The flicker of a ceiling fan greeted me as I blinked open my eyes. My hand—rough, pale—drifted into view. Another morning. Another breath I never asked for.
My room was cold. The walls were stained with time, and the only window let in a dull gray light from a sun I hadn't really seen in years. I sat up carefully, not daring to meet the eyes of the figure in the corner—a hunched, red-eyed thing, watching. I didn't scream. I wouldn't because I wasn't supposed to see it. And I didn't.
I shuffled through my tiny house, brushing my teeth with stale water, sliding into a worn-out school uniform. My reflection in the cracked mirror looked tired. Cursed, they said, and maybe they were right.
Outside, the street buzzed—not with life, but with whispers. Real and otherwise.
I walked to school with my head facing the ground, my body invisible in the crowd, yet somehow more noticeable than ever. I saw them. The twisted shadows. Yokai. Spirits. Ghosts. They prowled like stray dogs—under benches, in doorways, clinging to backs. No one else noticed. I ignored them, too. As I always did, after a half-hour walk, I reached my school.
There, I saw her—my ex. She laughed with her friends like I never existed. Maybe she wished I hadn't. I remembered the moments we shared… how it all ended the day she saw the faint shadow of one of them hovering behind me. Since then, she avoided my gaze like everyone else.
Class passed in a blur of words I didn't absorb. I walked out with the final bell ringing.
On the way home, I felt them again—not the yokai, but people. Real ones. Eyes like daggers. Whispers sharper than knives.
"That's the cursed boy."
"His parents died in that fire."
"He's still alive… somehow."
They didn't say it loud. But they never had to.
The day that all of that happened still remains in my head like it was just yesterday. I was only four at that time, though that memory never fades away; that night is still crystal clear in the pages of mine memory
The day my parents died. A fire tore through our home. Everyone said it was a gas leak. But I knew the truth.
That night—as flames devoured the rooms and smoke choked the air, leaving me unharmed like I was a part of that destruction, and as I walked out—I saw it.
My first yokai.
From the ash and fire, a tall figure emerged, wrapped in black rags and bone. It had no eyes—just hollow sockets glowing dark red, almost like black—and a jagged grin carved into a skull-like face. It stood in the ruins, watching me. Smiling.
I couldn't move. Couldn't scream.
And then… nothing, just a black fadeout.
I was found days later, alive under broken beams.
They said I was lucky.
I wasn't.
I was cursed.
Since that day, the yokai never left me. On trains. In alleys. At school. I saw them. Whispering. Watching. Crawling. But I acted like I didn't.
Because that's the only way to survive.
Finally sliding past those whispers, I reached my home—away from those people. Dinner was a pack of stale bread. I was full—full of silence, of memories, of shadows.
That night, I walked alone. Down that narrow street with flickering lights. The silence was so deep, it felt alive—like even the wind held its breath.
The crescent moon hung above like a cracked smile.
And I jumped into the river from the road.
But a hand caught my wrist. A hand warm, soft yet firmer than iron, wrenched me back from the fall.