Chapter 1 Part 1
✦ Part 1: Stillness, Signed in Ink
The letter arrived between unpaid bills and discount flyers, tucked in a black envelope that shone faintly under the dim kitchen light. Yuriko hesitated before touching it. She had long since stopped expecting mail. Real letters belonged to a past life—before her breakdown, before she swore off portraits, before the fainting spells had returned like ghosts she'd tried too hard to frame.
She picked it up by the corner, as though it might smear.
The ink was faintly metallic, like dried blood polished to a sheen. Her name, written in a slow, looping hand across the front: Yuriko Hoshino. No stamp. No return address. Just that one name, written with familiarity too precise to be random.
She opened it at the kitchen counter, the letter folded neatly in thirds. Thick, ivory paper. The kind you'd find in an antique desk drawer next to dried violets and old keys.
To Miss Yuriko Hoshino,
We are pleased to extend an invitation for you to document the Shigan Portrait Ceremony, to be held at Iromori Village on the 23rd of this month. As you are uniquely suited for capturing the threshold between life and death, your presence is both expected and remembered.
Transportation details enclosed. Please bring your equipment. Do not share this invitation. The ceremony is not for public viewing.
Yours in preservation,
M.
She re-read the line: "Your presence is both expected and remembered."
Yuriko folded the paper slowly, her fingers cold. It wasn't the words—it was the handwriting. Something in the way the y curled beneath her name, the way the letters leaned slightly forward, hungry to reach her—it made her stomach twist.
She didn't know who "M." was. But the handwriting felt familiar. Not like a name you'd forgotten—but like a face you couldn't quite place in a dream.
She didn't move for a while.
Outside, the city groaned and rattled beneath the rain. Her small apartment sat above a shuttered bookstore, surrounded by the buzz of vending machines and neon signage. Inside, the air smelled like dust and darkroom chemicals, though she hadn't touched her development trays in months. Her cameras lay disassembled on the shelf, lenses wrapped in cloth like sleeping dolls.
She placed the letter on the counter and poured herself tea.
Halfway through the cup, she realized her hands were trembling.
Not with fear.
Something closer to... expectation.