Chapter 4:

Revenant;Cursed

AfterLife;Entropy


There he was, a man in tattered dark clothes facing Kazuya's front door. I felt shivers and chills run through my spine as the man motionlessly waited outside of the door.

Kazuya gulped really loudly before interrupting the silence, "H-Hey Shin... Doesn't he look a little familiar to you..?"

I profusely nodded my head, "Y-Yeah, it's same guy from earlier right..?"

"Yeah.. what the hell is he doing in front of my door? Are we being stalked right now..? How does he know where I live..?" Kazuya said in a frightened and raspy voice.

"I don't know, I don't believe this at all." I answered back.

We were both visibly shook at this, the same man who walked ahead of us earlier is now standing right outside of Kazuya's door. I had to recover myself fast, who knows what will happen if this thing sees us behind him!

I turn over to Kazuya and affirmed, "We need to get out of here and call the police right now! Who knows what will happen if he sees us!"

"A-Alright it let's get the hell out of here then!" Kazuya stated.

Without another moments hesitation, we both sped off in the opposite direction! I quickly glance back to see the unknown stalker but become perplexed at my findings.

"Wait Kazuya hold on! Where did he go!?" I shouted in confusion.

We both stopped and Kazuya turned around to see, "What!? He's gone! Where the hell did he go!?"

To our surprise the strange looking man was no where to be seen, he had completely vanished. Kazuya and I stay in place for a bit and focus at any potential hiding spots but we see nothing out of place! There weren't very many places to run judging by how Kazuya lived in a pretty decently sized house with two floors, the only way he could've hid is by running around the whole house but it wouldn't make any sense to do it that quickly.

Kazuya turned to me again and said, "Bro this doesn't make any sense! What's going on today!?" He began to violently grasp his head due to high anxiety and tension, I had to keep my cool so I wouldn't freak him out anymore than he already was.

I reach out my hand and place it on his shoulder, "Dude I don't know what's happening either but we can't lose our heads. For now let's just get inside and sort this out okay?"

He released his grasp and regained some of his composure, "Y-Yeah alright, let's hurry before he gets back!"

We both rushed towards the door, Kazuya fumbled around with his house keys and jammed them into the keyhole.

*click*

As soon as we heard the click, we barged inside and relocked the door. We both dash to his bedroom upstairs and make our way inside. Kazuya enters the door and closes it behind him, he then leans against the door and slowly slides down to relax. I lean against his bedframe and let out a deep sigh, "Well looks like we're safe.. for now at least.."

Kazuya puts his hand over his forehead, "Man Shin what are we gonna do? I'm so on edge after the damn séance that I relax anymore. I feel like we really did get cursed or something..."

I shook my head, "I don't know man, from that guy and even the people at the store, I don't know what to make out of this... Let me just think for a second!"

Kazuya responded back instantly, "This can't be a coincidence, I've never seen anything like this in my entire life. It all started happening after that damn séance! You remember what the ghost lady said right? She said she'll curse us to never have rest! What if we really got cursed! Do you know what that means!? I didn't even want to do the whole séance! I just wanted to go home and play my games!"

I raised my voice at him with authority, "Kazuya!"

He immediately stopped, I followed up saying, "We don't know what's actually going on. We don't know if we really got cursed or if this is all just a huge coincidence. One thing we do know is that we need to keep ourselves calm, if we freak out then we might make things worse for ourselves. Yes we may have summoned a revenant earlier but we can't blame everything on that. There is the possibility of this all just being a huge and weird coincidence and I'm going to believe that until I have concrete evidence of this being a curse."

Kazuya lowered his head, "Then how do you explain that man disappearing..? We both saw him, then he was gone in an instant."

"I don't know..." I replied.

Kazuya then spoke up, "That's because the only explanation is that he was a ghost, you're just denying it."

"We don't know that for sure though!" I argued.

"Then what else could cause a man to disappear like that!? We only looked away for less than a second!" Kazuya objected.

I let out a deep sigh, "I don't know, but I won't believe it's a ghost unless I'm absolutely sure!"

