Chapter 2

Armed with just a flashlight, Yuuki traveled downhill towards the village. Having met with a spirit earlier, it was disconcerting to be by himself, let alone entering a haunted village. Still, it wasn't like he had a choice.

Having come so far as to discovering the infamous village of urban legends, he doesn't think the supernatural forces in play here will allow him to turn back now. If it was so easy to leave, the village's existence wouldn't have remained hidden until two years ago. Moreover, there was a high possibility of his brother being in this village, which was Yuuki's main reason for coming here.

Still, as far as luck goes, Yuuki didn't had any otherworldly encounter ever since he started descending from the hill ... and he hoped it stays that way. After all, if he did meet a hostile spirit, what could he possibly do?

Fleeing would be his only option.

As Yuuki reached the bottom of the hill, he trotted down a dirt path that led him to the arched wooden entrance of the village. Standing right before the arched entrance, Yuuki looked up to see there was a wooden plaque at the center, but the name of the village wasn't etched upon it. In fact, nothing was etched on it.

"Here it is..."

Yuuki thought he heard someone whispered behind him. However, before he could look back, his sight was covered by a flash of white.

Suddenly, Yuuki was looking at the wooden plaque through someone's eyes. However, instead of being a blank plaque, the name "Mirakiri Village" was etched in black paint on the plaque. Aside from that, the plaque looked clean and well-maintained. Yuuki didn't have the chance to examine the plaque further as the person, whose sight he was sharing, had then looked towards the village houses beyond the arched entrance. Yuuki could feel the person breathing in deeply before letting out a sigh.

"The Hidden Village of the Mist."

After that, Yuuki heard a long static sound as everything gradually turned pitch black. For a moment, Yuuki thought that was the end of the vision. He was proven wrong by a sudden burst of noises, which consisted of terrified screams and high-pitch shrieks, followed by faint chanting in the background. There were also a mixture of male and female voices speaking in the background, but Yuuki could only hear bits and pieces of them among the cacophony.

"The Shintaku sees…"

"Help – "

"The Sins…"

"This shouldn't have happened!"

"He ran away!"

"Don't look -

"- can't escape."

Suddenly, everything quieted down in an instant.

Only a deep distorted voice had spoken out in the dark.

"It's pointless."

After a few seconds, a black and white scene, much like an old movie film, had showed up.

A dark and tall figure was walking away from Yuuki's point of view, leaving a dark trail behind itself. Something was dripping down its left hand, while his right hand was gripping something black and unidentifiable to Yuuki. The dark figure had suddenly stopped on its track and turned partly towards Yuuki's direction.

"Are you-"

In the next moment, Yuuki's sight had returned to him and he realized that he was back to standing before the arched entrance of the village, gasping for breath. It took awhile for his breathing to calm down, in which he then looked up at the wooden plaque at the entrance. It was blank, just like the first time he had seen it.

"What ... was that that all about?" said Yuuki outloud as he looked uneasily towards the village houses beyond the entrance.

The vision… Although it was random and abrupt, had felt so intense. Instead of being just a spectator, he could feel the emotions of the voices in the vision. Fear, regret, anxiety, despair and from the last black and white scene, hollowness. Even as Yuuki looked down at his raised hand now, he could see it trembling ever so slightly. 'Scary. I am scared.' was what his inner thoughts had concluded after seeing that earlier vision and it had made him hesitated to step foot in the village.

But…

"Yuu-chan!"

A little boy's gentle smile, which brought to mind, an unfulfilled promise.

Biting his lower lips, the young man gripped the strap of his messenger bag and walked past the arched entrance of the village.

There was nothing but complete silence, which made the sound of Yuuki's footsteps particularly loud to his own ears. Aside from that, the wooden houses around him were worn-down and some of them even had mosses covering part of the walls. If it weren't because of the lighted-up torches around the village, no one would have doubted that the village was desolated.

A village that had supposedly vanished for more than a century. Yet, the structures of the houses aren't as broken-down as I expected it to be. Is this really the same village as the one spoken in the rumours?

Perhaps it was his own paranoia, but ever since he walked into the village, Yuuki had an uncomfortable feeling of being watched from the shadows of the decrepit houses around him. When he turned towards the possible source of his discomfort, the feeling was gone, only to return moments after he looked away. If he was to strain his ears to listen, he thought he could hear soft whispers coming from the surrounding darkness. Even though he couldn't tell what the whispers were about, Yuuki had a feeling that it was about him and it wasn't in a pleasant manner.

How creepy...

Since the hidden presences didn't do much other than watching and whispering behind his back, Yuuki decided to ignore them and quickened his pace as he wandered further into the village. He glanced briefly at the houses he passed by, seemingly searching for one that didn't look too foreboding and unused. The effort he put in choosing the house and the grimness of his situation made him felt as though he was choosing his final resting place, instead of looking for his brother.

