Twelve Hours Toward the Void

Dawn stretched its rosy fingers across Kyoto, painting the sky in pastel hues. Back at Adashino Nenbutsu-ji Temple, Isao and Lucille were silently completing the final preparations for the ritual.

Ume had warned them: Halloween is a day when worlds brush against each other. But this time, they had to face the trial alone. No third party should disrupt the purity of their intentions — or interfere with their feelings.

In the center of the hall, a circle of white salt delineated the sacred space. Twelve small kamidana, arranged in a circle like the hours of an ancient clock, awaited their photographic plate. Each altar — a fine shelf of pale wood topped with a miniature roof and decorated with shide — held an offering: salt, rice, incense, or dried petal.

These offerings were not chosen at random. Purifying salt to ward off malevolent influences, rice to nourish benevolent spirits, incense to communicate with the beyond, and dried cherry blossoms — symbols of ephemeral beauty, a reminder that all things must eventually end.

The itako placed a bowl of smoldering incense at the entrance of the circle, then silently stepped back. Soon it would be 7 p.m. in Kyoto... 11 a.m. in Paris. Two time zones separated by a world, yet converging toward the same night.

Isao lit the erōsoku placed before the household shrines. One by one, the flames came to life, casting a golden, flickering glow, almost alive. The temple filled with the scent of melting wax, wood, and incense.

Lucille, dressed in a midnight blue kimono cinched with an orange obi, took her place behind Isao’s antique camera. Her face was unsettlingly pale, but her hands did not tremble. This battle was as much hers as Isao’s. She was ready to confront her tormentor.

After Ume’s departure, silence deepened. Sacred.

Isao meticulously arranged the chemicals for development while Lucille prepared a glass plate.

He knelt facing her, on the other side of the camera. The candlelight carved deep shadows into his face.

He pulled out a small leather-bound notebook, where the incantations dictated by the shaman had been copied. Japanese characters intertwined with Latin and Old French phrases. A spiritual amalgam... as improbable as their own story.

At 6:59 p.m., Isao began reciting the first incantation. His voice, hesitant at first, grew steadier. The words seemed to vibrate, as if the syllables took shape in the air.

Lucille adjusted the focus, seeking something only she could see, lurking within the visible. Her fingers caressed the camera’s wood almost reverently. She could feel a subtle vibration beneath her fingertips, as if the device itself sensed the presence haunting them. She exposed the plate precisely at 7 p.m. The ritual had begun.

Isao quickly developed the first image. Before their eyes, a vague form emerged from the emulsion, like a memory drowned in acid — a silhouette too dark, too dense to be just a shadow.

"Alea iacta est," he whispered, placing the plate on the first altar, his fingers lingering a moment on the still-damp glass.

Hour after hour, the ritual repeated. With each new shot, Lucille seemed to weaken, as if something were feeding on her energy. Her skin turned translucent, nearly spectral. Each photographic plate appeared to absorb part of her essence. Beneath her half-closed eyelids, a swirl of images flickered — fragments of Paris, Adrien’s studio bathed in red light, her own reflection trapped behind silvered glass. These weren’t mere memories; they were invisible threads still tying her to her tormentor, bonds she felt stretching... then slowly unraveling.

At the sixth hour, as Isao recited the corresponding incantation, the candle flames flickered. Shadows stretched across the walls like hungry fingers. Outside, Halloween night wrapped Kyoto in its cloak of mysteries and legends. The temple’s stone statues seemed to have imperceptibly turned their gazes inward, as if they too were witnesses to this battle between worlds. A freezing draft swept through the room.

"Isao..." murmured Lucille, her voice eerily distant.

When he looked up at her, his heart skipped a beat. Her face wavered between two realities, like a misaligned image on a negative. At times, her features dissolved, revealing the wall behind her.

"Lucille!" he cried, rushing to her.

"She still belongs to me," hissed a male voice in his ear.

Isao froze. Adrien’s voice — unmistakable. A sardonic laugh filled the room.

"Watch her vanish, my friend. This pathetic ritual hastens her end."

Lucille’s figure indeed seemed to fade in places, like a daguerreotype eroding with time. She felt her body floating, as if dissolved in water too cold. And deep within that drift, an animal fear: the terror of becoming a reflection once more.

Isao gripped her shoulders, trying to anchor her to reality. Her glassy eyes slowly regained clarity.

A spasm jolted through her arms, her fingers clutching the camera’s frame.

"He’s trying to manipulate us," she whispered, regaining awareness. "He’s panicking..."

Another hour passed. The seventh plate revealed a sharper image of Adrien, his face twisted with rage, his hands reaching to grasp the lens.

The following hours were the most grueling. As each plate took its place on its altar, a subtle change spread through the temple. The plates seemed to communicate, emitting faint crackles like murmured conversations. Sometimes, Adrien’s image on one would briefly move — a blink, a sneer, a hand striking the glass from within.

After the tenth plate, a strange phenomenon occurred. All the candles extinguished at once, plunging them into total darkness. A thin luminous line appeared, linking each image to the next, gradually forming a circle of bluish light that enclosed the ritual space. Isao watched it with a mix of awe and apprehension. Ume had never mentioned this part of the ritual.

"Photographer," Adrien’s voice boomed, omnipresent. "Do you truly think you deserve her ? You stole my masterpiece. My creation."

Shadows danced on the walls, sometimes forming the shape of a tall, disheveled man. Isao continued reciting, refusing to yield to fear.

The room’s temperature plummeted. Isao could see his breath forming small clouds as Adrien’s presence intensified. French whispers slithered between the walls — now pleading, now threatening. The incense burned with a blue flame, casting unnatural shadows that matched no object in the room.

A smell of oil paint suddenly filled the air — Adrien’s olfactory imprint, as if his Parisian studio had been transplanted into the heart of the temple. On one of the washi-paper walls, a man’s shadow materialized, his long fingers clawing the surface, trying to tear the veil between worlds.

At the eleventh hour, Lucille let out a heartbreaking cry. The camera crashed to the floor with a dull thud.

"Isao..." she moaned, collapsing.

He rushed to her, catching her before she hit the ground. Her body was ice-cold, as if drained of life.

She opened her eyes — but it wasn’t her. A red gleam burned within, and the voice that emerged from her mouth was Adrien’s.

"Give up, photographer. She is mine."

Isao clenched his jaw, refusing to believe in the possession. He lifted Lucille, shaking her gently but firmly.

"Lucille, wake up! This is your fight."

Her body tensed, as if jolted by electricity. Her eyes rolled back before regaining their usual hue.

"He... is... strong," she managed to say.

Isao helped her up, then retrieved the camera. The eleventh plate had survived the fall. He developed it quickly, revealing the clearest image yet of Adrien — an elegant man with a crazed stare, his fists pounding against the glass.

"Two more hours," Isao whispered, checking his watch.

Adrien intensified his assault. The already-developed plates vibrated on their altars. French whispers filled the room — alternating between seduction and menace. The very ground seemed to ripple beneath them.

"Hold on," Isao murmured to Lucille, who struggled to stay conscious.

At 10:55 p.m. in Paris, Lucille positioned herself behind the camera for the second-to-last time. Her hands trembled, but her gaze was resolute.

She placed the twelfth plate, her fingers slightly shaking. The first sunlight began to filter through the paper panels, casting geometric shadows that danced on the temple walls. Isao nodded, his eyes meeting Lucille’s. In them, he no longer sought the perfect image he had once longed to capture, but the woman he had come to love.