That day, I was attending a drinking party for my local occult forum, "Dawn of Ash." It was a group that held offline gatherings remarkably often. It happened during the second-party. Kyosuke leaned in close and asked, "Hey, you got time after this?" My heart skipped a beat. "I'm fine," I replied, figuring I'd just cancel whatever else I had. Leaving the izakaya behind and ignoring the guys shouting about heading to a third-party, we slipped away into the dark night and headed for the convenience store where we were supposed to meet. "Oh," someone said. Waiting there were Kyosuke and Koko. So it wasn't just the two of us? I felt a slight pang of disappointment. "This way," Kyosuke said, starting to walk. The two of us hurried after him. As I glanced sideways at Koko, I ran a half-resentful lecture through my head: *(Even though she has a boyfriend, she stays out late at these drinking parties every single time.)* Of course, I couldn't say it to her face. She was way too scary.
After walking for a while and reaching a residential area, Kyosuke stopped. "Here." The faint light of a distant streetlamp made the building stand out against the dark night. It was a kindergarten. Inside the grounds, I could make out a few large, dark shapes that looked like playground equipment. Insects chirped in low voices. There was no one else around us. It was a quiet space. "A senior from my junior high days works here as a teacher," Kyosuke said, his voice naturally dropping to a whisper. "She says some weird stuff has been happening lately." From the tone of his voice, I realized a ghost story was about to begin. Koko and I moved closer to Kyosuke to listen.
The first time she noticed it was this Tuesday. Since she was still a rookie at the kindergarten, she was assigned the early shift every day, arriving before 7:00 AM to unlock doors and clean up. That day too, she was sweeping the grounds alone with a broom. It was when she reached the sandbox that she immediately noticed something was wrong. Right in the middle of the sandbox, there was something that looked like a patch of dug-up earth. At their kindergarten, they made a rule to smooth things over neatly with a leveling rake when playtime was done. Surely, the staff should have smoothed it out before leaving last night. Had they forgotten to do it, she wondered? *How annoying.* Thinking that, she went to fetch the rake.
The next day, Wednesday morning. She noticed the sandbox had been disturbed again. And it was dug up even more than yesterday. A chill ran through her. Had someone broken in during the night? She quickly went to get the rake. Should she report it to the principal? But yesterday she'd left early because she felt unwell, so she wasn't sure if the sandbox had been properly smoothed out when they closed the kindergarten in the evening. She decided to ask the late-shift teacher later. She had meant to do that, but when the children arrived, she got so busy she completely forgot.
The next day, Thursday morning. When she came in front of the sandbox, she dropped the broom she was holding. She was shocked. The sand in the sandbox was dug up even more than the day before. She stood frozen, staring at the marks, which looked as though something large had been dug out. Who on earth could have done this? Just as she thought that, she realized something. Even though there were marks where the sand had been dug up, there were no footprints. The digging was right in the middle of the sandbox. To get out there, footprints would have had to be left behind. She knew for a fact that it had been properly smoothed out by evening yesterday. That was precisely why the absence of footprints was so bizarre.
Footprints...? Just as that thought crossed her mind, she noticed small holes scattered around the dug-up sand. They weren't made by shoes. Much smaller hole marks. What on earth was this? She desperately tried to push down the sickening imagination rising in her head.
The next day, Friday. Her heart had been pounding since morning. She had reported it to the principal yesterday, but since there was no damage to the building itself, she only received instructions to make sure the doors were locked tightly. *I hope nothing is wrong. I hope nothing is wrong.* She headed to the sandbox alone, repeating those thoughts. "……!" The moment she saw it, she choked back a scream. Her heart was beating painfully hard. There were dug-up marks in the sandbox. No, were those really just dug-up marks? They looked like the shape of a small person. It was as if a baby buried in the sand had woken up and crawled out... She couldn't stop herself from imagining it. The small holes scattered around the marks looked like the traces of a baby that had emerged from the buried sand and crawled around.
"So, that senior of mine is getting kind of neurotic," Kyosuke said. His story was scarier than I had expected, and my heart was pounding. After all, we were standing right in front of that kindergarten now. "What about today? Today is Saturday, so that happened yesterday, right?" Koko asked calmly. I had rarely ever seen this person get scared. "Apparently this kindergarten is closed on Saturdays, but we came to check it out anyway. And apparently nothing unusual happened today. She called me during the day and told me all about it, and it's been bugging me." Beyond Kyosuke's line of sight, past the wire fence, lay the sandbox. From here, it was hard to tell if it had been dug up or not. The surroundings were unusually quiet. Only the sound of our voices echoed. Probably because it was in a residential area. That made sense of why only a small group of us had come. And why Mikacchi hadn't been called along. That woman was too loud, after all.
