It was a windy night, with lightning flashing across the gray sky covering the Moonlight. The glass windows vibrated, and the once melodic glass bell chime had turned into a dissonant, nightmarish sound.
None of this, however, seemed to affect the woman standing by the window in her room on the upper floor of the house. As the lightning flashed again, her expression changed—her eyebrows furrowed as she tried to remember something important. Her figure dimmed in the weak light, her shadow lengthening before slowly returning to its normal position. At that moment, she parted her lips and whispered, "What terrible weather."
She moved away from the window, her bare feet echoing faintly on the wooden floor in the quiet room. Slowly, she reached her makeshift bed, a couple of sheets spread on the floor, with a stack of books on top of it. All the books had different titles, but they served the same purpose.
"The first steps in crime analysis are to…" she murmured to herself, trying to recall what she had studied so far.
Suddenly, she heard a few noises from outside, which soon turned into the sound of two… no, three people chatting. A faint smile appeared on her face as the lamp flickered, then restored its brightness. The woman, Hana, sighed and rested her hand on her chest, saying, "Finally… they fixed it."
But just as she said that the light in the room went out again, making her curse loudly. She spread her hands over the bed sheets, searching for her phone. Not finding it, Hana cursed once more, but this time, her heart began to race unnaturally, and her breathing quickened.
"P-please, where… are you?" she whispered desperately, her voice trembling with fear. Unable to find her phone, Hana got up, breathing shakily, and ran to where the door was, gripping the handle tightly. She didn't understand why her body was reacting this way; she didn't even remember having a fear of the dark. All she knew at that moment was that she needed to find some light.
Feeling the door handle shake, Hana's sister, Jenna, opened the door, only to see Hana's wide eyes and heavy breathing.
"H-Hana? What's wrong?" Jenna asked.
Hana collapsed weakly into her sister's arms, whispering "lights" over and over like a broken record. Seeing her sister's state, the man standing beside Jenna—her husband, Ryo—took out his phone and turned on the flashlight.
"Take a deep breath. You're okay now," Jenna said, placing her palm on Hana's cheek cold cheeks. Looking into her sister's brown eyes, Hana's heartbeat slowly began to regulate. With a deep breath, her blurred vision cleared, and so did her mind.
"Are you alright?" Ryo asked with concern.
Hana nodded in response, and Jenna helped her stand up again before embracing her, assuring her that everything was okay and that no one was going to hurt her. Hana didn't know how to react to her sister's touch or the emotion in her voice, which trembled as if she were trying to hide something.
But Hana wasn't ignorant of what had happened to her five years ago. Though it had been a long time, the scars on her body and the people around her were constant reminders. She remembered waking up in a hospital room, her body covered in burn marks and wounds. What disturbed her most was that she couldn't remember how it had happened or why she was missing three years of her memory.
It was strange… everything in the town and the people around her seemed both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
" yuto see sleepy, can you take him to bed ?" Jenna told her husband, Ryo, while she stayed in Hana's room for the night. As Ryo handed his phone to Jenna, at the moment Jenna heard her sister chuckle darkly, saying, "Babysitting me now? I'm fine. I just couldn't find my phone, so I panicked."
Rolling her eyes, Jenna pulled Hana into the pitch-dark room. When another lightning flashed, Jenna jumped in fear. Blinking a few times, Hana giggled at her sister's reaction. Pretending nothing had happened, Jenna and Hana lay down on the sheets, back-to-back, close enough to feel each other's body heat. They remained silent.
"Hana? Are you awake?"
Although Hana was almost dozing off, she answered her sister's question.
"Hmm, yeah…"
There was a brief silence before Jenna rested her head on the palm of her hand and said, "Actually… there's something I want to talk about."
Groaning at the worried tone in her sister's voice, Hana knew what was coming. Shifting away slightly, she replied, "It's 2 a.m., Jenna. I'm sure…"
"It's about Miss Yuna, your psychiatrist."
Although Hana didn't like how Jenna cut her off, she still answered plainly, "What about her?"
"She told me about your application to work."
"That she approved… I told you I'm fine. I don't know why you think I'm lying," Hana said with a shrug, not understanding why they were having this conversation now. Just talking about it irritated her.
"But… today…"
"You can't be serious, Jenna! Are you saying I'm not mentally stable enough to work?" Hana yelled, clenching her fists half laying, anger boiling within her. Seeing this, Jenna yelled back.
"What?! No… I'm just worried about you."
"Maybe you should focus all of your worries on our sick mother's condition… Isn't that why we came here in the first place?"
"You…"
Suddenly, the light came back on, making both of them cover their eyes in pain. Rubbing her eyes, Jenna's expression turned gloomy.
"I'm sorry… it's just, I miss the time when you told me everything about your life… Now… we barely talk…" Lowering herself back down, Hana lay silently without comforting her sister or saying a word, leaving Jenna in a dilemma.
Gradually, the room fell silent again, the only difference being the strong light coming from the bulb. With her surroundings becoming clear, Hana closed her eyes and fell asleep. That night, she had a strange dream of an unfamiliar girl wearing shrine maiden clothes standing far away. Slowly, the girl pointed at the mountain behind the shrine, which Hana had seen before. the maiden opened her mouth and said something. Strangely, Hana couldn't hear what she said. Then her dream collapsed into nothingness.
The next morning, when the sun rose, Hana found herself being shaken awake by her sister's son, Yuto, telling her to get up. Nodding at him, Hana dragged herself to wash up and get dressed because today would be her first day at work. Honestly, she felt kind of lucky to have found this job.
"Never thought I'd be working directly with the police," she murmured. Looking in the mirror one more time, she was satisfied with her outfit—a black suit paired with a small brown bag. Although Hana was excited to be a part of something new and fresh, unlike her unknown past… sometimes, deep inside her heart, fear took over… knowing that she might meet or learn something about those forgotten memories.
At that moment, Hana vowed to herself to remain unchained by them.
Before exiting her room, her eyes fell on an odd, half-broken Japanese-style fox mask lying in the corner of the room's window.
"I don't remember seeing this mask," she thought, turning to take a closer look. Just then, she heard Yuto's voice calling out that they were going to be late. Shrugging, she decided to check it out later when she returned.
In hurried steps, Hana shut the room door and moved downstairs, unaware of the sound of something shattering inside her room.