Emma's POV
My chin throbbed as my footsteps echoed down the noisy school corridor, but I ignored the stinging pain. I climbed the stairs to the third floor and walked to the classroom. As usual, the class went quiet as I went to my desk and plumped down on my seat, exhausted.
‘At least I avoided the members of the student council today,’ I thought, putting my head on my desk. ‘The last thing I want is to be barraged with questions I don’t want to answer.’
The pain in my head continued to ache, so I closed my eyes. His face immediately flickers into view in the darkness, forcing me to open my eyes and swipe my hand on my face, which added to the pain on my aching jaw.
‘This is ridiculous,’ I think as the noise around me grew louder, making the headache worse. ‘I should have just choked on the sleeping pills and dealt with the nightmares than to deal with this. Now I am irritated, angry, and tired at the same time!’
I knew I was going to lash out in anger, so I quickly went to the nurses' office and lay on the bed, but when I closed my eyes, it was the same thing; I saw his face flickering in the darkness, smiling at me. Unfortunately, I got tired of fighting, and I closed my eyes to deal with the nightmares. I was running away from him in a dark void while he was screaming my name and begging me to stop running.
“Why are you running away Darling?” I hear him laugh. “You know you can’t run forever!”
I keep running as my breath hitched and nearly trip, but I quickly regain my balance and continue to run blindly in the dark. I don’t know where I am going, but all I know is I have to get away from him no matter what.
“Calm down.” A calm voice echoed in the darkness as I ran. “It's okay. No one is chasing you.”
I nearly stop running but pick up the pace when his maniac laughter echoed in the void. So I kept running until his voice slowly faded away, replaced by the calm voice that kept repeating the phrase, “You are safe. He isn’t chasing you.”
I finally stop running and stand still in the dark void with my heart beating faster and my hands shivering.
“You are in a peaceful place,” the voice said. “Imagine yourself surrounded by calmness and serenity.”
I tried, but it was impossible, and I jumped when his laughter echoed again.
“Are the colors around you dark and ominous?” it asked. “Let them fade into softer hues of colors of blues, greens, or yellows.”
The laughter echoed again, but I tried. A splash of blue appeared, followed by green, then yellow. The colors continued to meld together, creating an environment of a beautiful meadow with flowers and a clear blue sky. My heartbeat slowed down, and I took deep breaths to calm myself as a gentle breeze fluttered around me.
“Do you feel comfortable?” the voice asked, and I nodded. “Now imagine birds chirping and rustling of leaves in the wind.”
Slowly, the sound of chirping birds appeared, and one flew past me, followed by the rustling of leaves in the present wind.
“Take deep breaths,” it ordered. “Relax and enjoy the scenery. No one is going to harm you here. This is your safe place. A place where you can feel free.”
My knees buckled to the ground, and I lay on the grass. Everywhere was so peaceful. I closed my eyes and continued to take deep breaths.
Then I heard it: his maniac laughter. My heart raced as I sat up to look for him, but he wasn't there. Then the sky above me shattered into pieces, revealing him towering over me. I tried to run, but he grabbed me and brought me closer to him while laughing manically.
My eyelids fly open, and I sit up. My heart was beating, my head ached, and my vision was blurry.
“Lie back down,” the calm voice commanded, and I thrashed my head around until I saw a forty-year old woman sitting on a chair near the door with her glasses glistening in the room's light.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped.
She adjusted her glasses and leaned back. “The nightmares, how long has it been affecting you?”
Naturally, I would have snapped back at her for getting into my head, but I stopped myself short, reminding myself that she is an authority figure in the school. At least the only one I respect.
“It's been happening for two months,” I reply, rubbing the back of my neck.
“Are the scenes in your nightmares the same?” she asks, and I shake my head. “Do you sleep well?”
“No.” I bring my knees together. “I take sleeping pills, but it doesn’t help me escape from my nightmares.”
She nodded and wrote something in her notepad. “What kind of…”
Then we hear the pounding of feet outside and students yelling. I jump out of the bed and rush to the door just to see students running down the corridor and out of the school. We follow them to see a teacher pushing through a crowd of students, holding Bae, who had a camera dangling from her neck.
“What happened?” Ms. Mishema asked.
“This girl was beating up the fellow student.” The teacher replied.
Bae was shocked. “What? No, I…”
“I’ll handle it,” the older woman replied, and the teacher let go of Bae. “Follow me.”
Bae and I locked eyes before she sadly looked away and followed Ms. Mishema to her office, but what made me suspicious was the whispering and giggling behind me. I looked back just in time to see a group of girls giggling amongst themselves, and the ‘victim’ was amongst them.
‘At least don’t make it obvious, you idiots!’
