MIZUHO

It was late in the afternoon and Mizuho Tamura was furious. It was apparent that her boyfriend Tsuyoshi Murakami had stood her up. They were supposed to go on a date, but now it looks like he had vanished.

"Tsuyoshi!" she called repeatedly. She was now in the high school courtyard, and up ahead was Tsuyoshi's bike.

"Why would he be here of all places?" the schoolgirl questioned.

Glinting in the sunlight was a small silver cell phone. Mizuho picked it up and inspected it.

"It can't be Tsuyoshi's…Mr. Omuta took his away last Friday." She muttered.

"What are you doing?" a voice croaked from behind her.

Mizuho turned around to see Ms. Matsubara, the student supervisor. She quickly bowed and said…

"Excuse me ma'am, but I'm looking for my friend Tsuyoshi Murakami. Could you page him for me?"

"OK, but hurry up." She grumbled.

Mizuho rushed inside, taking off her shoes and stuffing them into the nearest empty cubbyhole.

10 minutes later, Matsubara's voice rang through the school.

"Calling Tsuyoshi Murakami. Tsuyoshi Murakami, please report to the science lab immediately. That is all." The intercom boomed.

In the science lab, Mizuho waited expectantly. She set her gaze upon the cell phone and decided to place a quick call to the Murakami household to see if he forgot about the date. She picked up the cell phone and dialed the number.

"Hello, Mrs. Murakami? It's Mizuho. Is Tsuyoshi there? No, he's not with me…hello? Mrs. Murakami?"

The line went dead in her hands.

Frustrated, she went back to her table and flicked a desk light on and off. On and off. Suddenly, it wouldn't come on anymore. The room was bathed in darkness.

"What the—" Mizuho murmured as she looked under the table, setting down the cell phone.

Her suspicions were correct: the lamp was unplugged. As she reached over to plug the cord back in, she saw two small white feet pass by her range of vision. Then the cell phone started to ring. As Mizuho slowly raised her hand, she felt her heart skip a beat. She screamed in terror when instead of a phone, she felt the ankle of a small child. She covered her ears to drown out the noise of the child jumping up and down on the table. As soon as it began…it stopped.

She crawled out from under the table and leapt towards the door. As soon as she opened it, it didn't take long for her to register the inky blackness of the hall outside in her mind.

Through all this, the silver cell phone kept ringing. Mizuho raised her head towards the LCD screen to see the phone number as:

44-444-44444

Mizuho reeled back in terror and looked back towards the dark hallway. Weighing the two options she had, she picked up the cell phone and answered the call.

"H—hello?" Mizuho barely trembled the words off her tongue.

All that answered was a loud meowing. At that moment, she felt something grab her cuff. She turned around to see a little boy as white as a ghost, whining and meowing like a cat.