For a few days, things almost felt normal again.
Classes resumed with a sluggish rhythm—lectures, assignments, campus announcements drifting through the air like background noise. Campbell University's courtyard was flooded with sunlight most mornings, and cherry blossoms bloomed a little too late this year, their petals clinging to branches like they were afraid to fall.
I went to class. I took notes. I even smiled at familiar faces. But beneath the surface, I was different—and I knew it.
Even simple things felt more… layered. When I passed under trees, I sometimes heard faint voices in the rustling of their leaves. When the wind picked up, I didn't just feel it on my skin—I felt it brushing against something deeper inside me.
"You've changed, Mayumi-san," said my literature professor one afternoon as I handed in an assignment. "Your writing—it has more weight now."
I bowed slightly and offered a small smile. "I've been thinking more lately, I guess."
She nodded, but her gaze lingered a little too long, as if trying to read something invisible behind my eyes.
I found comfort in the routine. Ayumi-senpai, who still helped me adjust to dorm life, noticed I kept a small charm tied to my phone now. She didn't ask, though I could tell she wanted to.
My part-time job at the café helped distract me. The familiar hiss of milk steaming, the clink of cups, the soft murmur of customers—those things grounded me. On quiet evenings, I stayed after closing, sitting by the window with a cup of tea, watching people pass by. Wondering which of them could see what I now saw.
One night, as I was closing up, my coworker Yuu leaned on the counter beside me.
"You've been spacing out more than usual," he said casually. "Too much school stress?"
"Something like that."
He grinned, but then hesitated. "Just so you know… if something's wrong, you can tell me. You're not alone."
The warmth in his voice surprised me.
"Thanks, Yuu. I'll keep that in mind."
I didn't tell him about the spirit world. Or the white sand. Or the witch that almost took my sister.
Not yet.
That world didn't belong here—not in the sound of laughter in the common room, or the late-night rush for instant noodles, or the sleepy chatter of my classmates.
But even as I tried to stay grounded, I couldn't ignore the pull.
Every night when I closed my eyes, I felt it.
The veil, waiting.
Thin as a sheet of paper.
One breath away from parting again.
LATER AT MIDNIGHT.
When I opened my eyes, I was back in the garden.
The same one I kept returning to—again and again, like a memory refusing to fade. But this time, it felt colder. The sunlight was a pale smear behind thick clouds, and mist rolled over the stones and hung low across the hedges, breathing through the trees like a slow exhale.
"Aoi-chan…" I whispered, my breath visible in the chilled air. I turned past the big tree, heading toward the lake.
She was already there, walking toward me from another path—slightly transparent, like a reflection on water.
"We're here," I said, running to her.
"Now, we need something to mark," she murmured, pulling a piece of white cloth from her sleeve. She tied it to the tree's branch.
"In this world, traces vanish if we leave nothing behind. This garden—this is your ground, Hikari. Your safe space. To find your way back, always remember where you began."
I nodded. It explained why I could never seem to return here when I tried. Something always pulled me off course. But not this time.
"Now lead the way," Aoi said gently.
We passed through the hedge-lined path. On the other side was the familiar outline of my university—the backyard of Campbell, though it looked older, slightly more surreal. We walked toward the main building. Aoi marked the garden gate with another cloth.
"Why here?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "This place… It feels like it's always been waiting."
We tried to leave through the front gate, but the moment we stepped through, the world looped—spinning us back inside the same building.
"What?" I said, blinking. "That should've worked."
"That's not the real front gate," Aoi said, scanning the halls. "It's disguised. This place is being twisted from the inside."
We watched a group of students walk by—faces I knew, vaguely. Like they were pulled from memory but painted over in sleep.
"Hikari! Did you finish the math homework?" one called out.
I froze.
"She's been too busy with games, like always," Aoi said smoothly, stepping in beside me.
"Yeah… I'll probably borrow your answers again," I replied, forcing a laugh.
"Unbelievable," the student replied with a teasing groan.
We were in my old high school now—or maybe it was a projection of both schools, layered together. The longer we stayed, the more real it felt.
Aoi's hand found mine.
"Don't get too comfortable," she whispered. "This world feeds on familiarity. It's not real."
The classroom faded, and a girl stood in the center, shouting about wealth and power. Others gathered around her like moths. When they followed her to the gymnasium, we followed too.
Then I saw her.
Hanabi.
She was walking with the others, following another girl into the equipment room.
I moved forward instinctively, but Aoi stopped me. "They'll notice."
Inside the gym's back room, it was dark and cold. I stepped forward—and everything bent. The air shifted. The light twisted. It wasn't a room anymore.
It was a gate.
I stepped through and into rot and shadow.
The smell hit first. Mold and decay. Then the figure at the far end—a man, naked, standing still. Then bending—melting—crawling into something long, slick, and black.
It changed shape. It watched us.
"You're human," it said, with a crooked smile and yellow eyes.
Aoi grabbed my hand tightly.
"You can't leave," the creature said. "It's dangerous. They'll smell you."
"I don't care," I said. "I have to save my sister."
He leaned close. "I once was human. Now I guide souls. I cannot let you leave."
"I wasn't asking."
We stared each other down. Then, slowly, he held out a strange oil lamp.
"To mask your scent. Made from my own skin," he said, voice thick and trembling.
I took it, the warmth oddly comforting in the dark.
"You're warm," he said, pulling back. "I forgot what that feels like. Now go—before they get too far."
I nodded, holding the lamp. Aoi's hand tightened in mine. Together, we opened the next door.
Into whatever came next.