Kazuya stood up and walked over towards his bed and dropped himself on it, "You can keep lying to yourself Shin but in the end you know it's true too.."

"And what is that..?" I asked.

"We're cursed Shin..."

I felt chills go down my spine again, it was a reality I refused to accept. Kazuya and I stayed silent in the room for a couple moments, only the sound of the ceiling fan could be heard.

Kazuya then asked me, "What are we going to do next..? I'm actually scared man..."

The only thing I could think of at the time was, "We need to get the others, we got to find out if anyone else is experiencing strange things around them. We need to meet up tomorrow at Koyo Park and tell them everything we saw today. Maybe they also experienced things like us."

"What do we do if they did..?" Kazuya replied.

I took a moment to ponder my next response but came up short, "Well I'm not sure but we should prepare for the worse. If we really did get cursed, we got to find out what it is and what we can do to end it."

Kazuya nodded and agreed, "Okay then, we'll go with that for now. I'll text Kyoko to meet us at the park, what time should I say?"

I began thinking of possible times that were convenient for the others, then it hit me, "How about 12pm? She should be awake by then."

Kazuya nodded, "Yeah okay thanks."

We both went to work inviting the others, I had texted Yamada and Satomi but obviously they didn't respond back, I'm pretty sure they were both asleep by now. After we sent out the text, we decided to start eating out snacks.

We talked a bit about the things that happened with an anime playing on the TV, but the air was kind of heavy. We definitely tried enjoying ourselves but there was definitely an elephant in the room. We hopped on videogames for a little while longer before deciding it was time to finally go to bed, Kazuya had brought out a futon for me and laid it outside of his bed and we went to sleep for the night.

However I couldn't sleep right away , I kind of just stared off into the darkness while thinking about the words that the revenant said, "I'll see you on the Other Side.." They continuously played in my mind, but I tried to distract myself and forget about it. I also tried to remember what the people in the store looked like, but for some reason I couldn't remember what their faces had looked like? It began to bother me and led me to believe what Kazuya said before.

"Am I actually cursed...?"

After some wishful thinking, I soon drifted to sleep leaving this horrible day behind me. This was truly a day that will be remembered in infamy.

*Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep*

The sound of Kazuya's phone alarm went off, we both woke up to it feeling really drowsy. The time was 10am and the sun was already beaming through the window.

I heard Kazuya make a loud grunt and yawn, "Damn it shut up alarm!" he said while reaching for his phone. Soon the annoying beeping sound dissipated and we were both wide awake.

I turned over to him and say, "Rise and shine sleepyhead, did you have a good beauty sleep?"

Kazuya annoyedly shook his head, "Oh shut up already Shin..."

We soon got the strength to get up and start getting ready for the day. I check my phone and see a message from both Satomi and Shizuku, but not one from Yamada.

"Figures..."

I soon open and see the confirmation text from Satomi, "I'll be there!" sent 8:37am

I open Shizuku's message and see a nice little good morning text, "Goooooooodmorrninggg babe, I just woke up! :D Did you sleep well???" sent 6:36am

I message her back with the same energy and tell her how drowsy I am from playing videogames all night. I then ask Kazuya if Kyoko ever messaged him back, he said she did and will be there.

Kazuya then asked me, "Did Yamada want to come after all?"

I shrugged my shoulders, "I have no idea, he's been avoiding us ever since he went home yesterday."

Kazuya sighed, "Yeah he's been ignoring all my messages too, I've been trying to get ahold of him but he doesn't answer the phone."

"Yeah he might be taking this harder than everyone else." I replied.

"I wouldn't be surprised haha.." Kazuya joked.

We finished getting ready and played a few matches of videogames before it was time to leave.

"Hey you ready to go? We're already cutting it close." I asked.

He stretched his arms out a bit and said, "Yeah fine let's go already. My Mom should be home soon anyways."

We both start making our way out of the front entrance, as soon as we headed out we noticed something peculiar.

"Shin... Are you seeing this sh##?" Kazuya said startled.

I looked out and saw a lot more strange looking people blending in with "normal" looking people. The strange people wore dirty and worn out clothes and their faces seemed kind of expressionless? There wasn't a crazy amount but enough for us to notice, I turn towards Kazuya and proposed, "We need to get to the park immediately!"

