01
I heard breathing.
Rough breathing.
Gasping, panting breaths.
Right by my ear.
It’s my breathing.
Gasp, gasp. Huff, huff.
I thought.
It’s hard.
So hard.
A question arose.
Why is it so hard?
Huff, huff. Huff, gasp.
The answer came. The sound that followed the breathing.
Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap!
Footsteps. Footsteps. My footsteps.
Running footsteps.
That’s right. Because I was running. The reason for this breathing and these quick footsteps. I’d been running for too long. My legs and heart felt like they were tearing apart…
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap!
“…!”
I almost let out a “hic” sound. I barely managed to hide it in the ragged breathing that had risen to the tip of my throat. I covered my mouth with the back of my hand.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
Those aren’t my footsteps.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
They sounded much closer than before. All that running for nothing.
Hoo-uk, huk, hoo-uk.
I heard breathing. As if clinging right to my ear…
Hoo-uk, huk, hoo-uk.
Close by!
“Hey, do you know where my foot is?”
At the end of that breathing that wasn’t mine, I heard such a question. Naturally, that voice also came from close by. Right behind me, no.
“Hey, do you know where my calf is?”
As if lips were pressed right against my ear asking!
Goosebumps rose. I almost shoved my hand into my mouth, afraid a scream would come out.
“Hey, do you know where my thigh is?”
I can’t make a sound. I can’t make a sound. I can’t make a sound.
“Hey, do you know where my torso is?”
There’s a strange tale going around the city these days. Like all urban legends tend to be, no one knew where it started or who it came from.
Deep night. In the middle of dawn. Or broad daylight.
A narrow street with no people. A shopping mall bursting with people. Or inside one’s own comfortable room.
While walking down the street. While sleeping. While looking in the mirror to check one’s eyebrow shape.
Without any pattern, when someone suddenly feels something off and turns around, everything begins. The people who filled the shopping center become hazy like fog, the neon signs that brightly lit the night street are broken so that letters and pictures can’t be recognized, and the reflection in the vanity mirror that was clearly showing one’s own face feels somehow… terribly unfamiliar.
Then it’s heard. A voice of indeterminate gender and age asks right by one’s ear.
“Hey, do you know where my head is?”
You must not answer that question.
“Hey, do you know where my finger is?”
To be precise, you must absolutely not react to that question.
“Hey, do you know where my eyeball is?”
There’s only one way to escape from that bizarre phenomenon. Never answer the questions thrown by that eerie voice, don’t react, and act as if you can’t hear that sound at all.
“Hey, do you know where my ear is?”
Hiding is useless. That ‘existence’ will suddenly thrust its face there just from your breathing.
“Hey, do you know where my tongue is?”
Running away is useless. People get tired, but that ‘existence’ doesn’t tire and chases after you.
“Hey, do you know where my ankle is?”
‘So.’
I can’t make a sound. I can’t make a sound. I can’t make a sound.
“Hey…”
Don’t answer. Don’t react. Act as if that voice can’t be heard at all.
‘I’m doing well.’
I was certain.
The voice, the question came again. But the content wasn’t important. I just had to ignore it. Although my clothes were soaked with cold sweat and my whole body was trembling, I can do this. I can do this. I can ignore it. I can not react…
“Your arm. Do you know where it is?”
Your arm.
Swish, I lowered my head and looked down.
‘What.’
My right arm with a clenched fist, my left arm still covering my mouth. Both arms are properly…
“…”
“Hahaha.”
Clack-clack-clack-clack.
My teeth chattered violently. Something suddenly popped out of thin air and grabbed my chin. Likewise, only a mouth appeared from thin air and split wide open on both sides. It tore with a ripping sound to a size that would be impossible for a human.
The voice said something different for the first time.
“Here it is.”
The cold hand that had grabbed my chin took hold of my left hand that was still covering my mouth.
“My arm.”
At that moment, I realized.
“Ah…”
That my left arm had been severed.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Here it is.
My finger.
Here it is.
My ear.
Here it is.
My…
Here it is.
Here it is.
Hehehehe.
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe!
***
User-3394 02:11
Did the OP come in?
OP 02:15
Just got in!
User-5095 02:14
Took a while. What was it about? We waited a long time, so just get straight to the point.
OP
Yeah. The thud was so loud I thought at first something fell nearby, but when I went out there was nothing. So I was about to just come back in, but I saw a flashlight going back and forth near the waterside by my house, so I went to check.
User-5095
Waterside?
OP 02:15
Specifically an old reed field by the water. It’s a remote place where no one goes after sunset, but I saw flashlight beams appearing and disappearing there.
User-5095
You said it’s a place no one goes after sunset, but you went there? Alone? Are you a guy, OP? Even so, isn’t your sense of danger completely fucked?
User-3394
OP, are you going to get caught by a ghost at this rate?
User-5095
3394, are you a moron or a kindergartner? What ghost?
