Chapter 2: Not a Ghost Story

The sun had long since disappeared. Outside the bus windows, the atmosphere was bright and loud.

"I’m telling you, Daichi and Hiro are a couple!" Hana shouted over the roar of the bus engine. She reached over and whacked Hiro on the shoulder, laughing so hard she almost fell out of her seat.

"We are not!" Hiro protested, but just then, Daichi leaned over and playfully rested his head on Hiro’s shoulder, batting his eyelashes like a drama queen.

"Oh, Hiro-kun," Daichi said in a high, fake voice, grabbing Hiro’s hand and interlocking their fingers. "Don't listen to them. Our love is pure!"

The whole bus erupted into whistles and cheers.

"See!" Saki pointed at them, poking Rei in the ribs to get him to look. "Look at them! They spend so much time together that they’re starting to act like a married couple. Rei, back me up here!"

Rei adjusted his glasses, looking at his watch. "Well, statistically, they have spent 84% of their free time together this semester," he said with a small smile.

"And what about Rei?" Daichi laughed, turning his attention away from Hiro. "He’s so quiet, he’s probably dreaming about his textbooks!"

Daichi reached over and started poking Rei’s sides, trying to tickle him. Then he leaned in and rubbed his knuckles against Rei's head in a playful "noogie."

"Stop it, you son of-!" Rei said, laughing and trying to block with his hands. "I’m trying to sleep!"

"Sleep? I’ll give you a sleep!" Kenji joined in from the seat behind. He reached over the headrest and grabbed Rei's shoulders, shaking him back and forth.

The three of them were a mess of arms and legs. Rei finally had enough of the tickling. He jokingly threw a few straight punches at Daichi’s arm and Kenji’s chest. They weren't hard—just light taps to push them away—but his Kendo training made his movements fast.

"Whoa! Watch out!" Kenji joked, holding his hands up like he was scared.

"Yeah, Rei's got hands!" Hiro cheered, clapping Rei on the back.

Even Kaito’s group in front of the bus was smiling. One of the girls from the "Elite" group turned around. "Well, at least someone in the Law department has a romantic life," she teased. Her friends giggled, their usual serious attitude softening in the dark of the night.

Rei sat quietly in his seat, looking at his watch. It was 8:30 PM. Exactly on time. He felt a small sense of peace. His friends were happy, his schedule was perfect, and the bus was moving smoothly.

Then, the world changed.

Within seconds, a thick, glowing pink fog swallowed the bus. It wasn't a normal mist. It was bright, swirling, and looked like it was alive.

"What is that?" Saki’s laughter stopped instantly. She pressed her face against the window. "I can’t see the road. I can’t see anything!"

The driver slammed on the brakes. The bus jerked forward, making everyone scream.

"Is it a fire?" one of the girls from Kaito’s group yelled, her voice shaking. "Wait, it’s pink. Why is it pink?"

The girls in the back started to huddle together. Even the "Elite" students in the front stood up, their faces pale. "Everyone, stay calm!" Kaito shouted, but his own hands were trembling as he gripped the seat.

Rei felt his heart hammering against his ribs. He didn't think about magical islands or criminals. His mind went straight to the stories his grandmother told him.

The bus began to shake. A strange, humming sound filled their ears, like a thousand people whispering at once. The pink fog started to seep through the air vents, smelling like old coins and burnt sugar.

"The doors!" someone screamed. "The driver is opening the doors!"

The hiss of the bus doors opening was the loudest thing in the world. Outside, there was no road. There was only the pink mist and a cold, dead silence.

Hiro and Daichi stood up at the same time. In every university tour, they were the ones who took charge. Daichi was the calm, logical one from Rei’s group, and Hiro was the energetic heart. Together, they handled the leadership.

"Stay behind us," Daichi ordered, his voice trying to stay firm despite the shaking of the bus.

Hiro nodded, looking at Rei. "Come on, Rei. We need your eyes. You notice things we don't. Because of how short you are."

Rei swallowed hard. His legs felt like jelly because of the "ghostly" fog, but he couldn't let his friends go alone. He stood up, clutching his bag, and followed them.

The three of them stepped off the bus first. The ground felt strange—not like a road, but like cold, gray ash. The pink fog was so thick they could barely see their own hands. Slowly, the rest of the students followed, huddled together in small groups. The girls were holding onto each other’s jackets, jumping at every tiny sound.