The teacher quickly shooed us back to our classes, and for once, I wasn’t irritated to be amongst my mates. What I experienced in the nursing room replayed in my mind, and remembering it gave me a sense of relief. The same sense of relief I felt when Bae did that strange ritual on my while I was asleep.
‘What she did…’ I mused as the teacher droned on with the lesson. ‘Could this mean that…I am in control of my mind. If that’s the case, what was Bae doing to me that night?’
“HisuiTamayama. Please come to my office.”
The voice from the loudspeakers announced, and all eyes turned to Hisui, the blond girl with pink highlights who had been looking at her phone the whole time. Immediately, when she walked out of the class, I excused myself to follow her to the office to eavesdrop. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t hear much, but there was a slam and yelling from the girl.
I quickly hid when the door opened and watched the grayu girl scream into the room. “You’ll regret this, you old hag! You and that immigrant!” Then she slammed the door so hard the glass on it rattled.
A smile appeared on my face as she stormed off down the hall, and then Bae and Ms. Mishema walked out of the room an hour later.
“I promise to give you all the information you need; just keep a low profile and don’t get into fights,” the woman said as she locked the room.
“What about you?” Bae timidly asked.
“I’ll be fine. She is an empty threat,” She replied.
‘So, she knows the students’ personality,’ I thought and looked back at the corridor where the girl stormed off. ‘This means she’s not another mindless teacher who is just here for the job, but what were they talking about?’
There was only one way to find the answers I needed, but I had to wait until cleaning time to make my move. On a normal day, I was allowed to go home immediately when class was over. So I pretended to leave the school grounds but made a detour to the west fountain and hid in the school’s garden before sneaking into the building through the side door. I walked up the stairs to the third floor to the club room. Obviously, the door was locked, so I used a lockpick and opened it.
The room still looked the same except for the scent of the incense, but there was a new picture on the detective board: pictures of a female ghost appearing upside down in a window.
‘I have never seen you before,’ I said as my eyes scanned the rest of the board. ‘What’s your story?’
Decided to look at the desk, but all I saw was an unfinished calligraphy so I studied the board again and took note of the uniform it was wearing.
“So you appear in the windows in the ‘Science Lab’, ‘Class 3-2’, ‘Biology Lab’ and the ‘Computer lab’”. I muttered. “Why are you appearing there?”
For some reason, I decided to help with her investigation and took one of the pictures from the board. That night, I searched the girl’s uniform and realized that this was the same brand of uniform worn in the 1990s.
‘Then this means you perished in the late or middle 1990s.’ I hummed out loud and decided to look up the articles on the school during that era, and that’s when I saw it: the same uniform worn by female students. I scrolled down until a picture of a group of students appeared with the caption ‘Class 3-2’ underneath it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t identify her amongst the students.
‘Just great,’ I slouched onto my study desk and huffed. ‘Now what am I going to do?’
I didn’t want to sleep, so I spent the night studying instead. Later, I found myself scrolling through social media out of boredom. Nothing unusual caught my eyes until I saw a picture of Bae kneeling during the school’s funeral procession with the caption, ‘What a disrespectful taste in fashion.'
“This looks interesting,” I clicked on the profile the picture the picture was in which was Hisui’s profile but it was the comments underneath it that caught my attention; at first, people were mocking her until someone posted a picture of a traditional Chinese funeral attire with the caption; ‘She is from China. This is what they wear in mourning.’
I scrolled through more comments, my interest piqued as the thread devolved into a cultural debate. Some defended Bae, explaining the white clothing was traditional Chinese mourning attire, while others continued mocking her "disrespect.". I noticed that after one of the commenters called Hisui out for her lack of knowledge, she put her posts on private, which wasn’t surprising to me.
My search on the social media platform continued until I stumbled upon a selfie-picture of two girls taken near the window on the third floor in class 3-2, and there was the blurry figure of the ghost girl by the window. I enlarged the photo, noticing details and read the comments underneath it.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVjSQSbvhh3
"OMG, I'm never going to the third floor alone!"30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzBO7mr0okW
"This school is so haunted 😱"30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV3i573Yebq
"Wait, isn't that where the Chinese girl was asking questions three days ago?"
That last comment was from Hisui. I rolled my eyes at it and looked at the time on my phone, took screen shots of the pictures, and sent a text to Bae, ‘Meet me in the Biology Lab before class. We need to talk.’
The next day, I arrived early, headed straight to the biology lab, and waited for Bae to arrive. Thirty minutes later, she arrived, but Itsuki was with her.
“What is he doing here?” I ask.
The silver-haired boy scratched the back of his head and gave a cheeky smile which pissed me off. “I thought you wanted to talk to her about the fight that happened yesterday.”
“The fight?”
