Chapter 31
Airi's appearance was the same as usual.
The same appearance she always saw at school.
The sailor uniform designated by the school, brown hair, slightly drooping eyes, and long, stretched corners of her mouth.
Everything was exactly the same as usual.
"You can't skip lunch. If you do, you won't grow taller and your chest won't get bigger."
As she said this, Airi placed her hand on her chest unusually large for her age and lightly shook it up and down. This display should have been a kind of provocation to Rise, who was self-conscious about her small chest, but her head strangely felt foggy and muddled, so she could only stare blankly.
"Huh? Are you really sleepy? You'd usually jump up and attack me if I did this."
Airi smiled, stretching the corners of her mouth wide and slightly revealing her black teeth, as if she found Rise's blank expression cute. Then she casually tucked her hair behind her ear, sat down next to her, and spoke.
"What were you doing at night that you’re like this? Hm? Did you get a boyfriend?"
Airi smiled as she looked at Rise, who could barely move her head while lying face down. Then she started poking Rise's side with her short index finger, grinning mischievously.
Rise, who could barely move her head, had no choice but to endure Airi attacking her with tickles as if it was her chance. Finding it amusing, Airi moved behind her back and mercilessly tickled her sides and armpits with fingers that swam 360 degrees.
"Take that! Tickle attack!"
Ahahahaha! Stop! Stop it!
Airi kept giggling with her eyes curved into crescents as if she was really enjoying doing this, and she continued tickling for a while with a face like a laughing fox. Then when Rise trembled intermittently and gasped for breath out of exhaustion from the tickling, Airi finally seemed satisfied and sat down behind her.
Screech.
Airi sat down along with the sound of the chair being pulled, rested her chin on her hand, and asked Rise:
"You're still not moving. Are you having sleep paralysis?"
Airi stopped her prank and asked this to Rise, who was still lying face down and barely moving her head, as if worried. It was then that Rise finally realized she was experiencing sleep paralysis.
Ah... Sleep paralysis... So I'm having sleep paralysis right now.
Her body wouldn't move.
Her fingers, toes, waist. She couldn't open her mouth to say anything, and she couldn't move her neck as if someone had driven a steel bar into her spine. With her face planted directly on the desk, her head bowed, she could only move her eyes - if this wasn't sleep paralysis, what else could it be?
Eyes?
At that moment, Rise felt something strange.
Didn't she move her head just a moment ago...?
But now that she recognized it as sleep paralysis, her head was planted on the desk surface. She had made a pillow with her neatly gathered arms and was resting her forehead on it, so there was no way she could have moved her head.
Then how did she see to the side?
No... In the first place.
How did I see Airi's face behind me?
Airi.
The usual Airi.
Her clothes, her hair, her eyes…
And her mouth corners stretched long... stretched long to her ears...
"Did you notice?"
The moment her thoughts connected like this, Airi's mouth split wide open, revealing her teeth.
Teeth that had completely turned black, decaying with time.
And below those teeth was a deep, abyss-like pupil, and a tongue cut off to the root was struggling to move.
"Now, it's time to go back in!"
Airi put her hands on her upper and lower mouth and then tore it apart with force as if ripping clothes.
Her mouth, stretched to its limit, became a maw reminiscent of an Arctic lamprey. Her entire face became a wide-open mouth, and the blackened, rotten teeth were densely packed like suction cups, creating a horrifying form.
Airi, in that state, opened her mouth wide and covered the crown of her head first.
No! Nooo!
She could feel the breath.
A rotten breath.
Cold, smelly, disgusting breath.
The breath, as if it were a snake, flowed over her face with a cold touch, making her whole body shiver. The sensation made her desperately pray for this time to pass, for this chilling nausea to disappear. And as if her prayers were answered, the rotten breath soon disappeared.
But this wasn't because the source of the rotten breath had disappeared, but because Rise's head had entered a place where breath couldn't be felt.
Sensation.
After the chill, she felt a sensation that was physiologically utterly unacceptable.
She felt sticky, physiologically repulsive liquid covering her head, and the sensation of her fine, smooth hair becoming matted. Airi's maw covering Rise's head moved like intestines, giving an unpleasant pressure, and it was squeezing tight like it wanted to crush her temples, trying to embed rotten teeth that wouldn't properly set in various parts of her head.
And then.
Crunch.
An unpleasant sound was heard.
* * *
"Hiiiek!"
