Room Ni-Maru-Go

Hana’s scream split the silence like a whip.

“What the hell is this, Haruki?!”

She stood at the doorway of Room 219, suitcase in hand, face twisted in rage and disbelief. Her eyes locked onto the nearly naked woman crumpled on the floor. The woman’s skin glistened with sweat, ash from her burnt uniform dusting the floor around her. A scorched scent clung to the room like old smoke.

Haruki, frozen mid-motion, could barely breathe. “Hana, wait—it’s not what it looks like—”

But Hana was already across the room, fists pounding against his back in blind fury.

The naked staff woman lay still, eyes vacant, body trembling in strange spasms. Haruki grabbed the comforter off the bed and threw it over her, shielding her from Hana’s rage and the thickening tension in the room.

“You better start talking, Haruki. Now!!!” Hana’s voice cracked as it rose. “In a hotel room—with her? At this hour?” Her eyes burned with betrayal. “Is she your Sunday morning breakfast now?!”

Her shout was loud enough to shake the walls—and the people inside them.

Within seconds, footsteps thundered up the stairs. Haruki’s six colleagues burst into the room, still in their sleepwear, drawn by the chaos. One young colleague got between Hana and Haruki, holding up his hands.

“Ma’am—Hana—please calm down. That woman isn’t his girl. You have it all wrong.”

“He’s telling the truth,” another colleague added, voice shaking. “She’s not even supposed to be here. Something’s… off.”

Downstairs, Tomo sat alone with the Filipina girl at the restaurant table, half-finished plates around them, the eerie silence punctuated by the distant shouting.

“I told you this place is messed up,” Tomo muttered, stabbing his rice with a chopstick.

But the girl didn’t respond—she was staring at something behind him. Her eyes widened.

Then, a scream from deep within the hotel made both of them flinch.

It wasn’t Hana’s voice. It came from below.

A terrified, blood-curdling scream.

The investigators and Nakai had just arrived at Room 219, having heard the initial commotion. They paused, eyes scanning the surreal scene: Haruki hunched over, tearful, his wife trembling and enraged, the staff girl wrapped in a hotel blanket, murmuring nonsense. The air in the room felt charged, heavy—as though something ancient was watching.

Then the scream came again. This time sharper, closer. The older investigator stiffened and turned.

“Downstairs,” he muttered.

They rushed down to the restaurant.

Under the long dining table, they found Tomo.

Lying lifeless.

The Filipina girl crouched nearby, shaking uncontrollably, unable to speak. Her mouth hung open, her eyes wide, pointing but not moving. Tomo’s body showed dark bruises on his head, arms, and legs—as though something had grabbed him, crushed him, and left him to die where he sat.

The younger investigator knelt beside the body and gently pried open Tomo’s right hand.

A room key.

Number 205.

He held it up. The other investigator stared at it grimly. “Check the guest records.”

Back in Room 219, Nakai crouched beside the now-conscious staff girl. Her eyes fluttered open, but she seemed disoriented.

“I was in the kitchen…” she whispered. “I was chopping ginger. Then—I don’t know how—I was here. What happened?”

Nakai gently took her hand. Her palm twitched.

A doll fell from it. A waraningyō.

Its limbs punctured with rusted pins—through the head, arms, and legs.

Nakai’s face darkened. “Someone’s using these…”

Haruki was still trying to explain, his voice hoarse from panic and tears. “She wasn’t supposed to be here. I just saw her outside. She was digging. She was holding that thing. Then—then she was in my room.”

But Hana wasn’t listening. She was pacing in circles now, muttering to herself. The image of her husband and the barely dressed woman had already calcified in her mind.

Sirens pierced the eerie stillness of the morning as backup arrived. Within minutes, the parking lot of Hotel Toyohashi swelled with police cars and unmarked black sedans, headlights cutting through the pale mist that hung like gauze around the building. Curious neighbors from nearby homes peeked from behind curtains, some edging closer to the property line, drawn by the sudden influx of law enforcement.

Inside, uniformed officers moved with practiced urgency. The lead investigator, already on scene from the earlier disturbance, gestured sharply toward the staircase.

“Check Room 205,” he ordered. “We’ve got a key, and a body that was holding it.”

Haruki, still pale and rattled from the encounter with the possessed staff and the escalating wrath of his wife, approached one of the officers.

“I heard her chanting it,” he said quietly. “Ni-maru-go. 205. Over and over again.”

The team breached the door with practiced precision. Room 205 was… pristine. Too pristine.
A mirrored ceiling reflected the sterile calm. A half-drunk bottle of pink champagne sweated beside two untouched glasses. The bed was unmade—creased sheets and tangled blankets hinted at recent activity, likely with the Filipina woman—but everything else was arranged with unsettling precision.
Toiletries were perfectly aligned. No bloodstains. No signs of struggle. No markings on the walls or furniture.
Just the eerie stillness of a room that had either been carefully reset… or never disturbed at all.

But there was something about the air. Heavy. Oppressive. As though the room itself was holding its breath.

The investigators exchanged uneasy glances.

“We’ve got a corpse holding the key to this room, no known connection between the victim and the suite,” one officer muttered. “And he’s bruised like hell. But not a single clue in here.”

Another leaned against the wall, arms crossed, voice low. “It’s not physical. The energy here… feels wrong. Like something stayed behind.”

The senior investigator rubbed his temple. “It’s the second incident this week with unexplainable elements.”

A younger officer, flipping through the guest logs, added: “That woman Haruki found—she ended up in his room without explanation. She thought she was in the kitchen. Then she wakes up covered in soot, next to a waraningyō with pins jammed into it.”

By now, the hotel lobby buzzed with quiet chaos. Hana sat apart from the others, arms wrapped tightly around herself, trembling with a raw mix of betrayal and disbelief. Her eyes stared blankly at the floor, as if searching for answers in the grain of the wood.

Haruki hovered near the staircase, hands clenched around the railing—his knuckles white, his breath uneven. It looked as though the bannister was the only thing keeping him from collapsing.
His six colleagues were hastily packing up their belongings. A few paced while on the phone, whispering grim updates to Tomo’s wife. Their voices were low, their words brittle.
Near the entrance, the Filipina hostess stood by the open door, a cigarette trembling between her fingers. Her expression was unreadable—somewhere between shock and irritation. Smoke curled around her like a veil as she glanced down the road, waiting for the taxi that hadn’t come yet. She muttered under her breath; the dead man hadn’t paid her yet.

The chief investigator exhaled and finally turned to Nakai. “Until we figure out what’s going on here, we’re calling it. The hotel’s operations are suspended effective immediately. There’s something dark rooted in this place. If it’s supernatural—if it’s targeting people tied to affairs, secrets—then we can’t risk another incident.”

Nakai’s eyes flickered with protest, but she knew better than to argue. The hotel was no longer his' to control.

In the quiet that followed the announcement, the low whimper of a dog echoed from the lobby. The K9, previously alert and responsive, now sat frozen—its eyes locked on the hotel’s entrance, body stiff.

Then it let out a hollow, trembling howl.
And barked once. A warning.
Something was coming.

Its ears twitched.

Then it stared toward the front entrance.

The dog whimpered once, then gave a low growl.

A sound like footsteps echoed from outside.

Then the dog howled—long and sorrowful—followed by a sharp, frightened bark.

And the entrance door creaked open, though no hand had touched it.

[Next: The Stitching Of The Curse]