I need to do something.
I take a step into the room, and as I do, Hayami starts to turn.Her T-shirt hangs from her legs, her arms by her sides, her eyes remaining closed as she rotates from her back onto her front.
Quicker now, I move to the bed, looking underneath her, above her, trying to find the strings, the wires, the invisible ledge that’ll reveal the trickery that’s at work here.But there’s nothing but air, nothing but space, nothing but the unbelievable notion that Hayami is suspended by… nothing.
There’s the urge to touch her, to pull her down, but I don’t want to wake her, frighten her, rouse the sleeping beast if she isn’t Hayami, if something else is occupying her body right now.
Do I want to be faced with Kuchisake-Onna?
But I can’t stand here and do nothing.
Just as I’m about to climb onto the bed, Hayami’s eyes open, and she screams.
FIFTY
HAYAMI
PRESENT
The scream is soloud it could lacerate my eardrums, making me feel like they’re bleeding.It takes a second before I realise that the scream is my own, just before I drop and land on the bed.
“It’s okay.You’re okay.I got you.”Strong arms encase me, warm and familiar, Fenrir’s voice bringing me out of the fog of the dream.
“What happened?”I ask breathlessly, my chest heaving as if a thousand volts have just been fired through my body.
He holds me like I’ve just broken, and he’s trying to keep the pieces of me together.
“You were asleep and….”He regards me with such a pained look that my fear comes thundering back into my ribcage.I’ve never seen him look afraid.Never.
“I was dreaming.This horrible dream,” I begin, because the look on his face is telling me that he has no idea what just happened either.“It was dark.Terrifyingly dark.The kind of blackness that clings to your skin and doesn’t let go.I was scared, so fucking scared, but I’m not sure why.I’d done something, betrayed someone, and I was about to pay the price.”
Fenrir stares at me.
“Then pain,” I say, remembering the next part of the dream.“Bloodcurdling, searing pain.My face felt like it was on fire, the burn reaching my ears.My mouth felt raw and wet.And just as it felt like I couldn’t take it anymore, that was when I screamed.”
He waits as if this isn’t enough, and it takes me a second to find the words, because dreams I can understand.Nightmares, night terrors—call them what you will—have been around since the beginning of time.They’re nothing new.But what I saw when my eyes opened scared me the most.
Glancing at him, I swallow.“When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t on the bed.I was above it, looking down at it.And then I fell and—” The terror reaches inside me, grips my vocal cords, and cuts off my words as Fenrir pulls me into his chest.
“It’s okay,” he tells me, but I push back.
“No, it’s not okay.The sleepwalking is one thing.ThatI get.People sleepwalk.The dream is another.People dream.But they don’t wake up floating above their bed.Theydo not.So either I’m going mad or something else is going on here.”My eyes search his as if there might be a recording of what he saw behind those black pupils.“What happened when I screamed?Why were you out of bed?”Tears join the fear, swirling with a manic anger that threatens to consume me.
He blinks, takes a second, and then appears to compose himself.
“I got up to use the bathroom, and when I came back….”He closes his eyes, and I wonder if he’s recalling what he saw or blocking it out.
“What?What did you see?”
* * *
FENRIR
She looks so scared, so afraid, but I don’t know what’s worse: knowing that what she saw really happened or that she was hallucinating.I falter.I don’t know what to tell her.I don’t want to frighten her any more than she is already, but the truth is, I’m scared too.I’m scared about what’s going on here, about what she’s becoming.About what or who is taking over her body and doing these things to her.
There’s nothing else to do.
I pull Junko’s journal from my back pocket and hand it to her.