We began to hurry off ignoring all the strange people, I saw some even stare at us as we hurried to the nearby park. It wasn't a far jog, maybe 10 minutes at most. Soon we made it to our destination and I saw a familiar face with long red hair waving at us from afar.

"Shin! Kazuya! Hurry you're late!" said the red haired girl.

As we arrive we commented to the girl, "We're not late, you're just always early!"

She smiled and replied, "Hehe it's better to be early than late!"

"Whatever Satomi... I'm just glad you came." Kazuya uttered while trying to control his breathing.

Satomi preemptively asked, "So what did you guys want to talk about? I think I have an idea what it is..."

"Let's wait till Kyoko gets here, it's important that we all discuss it." I insisted.

Satomi then perked up and asked, "What about Yamada? Is he coming?"

I shook my head, "I don't know, he's been ignoring us since yesterday."

Satomi then suggested, "Well how about we just go to his house once Kyoko gets here? That was he can't avoid us!"

Kazuya chuckled a bit, "Leave it to Satomi to jump to the extreme!"

Satomi gave her wildly bright smile, "Fufufu I just know how to handle that little hothead."

We all then started goofing around as we waited for Kyoko, it wasn't long before she entered the park. We all turned towards her and flag her down, she waved back and returned a glistening smile.

Kazuya ecstatically waved at her, "Kyoko hurry up!"

Kyoko picked up her pace a bit and replied back, "I'm coming calm down."

Kyoko soon met up with us and we explained the situation to her, she seemed on board and agreed to the idea of going to Yamada's house. However the issue regarding the "extra" people was kind of difficult to bring up, so I just eased my way into it.

"Alright since we're all on the topic, has anyone else seen or experienced weird things lately?" I asked them.

Kyoko and Satomi stayed quiet for a bit, Kazuya then added on to me saying, "Well Shin and I had some occurrences today and yesterday, there was some weird people doing strange things all around us. One even managed to find my house and ended up vanishing before our very eyes."

I nodded my head, "Yeah and it doesn't stop there either, I can't even remember the faces of the "strange" people we saw. They even wearing similar outfits and look as though they're observing stuff? We can't put our finger on it but something is definitely off. Have you two experienced any strange things with out of place people?"

Kazuya and I went into deeper explanation with the strange people, Kyoko and Satomi just listened as we told our story. Soon Kyoko chimed in with a story of her own, "Well now that you mention it, I've been seeing some odd looking people walking around recently, especially last night. They didn't do much other than just stare at stuff randomly?"

Satomi added on to what she was saying and gave her own account of strange people moving about, "Yeah I also been seeing a lot more people around than usual, especially during my morning jogs around my neighborhood. I can't even remember what their faces looked like but I remember not recognizing them."

Kazuya and I both made eye contact with each other, we finally knew it wasn't just our imagination anymore. We both gulped and realized that Kazuya may in fact be right for once.

"Cursed..."

Kazuya looked around really fast in paranoia, he then hesitantly said to our group, "Guys... do you see that kid over there..?" He then lifted his finger and pointed over to the swing-set at the Park. We at first didn't see anything, but then realized something strange.

"Are those swings moving by themselves...?" Satomi pointed out.

Kazuya stepped back a bit, "Y-You don't see a kid crying on those swings..?"

The group turned and peered but saw nothing, Kyoko annoyingly declared to Kazuya, "Look Kazuya, if you're trying to sc----"

She cut off her sentence when she saw the horrified look on Kazuya's face, it then sent chills down her spine for she knew he wasn't lying...

I grabbed Kazuya by the shoulder, "Guys we have to find Yamada right f###### now. Hurry let's go!"

Everyone agreed in perfect unison, "Yeah let's go!"

We all then quickly made our way out of the park, I saw Kazuya looking back at the empty swings as we ran.

While we ran, Satomi said adamantly, "Shin what the hell is going on!?"

I had to come to grips with reality, no more running from the truth. With all sincerity and all fear I said to her,

"Satomi I think we've been cursed!"