“Yeah. Bae and Hisui got into a physical altercation regarding her wearing white during the mourning ceremony that day, and it ended with Hisui being suspended for two days.” Itsuki calmly explained. “I thought that’s what you wanted to talk about.”
The deadpan expression on my face said it all, along with the frustrated urge to pass my hand over my face in annoyance. Instead, I take deep breaths and point at the door.
“Leave us.”
Itsuki looked surprised at my order, but he obeyed and walked out of the room. Immediately when the door shut, I took out my phone and showed Bae the picture.
“Care to tell me what’s going on?” I ask.
Bae stared at me with her huge eyes and looked away. “I wasn’t…I mean…”
I decide to start. “Wǒ diàochále yīxià nàgè yōulíng shàonǚ, fāxiàn tā chuān de xiàofú shì běnxiào yījiǔjiǔlíng niándài de kuǎnshì, érqiě tā de jiàoshì jiù zài zhè dòng lóu de sān lóu, sān-èr bān. Nǐ nàbiān chálé dào le shénme?”30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDt90vXjg5o
(I did some research on the ghost girl and realized that her uniform is that of the 1990s era in this school, and her homeroom was Class 3-2 on the third floor in this very building. What did you find on your end?)
This time, she wasn’t surprised when I spoke in Chinese, but she hesitated, shifting on her feet and speaking in a low voice. “Well…Ms. Mishema helped me get information on her.”
Her name is Kotori Takamine, who disappeared many years ago.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And?”
She produced an old, worn-out sepia picture of a standard nuclear family: a father, a mother, a young boy, and a tall girl with long black hair holding a polaroid camera from her bag and gave it to me. “Her name is Kotori Takamine, and she was 16 years old when she disappeared years ago.”
I took the picture from her and looked at the family. A pang of sadness inside me ached because it reminded me of how my family used to look like, except I didn’t have any siblings.
Or did I?
“Her parents are long dead,” Bae murmured. “But her younger brother is still alive. He was nine years old when she went missing.”
“Did her brother tell you anything useful?” I ask.
Bae nods. “I…I mean Ms. Mishema spoke to him yesterday, and he told her what he knew. She disappeared on February 3rd, 1997, and was last seen by her friends in school during cleaning time sweeping the school’s roof. She never came home, and her body was never found. According to her brother, his parents continued their search until they passed away, but he has long since admitted that his sister is dead.”
Suspicion crept in, and I narrowed my eyes. “How does he know that?”
“It has been years, and the police still haven’t found her, and according to the law, if the person is missing for more than three years, they are pronounced dead.” Then, she produced another document from her bag. “This is a copy of the death certificate she collected from her brother.”
‘Her parents refused to believe that she was dead until they died.’ I took the death certificate, looked at it, and gave it back to her. “Did she have a reason to disappear like that?”
“No. They were a happy family. Kotori was a very intelligent girl who had a lot of friends, and she loved photography, hence the polaroid camera she was holding.” She leaned back on the table and looked down with downcast eyes. “Now her ghost is haunting this school building, and we don’t know why.”
‘So she wasn’t bullied, she had friends, and she loved photography.’ I hummed out loud. ‘From my knowledge on this school’s history, that girl was either bullied into taking her own life or killed by someone, but who did it and why?’
“I think we should find her body first,” I say after some moments of silence.
“Yes, but where is it?” Bae asked with frustration laced in her voice.
Then the school bell rang, telling us to go to class. So we went our separate ways and met again in the school’s auditorium during cleaning time, sweeping the floor with three more students under the watchful eye of Kiyoto and Ayumi
“Rúguǒ tā de yōulíng zài xuéxiào páihuái, zhè yìwèizhe tā de shītǐ jiù zài zhèlǐ .” (If her ghost is haunting the school, this means her body is here.) Bae suggested as we mopped the floor.
“Shì de.” (Yes.) I replied.
“Nàme wǒmen yào zěnme zhǎodào tā?” (So how do we find it?) Bae asked.
“Shuō shíhuà, wǒ bù zhīdào cóng nǎlǐ kāishǐ.” (To tell you the truth, I don’t know where to start.) I replied. “Tā kěnéng bèi mái zài rènhé dìfāng, huòzhě bèi shāo chéng huījìn rēng jìn xuéxiào de fénhuàlú.” (She can be buried anywhere or burned to ashes in the school’s incinerator.)
Hearing this, Bae stopped what she was doing, closed her eyes and did a ‘To’ sign (I did my research on Shaolin, so I know the signs). I watched her sigh deeply as she resumed her work.
“Wǒmen yào wǎnshàng qù xuéxiào zhǎo xiànsuǒ ma?” (Should we check the school at night for clues?) she asked.