"Check the bus," Daichi said to the driver.

The driver tried to turn the key. Crank. Crank. Sputter. "It’s dead," the driver groaned, stepping out. "The engine looks like it’s been sitting in a junkyard for ten years. It’s rusted through. I don't understand it... it was brand new this morning."

"My phone is dead," Saki said, her voice high and panicked. "No, not dead—it just has no signal. No bars. No internet. Nothing."

"Mine too," Kaito added from the front. "We’re in a dead zone. But that shouldn't be possible near the coast."

They started to walk, hoping to find a hotel or a gas station. But there were no lights. No street signs. After twenty minutes of walking through the suffocating fog, they didn't find a grand hotel.

Instead, they found a small, lopsided house.

It looked like it belonged in a horror movie. The wood was black and rotting, and the windows were cracked like broken eyes. It sat alone in a clearing of dead trees.

"We aren't going in there, are we?" one of the girls whispered, her teeth chattering. "It looks... haunted."

Rei shivered. "I agree. It definitely looks haunted."

"We don't have a choice," Hiro said, looking back at the shivering group. "The fog is getting colder, and we can't see the path anymore. We stay here until morning. Then we find help."

Daichi pushed the door open. It creaked with a loud, painful scream of rusty hinges. The inside was covered in thick dust and old cobwebs. There was no electricity, no running water, and the air smelled like damp earth.

They huddled together in the main room, using their phone flashlights to see. The silence of the island was heavy. It wasn't the silence of a quiet night in Tokyo; it was the silence of a place where nothing was allowed to live.

Rei sat in the corner, his back against the peeling wallpaper. He looked at his watch. 10:00 PM.

He was exactly on schedule for sleep, but for the first time in his life, Rei knew he wouldn't be closing his eyes. Something was watching the house. And it wasn't a ghost.

Rei couldn't stop looking at the walls. As a Law student, he was trained to look for evidence, and this house felt like a lie.

"It’s weird," Rei whispered to himself.

The house looked ancient and rotting on the outside, but inside, things were different. The floorboards didn't creak as much as they should. The dust wasn't thick enough for a house that had been empty for years. It looked like someone was trying very hard to make it look abandoned, but they hadn't quite finished the job.

One by one, the students used the small, cramped bathroom to wash their faces before trying to sleep. Rei waited until the very end. He liked to be last; it was part of his internal schedule.

When he finally stepped inside and shut the door, the smell hit him. It wasn't the smell of rot—it was the faint, sharp scent of bleach.

Why would a haunted house smell like cleaning supplies? Rei looked down at the floor. The tiles were cracked and yellow. But near the corner, behind the base of the toilet, something caught the light of his phone.

He knelt down, his heart racing. He reached into the gap between two loose tiles and pulled out a small, jagged piece of material. It wasn't cloth. It was a small strip of flesh-colored skin.

Rei held it up to his light. It looked like a piece of a surgical glove, or perhaps... something else. It was wet, and it felt cold.

His stomach did a somersault. He knew for a fact that none of his friends had used this corner of the bathroom. Saki and Hiro had been in and out in seconds, too scared to touch anything. This had been here before they arrived.

Someone was in here recently, Rei realized. And they weren't ghosts.

He tucked the small scrap into a tissue and hid it in his pocket. He didn't want to scream and scare the girls, but his "ghost fear" was quickly being replaced by a much more "human" fear.

He walked back into the main room. His friends were huddled in sleeping bags and coats on the floor. Hiro was already snoring lightly, and even Daichi had closed his eyes.

Rei sat back down in his corner. He looked at the front door. The lock was thin and rusted. It wouldn't stop anyone from coming in. He reached into his bag and gripped the handle of his cricket bat. It was just wood, but it made him feel a little better.

He looked at his watch. 11:15 PM.

Suddenly, he heard it.

Thump.

Rei’s heart stopped. A heavy boot stepped onto the porch outside, followed by the sound of a sharp blade scraping against the front door.

Through the cracked window, a scarred man stared at the sleeping students with a hungry grin. He turned his head and whispered into the dark trees.

"Boss! We found them. Lots of fresh people from the city."

A cold, deep voice answered from the shadows. "Good. Kill the boys. Secure the girls. We move in ten seconds."

Rei looked at his sleeping friends, then down at his cricket bat.