Volume 1 - Prologue - The Girl Who Was Lost

                                                                               Prologue 
The Moment Before
No one remembers the exact second fear becomes too much.
It does not announce itself.
It does not arrive with thunder or warning.
It gathers quietly — in the tightening of the chest, in the hesitation of breath, in the awareness that something is wrong and cannot be undone.
In the town of Kurotsuki, there was once a girl who hid too well.
The game had been simple. Count to thirty. Close your eyes. Seek.
She had laughed as she ran. She had climbed where no one would think to look. She had chosen the highest place — the abandoned school on Kuroyama Hill — because winning meant not being found.
The corridor had been long.
Longer than it should have been.
Dust had settled thick along the floor. 

Desks stood in silent rows. Windows stared out over fields that shimmered under the fading sun.

She had crouched in the last classroom on the second floor, pressing her hands over her mouth to stop her giggles.
At first, she heard counting.
Then she heard nothing.
Silence can stretch.
Silence can change shape.
As the light dimmed, 

the air shifted. It thickened, as though the building had begun holding its breath.

She told herself not to move.
If she moved, she would lose.
That was the rule.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway.
Not hurried.
Not searching.
Measured.
She looked toward the doorway.
Something stood there.
It did not enter.
It did not speak.
It did not need to.
Fear is a mirror.
It reflects back the worst possibility your mind can imagine.
Her heart began to race.
Her lungs tightened.
The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly beyond the doorway.
The shape tilted its head slightly.
Watching.
Waiting.
No one remembers the precise second when the body decides it can no longer endure.
Only that the breath becomes too thin.
The chest too tight.
The world too distant.
And somewhere in that narrowing space —
Between panic and surrender —
Something leans closer.
Not to strike.
Not to touch.
Only to witness.
The moment a heart gives up.
In Kurotsuki, people would later say a child disappeared near Kuroyama Hill.
They would search.
They would whisper.
They would move on.
But the hill did not forget.
The corridor did not forget.
And the thing that waits at the edge of breaking —
Never does.