Just as I was about to reply, Katsumi approached us with a glare. “What were you guys talking about?”
We stopped what we were doing and turned to look at her. “It's…it's none of your business.” I snapped.
“I am making it my business.” She said sternly, and then she looked at Bae. “You do know speaking a foreign language outside the Language Class is against the school’s rules. I warned you about breaking the rules, Bae Tatsumania.”
“What? That rule wasn’t implemented before.” She looked around at first before balling her fists and protesting. “I have seen many students communicate in different languages in this school. Why am I…”
Katsumi took a step forward and silenced her with a glare. “Idiot. Maybe if you stopped spying on other students and kept up to date with the school’s current affairs, you would have known this rule was implemented after the murder you failed to solve.” She straightened up her posture and clicked her tongue. “Honestly. It's people like you that irritate me the most in this school. You aren’t worth my time.”
By now, the rest of the students had stopped what they were doing to watch Bae bow her head and tighten her grip on the mop’s handle. The air was thick with tension and humiliation until I recalled Ms. Mishema’s words: ‘Keep a low profile and don’t get into fights.’.
Staring at the red-haired girl, I couldn’t help but give a stupid smirk. “Don’t get your panties tied up in knots Katsumi. I was telling her how dull you are, how you act stern to cover your insecurities, and how your worst body features are your fat ankles.” Then I thumbed at Bae. “She was telling me not to insult you.”
Bae thrashed her head at me in surprise while the pupils in Katsumi’s eyes shrank in horror and then narrowed in anger. “Idiot! I am not insecure…”
“You use your ‘intelligence’ to intimidate others despite having an average IQ like the rest of the students, and your ‘sternness’ is used to cover up your rude behavior and the power trip you get when ‘implementing’ the school’s rules. When intimidated, harassed or show that you know too little, you immediately create or bend the rules to gain the advantage.” I looked squarely at her. “The only reason why no one has called you out for your pretentious behavior is because you are part of the student council, but if you were one of us, the persona you created wouldn’t save you. You would create another persona, but it would crack under pressure, making you a perfect target for bullies.”
Now the tension in the spacious auditorium grew thicker, and I shattered that by letting the mop’s handle fall to the floor, making the rest of the students jump.
“I know you are doing your job as a member of the student council but…” I walked over to her, leaned close, and whispered into her ear. “Don’t create scenarios and rules that aren’t real. The next time you do that, I will air the rest of your dirty psychosis all over the place. Do you understand?”
She took a step back, gave me a scornful look, and walked away with Ayumi running after her. I felt the eyes of the rest of the students on me, but I focused my attention on Bae who looked up at me with her huge brown eyes and gave me a nod of gratitude. Then she asked if she could stay over at my place.
I politely declined her offer. Besides, I needed some time to think about my actions because that behavior wasn’t me. It was taught by him. In the confines of my bedroom, his voice slithered through my mind like a cold whisper.“The best way to intimidate someone, Beloved, is to dig into their weakness and twist it until they break.”
“No!” My breath hitched, and I grasped my head, digging my fingers into my scalp. “It's him. This is not me!”
I rapidly shook my head until his voice finally faded away, but it caused my vision to blur, and I crumbled to the floor while nursing my headache.
“I shouldn’t do that again,” I whispered to myself. “I should stop that.”
I decided to watch TV to take my mind off things, but the flickering glow of the TV screen barely registered in my mind. No matter how much I tried to distract myself, the unease gnawed at me. Something was missing.
With a sigh, I grabbed my laptop, fingers hovering over the keys before I typed her name. Kotori Takamine. Dozens of old newspaper clippings filled the screen along with missing posters, videos of tearful interviews from her parents begging her to come home; her mother’s hollow-eyed stare as she pleaded for her daughter to return, her father, standing behind her, gripping her shoulder like he was the only thing keeping her from collapsing.
Nobody. No evidence. She just… disappeared.
‘It’s the same thing Bae told me earlier.’ I muttered and leaned back. Something was missing, and it was gnawing at my brain, which only frustrated me. So I visited the school’s website again to continue my search until I stumbled upon the rough blueprints of the schools.
‘I have seen this three times, and it’s not helping my migraine.’ I leaned back and sighed. ‘She appeared in windows, 'Science Lab’, ‘Class 3-2’, ‘Biology Lab,’ and the ‘Computer Lab’. These are rooms found on the third floor closer to the roof.” I clicked on the picture and scrolled until I reached the blueprints for the third floor. “What if…”
Then I had an idea, but I did not have a printer to execute it. So, I used a software and started putting dots on the areas the ghost was appearing, then connected the dots with the lines.
It formed an arrow.
Bingo.
ns160.79.111.143da2
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