Preface:
"Did you hear about that girl?"
"You mean the one that went missing?"
Slowly the car pulled to a stop. The door opened and a man stepped out.
"Yes, apparently they found her in the abandoned schoolhouse. Dead."
"That's horrible!"
"I heard she was from class 3."
He was dressed in a large overcoat, a stubble at his chin as if he hadn't shaved in days. He walked tiredly up the path then onto the grass.
"Do you think it has something to do with…you know…"
"The fabled calamity? Yeah, it might be."
"I heard it was just a myth."
He passed rows of erected stone monuments, some kept clean, some chipped and battered, left forgotten over the years.
"It's not. My uncle was in class 3, twelve years ago. He told me about it. People died every month and once it started there was no way to stop it."
"But it hasn't happened in years."
"Yes, they did find a way to stop it, and they were able to do it before it started."
"What? How?"
He stopped at the end, near a plot with a dirt mound, newly filled.
"I'm not sure, but something happened in that class twelve years ago, and ever since then the calamity has stopped."
"Do you think it's starting up again now?"
"I hope not. But if it has then someone will die every month."
"The students?"
He bent down and gently placed the bouquet of flowers on the mound, close to the tombstone. Sighing, he raised saddened eyes upward.
"And the teacher as well. Also anyone related to them within two generations. All of them are at risk."
"So aunts and uncles, siblings, and grandparents?"
"That's right. You can never tell who's going to die."
With a soft caress he brought his hand up and traced his fingers over the newly made tombstone, drifting them over the characters. They read…
"It might be better off to stay away from that class for a while."
"I agree…"
Mei Sakakibara…