"Does the fact that nothing happened mean those weird events are over now?" "Who knows," said Kyosuke. "The fact that the dug-up marks kept getting deeper means they were being buried deeper and deeper, right?" "Maybe it was just dug up. But my senior imagines that a child was buried there and crawled out on its own." Scary. Far too scary. Whether it was something spiritual or not. "Still, it seems the kindergarten suspects the whole sandbox incident might just be something my senior staged herself. They think she's cracking under the pressure, including taking off early on Tuesday because she felt sick." Her job seemed pretty brutal, apparently. Kyosuke said that while gazing at the dark silhouette of the school building. *Doesn't Kyosuke himself suspect the same thing?* I suddenly thought that while looking at his profile.
"Ah, my ride's here," Koko said suddenly, looking across the street. "Huh, what are you doing in a place like this?" It was Shishou. *What are you doing here* was our line. "My darling came to pick me up, so I'm heading home." I had been amazed by her free-spiritedness—going to offline gatherings constantly even though she had a boyfriend—but could it be that he always came to pick her up on her way back? The moment I thought that, I felt a vague sense of unease.
Why had Shishou come to pick her up here? Koko hadn't contacted him by phone until after she was brought here. How did he know this location and the time? Not yet used to Koko's bizarre precognitive abilities, my brain went into a dizzy spin whenever she pulled something so casual off. While my spinning brain observed Shishou and Kyosuke exchanging stiff, first-time-meeting greetings of "Hey" and "Hello," another doubt surfaced. Assuming it was fine for him to pick her up, why *now* and *here*? Normally, someone would pick you up at the place where a gathering disbands. There was no way we would be disbanding in an unfamiliar residential area like this. Even if we were heading home, we would have walked together for a while longer. I asked Shishou: "What do you think, Shishou?" I rattled off the story I'd heard from Kyosuke. There had to be a reason Koko had called Shishou to this exact spot.
Shishou listened in silence, but after a moment, he snorted and said, "Come on," heading toward the gate. Crossing over the gate, Shishou trespassed into the deserted school grounds, and we followed him in. When we reached the front of the sandbox, Shishou said, "Nothing unusual here." Though it was dark with only the streetlamp's light, there really didn't seem to be any dug-up marks. "There were dug-up marks, but only footprints that looked like a baby crawling around? So a buried baby dug its way out on its own? Instead of coming up with some absurd delusion like that, isn't there a much simpler answer?" Just as Kyosuke opened his mouth to retort at Shishou's sneer, Shishou said "Shh" and put a finger to his lips. "Look. The answer has arrived." Beyond his line of sight was the rail-type gate we had just climbed over. On the other side of it were two—no, four—round objects reflecting a glittering light... "Crap. They're coming in." Kyosuke grabbed an umbrella left in a nearby umbrella stand and took a stance. Shishou also picked up a mop from the cleaning tool cabinet and braced himself. Feral dogs. I tensed up. Now I understood why Koko had called for a ride here. A low growl—*grrrrrr*—reached our ears. Without flinching at the glowing eyes of the two dogs trying to squeeze through the gap in the gate, Shishou and Kyosuke dashed forward at the same time. Whacking them across the noses with their makeshift weapons, the feral dogs let out single yelps and fled.
Shishou caught his breath and said to Kyosuke beside him: "The small footprints were those guys. And the reason the dug-up marks got deeper is because things were being buried deeper. Probably some candy or something the kids buried as a prank. They had hidden it, but someone took it, so they buried it deeper next time. That's all there is to it." Kyosuke glared at Shishou, who was speaking like a know-it-all. "Since it's Saturday and the kids aren't here, nothing happened today, that's why." "How can you be so sure?" To Kyosuke's question, Shishou responded with a smug grin. "Because I don't feel anything spiritual. If it's not a ghost, the only option left is a rational explanation." "Playing psychic, huh? What a fraud!" Kyosuke shot back with a hostile glare. "Come to think of it, I've seen that face somewhere. An occult-loving freak? You guys love stories like this too, right? Wearing earrings like a girl." "What did you say?!" "Now, now," Koko tried to intervene.
And so, we ended up parting ways while still wrapped in a hostile atmosphere. Left behind alone at the spot, I stood thinking hard. *‘Since it's Saturday and the kids aren't here, nothing happened today, that's why.’* I kept turning Shishou's words over in my mind. What bothered me was this: the things supposed to have been dug up this morning should have been buried by the children yesterday—that is, Friday evening. So shouldn't it be strange that it *wasn't* dug up this morning, even if it was Saturday? Then why on earth wasn't it dug up?
I stood on the edge of the sandbox and looked down into the middle. And I imagined it. A horrifying imagination. Would feral dogs sniff out candy hidden by kindergarteners from all the way out there? No matter how good their sense of smell was. Wasn't there something feral dogs liked much more buried in that sand? My nose caught an odor. No, an illusion of it. I shook my head, banishing the thought. But I couldn't stop another imagination from creeping up out of nowhere. Something buried crawled out on its own. Getting deeper. Deeper and deeper. And this morning. There were no traces of anything crawling out. Too deep, unable to get out, still, right there... I listened to my own breathing grow faster, as if it belonged to someone else.
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