User-3394
Wow, the world sure is wide. Even Quetzalcoatlus uses online communities. What about you, what do you do? Even the convenience store owner over fifty knows about the ‘strange tale’ that started going around this area.
User-107 02:20
Crazy. Strange tale? Really?
User-5095
What. Were there more people on this post? If you were here, why didn’t you write? Did your fingers atrophy?
User-3394
Cut the nonsense and listen to OP? OP, so what happened?
User-5095
Maybe OP fearlessly went into the reed field alone at dawn and died? Right now only their soul remains writing this. Trying to drag any one of us as the next victim…
User-107
There’s also talk that the strange tale or ghost is related to the ‘Godfather,’ so if OP became a ghost that’d be legendary. Even in a rural town like ours, someone connected to that person appears.
User-5095
107, didn’t you just hear a knock? That’s ‘Goyo’ coming to get you for talking nonsense. So is OP dead or alive, why aren’t you saying anything, fucker? Is your keyboard broken?
OP 02:15
No, I was surprised because you guys talked about what I saw.
User-5095
??
OP 02:15
What I saw there seems to match what you’re talking about. The ‘strange tale’ going around our region these days.
User-107
Uh… The strange tale going around these days is that one, right? When a ghost asks ‘Hey, do you know where my ○○ is?’ if you show that you heard it, you lose the body part they mentioned…
User-1166 02:25
Huh? I heard your heart stops and you die. And all those corpses have their eyes gouged out.
User-3394
So what did OP see?
OP 02:15
What I saw was a man. Age was about early thirties, average height. White face and short hair, ordinary clothes. Shirt and jeans. But he was dead with a clearly startled expression…
***
The man stopped the finger that was scrolling down the screen.
Crackle.
At that moment, as if on cue, a vintage vacuum tube radio displayed nearby spat out a sound.
The display radio had a very classic appearance that matched its surroundings well, but it wasn’t just a decorative piece that only looked that way—it was a real radio, so when the signal was good, it would occasionally make sounds like this.
For example, this morning, the radio decorated in the man’s room had played quite sweet film music without ever being touched…
「…is being sought. Age 31. Male. Height 175cm. White skin with short-cut hair. Wearing a black dress shirt and jeans. Has not returned home since leaving the house on October 9th. If anyone has seen a person matching this description…」
Now it was playing some missing person announcement.
‘I’d rather it pick up a classical song signal like this morning instead of such useless information!’
The man clicked his tongue and shook off the missing person information the radio had just spat out from his brain.
That’s right. What had just flowed out was information the man had absolutely no need to remember. To begin with, trivial matters like missing person searches had nothing to do with someone in such an important position as him, and also…
‘There’s even less chance that such an insignificant person would be here.’
In fact, that was the bigger reason.
The man glanced around at the place where he currently was and his right eyebrow twitched. It was a small movement, but if his close associates had been nearby, they would have noticed that the man was extremely satisfied right now.
“Why are you grinning so much?”
But unexpectedly, someone read the man’s expression and posed such a question.
This time the man’s left eyebrow twitched. It was a signal of displeasure.
“Director.”
The man glanced at the person who had spoken to him and curtly spat out that one word.
“How do you do, Teacher?”
The other person grinned and returned the greeting. His characteristic smile, with one corner of his mouth twisting up, was quite impressive. It would have been even more so if the person before him had been like when they first met—a ‘handsome young punk.’
Hmm, then what about now?
‘He hasn’t aged well.’
A middle-aged man with a protruding beer belly acting like that was simply unsightly.
Perhaps not noticing the contempt directed at him, the other person drew close to the man’s side and quickly surveyed the table where he sat.
The man reacted immediately.
“What are you looking at?”
“No, you were grinning so much I thought maybe you’d had a ‘good game.'”
The other person made a circle with his thumb and index finger, then immediately released it.
“But it seems not? Then what were you looking at so enjoyably?”
About to click his tongue at the other person whose vulgarity overflowed from every gesture, the man barely swallowed it and opened his mouth. There was no particular need to hide what he’d just been looking at.
“I heard there’s a strange tale going around outside, so I was skimming through it.”
Having glanced at the tablet PC screen the man held out, the other person showed a surprised reaction.
“Does someone like you, Teacher, read stories that even children prattle about?”
“How frivolous. You never know which strange tale might develop into a Goeidam, do you?”
The other person, who had been leaning obliquely against the table with a body that looked very unstable due to his protruding belly, straightened his posture at that moment. He seemed both surprised and tense.
The man was satisfied with the other person’s reaction for the first time. So he immediately continued speaking.
“The Godfather said this. ‘In our modern world that arrived anew after the ‘Funeral of the Old World,’ unlike the previous world, visible power has been given to invisible things.'”
The man explained pompously, but in fact, what he was saying was common knowledge to everyone—the story about the ‘invisible existences’ that had ‘become visible.’
Just a few decades ago.
