I locked Mizuki's door behind me. My fingers lingered on the knob longer than they should have. Something about the air inside had felt off, stale like a room that hadn't breathed in months. I didn't see anything strange, but the silence pressed against me, like the house was holding something I couldn't see.
I went back downstairs, checked the windows again. Everything was still shut. The boards hadn't moved. Still, I didn't feel safe. It was that kind of quiet that gets under your skin and sticks there. I told myself it was fine. I told myself I was being paranoid. But the blade stayed in my hand anyway.
Eventually, I walked upstairs again and stopped in front of Mizuki's room. I tried the handle, half-hoping the lock had loosened on its own.
It didn't.
I stood there, staring at the door. I could've kicked it in. Or pried the hinges off like I'd planned. But I didn't. Part of it was guilt. The other part was fear. She told me to take care of the house, and this wasn't part of that. As much as I wanted to know what she kept locked away, I didn't want to cross that line. Not with her.
I left the door alone and headed back down.
That's when I saw the kitchen door was wide open.
The curtain flapped gently in the breeze. The wind coming through felt colder than it should have. I felt it hit my chest like a warning.
I froze.
Then it clicked.
The old man.
I ran to the room we kept him in. The chair was knocked over. The bowl of food was still on the ground, barely touched. The dog was gone too.
No blood. No sign of a fight.
He was just gone.
I swore under my breath, grabbed the nearest blade from the counter, and bolted outside.
I couldn't yell. If I made noise, anything out there might hear me. I kept my mouth shut, breathing through my nose like I'd learned to do when panic threatened to take over.
The woods behind the house weren't thick, but they felt wrong.
I pushed through branches and low brush, eyes darting, heart hammering. I scanned the clearing, the slope near the back ridge, the worn path we used to dump scraps.
I stood in the middle of the grass, gripping the knife tighter, chest burning from the run.
I thought about my girlfriend. I hadn't meant to. But that's where my mind went. Her hair, the way she smiled even when her eyes looked tired.
I thought about the people who bullied her. Made her feel small. Worthless. The ones who laughed at the scars she tried to hide, the ones who whispered behind her back, and sometimes right to her face. And her parents. God, her parents. They treated her like she was a broken thing they were ashamed to own.
I remembered finding her.
I remembered the silence after.
Back then, I swore I'd get revenge. On all of them. For what they did. For what they caused. I didn't know how, but I swore I would.
Now I was standing in the woods, alone, searching for a mute old man who vanished without a trace. I couldn't even keep him safe. Couldn't protect a single person.
What kind of revenge was I supposed to take when I couldn't even hold on to the one job I was given?
I turned in a slow circle, knife low, breath shallow.
I listened hard.
Nothing.
No footsteps.
No barking.
No rustling.
Just the wind.
And the weight of every mistake I was too weak to stop.
I saw it standing between the trees.
At first, I thought it was a person, maybe the old man. But when it stepped forward, I saw the gray skin, the torn lips, the black stains around its mouth. It was missing part of its arm. The way it moved was stiff, wrong. Its head jerked to the side and its eyes locked on me.
A cannibal.
I didn't wait.
I turned around and ran as fast as I could.
Branches hit my face. I slipped on wet dirt. I didn't care. I just kept running. I couldn't breathe right. My legs burned. I pushed through the trees, crashing past every bush, not thinking, not stopping.
Then suddenly I was out.
The trees ended. I stumbled into open air.
I was on the main road.
I tripped over the curb and landed on my hands. My knees hit the pavement hard. I stayed down, gasping. My lungs were burning. My head spun.
I looked behind me.
No one was there.
Just the forest.
I stood up, shaking, and looked around. The road was empty. Cracked and faded. The yellow lines were barely visible. I turned my head. There was a sign half-bent over the ditch.
I knew this place.
If I followed the road down, there was a gas station near the bend.
I walked fast. My legs were weak, but I moved anyway. I didn't want to stop. The air felt heavy. There was fog near the edge of the road, low and clinging to the grass like smoke. I didn't like it.
When I reached the gas station, I stopped.
There were no vehicles. No people and no lights.
The front door was wide open. One of the windows was smashed. The pump hoses lay across the ground like someone had dropped them mid-fill and never came back.
I stood in the lot, breathing hard.
Then it hit me.
The old man.
I left him. I didn't even think about it. I ran.
I didn't know if he was still alive or already gone.
"Fuck…" I said out loud. My voice cracked.
I didn't know what to do.
I didn't want to go back.
What if that thing was still there? What if there were more?
I couldn't think straight.
I felt my knees buckle.
I sat on the pavement and held my head.
I started crying.
I didn't even care.
No one was around. No one was coming. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know if the others would come back. I didn't even know if I could find the house again from here.
I just sat there.
Alone.
I wiped my face and stood back up.
I didn't think.
I just started running again.
Down the road, away from the station.
No plan.
No direction.
Just running.
Because I didn't want to be there.
Because I couldn't stand still.
Because everything felt like it was falling apart again.
And I had no one left to tell me what to do.