Haguko’s Curse

Himari’s Secret

In a windowless room, dimly-lit by tall candles, and scented by sage and other medicinal herbs, the witch doctor sat on the floor, writing in a book. Her white hair was tied at the back almost like a wig that didn’t suit her young face. She didn’t quite remember when it started but for as long as she’d known, she’d had white hair. She does have pictures though; baby pictures of her with perfectly dark locks. 

I was able to access Yūto-san’s mind once again when I tended to him today. The mist in his head has been slightly cleared…

She wrote. The expression on her face looked troubled and her eyes briefly wandered now and then, in silent attempts at gathering her thoughts and remembering the right words to put down on the book. As soon as she finished writing, a sudden knock on her door jolted her back to earth. 

“Hima-oba, it’s me”, said the person on the other side.

“Taka-chan”, her eyes grew wide when she recognized the voice. Takashi Ito hadn’t spoken to his aunt, the witch doctor, in years. When he was little, they used to be quite close and inseparable at times. 

As opposed to her older brother, Takashi’s father, Himari Ito was determined to take up the profession of being the town’s witch doctor after her mother, from a very young age. For as long as she could remember she’d had certain powers that awed even her parents; inexplicable, yet spectacular. Little Takashi too had always been awestruck by his aunt’s powers and her whimsical nature back then. But with his family’s migration to the US, he was forced to leave behind almost every aspect of his childhood. Including his affinity to the supernatural.  

“Hima-oba, can we talk?”

Himari opened the door of her shrine room and invited Takashi to sit down. Then she walked over to a shelf on the other side of the room, where she kept her tea things and boxes of pocky that she would snack on after performing certain rituals. 

“Shall I make you some tea, Taka-chan?”, she asked.

“Hima-oba, I need to talk to you about something”, Takashi said gravely. 

Himari fell silent as she sat down in front of Takashi and rested her hands on her lap.

“What is it, Taka-chan?”

“Well..”, Takashi said as he searched for the right words. For a moment he contemplated telling his aunt about the bird creature but decided against it. 

“It’s about that old man, Yūto-san”, he said tersely. 

“What about him?”, Himari asked. 

“Well.. what’s wrong with him? What happened to him in the mountains?”

“I don’t know. His memory is clouded and I can’t see anything when I try to read his mind”

Takashi glanced at his aunt suspiciously. He remembered the look of bewilderment that showed on her face as she tended to Yūto-san on the street that morning. He knew that no one else noticed that look. And he knew that his aunt was ignorant to the fact he somehow did. He was dying to know what she found out. Did it have something to do with what he saw that night?

Himari continued reluctantly, “Yūto-san is very old. I’m pretty sure it’s no big deal. He must have got scared by a wild animal or something”, she paused and glanced at Takashi, “In any case, it’s good that the townsfolk are avoiding the mountains for now. Soon, there will be a new investigation into it. I’m working with the town committee to get it approved. Until then we should avoid the mountains.”

She laid a hand on Takashi’s hands and smiled, “You don’t have to be scared, Taka-chan. You’re safe as long as you’re inside the town.”

Takashi’s heart skipped a beat as he smiled back furtively. How could he say that the town itself made him feel unsafe? It would freak everyone out. 

“Hm”, he said getting up, “I better get going. I just remembered, I have this uhh project to work on”.

He walked to the door, opened it, and turned back towards Himari, “Just let me know if you find something”

When she was alone in her shrine once again, Himari went back to her book and opened up the page where she last wrote. She stared at what she’d written in silence, deeply unsettled by a new and unexpected discovery that glared back at her from the page. She read it slowly.

I was able to access Yūto-san’s mind once again when I tended to him today. The mist in his head has been slightly cleared…

But, contrary to my previous belief, this mist in his head doesn’t appear to be from fear. There is a powerful defense system at work – a memory-blocking hex. He must have seen something dreadful; something he shouldn’t have seen. Because someone appears to have hexed Yūto-san’s memory of what he saw that day. He’s cursed. 

Takashi’s Drone

That evening, Takashi packed his fully-charged drone and his laptop to view its feed, and headed to Daiki’s place. Kaede greeted him at the door with her usual cheer and yelled for Daiki as she’d done the day before. Soon his old friend appeared and invited Takashi to his room. 

As they climbed the stairs, a fascinated Daiki unloaded a barrage of questions about the drone. 

“Dude this is so cool! I’ve never flown a drone before!”

“You won’t be flying it. I will.”

“Aw come on! By the way, where did you get it? How much did it cost? Does it have night vision? What about thermal vision? Can I fly it some other day?”

