1.06: Pulling the Pieces Back TogetherSomehow, I managed to return to my apartment building after my frantic, desperate run.

  I actually had no memory of half the turns I took. My legs simply carried me forward, ducking into side streets, slipping past alleys, hugging walls. I avoided the big avenues whenever possible… too many eyes, too many phones, too many chances for someone to see what I had become. But even the back roads weren’t safe. People still spotted me. People always spotted me. They tried to get a closer look, leaning in, hesitating… and every time, my widened, inhuman vision caught them in the corner of my perception and I veered away.

  It was surreal. Even while running for my life, I could see everything… every angle, every motion, even behind me, as though my vision wrapped around my skull like a full sphere of awareness. I was like a walking three sixty degree security camera.

  If someone tried to peek from behind a vending machine, I noticed them.

  If someone stepped out of a doorway ahead, I saw the moment their shadow shifted.

  I didn’t know how this worked, but I knew it wasn’t human.

  I had the absurd thought that I could probably shove a bag or wear a pumpkin over my head and still see perfectly. My vision didn’t seem tied to anything physical anymore.

  Eventually, I had no choice but to cross a rge avenue. The traffic noise made me hesitate… not because of danger, but because I didn’t want to be seen. Vehicles slowed when they spotted me, people in cars staring with open mouths. A delivery driver nearly dropped his phone when he saw me clutching my briefcase over my face like some deranged parody of a shy idol.

  I thought about stopping at a konbini… perhaps I could find a mask, a scarf, anything better than pressing a briefcase to my face. But that would mean entering a store. That would mean being seen. That would mean… expining things that I couldn’t.

  No. Absolutely not.

  I kept running.

  By the time I made it to the steps of my apartment, sweat drenched my shirt and jacket. At least I could still sweat. At least something about me remained human. My lungs burned. My legs trembled. Every muscle in my body begged me to colpse.

  I staggered up the stairs, gripping the railing.

  Once the adrenaline faded, reality smmed into me like a falling building.

  I couldn’t go to work.

  I couldn’t take the train.

  I couldn’t even walk down the street without causing a riot.

  My mind repyed the scene with the officer… first one, then two, then four. They’d cornered me on the ptform. And even if I did somehow show up at the office, how would I expin myself? I couldn’t even lie convincingly when the truth was generally harmless. Lying about something like this… my face, my body… was impossible.

  I’d get caught in my own words before I finished the first sentence.

  If my boss saw me like this, he’d call the police immediately himself. Hell, he’d probably hit me with his stapler if I walked into the office. Should I have covered my face, people would assume I’d been mutited or self-harmed. They’d ask questions. They’d assume the worst.

  And worst of all…

  I couldn’t lie.

  Even when lying would help.

  Even when lying would save me.

  My magnetic train card had enough on it to st a few months. I’d pnned to use it daily over a long stretch anyway. That pn was dead now. Just like my job. Just like my future. Just like—

  The practical side of my brain kept tallying the fallout. I couldn’t use the trains anymore. My train card would just sit in my wallet, quietly expiring.

  I didn’t even have taxi money on me. Walking to work would take half a day, even if I didn’t get arrested or beaten halfway there. My boss wouldn’t tolerate any kind of interruption… not teness, no excuses, and definitely wouldn’t put up with whatever I looked like now.

  An egg for a head… At least I still had my unruly hair.

  I made it inside my apartment on autopilot.

  I shut the door and locked it.

  Then my legs gave out.

  I sank to the floor and let myself slide until my cheek pressed against the entryway tiles. The moment I felt the cool ceramic against my skin, something inside me broke. I didn’t sob loudly. I didn’t scream. I just… hollowed out. Emptied.

  The st time I’d felt like this, I’d just learned about Reiko-chan’s death.

  I had shut down for a week. I hadn’t eaten. Not even showered. Hadn’t even gone to work until the hunger physically forced me up off my ass.

  This time was worse.

  Because this time, I had nothing left or soon would not.

  Certainly not a face.

  My hands moved without my permission. I stripped off my suit, avoiding the mirror like it was a cursed object. I couldn’t afford to see whatever I’d become. I tossed everything into a heap. My skin crawled at the idea of fabric touching where my face should have been.

  I stumbled into the bathroom and did something completely uncharacteristic.

  I twisted the faucet and climbed into the tub fully naked before the water even started to pool.

  Cold water filled the basin. It became lukewarm and then warmer.

  I y curled on my side, knees to chest, letting the water rise. Letting it cover my ears… except I didn’t seem to have ears anymore. I didn’t feel any water fill them. I didn’t feel pressure. I didn’t even feel muffled hearing.

