Chapter Eight
His smile, his eyes...they looked happy. I felt a pressure on my heart lift as he said those words. A smile of my own curved my lips and I began to laugh. I ran to the doors of the small shrine. The dampened wood was engraved with a huge symbol. I took a few steps back and looked at the doors again. Under the dim lighting of the near-faded lanterns and the macabre moon, I saw a butterfly.
"What does the butterfly mean on the doors?" I said to Masumi. He joined me in observation, tracing his fingers over the imprint.
"Butterfly symbols like this can mean different things. Life, death, and birth. Happiness, even. Messengers of death or even messengers of the heavens, delivering departed souls to their right place..." He paused. "On this door, I don't know what it means." He looked behind him gazing into the misty air. "These symbols are scattered everywhere in this village; in the literature and in the rituals..." I watched Masumi's back. He turned to me, a smile now painted on his pale face. "This village is just crawling with unknown facts and filled with mystery. Makes it worth while to be here..."
I raised an eyebrow and shook my head at that. "Masumi...This village is crawling with rogue spirits and secrets that shouldn't be uncovered for anyone's own good. It might be a field day to spend hours searching through countless scrolls filled with so called "rituals" and curses, playing fill-in-the-blank, but for me...its-its a nightmare to be chased by restless souls, knowing that if I close my eyes for one second...someone is always waiting for a haunt." I shivered and gripped myself tighter. "I just want to go home."
He kissed my forehead and walked past me to the shrine doors. "Ok, Miyako, we're going home..." He reached behind him for my hand. I took his hand in both of mine and held tightly. He shoved the doors open and they made a deep groaning sound as the opened. The sound made my skin coat in fresh chill bumps. I took the handy flashlight from my pocket and gave it to Masumi for the first time. He flicked it on and shone it through the room.
I breathed the cool damp air through my nostrils and instantly made my whole nose cold. The scent of dampened wood filled the small space, covering the air's real smell. I was shivering from head to toe from the air mixed with my cold feet and fingers. I held onto Masumi's hand for it was worth and walked close behind, my back hunched and head dipped between my shoulders like a timid child holding onto Mother at the Marketplace.
The wooden fencing on both sides were broken in places, paper talismans still strung to them. There were a few urns of different sizes in most of the corners. The place was rundown but withstanded the weather nicely. I steered clear of holes in the floor, but generally everywhere else. I observed the sawed rope fixtures that hung, or looked like they were sawed off. A small altar sat near the back of the shrine. Masumi pulled at his hand with my hands clutched in it and I declined his request to let go. Instead he stuffed the end of the flashlight hesitantly in his mouth and tinkered with the ornaments and decorations with his now free hand. I played as a look-out. I never trusted the darkness since I stepped through the gate and into the village. Darkness has shown what all lurks within it, believe that I was terrified of it.
"C'mon, let's find the way out of here and leave!" I squealed with impatience. My fear was now visible though shadowed by my quivers from the cold. I pressed my nails into Masumi's palm and he yelped. Coughing the flashlight back into his hand, we continued our raid of the old shrine.
"The book said that there's an escape tunnel located in Kureha Shrine, here. Headmaster to Kurosawa Mansion, Ryokan Kurosawa sealed off this place. Said that twins tried to escape and were crushed to death by a cave-in. Since that-"
"Masumi, please, you're scaring me." I said. I fought to control the tremors as I walked. My knees wanted to buckle and I felt my whole body plead for a chance to rest. I was unbelievably cold from the crown to my heels. My body was stiff from the tremors that wracked my body. I resisted and we passed through a hole in the fence that separated us from the rest of the shrine.
"There!" Masumi almost left me stumbling as he ran to a door. It looked like a small closet door.
"Where's the handle?" I said. The door was sealed some other way other than the traditional lock-and-key. Masumi felt around the door slipping past the seals and talismans that were plastered to the door. He winced and yanked his hand back hissing. He exclaimed it was only a papercut and went back to searching.
I crouched onto the balls of my feet with my arms enveloping me, blinked and wished I hadn't.
The screams of agony and echoes of my crying victims rang clear in my ears. Red slashes were printed on my eyelids and bloody handprints marked the walls of my mind. With each swing was a splash of crimson pleasure, and a scream satifying something deep within. They gaped at my rope-bound body as I drifted absently throughout the halls searching for more. A figure in white leading the way towards more of what I'd wanted. Insatible cravings for blood and pain made my hunt even more exciting as I uncovered my lambs one-by-one. Slumbering for decades, near centuries, one face, a young almost flawless face of a young man ventured my halls and awakened my crave for slaughter.
With a gasp I fell to my knees, coughing and gagging. Masumi scrambled to help me to my feet and I only fought him. I grabbed his collar and stared into those eyes and saw myself. Coming back to myself, I wrapped my arms around his neck and only sobbed. I said not a word, afraid of what I may say. I felt his bewilderment and I could only cry. I didn't want to see it, not my Masumi.