again. The forest fell into a deathly silence, broken only by the pounding of Rei's pulse.

He stood there, frozen, staring at the shrine.

And then.. fade to black.