“Nowhere. Nothing. No. No. No.”, Takashi replied and smiled sarcastically. 

Daiki rolled his eyes and opened the door to his bedroom. Asa and Botan sat on the floor, a couple cans of soda next to them. They’d been looking at something on Asa’s laptop.

“Hey”, they chorused as Takashi entered.

“Hi”, he said and bowed reluctantly. 

Takashi placed his backpack on Daiki’s bed and glanced over Asa’s shoulder at the laptop screen which displayed a line drawing of a vague shape with words all over it. 

“What are you guys looking at?”

“A map”, Asa replied.

“A map of what?”

“The mountains”, Daiki said proudly, “We made it”

“What? Why not just google it?”

“We tried but the ones we found were trash”

“They were incomplete”, Asa corrected him, “so we took little pieces of info from different maps, Daiki’s memories, some obscure tourist reviews, and voila”

“OUR OWN MAP!” Daiki exclaimed, hands dramatically pointing to the screen. 

“Wow, sounds real credible”, Takashi retorted. He opened up his backpack and took out its contents, proceeding to attach a small night vision camera to the device. He then set up his laptop on Daiki’s desk and connected to the drone’s live feed app. They’ve agreed to wait until after 7 pm to execute their operation. No one dared to step outside at that time so they weren’t running the risk of someone noticing a mysterious drone flying towards the mountains. Takashi’s parents have persistently made sure that he will sleep over at Daiki’s house and won’t be outdoors past 7. 

As soon as Daiki’s parents turned the lights off, the four of them got to work. Daiki opened the window and checked for any nosy neighbors peeking out from nearby houses. Takashi then powered on the drone and flew it gently through the window. 

“Alright we’re smooth-sailing for now”, Takashi said, matter-of-factly.

“You sure this drone won’t bump into anything? Don’t we need to like, follow it?”, Botan asked. 

“Well even if we do, we can’t follow it all the way into the mountains. Don’t worry it’s a high-end drone. It has sensors to help avoid obstacles”.

The device flew over the lonely streets of Haguko as Daiki and his friends watched through Takashi’s laptop. Without a single soul in sight the place looked haunted enough, passing through unlit buildings and sidewalks with dimly lit lamp posts. Now and then the drone would fly through desolate crossroads with bleak street lights illuminating the junction as everything else drowned in the shadows. Street corners disappeared into the darkness where anything could be lurking and waiting. 

“Phew”, Daiki sighed in relief, “Thank God I’m not this drone. It’s so creepy out there”

Asa rolled her eyes, remembering how determined he’d been just that morning to go into the mountains himself, before Takashi brought in the drone idea. 

“I agree”, Takashi said in a low voice, “It’s really creepy”

Outside Daiki’s window, the wind howled softly as trees rustled against the silence of the night. An unfamiliar thrill was brewing in their hearts. The uncertainty of seeing something unimaginable in the dense forests of the mountains mixed with the anxiety of getting caught and the fear of something creeping up on them from the open window brought feverish excitement as they watched the live feed. 

Daiki looked on in pure, untainted curiosity while Takashi focused on every nook and cranny that the drone passed – expecting to run into his unwelcome visitor at any second. 

As the drone passed a line of houses, a couple junctions away, Takashi began to hoist it further up into the air.

“WAIT!”, Daiki whispered loudly and put his hand on Takashi’s shoulder.

The other three jumped and snapped at him, “WHAT???”

“I saw something”, Daiki moved his face towards the laptop screen and pointed at something at the side of one house, “There. Look there. Don’t you see someone there?”. It was a dark corner of the house that faced a wall and he could barely make it out but Daiki’s eyes gleamed with confidence. He knew it was something that was not supposed to be there. 

“Some tall and dark figure. Can’t you see it?”, he looked at the others who stared at the screen in visible confusion and horror; even Asa stared with her eyes wider than usual. 

Just then the feed froze with a “Weak signal” message and went black completely within seconds. 

“No”, Takashi muttered in disbelief under his breath. 

The silence around them was suddenly replaced with a shrill scream of terror coming from a distant house. It tore through the night so loud that lights went on immediately everywhere and puzzled exclamations were heard all around the neighborhood. 

“Jesus what the fuck was that??”, Botan practically yelled. 

“Sounded like someone screaming”, Daiki said. 

“Yeah duh” Asa retorted. 

“Guys”, Takashi called out in a firm, low voice. He looked at the other three, heart pounding in his ears almost to the point where his own voice came out muffled. 

“I think it came from the house where Daiki just saw something”