  Even beneath the water, I could sense tiny tremors… pipes gurgling and spluttering behind the walls, the drain vibrating under the overflow, faint footsteps somewhere in the hallway beyond my front door. It felt like the whole building was breathing directly into my skull.

  … Maybe my whole body was an ear now.

  … Maybe air wasn’t needed to conduct sound to me anymore.

  … Maybe there was nothing human about me now.

  I curled up tighter, sinking until I was fully submerged.

  The drain in the bathroom floor slurped quietly as water overflowed. Japanese bathrooms were built for this; at least I wouldn’t ruin anything.

  I wasn’t thinking of trains. Or policemen. Or all the screams.

  I was thinking of Reiko-chan.

  Her soft ugh.

  Her devastating punches and throws.

  Her boots in my genkan.

  Her tone while scolding me.

  That smile she wore that never reached her eyes in that amusement park.

  “Oh… Reiko-chan…” I whispered underwater, bubbles fanning upward. My chest constricted.

  Is this how you felt?When the world closed in on you?When there was nothing left but pressure and pain and expectations?

  A horrible crity bloomed inside me.

  Did you give up because you couldn’t fight anymore?Did the world deal you an impossible hand too?Is that why you… why you…

  My throat tightened until I couldn’t breathe… even though technically I didn’t need to. I was deep underwater.

  “If you reached this point,” I sobbed, “then I… I understand.”

  The words came out in choking bursts.

  “I couldn’t protect you when you needed it… and now I can’t even protect myself…”

  Tears mixed with bathwater. My chest ached with every heartbeat.

  “I’ll follow you,” I whispered. “If this is what I’ve become… then I’ll follow you. In another life, I’ll be the man I couldn’t be. I promise…”

  A sound cut through my ment.

  A sound that did not belong in a drowned bathroom.

  Doo-doo-doo-doo, yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah…

  Caramelldansen.

  My world stopped like a record on a broken pyer.

  Water sloshed violently as I jerked upright, sending a tidal wave over the tub’s sides.

  I scrambled out, slipped, smmed chest-first into the wet tile, then skidded on hands and knees toward my soaked suit pants.

  The ringtone kept chiming, bright and maddeningly cheerful.

  Caramelldansen.

  It was her ringtone. Our silly little song. Her custom ringtone.

  I had never assigned it to anyone else. Ever.

  My fingers closed around the phone.

  My no-eyes locked onto the glowing caller ID.

  Reiko-chan.Reiko-chan’s number.Reiko-chan calling me.

  My heart burst into a sprint so painful I nearly dropped the phone.

  “REIKO-CHAN!” I cried, spping the answer button. “Reiko-chan, is that you?! I missed you—I missed you so much!”

  Silence.

  “R-Reiko…? Are you okay? Are you—are you her mother? Her father?”

  Still nothing.

  Only faint static breathing greeted me on the line.

  …

  “Tomorrow.”

  The voice was wrong.

  It slithered. It crawled. It vibrated.

  With a tone that did not belong to anything alive.

  “A v-voice changer?” I stammered.

  “Tomorrow,” it repeated, distorted, as though speaking through broken speakers.

  My blood (assuming I still had any) went cold.

  “You must find Noh-face before the twenty-fourth hour this day.”

  My breath hitched.

  “Recim your face, or it will possess yours for eternity.”

  My knees buckled.

  “You will lose your identity. Your memories. Your self. Surrender is not an option.”

  My throat closed.

  “If you wish to live a normal life again… go. Or die tomorrow.”

  The word “tomorrow” punched me in the chest.

  Reiko had said it when they first met. “People named ‘Tomorrow’ shouldn’t give up so fast.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow…!”

  My heart felt like it was being wrung out.

  “What… what’s the point?!” I shouted. “Where is Reiko-chan?! You have her phone! PUT HER ON THE LINE! Where is she?!”

  A low, echoing ugh answered me.

  Cold.Empty.Insane.

  “Tell me!” I screamed. “Tell me where she is! You bastard!”

  "You are a yokai,” the voice whispered.

  Something else breathed into the receiver. Something like ash drifting. Something like smoke swirling around a dying fme.

  “Welcome,” the voice rasped.

  Then the line went dead.The ringtone’s ghostly echo seemed to linger in the air even after the call ended.I stared at the bnk screen.My hands trembled.

  Tomorrow. The same word that had been hissed at me on the ptform stairs… the same whisper urging me not to lie down beneath the train headlights.

  Reiko-chan’s number had called me.

  But whatever held the phone…

  Was not her.

  And whatever I had become…

  Was a yokai.