Without opening her eyes, Saeko probed with her other senses to gauge her surroundings. The space was full with a strange presence. There was a wall behind Saeko’s head and the other three sides of the bed were curtained off. To her left, the curtain nearest the hallway was fluttering gently. She could feel the faint breeze caused by its movement against her cheek.
Someone had pushed through the curtain and come inside.
That someone was standing right next to Saeko’s bed, looking down at her. Saeko could sense it clearly even with her eyes shut. The image crystallized in her consciousness and bore down on her.
She tried to raise a hand but couldn’t move, tried to cry out but found her throat constricted. Even her eyelids were paralyzed, and she couldn’t open them. Perhaps this was what it felt like to fall into a black hole — she had lost all control of her body. It was the same intense sleep paralysis that she always suffered.
She could hear the intruder breathing in and out, not in one spot, but slowly crawling across the room, low to the floor. The presence gave off a familiar stench, and Saeko knew exactly whose smell it was. A sour smell, like rancid sweat.
Tsk! a tongue clucked. I waited for you!
The voice didn’t enter through her ears. Instead, its message penetrated directly into her mind. The voice’s owner was angry at her that she hadn’t come. She heard the muffled jingle of a bundle of keys at the level of her mattress.
By now, Saeko was almost sure she knew who was standing next to her bed.
She couldn’t move her arms or legs, open her eyes, or speak. She didn’t even know if this was reality or a nightmare. Her heart pounded wildly, revealing her body’s honest response.
As always, Saeko felt as if she were trapped in a globe of darkness. It’s my mind that’s trapped, not my body, she told herself fervently. If only she could move a finger or a toe ever so slightly, it might free her entire body from whatever was holding it captive. But try as she might, Saeko couldn’t do it. Her fingertips wouldn’t move even a hair.
Help! she screamed, but her voice found no outlet. The scream only resonated inside her body, making her feel all the more suffocated.
The area around her chest felt drafty; the covers must have gotten tangled up somehow. Yes — earlier the blanket had been pulled up over her shoulders, but now it was all bunched up like a snake’s skin at her navel.
Through the thin cotton of the hospital gown, Saeko felt someone’s fingertips grazing her skin. The touch was so light, it felt less like fingers and more like someone breathing on her from close up.
The sensation grazed her nipples and slid between her breasts, slipped through the opening in her hospital garment and across the outside of her left breast. Suddenly, Saeko felt a stabbing pain. The fingertip was no longer barely detectable. It bore down sharply and deliberately into a single spot, digging in with a fingernail.
Ouch!
It wasn’t pain, exactly. The strong sensation startled her more than anything else.
The voice responded immediately. “Keep this up, and you’ll be one of us soon enough.”
With that, the presence was suddenly gone, leaving behind only the dull ache in Saeko’s breast.
The tingling in her breast spread in one direction down her torso and into her lower body, while at the same time crawling up her shoulders and neck. It continued to diverge and spread until shades of the sensation enveloped her entire body and at last she found she could move again — first her fingers and toes, then her hands and feet.
When she could feel beyond a doubt that there was no longer anyone next to her, Saeko slowly opened both eyes. A single miniature bulb glowed over the curtain at the foot of her bed, and there was more light in the room than she had imagined. The curtain nearest the corridor — the one where she had sensed someone standing moments ago — seemed both still and in motion.
Saeko didn’t know what to think. Had an actual person really been next to her? Or had it just been a hallucination brought on by her sleep paralysis?
There was one way to tell. Saeko pressed the palm of her hand to her breast. Trembling with fear, her fingers probed the surface of the sore spot in her left breast. She couldn’t tell by touch alone whether there was a fingernail mark on her breast. But there was no mistaking the spot. Even now, the ache lingered, and she could feel the lump under the skin.
It was round and hard, and roughly a centimeter in diameter — the same lump she’d discovered ten days ago and stubbornly ignored, telling herself it was probably mastitis. Dismissing it as such and denying that it might be breast cancer had enabled her to maintain temporary peace of mind in the midst of her busy work schedule.
And now someone’s finger had pinpointed and pressed down on the spot with complete conviction. Was it just a coincidence? Or had Saeko’s repressed fears reared their heads and given birth to a hallucination by way of warning?
The shiver that ran down Saeko’s spine shook the entire mattress, making the springs creak audibly. She couldn’t control her shaking, which built up into convulsive waves. She crossed her hands across her chest, pressing down to contain the scream that threatened to rise from her throat.
As another convulsion seized her, the old man across the hallway moaned once more. Oogh …
A toilet flushed, and the sound of the tank refilling seemed to go on forever, punctuated by the sound of a light bulb burning out in the hallway.
Saeko twisted her body, reaching for the call button. But what exactly would she say to the nurse when she came?
I was having a sleep paralysis attack, and there was a ghost next to my bed …
Or perhaps she should ask the nurse point blank if there was a man called Seiji Fujimura staying in this hospital. It was the only rational explanation. Before they had started shooting that day at the Fujimuras’ house, Seiji had hovered so close to Saeko he was practically touching her. As soon as they’d started filming, he had made himself scarce, and Saeko hadn’t seen him since. But he could still have been lurking nearby when the earthquake struck, and it was entirely possible that he too had been injured and brought to the same hospital. What if he’d learned that Saeko was staying here and had snuck into her room in the middle of the night? But even if he had, that didn’t explain how he could have known exactly where to find the lump in her breast.
The possibility that he had zeroed in on a fear Saeko had locked away inside chilled her more than anything.
Before she pressed the call button, Saeko checked the clock: 11:55 p.m. Morning was still a long ways away; the night was only just beginning. What if he came back again in the night? She was far too frightened to sleep.
She needed to talk to another human being. Anyone. She needed that reassurance. Without another moment’s hesitation, Saeko pressed the call button.
Please, come!
She understood only too well how the sobbing old man across the hallway must feel.
Chapter 2: Rift
In mid-December, almost three weeks after Saeko had returned to Tokyo, there were frequent reports of earthquakes in the Ina area, where Saeko had been hospitalized.
Ina City was built right on top of an active fault and had always been prone to earthquakes, but recently especially so. In the past there had often been minor tremors, but the earthquake that had struck while Saeko was at the Fujimura residence seemed to have triggered the recent rash of temblors. The newscaster explained that they were caused by a shift in the active fault.