EPOCH: Voices

Friday, March 26th

     “Have you ever heard of the girl from Shin-Tsubaki?”

     A student howled as she marched over to a group of classmates nonchalantly drifting off into their own worlds between periods. One girl laid her head down on the desk, purposefully turning her face away from the eager schoolmate.

“It’s the strangest thing ever. A long time ago a girl with white hair randomly showed up at the school. She claimed she came from the old shrine up the hill.”

     Now turning to face the schoolmate while holding half her face in the palm of her hand, she cried out in boredom, “So, then what?”

“Just let her speak,” another irritated student mediated.

     The schoolmate leaned in closer towards the group of students as she carried on.

     “She showed up at the school one day, not dressed in uniform or anything. When one of the teachers asked what she was looking for, the girl just kept asking for someone. Claiming that they worked there.

     “But the thing is, no one knew who this person was. Apparently, she wouldn’t speak to them until she could talk to this person, so one of the teachers decided to search for them in the school database.”

     “And what?” another student interrupted, “It was the father of Jesus Christ himself?”.

     Her expression soured as she scoffed at the student. “They found the person!” With an eeriness to her voice, she looked back and forth at the classmates.

     “She was a student from Shin-Tsubaki High that’d been dead for years.”

     The first girl then lifted her head as a trickle of intrigue slipped through her expression.

     “So…?” she hawked, “Where’s the jaw-drop moment?”

     Timidly holding her hand out in attempt to gain her patience, the schoolmate concluded, “When they showed the girl the student’s photo to see if it was the same person, the girl then took out an old polaroid photograph from her pocket...”

     Soon, the students all found themselves sinking into the lure of the schoolmate’s suspense laced words. The girl was now sitting fully upright as a touch of anxiety pounded through the heartbeat in her chest.

     “Guess what it was a photograph of…”

Bam!

     “Hey!” The class teacher barked. “Natsuiro Kisetsu, class is starting; we’re all waiting on you!”

     Jostled from her slumber as she jumped from her seat, Natsuiro frantically peered around as the rest of the class struggled to withhold their laughter.

As she stared down in front of her, she realized her schoolmate, Akane, had vanished from the classroom.

     “Are you alright Kisetsu-san?” the teacher reached out.

Slowly descending back into her chair, she quietly responded, “Hai. Gomennasai.”