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Tokyo. The city that never really sleeps.
I never believed in ghost stories. Not until I met her.
I was 17, fresh out of school for the summer, and already bored out of my mind. My cousin Haru dared me to visit the old abandoned train station on the edge of town—Shin-Kasumi, a place whispered about by high schoolers like it was a rite of passage. Everyone had a cousin's friend's brother who went there and never came back.
Naturally, I said yes.
The sky was already bruised purple by the time we got there. Haru chickened out at the last minute and waited at the gates. "Go in, take a selfie on the platform, and come back. That's all," he said, shoving a flashlight in my hand.
The tracks looked dead. Overgrown with weeds and rusted metal. I stepped through the shattered fence, phone in one hand, torchlight trembling in the other. The silence was thick—too thick for a city that normally buzzed like a hive.
I reached the platform. Cracked tiles. Graffiti. Dust. No ghosts.
I turned on the front camera and smirked. Click.
Then I heard it.
Tek… tek… tek…
At first, I thought it was some kid messing with me. But the sound didn't come from behind. It echoed from the tracks below—sharp, metallic, like steel scraping cement.
Tek… tek…
It moved fast.
I aimed my flashlight downward.
That's when I saw her.
She wasn't walking. She wasn't crawling. She was dragging her body—half her body—with her elbows, the ragged ends of her torso leaving a smear on the platform tiles. Her hair hung in thick, wet ropes, face pale and twisted in a grin too wide for any human.
She hissed, "Watashi wa sagashite iru…"
(I'm looking for something…)
I couldn't move. My legs were cement. She was faster than she should've been. No legs. No mercy. Just rage.
She lifted her broken body onto the platform. Eyes locked on me.
I screamed.
Ran.
Tripped.
She reached me before I could blink. Her icy fingers grazed my ankle.
Then—
Haru's voice. Distant. Calling my name. A flashlight beam cutting through the dark.
I was alone again.
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Later, in the safety of his room, I looked at the photo I'd taken.
There, behind me, just barely in the shadows—was the upper half of a girl, smiling at the camera.
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