Such cold, dead eyes. Such putrid skin. Such a horrible, horrible face.

I couldn't find the power to look away. The sluagh looked into me-not at me, but into me-searching for my soul. It saw my life, my hopes, my regrets, and it saw every day that I had to live.

But not ten feet behind me, it saw my father's lingering spirit. Easier prey. And as its eyes wandered from my face to my father's, I could sense its hunger.

The sluagh shot through the window at a speed that I cannot describe, leaving me pressed against the glass and staring into the foggy night. I felt it glide above me. The cold chill of its presence made the air turn to ice and the walls turn dark. My stomach tied itself in a knot the moment I had realized - I had let the fiend inside.

Fergus and my mother huddled close to father's bedside as dark shadows from every corner approached. With no other instinct but my childish insecurities, I jumped from the windowsill and ran to my mother's side, where I hid behind her skirt and shut my eyes tightly.

Seconds turned to hours, and all that occupied that space was the cold and sinister world that our home became. Whispers surrounded us; hoarse, dark tones in ancient languages I could hardly understand. The icy fingers of the dead grazed my arms and my legs and brought forth a sickness inside of me that I had never before felt.

And all at once, it stopped.

Just as before, the storm was followed by an eerie silence.

I was brave enough to open my eyes, relieved to find that we were standing alone and the night sky was clear and full of stars. The sluagh had come and gone on their way.

I was there, and mother was there, and Fergus was there.

But father was not.

His empty eyes stared at the ceiling, all the life drained out of him. His face was gray like stone. The whistling wind alone told me quite clear enough, the sluagh had taken him. I was taught since birth that I must never look a dead man in the eyes, unless I want them to come back for me one day. I, of course, didn't heed the warning. Even now, I can feel his eyes on me, but they are not the loving eyes of a parent.

My father would never see heaven nor hell. He would never walk the earth again in another form, and he would never become a spirit of nature. My father was one of them now.

And when I died, he would come for me too. And I will never see heaven.

XxxxxxxxxX

With the right reading material, even a wearisome trip halfway across the world could be made enjoyable. A few weeks earlier, when I had first planned my trip to Japan, I acquired a thick encyclopedia of Japanese spirits, as well as plenty of documents regarding the legends and myths of the culture. It was truly astounding how many spirits could exist; the Japanese had a spirit for everything, from the typical ghosts of vengeance to more obscure titles. I giggled under my breath when I came along the Makura Gaeshi, a being that moves a person's pillows out of their desired location. There were plenty other innocent-sounding spirits, each one quirkier than the next, but don't get me wrong; there were a fair share of others. Decapitated horse heads that hang from trees, animals with human faces, cannibalistic ghouls…there was a much darker side to Japanese folklore.

This was the side I was most interested in investigating.

XxxxxxxxxX

I remember the exact time and place when I first learned I was going to Japan. It was such an exciting, and unexpected, moment for me. In my head, I can retrace every step leading up to the very second when I opened that blessed email.

Every morning, I grab an extra-large coffee and skid into my workspace fifteen minutes late—not that anyone's keeping count. I generally encounter some sort of smart-ass comment from Kendrick, usually about the messiness of my hair or, on some occasions, an innocent question as to where my left sock went. Today, all he had to say was a weary grunt I translated as "you look like hell", and then went back to typing away at his computer. I replied with a swift kick to the legs of his wheelie chair.

I didn't expect when I sat down to check my email that I would be hearing such good news so early in the morning.

Kazuya. Shibuya.

That's the first thing I noticed on the unchecked email waiting for me on the screen.

The subject?

"Offer". Simple, straight to the point, and perfect.

I've never opened an email so quickly in my life.

XxxxxxxxxX

I had never been comfortable in crowded areas.

The airport was absolutely packed. Quick-spoken Japanese rang over the loud speakers as hundreds of travelers were released into the air-conditioned lobby to meet their friends and families. I soon realized that being stared at back home was nothing compared to this; as strangers passed, they all turned their necks to glance at me like a carnival sideshow. The constant attention drawn to my foreign appearance didn't help too much with my anxiety. I wasn't pretty. That's just a plain and simple fact. But no matter where you go in the world, people are always intrigued by the things they never see.

I pulled the crinkled email printout from the pouch of my overalls and unfolded it with shaking hands. In a fit of perfectionism, I had highlighted the important details in yellow marker. The time, the date, the directions—it was all there. Mr. Shibuya had given me a rather detailed outline of my journey, either with the thoughts of one who is very meticulous or perhaps the idea that we Irish folk are in a constant state of drunken clumsiness.

Logically, I'm inclined to believe it was a little bit of both.