Amanda Sun - Shadow

“Strawberry milk,” she said, pressing it into my hand.

“Strawberry milk? What kind of flavor name is that?” I looked at it suspiciously, but popped it into my mouth anyway. The world turned pink and sweet.

“Good, right?” Diane laughed. “Wait till you try the yuzu ones. You’ll forget lemons ever existed.”

I stared out the window until we pulled into Shizuoka Station.

“Why are the buildings all so short?” I said.

“Earthquakes,” Diane said. “You know, for safety.”

“Oh.”

I followed her, groggy from all the travelling.

“We could walk from here, but with the suitcase we’ll want to catch the bus,” she said.

I gazed at the ground while we waited, pulling my peacoat tighter around me to keep out the chill. We hopped on the yellow-and-green bus from the back door, Diane carrying my bag through the crowd. I could barely look around or even make small talk. I’d seen enough—my tired brain was saturated. After a few stops, Diane shoved some yen in my hand and nudged me forward. The five yen coins had little holes drilled through the middles of them. I tipped the coins into the slot by the driver and stepped out the front door.

Starting at the back of the bus, ending at the front. Life in reverse. Why not? Everything had turned on its head anyway.

Shizuoka had these elaborately painted manhole covers and I stared at them as we walked from the bus to Diane’s apartment.

“Mansion,” she corrected, but I was too tired to ask, just gazed at the chalklike drawings on the sewer covers as my suitcase bumped over them. Mt. Fuji in whites and blues, cherry blossoms in pinks and greens. Some weird temple with a samurai and a yellow sunset behind him.

“Here we are. Welcome home,” Diane smiled.

I looked up. It was a modern-looking building with tiny concrete balconies centered like giant steps up the five floors. The glass doors slid open as we approached the lobby, a giant chandelier hanging from the ceiling and rows of steel boxes stretching the length of the room.

“Mailboxes,” Diane said, walking across the marble floor and toward the elevators.

I’m clueless , I thought. So much for language. I don’t even know the context.

We rode the elevator up to the fourth floor, where a pale green door led into whatever home awaited me. Diane smiled nervously, like even she didn’t know what was in store.

As she opened the door, the burst of cold whisked past me.

“Jeez,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself.

“Sorry,” Diane said, flipping the light switch on as she stepped into the foyer.

“Why’s it so cold in here anyway?” I said, closing the door behind me and clicking it shut.

“No central heating in most of Japan.”

My jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

“It’s not so bad,” she said. “At least you’re here in February. It’ll get warmer by the day. And you’ll be happy to know the previous owners left their kotatsu table.” She motioned toward the small living room. Beside a tiny crime-against-fashion-purple couch stood the table, encircled by a thick gray blanket. “The table has an electric heater in it,” she said. “So you sit under the futon and get snug. The futon comes off for the summer, of course. Then it’s just a glorified coffee table.”

“Wow,” I said. “All the same, I think I’ll keep my coat on for a bit.”

“Sure,” Diane chuckled. “Want to see your room?”

Yes.

No.

Sleep. I needed sleep. It was all too much. The dull buzzing came back, my blood pulsing, the taste in my mouth sour.

“I’m so tired,” I said.

Diane nodded. “It’s the middle of the night for you,” she said, and she pushed open my door.

Unlike the rest of the house, the room was traditional, the floor woven with tatami mats and an alcove set in the wall displaying some kind of wall scroll and the scrawniest of fake bonsai trees. A Western-style bed had been placed on some special mat and pressed along the side of the alcove, taking up half the space in the tiny room. A cheery pink comforter lay over the bed, with a tiny glass coffee table beside it, low to the ground and covered with the inventory of my new life—an electronic Japanese dictionary, a vase of purple flowers, an intro package from the cram school I’d start attending on Friday and a pair of red-and-white Hello Kitty slippers. A desk had been shoved in the other corner by the window, beside a tiny dresser and bookshelf.

It was small and crowded, but the effort was obvious. And on top of it all, Diane’s only electric heater rested beside the head of the bed.

Diane shifted from foot to foot, looking at the floor.

“Let me get you some towels,” she said, rubbing the back of her head as she went, shy about the effort she’d made with my new room. It was a sweet gesture. It was.

I stared at my new room, but exhaustion was taking over.

This was my new life, no matter what happened.

Face that mountain , Katie. Size it up.

But I wasn’t sure if I could.

Tomohiro

The dream started in darkness, like so many of them did. There was no beach, no cloud of shadows chasing. For once I’d wanted to relive that nightmare, to ask my questions about Taira the Demon Son. Not that I would’ve been able to change anything for sure. I usually realized it was a dream too late to do anything useful but wake up.

A faint sense came over me that something wasn’t quite right. It was the fleeting thought that I was dreaming, but I couldn’t be sure. My mind felt sluggish, like it was too much effort to put together the pieces.

At first there was nothing but darkness, an isolation so intense that claustrophobia soon followed. A flicker of blue light lit the crumbling brick walls around me.

Then the whispers started.

God, the whispers. Like a whole bucket of ice cubes tossed down the back of my shirt. Sometimes they swelled into moans, deep and horrible cries of pain, always talking over each other in swells like waves. And the footsteps that clicked like wolf claws on cement. Only they weren’t wolves, I knew. The beasts circled closer and closer, ready to gnaw my flesh off the bone. I shuddered. It was a labyrinth of brick, and I had no way to tell if the demons were really close or not. The fear was sharp, an intense pain I couldn’t ignore.

“You are marked,” said a woman’s voice, and I jumped back against the jagged mortar crumbling on the wall. “You are chosen.”

“Stay away from me,” I said to the darkness as I backed into the corner. But suddenly the hot breath of the woman was in my ear.

“There is only death,” she said, and I stumbled forward. Her plain white kimono was pale in the blue light. She fused into the shadows and vanished.

I heard snarling, scraping. One of the beasts, trying to dig under the wall. He slammed his body against the other side and bits of brick crumbled to the ground. I could see clouds of dust rising where his claws could almost reach under—sharp claws that would rip me to shreds.

“Help me,” I said, terror taking hold. “I don’t want to die.”

“You won’t die,” her voice laughed. “You will kill.”

I opened my mouth, but said nothing.

“Are you afraid of the inugami ? You misunderstand. He’s gone mad with fear. He’s trying to get away from you .”

He was scrambling under the wall because he feared me. He didn’t realize I was waiting on the other side to—to what? Kill him?

“No. I’m just—I wouldn’t...” But suddenly I could remember something horrible. The taste of matted fur and bone, the stench of blood.