Enveloped by the deepening night, Kujou Sakuya sat in the library, her pen gliding across the pages of her notebook. It was a new script she had conceived. A copy of *Hamlet* lay open beside her, its pages occasionally turned as she sought inspiration. The themes of endurance, struggle, betrayal, and ultimate revenge resonated deeply with Sakuya; it was a story she held in high regard.
As she read the passage where Hamlet encounters the ghost of his father, a sudden chill of fear pricked Kujou Sakuya. Her gaze swept across the library. Aside from the elderly librarian, who was already tidying up in a distant corner, the vast space was utterly deserted.
“Kujou-san, the library will be closing soon,” the elderly librarian called out, a broom in her hand.
Sakuya glanced at her phone, confirming it was indeed past nine o’clock. She didn’t usually linger this late, but with plans to go out with Hoshimori Shion and their friends tomorrow to celebrate their excellent academic test results, she had decided to dedicate extra time to her script tonight. She truly savored the feeling of being lost in her writing.
The elderly librarian and Sakuya were well-acquainted. Sakuya was a frequent visitor, often staying until the late hours. In their small town, many residents knew each other, so it wasn’t uncommon for the librarian to simply entrust Sakuya with locking up and turning off the lights when it was time for her to head home.
“Grandma, please head home! I’ll take care of the lights in a moment!”
“Alright,” the librarian chuckled kindly. “Kujou-san is always so dedicated to her studies, isn’t she? Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Kujou Sakuya offered an awkward smile in response. ‘I’m merely indulging in a hobby,’ she thought. ‘It hardly qualifies as studying.’
Once the sound of the librarian’s departure faded, Sakuya redirected her focus to her script. ‘Just finish this section,’ she told herself, ‘just get this part done, and it will be enough…’
By the time Sakuya finally set her pen aside once more, the clock’s hands had already crept past eleven.
The silence was profound, almost eerie. Most of the neighbors surrounding the library had long since extinguished their lights and retired for the night, leaving only the library itself aglow. With the rustling of pages ceased, Sakuya could distinctly hear the faint, unsettling crackle of the old incandescent bulb overhead.
A sudden chill crept over Sakuya.
‘It’s late summer, early autumn,’ she mused, ‘it shouldn’t be this cold…’
‘Oh no, this can’t be right… I must have stayed too long today,’ Sakuya thought, hastily setting down *Hamlet* and tucking her notebook back into her small satchel. Despite her hurried movements, she meticulously returned the book to its shelf before grabbing her bag, pushing open the library doors, switching off all the lights, and rushing out.
Once the library’s lights finally flickered out, the only illumination left came from the few, considerably aged streetlights.
Sakuya checked the time; it was well past eleven.
She quickly scanned her surroundings. The desolate street echoed only with the faint taps of her small leather shoes against the pavement.
‘No, it can’t be, I won’t be that unlucky…’ Sakuya desperately tried to reassure herself, quickening her pace. Her hurried footsteps sliced through the stillness of the night, yet they did nothing to alleviate the growing tension and fear within her.
Rounding a street corner, her rapid strides already left her breathless. After all, even the ascent to Hoshimori Shrine required Shion’s steady support; the slightest exertion typically left her gasping for air.
The wind was unusually strong tonight, tugging at the hem of Sakuya’s skirt. Though it was merely the cool breeze of late summer, it brought with it a chill that felt like the dead of winter, sending a shiver down her spine. The streetlight ahead, clearly aged, flickered erratically, its dim glow like a faltering breath.
Sakuya whipped her head around, only to discover two ethereal figures standing stiffly at a street corner, less than forty meters away. The two dark silhouettes remained motionless, yet Sakuya could sense an unnerving gaze upon her. ‘If I could only see their “eyes,” ‘ she thought, ‘I’m sure I’d find them staring directly at me.’
‘No! It’s the ‘spirits’!’ Sakuya screamed internally. She desperately wanted to cry out for help, but a paralyzing fear choked her, rendering her utterly speechless. Her throat felt as though it had completely seized up.
With no other recourse, Sakuya spun around, her legs churning as she stumbled and ran into the darkness ahead.
The path before her was equally consumed by an impenetrable darkness, untouched by the streetlights and shrouded by the profound depths of night. In that absolute blackness, Sakuya felt as though shadowy, razor-sharp claws were reaching out for her.
Yet, there was no alternative. The ‘spirits’ were directly behind her, and she was their chosen prey! No matter how perilous the path ahead might seem, the undeniable, immediate danger lurked right at her heels.
She managed to ‘run’ a few hundred more meters, though it was less a sprint and more a breathless, stumbling shuffle. Sakuya’s meager stamina simply couldn’t sustain a faster pace.
Already weak-kneed from exertion, Sakuya failed to notice a small stone lying across her path. In the next instant, the slight collision between her toe and the pebble sent her sprawling to the ground. A fresh crimson stain bloomed on her knee, her notebook tumbled from her backpack, and her glasses clattered onto the pavement.
Sakuya looked back in terror, only to find the two dark figures had closed in, now almost directly before her!
It was then that Sakuya truly understood: she hadn’t gained any safe distance at all. They had been trailing her closely, toying with her like a predator with its prey.
The young girl gasped, her mouth agape, as she watched the two dark figures draw nearer. Her hands trembled uncontrollably, her legs felt like jelly, utterly devoid of the strength to stand. Sakuya yearned to cry out for help, but the only sounds she could produce were choked, trembling sobs.
“No… no…” Sakuya whimpered, shaking her head as tears of sheer terror streamed from her eyes.
‘I shouldn’t have stayed in the library for so long…’ she thought, her mind racing. ‘If only I’d known, I would have said goodbye to the librarian grandma and left earlier… Will I… will I never see Mom and Dad again? Will I never see Shion-san again…?’
‘Save me… please, someone save me…’
Her heart utterly consumed by terror, Sakuya pleaded for help again and again in her mind. No sound escaped her lips, only gasps interwoven with sobs and fear, yet these fragile sounds seemed utterly powerless before the ‘spirits’.
‘Ha, I really should have believed those posts on the school forum,’ she thought, a bitter irony in her despair. ‘I shouldn’t have lingered here until the middle of the night…’
‘Just one last time… I wanted to see Shion-san again…’
Just as Sakuya, transitioning from sheer terror, began to mentally recite Oda Nobunaga’s death poem, the two dark figures abruptly dispersed. A flash of brilliant white light cleaved through them, as if tearing their shadowy forms apart from their very cores.
A figure clad in white descended before Sakuya.
“Shion-san!”