Chapter 1: The Summer That Changed Everything
---
The summer sun blazed high above, casting golden rays over the quiet seaside mountain town of Kurosawa, where the sea's breeze met the whisper of pine trees. The scent of salt and cicadas filled the air—a typical summer atmosphere, yet something deeper, more ominous, lingered just out of reach.
Inside a modest second-floor room overlooking the hills, Ren Asano, 17, sat cross-legged on his bed, surrounded by old notebooks, maps, and a stack of horror DVDs. His black hair fell in messy tufts over his forehead, partially hiding his thoughtful, slightly haunted eyes.
Across from him, sitting on the floor and sipping cold tea, was Aika Mori, 17, her long chestnut hair tied in a loose ponytail. Her eyes—sharp and curious—were locked on the map Ren had just laid out.
"Five locations. Five," Ren said, tapping the map with a red pen. "Each one has a death attached. One unexplained disappearance. One ghost sighting. One recorded hallucination. One suicide. And one... urban legend that no one ever talks about."
Aika smirked, leaning forward. "So basically, five reasons we shouldn't go."
Ren grinned. "Exactly why we should."
They weren't like other teens. While their classmates worried about entrance exams and summer jobs, Ren and Aika spent their breaks diving headfirst into places that others fled. Haunted tunnels, cursed shrines, forgotten villages—those were their playgrounds. But this summer... this summer felt different.
Not just because of the deeper mystery Ren had found, but because of something unspoken between them. A tension. A feeling that they both noticed but never addressed. Maybe it was affection. Maybe it was fear.
Aika broke the silence. "Why now, though? You said this before. That we should wait."
Ren hesitated. He reached under his bed and pulled out a faded envelope, its edges burned slightly. Inside were two photographs—one of a girl standing in the middle of a foggy road, and another of the same road empty. They were taken moments apart.
"I found this in my dad's old box. It was labeled 'Kurosawa Incident – 1995'."
Aika narrowed her eyes. "Your dad was a cop, right?"
Ren nodded. "Before he disappeared."
Silence wrapped the room for a few moments.
"I think he was investigating this... these places. And I think that what happened to him is connected." His voice was quieter now. "I need to know, Aika. I need to know if he's still alive... or if something took him."
Aika stood up and moved closer to him, sitting beside him now on the bed. She placed a hand gently on his.
"Then let's go find the truth," she said. "But this time, we take it seriously. No more jokes, no more thrill-seeking. We go prepared. Cameras, audio, backup batteries. We keep records. And if something goes wrong—"
"—We run," Ren finished.
She smiled. "We run fast."
He turned toward her. For a brief moment, their eyes met longer than usual. She looked away first.
Outside, the sky dimmed. A single dark cloud rolled over the sun. A faint tremor passed through the floorboards.
Neither of them noticed.
---
Later That Night...
Ren couldn't sleep.
He stared at his ceiling, the dim blue glow of his alarm clock reading 2:13 AM. His ears caught something—a faint scratching at his window.
He slowly sat up, heart thudding.
Aika lived across town.
He approached the window, hands trembling slightly. Pulled back the curtain.
Nothing.
Just the streetlight flickering outside. The soft wind rustling the leaves. He exhaled and let out a soft chuckle.
"Too many horror movies…"
But as he turned away, something on the glass caught his eye.
A handprint.
Small. Faint. But still wet.
---
The morning sun filtered through Ren's curtains like nothing had happened. Birds chirped, traffic hummed below—normal, peaceful. But that handprint still lingered in his mind.
Ren sat on the edge of his bed, sleep-deprived and rattled. He had wiped the handprint off after taking a picture with his phone. He checked it again.
The photo was still there. But the handprint…
Didn't show up.
Just a clean pane of glass.
He stared for a few more seconds before locking the screen and muttering, "Classic horror shit."
His phone buzzed. Aika.
> [Aika Mori]: "Bring the maps and come to my place. Something weird happened last night."
---
Aika's House – 10:14 AM
Aika's room was the opposite of Ren's. Clean, airy, walls pinned with travel photos and a corkboard full of red-string connections. She wore a light-blue hoodie, hair loose this time. She looked serious.
Ren dropped his backpack onto her floor. "What happened?"
Instead of answering, she handed him her phone.
The screen showed a short video. Aika, half-asleep, turning on her bedside lamp in the middle of the night. "I heard knocking," her voice said in the video. "So I'm recording. I don't know what it is."
Then came three sharp knocks—distinct, hollow—like on a wooden surface. She panned to her window.
No one.
But there, at the edge of the frame... something blinked.
A pale, blurry figure. Almost too fast to see, but there.
Ren's breath caught. "You didn't fake this?"
She shook her head. "I thought maybe it was a reflection. But I checked the footage frame-by-frame. And I found something else."
She zoomed in on a paused frame. Between her curtains, behind the glass—a face.
White, eyeless. Watching.
---
Silence fell between them.
"What if this started already?" Aika whispered. "Before we even left."
Ren frowned. "Maybe it never ended."
Aika moved to her desk, pulling out a small binder.
"I went back over your dad's case last night. His notes—what you gave me two years ago. There's a symbol he kept circling. I found it again."
She flipped to a page. There it was: a hand-drawn sigil—a spiraling eye inside a box, marked with the name 'Kamikakushi'.
"Isn't that word...?"
"Yeah." Aika looked grim. "It means spirited away. An old term. People vanishing without explanation."
Ren's voice was flat. "Like my dad."
She nodded.
He sat down beside her, his heart pounding. "So you think he was investigating people going missing?"
"More than that," she said. "I think he was following a pattern. One that leads to all five of our locations."
She laid out five torn newspaper clippings.
1992: Tunnel collapse. Only one survivor—found catatonic.
1995: Shrine massacre. Four bodies, one missing.
2001: Psychiatric hospital fire. Arson suspected. One patient unaccounted for.
2006: Mountain lodge—six teens vanished. No traces found.
2014: Village submerged during storm. Entire population gone.
Ren's chest tightened. All the stories he'd heard online, in forums, in horror blogs—they were all real. All connected.
He picked up the old map they'd marked up the night before.
"What if this whole summer was never our idea?" he muttered. "What if something wanted us to follow this?"
Aika met his gaze.
Then, in near unison, they both said:
"We're being watched."
---
That Night – Ren's Room
He sat again on the bed, same position. Same silence.
But now, the photos. The articles. The videos. The journal. The symbol.
All real.
Aika had taken a copy of the footage to examine the audio.
Ren flipped open his father's notebook. Most pages were unreadable. Water damage, burn marks.
But tonight, he noticed something he'd never seen before.
A faint scribble on the inside cover.
His father's handwriting:
> "If you're reading this, don't trust what you see.
It always begins with the handprint."
His blood ran cold.
He turned toward the window again.
There it was.
A new handprint.
Smaller. This one was inside.
---