Rise jerked her head up with a scream at that horrifying and disgusting sensation. But contrary to her worst imagination of being in a monster's stomach, she was in a small room with tatami mats.
Rise hurriedly looked around.
Dozens of candles were lit in the room, and her friends were sitting in formal seiza position surrounding the candles, looking at her with surprised eyes. They were all wearing white clothes and had stacks of books or paper bundles beside them, looking as if they had prepared some stories.
Among them was Airi.
"A-Airi?"
Airi looked just like her usual self.
A white one-piece dress, large breasts, slightly drooping eyes, and a small mouth with thin, distinctive lips.
She was looking at Rise with a puzzled expression, as if wondering why she had called her, and Rise shook her head and felt the back of her neck.
It's damp.
Cold sweat?
The back of her neck was soaked.
Not just that, but the white clothes she was wearing, her hair, her face.
Everything was completely soaked as if she had just come out of a river.
"You fell asleep while we were doing Hyakumonogatari..."
"Did you have a nightmare?"
"Rise~! The daughter of a shrine shouldn't be so weak-hearted!"
Her friends tossed a few words at her.
Hyakumonogatari? I was doing Hyakumonogatari?
And then Rise was finally able to grasp the situation.
Hyakumonogatari.
It was a ritual where 100 candles were prepared and several people took turns telling 100 scary stories. It was a form of necromancy where one candle was extinguished for each story, and when the last of the 100 candles was extinguished, it was said that a ghost related to the participants could be summoned.
I must have dozed off during Hyakumonogatari and had a nightmare...
She understood that she had fallen asleep during Hyakumonogatari. That she had fallen into sleep while listening to scary stories and had a nightmare.
"Now that Rise is awake too, shall we move on to a really scary story! Okay, I'll start!"
Mahiro, who was sitting next to Rise, glanced at Rise who was still trying to calm her racing heart from the nightmare, and acted deliberately cheerful. Rise gave a slight smile as if grateful for her consideration in trying to help her escape the nightmare, and Mahiro gave a thumbs up and winked.
Mahiro cleared her throat with a "Ahem, ahem," and then deliberately lowered her voice to start the story.
"This is a story that happened to me when I was in 9th grade..."
As the story began, her friends sitting in seiza position all turned to look at her at once.
Even though it was a sealed room without a hint of wind, the candles flickered as if shaken by something creating strange shadows on the walls, and Mahiro's face, which was illuminated only from below by the candles, created an atmosphere that seemed more like a ghost than a person.
Moreover, for some reason, the way she covered her mouth with one hand while speaking felt eerie.
"You know I was in the drama club when I was in 9th grade, right? I went home late at night because I’d been practicing for the cultural festival. But strangely, the streets that day were empty and eerie. I was already exhausted because the role I was playing required a lot of physical effort, and with the streets like that, I started to feel scared..."
Mahiro brought her face closer to the flickering candles to create a scary atmosphere.
"But fortunately, nothing happened until my house came into view. It was just that the atmosphere was a bit chilling and there were no sounds of people, but no evil spirits appeared or anything like that. But I must have been really scared at that time. As soon as I saw the gate, that was all I could focus on, and I found strength I didn't know I had. I ran with all my might, you know?"
Gulp.
The sound of someone swallowing was heard.
"But strangely, the lights in the house were off. The whole house was completely dark. So I thought maybe mom hadn't come home? But when I walked down the hallway, there was a small light on in the kitchen. When I looked, mom was cooking. So I felt relieved, but also found it strange, so I called out to mom. 'Mom? What are you doing there?' Like that..."
Rise also listened to Mahiro's story intently.
"But mom didn't move at all and just kept cooking. It was a time when there were a lot of fights between my parents, so I thought maybe she had fought with dad again and was in a bad mood, so I just went to my room to change clothes. And of course, I took a shower since I was covered in sweat. But even after I came out of the shower, the house was still dark. So I went to the kitchen just in case... and mom was still cooking."
Was it because her voice was lowered?
Or was it because of the atmosphere?
Mahiro's story had a different atmosphere from the ghost stories Rise usually heard.
"So I thought ‘mom must be really angry, I should try to act cute’ and tiptoed over to her, right? But whether I was approaching or not, mom just kept cooking. Chop, chop, chop, chop on the cutting board."
Thump, thump, thump.
Mahiro flicked her fingers on the tatami floor to recreate a similar sound.
"But even though the vegetables on the cutting board were almost reduced to powder, mom kept moving the knife chop, chop, chop. So I felt something was strange and grabbed mom's shoulder and said, 'Mom! What are you doing!'"
