Chapter Text
There were worse ways to spend your twenties than screaming into the void with glitter on your face and ghost detectors in your handbag. At least, that’s what (y/n) told herself as she adjusted the bunny-ear antenna on her cursed EMF reader and stared at the flickering neon OPEN sign of yet another disappointing tofu shop.
“Okay, chat,” she whispered to no one and everyone, “this is either haunted tofu... or just expired. Either way, we’re here.”
She wasn’t live. Not tonight. The stream was off, which made everything feel oddly quiet. But the habit of narration was hard to break when your entire personality had been shaped by a ring light and years of emotionally questionable parasocial relationships. She filmed everything. Even the things she’d never post.
This footage, for instance, was destined for her private archive: a digital graveyard of abandoned vlogs, bad dye jobs, and failed paranormal investigations. She’d gotten used to disappointment.
Fake hauntings. Overpriced ghost merch. Shamans who ghosted her after taking payment. Once, she got scammed into buying a haunted mirror that was just reflective foil taped to wood. That one hurt.
But tonight wasn’t one of those nights. Or at least... it wasn’t supposed to be.
This time, she’d been dared.
The dare came from one of her chat’s certified chaos gremlins, someone with a username like toeclawz420, who’d dropped ¥80,000 in a donation the night before.
“if ur serious abt real content go to kawano clinic 👀 ppl go missing there. bet u wont.”
And she? She would. For the bit. For the bag. For the brand.
So now here she was, standing in front of the old abandoned clinic with a camera rig in one hand and a fuzzy microphone shaped like a sheep in the other. Her outfit did not scream "ghost hunter" so much as "twee chaos muppet at a Harajuku resale fair": red tights, shorts over bloomers, oversized bow, cardigan layered over an old ringer tee with a ghost on it.
She looked like she’d lost a bet. She looked, she hoped, on-brand.
Inside, the clinic waited. Cracked glass. Mold. A collapsed ceiling somewhere in the back. It had the right vibe.
She adjusted the glitter sticker on her lens. “Let’s get cursed,” she whispered.
And stepped inside.
By the time her footsteps echoed through the dim hallway, her bravado had already started to fade. The air was too thick. The darkness too... alive.
She reached for her EMF reader. It buzzed faintly in her hand.
She lifted the camera.
“Alright, chat,” she whispered into the void, knowing she’d edit this later, “If I disappear, tell my mom I died doing what I love. Lying for content.”
She turned the corner—
—and unknowingly stepped directly into a first-grade cursed zone.
And also into someone else’s mission.
But she didn’t know that yet.
Not until she heard something slam, hard, down the hallway.
Not until a deep voice shouted something she couldn’t quite make out—
Not until she saw the flash of a blade.
And the tall, furious man attached to it.
Not until she realized: oh no.
This one’s real.