The Doll Beneath The Soil

The ringtone sliced through Haruki and Nakai’s conversation like a blade. The ringtone pierced the air, sharp and unwelcome.

Haruki winced, already half-jogging back to his room, limbs heavy with exhaustion. The hallway stretched before him like a tunnel, his feet dragging slightly on the old carpet. His eyes burned from lack of sleep, throat dry from too much silence and too little rest.

He reached his door, pushed it open with a weary grunt, and fumbled for his phone on the nightstand. The screen pulsed with Hana’s name. He hesitated just a second, then answered—voice low and cracked.

“…Hana?” ―the wife of Haruki.

“At last you answered!” Hana’s voice was sharp—relieved, but laced with irritation. “I’ve been calling for hours, Haruki!”

He sat up, massaging his head. “Sorry... I was downstairs talking with the hotel manager. It’s been a long day.”

“Don’t lie.” A pause. “You’ve been dodging me.”

Haruki’s throat tightened. He stood and walked to the window, watching the gray light bleed into the fog-covered forest beyond the hotel. Something in the trees moved—but slowly, like breath beneath the earth.

“I’m just tired, Hana.”

“I’m coming to Toyohashi.” Her voice was cool now, decisive. “I’ll book a room in the same hotel.”

“No,” Haruki said too quickly. “That’s… not a good idea.”

“Why?”

He hesitated. The words didn’t come. Not the right ones.

“Haruki,” Hana’s voice dropped, wounded now, suspicious. “What’s going on there? Is there someone else?”

“What? No! It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“I… can’t explain. Just—please don’t come here.”

Click.

The line went dead.

Haruki stared at the phone screen, feeling the chill creep into his skin like morning frost. He couldn’t explain it, even to himself. The dreams, the strange sounds at night, the doll that disappeared from his camera—everything was wrong. And now Hana thought he was hiding something. In a way, maybe he was.

The next morning

The hotel restaurant bustled with the clatter of ceramic plates and half-hearted laughter.

The seven drunken guests from the night before were now sober and seated at a long table, nursing their hangovers with miso soup and grilled fish. Steam rose in curls, and the staff moved briskly between tables—except for one.

Haruki watched from the lobby staircase.

A woman in a pressed brown uniform stood near the doorway, holding a tray of empty teacups. Her posture was rigid, eyes fixed—unnervingly—on Tomo and the hostess he had brought in last night. The woman’s gaze did not blink or break. It was as if she were trying to burn them into ash with her stare alone.

Tomo, oblivious, noticed her eventually and leaned sideways, smirking.

“Hey pretty,” he slurred playfully. “Wait your turn.”

The staff woman didn’t flinch. Her lips twitched, not into a smile, but something tighter—something grim.

Then she turned and walked away.

Haruki moved to the window just in time to catch a glimpse of her outside. The woman had gone into the hotel’s rear garden. The mist still clung to the soil, and dew shimmered on the low hedges. But she wasn’t watering flowers or gathering laundry.

She was digging.

Barehanded.

She knelt in the mud behind the hotel, her fingernails clawing into the damp earth like a beast unearthing prey. Her head bobbed slightly, as if muttering something—some chant too soft to hear. Finally, she pulled something from the soil.

Haruki’s breath caught in his throat. It was just like the doll he kept in his sling bag a day ago—a waraningyō. A Japanese voodoo doll. Its tiny limbs were tightly bound, and rusted pins jutted from its side, catching the light like something alive.

The woman didn’t dust it off. She cradled it. Whispered to it. Then tucked it inside her apron and returned through the back door.

As Haruki crept back inside, still reeling from what he’d seen in the garden, his foot touched the first step of the hallway stairwell—then he froze. They were there again. The two men in black suits.

This time, they weren’t alone.

A lean, alert dog trotted beside them—its snout low, sniffing the floor with precision. Haruki’s pulse quickened. It was the same dog that had unearthed the waraningyō. He pieced it together in his mind: a police dog, likely trained to detect evidence.

Without a word, the men and the dog disappeared into the manager’s office. The door clicked shut behind them—quiet, but firm. Urgent.

Something was building. And Haruki wasn’t sure where it would break first.

Haruki couldn't ignore it.

He waited until a nearby maid cart passed and moved quickly down the corridor, pausing just outside the slightly ajar door. Their voices filtered out in clipped tones.

“Nakai, you got another full house,” said one voice. Calm. Too calm.

“Lucky for you, but… are they safe?”

Haruki leaned closer, heart hammering.

“Your last batch was a mess. The police let you off once. But not again.”

Nakai’s voice came low and nervous. “This time it’s… different. I’ve handled it.”

“Handled it?” the man’s voice dropped, heavy with implication. “It’s still here.” He patted the police dog’s head. “Our best bud just found something interesting—dug it up from your garden. A doll.”

A long silence.

“You should’ve burned the land, Nakai. Not built over it.”

Haruki backed away, chilled to the spine.

He hurried upstairs, anxiety a growing knot in his stomach. As he reached his own door—Room 219—he froze.

It was open.

He stepped in cautiously.

The lights were off, but someone was inside. A figure crouched on the tatami floor, hunched over the low coffee table. A single candle burned between them.

It was the staff woman from earlier. She rocked slightly back and forth, eyes rolled back in her head, lips moving in steady chant.

“Ni... ma... ru... go... Ni... ma... ru... go...” she whispered.

Haruki’s gaze dropped to the table.

A waraningyō rested there. Fresh. Newly unearthed. One candle flickered beside it, casting shadows that crawled across the room like fingers.

“Hey!” Haruki called out, stepping closer. “What are you doing?!”

The woman didn’t stop.

Something had taken hold of her—ancient, like a spirit unearthed from the forest’s oldest roots. Her hands dripped with mud, her uniform stained with soil. Eyes were vacant yet burned with purpose, her lips whispering in a language long forgotten. Her skin flushed a deep crimson, as if her blood were boiling from within. 

The air shimmered around her like heat off scorched stone.

Then—her pressed brown uniform caught fire.

No spark. No flame. Just the sudden hiss of fabric turning to ash, unraveling into blackened threads that crumbled away. She stood, trembling, nearly bare beneath the moonlight, wrapped only in smoke and ritual.

It was as if the forest itself remembered the fire.

As if Marie Ravu had come back, wearing a new skin.

She kept chanting. “Ni-maru-go. Ni-maru-go.”

Haruki grabbed her shoulder. “Stop it!”

The chanting broke.

The room snapped into silence.

Then—the door slammed shut behind him. Hard. As if pushed by invisible hands.

The candle wavered. The doll on the table turned slightly, as if it too had heard the door.

The woman blinked and looked at him like she had just woken from a trance. Her eyes widened, and her body trembled as if trying to hold something in—or keep something out.

And just then—the door creaked open again.

Haruki turned.

It was Hana.

She stood in the doorway—suitcase in hand, confusion shadowing her face. Her eyes locked on Haruki, on his trembling hand still gripping the shoulder of the nearly naked woman.

A silence, thick and sharp, split the room like glass under pressure.

“Hana, wait—this isn’t—”

But her gaze had already fallen to the waraningyou on the table.

The candle beside it flickered unnaturally, casting twitching shadows.

And something shifted in Hana’s face—
not just anger.
Not just betrayal.

Something colder.
As if the doll had recognized her too.

[Next: "Room Ni-Maru-Go"]