And then...
"I could see mom's face then... and it was exactly the same as mine."
Mahiro continued with a slight eye smile.
"She stared at me expressionless, with a face exactly like mine. And her hand kept thumping the cutting board, chop, chop, chop, it was so creepy..."
Thump, thump, thump.
"So I stepped back in fear, you know? Then that thing with my face finally opened its mouth. With a seriously expressionless face, like wearing a mask, it opened its mouth and spoke... And do you know what it said?"
"Wh-what did it say?"
Mahiro raised the corner of her mouth at another friend's question.
"'Mom! What are you doing!'"
"Kyaaaaaah!"
"Kyaak!"
Screams erupted here and there, and Mahiro, seemingly satisfied with the reaction, smiled and continued her story.
"That face kept saying it while looking straight at me. 'Mom! What are you doing!' 'Mom! What are you doing!'"
"Hee, heek!"
"So I was so scared that I turned around and ran out, you see. Then I went outside the house, closed the gate tight, and just sat down there... and I could still hear sounds from inside the house. The sound of 'Mom! What are you doing!'..."
"I-I’m scared..."
"But that sound kept getting closer, and then I heard the front door opening with a creak. So I ran all the way to the police station and spent the night there before returning home the next day. And..."
Gulp.
"...the finely chopped vegetables from yesterday were still there in the house. What I saw wasn't a dream."
Whoosh.
Mahiro, having finished her story, removed the hand covering her mouth and blew out the candle.
Then she glanced at Rise, partly got up all of a sudden and shouted.
"Waaah!"
"Kyaaaaaah!"
Rise, startled like a cat, fell backwards.
"Ahahahaha!"
"Rise, what was that!"
"Like a cat!"
"Rise! What are you doing! Hahah!"
All her friends held their stomachs and laughed at that, and Rise, trying to calm her racing heart from the shock, shouted.
"Mahiroooo!"
"Ah, sorry sorry! Ahahahaha!"
But no matter how angry Rise got, her friends' laughter didn't stop.
"Ahahahaha! Funny! So funny!"
"Rise! What are you doing! Hahah!"
"Ahahahaha! Rise, what was that!"
"Like a cat!"
"Ah, ahahahaha!"
Her friends rolled on the floor laughing as if they were having fun.
Clatter.
Their laughter was so intense that they didn't even notice when the candles they had set up hit their bodies and rolled on the floor.
"Ahaha! Ah, Rise! What are you doing!"
"Rise, what was that! Hahah!"
"Like a cat!"
"Ahahahaha!"
Her friends pointed at Rise and held their stomachs, laughing until their mouths split.
"Ahahahaha!"
"Ahahahaha!"
"Hahah!"
"Like a cat!"
And then, Rise felt something was strange.
"...What are you guys doing?"
But the laughter didn't stop.
"Ahahahaha!"
"Hahah!"
"Ahahahaha!"
"Hahah!"
"Like a cat!"
Her friends kept laughing loudly, their mouths split wide.
"Hahah!"
The corners of their mouths lifted so high they almost reached their ears.
"Ha–"
"Ahaha!"
And as they rolled around on the floor, the candles rolled and went out, and the sealed space gradually darkened. When one light went out, it became one light darker, and when ten lights went out, it became ten lights darker.
"Ahahahaha!"
All that could be heard was laughter.
The thin light sources eventually went out one by one until they could only illuminate a very small part of the sealed room, and in the end, only one tiny, thin flame remained that shadows couldn't even be casted properly.
"Like a cat!"
"Hahahahahaha!"
"Ahaha!"
"Hahah!"
When only one candle remained, her friends stopped rolling on the floor and started to get up one by one. But strangely, laughter continued to flow from their mouths.
"Ahaha! Rise! What's that!"
They approached her slowly while making laughing sounds.
Then... they all brought their faces close to hers at once, as if pushing them in.
"Hee, heek!"
Their faces were exactly the same as Rise's.
And those things with Rise's face all opened their mouths with expressionless faces. Slowly opening their huge mouths that took up half their heads...
"Rise, what are you doing!"
"Rise, what are you doing!"
"Rise, what are you doing!"
"Rise, what are you doing!"
Then they rushed at her with their mouths split wide as if to devour her...
Crunch!
An unpleasant sound was heard.
* * *
"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
"Ah, are you awake?"
Rise sat up with a scream.
A doctor was in front of her.