Well, that wouldn't be too exaggerated.

His decision to enter the infamous Mikakiri Forest to search for his twin brother would be considered crazy by most of his acquaintances. That is, if they knew about it. After all, he only told them that he will be taking a long break from work. Since they weren't close with him, they didn't ask about his holiday plans and Yuuki believed that they also wouldn't bother to call and check on him every now and then. So, nobody would have noticed that Yuuki had went missing until, probably, a few weeks later.

While Yuuki was looking at the houses around the village, something peculiar had happened.

His smartphone was suddenly ringing.

The out-of-place ringtone of his phone had reverberated throughout the desolated village, silencing even the faint whispers in the shadows. However, this had also announced Yuuki's presence to everyone in the village. Therefore, the young man was frantically trying to retrieve his phone from his jean pocket. When he finally managed to retrieve his phone and silenced the ringtone, he stared at the light-up display screen of the vibrating phone, instead of answering the call straightaway as he usually would.

Something didn't feel right.

There was no reception when he was in the forest. So, he doubted there would be any difference now, when he was in a village that supposedly didn't exist anymore. His assumption was proven right when he noticed the reception symbol on the top left corner of his phone screen was still showing zero reception.

How could it be possible for him to be receiving this call now?

To make things creepier, the caller ID shown on the display screen was "Unknown Number".

Seeing that, Yuuki wanted nothing more than to wait for the call to hung up by itself.

After a minute or two, the phone stopped vibrating. Not long after that, a missed call notification popped up on his display screen, followed by another notification that indicated he had one voicemail message. Having an uneasy feeling regarding the voicemail, Yuuki chose to ignore it. He set his phone to silent mode before he turned off his display screen and kept his phone back into his jean pocket.

It was when he was keeping his phone that Yuuki felt a sudden chill running down his spine. Looking up, he saw a young man in dark brown kimono standing a few paces ahead of him with his arms crossed over his chest and a displeased frown etched upon his face. Yuuki knew instantly that he was a spirit.

"You don't belong here."

Despite his unwelcoming stance, Yuuki sensed no hostility from him. However, that didn't make him any less afraid of the latter.

"Leave now, before it is too late."

The only thing that prevented Yuuki from running away there and then was his determination towards his goal. It was also what gave him the courage to retort the spirit's warning.

"I-I won't leave until I found my brother!"

Hearing that, the spirit was silent and unmoving as he stared questioningly at Yuuki.

"If you stay, you will die."

"Th-That is even more of a reason why I can't leave my brother here alone!"

After a moment, the spirit lowered his head. There was a hint of melancholy in his eyes as he spoke in a softer tone.

"If that's your choice, so be it."

With that said, the spirit started fading away, merely leaving behind a few last words.

"Go to the house with a chrysanthemum symbol … and stay away from the Shikage."

Yuuki stared at the spot where the spirit once stood. After a moment of serene silence, he let out a sigh of relief. As someone who is afraid of spirits and the supernatural, Yuuki had no idea what to expect when he retorted the spirit. In fact, he didn't expect to converse with a spirit. However, the notion of abandoning his brother irked him to no end. He didn't understand why itself.

Perhaps, it was his own guilt that caused him to be so defensive about it.

What a joke.

After so many years, he thought he had gotten over it, but that didn't seem to be the case now. Then, is his search for his brother a form of atonement?

No, no, now is not the time to think about that.

Gripping his fists, Yuuki was determined to find this house with chrysanthemum symbol that the spirit had told him. He believed there was no reason to doubt the spirit's words as he could have just leave Yuuki wandering around the village aimlessly, instead of warning him to leave, if he had truly meant Yuuki any ill will. Moreover, he was not familiar with this kind of rural place and he had no clue where to start his search. So, there was no harm starting his search there.

Nonetheless, what bothered Yuuki the most was the spirits last word of warning regarding the Shikage. There was no mention of this in the folklore or urban legends, but the mere sound of the word itself was already ominous enough. Yuuki only hoped that he won't encounter this so-called "Shikage" anytime soon.

The search for the house wasn't as difficult as Yuuki expected, though. After rounding a few corners and passing some crumbled houses, he came upon a two-story house with a large chrysanthemum symbol etched and painted in yellow onto the center of a wooden door. It was hard to miss it. Moreover, compared to most of the wooden houses in the village, the size and design of this house was made to suit people with a certain amount of influence in the village. If Yuuki was to look for his twin brother, he would first need to know more about what happened in the village and why his brother had insisted on coming here. From the looks of it, this was certainly a good place to start searching for clues and information.

Still, there was no guarantee what he will encounter inside. For all he knows, there might be more spirits inside or even worse, the Shikage.

Nevertheless, he needs to start his search somewhere.

So, after inhaling deeply, he placed his hand on the knob of the wooden door and slowly turned it.

Yuuki could only prayed that he hadn't run out of his good luck yet.