Final Chapter: Is This Enough?

Forty-eight hours after the article was published, Rena's life was buried in screens.

There were thirteen missed calls from Keigo. The first few were short confirmations, but the tone gradually became more rigid. 'It's starting to be picked up by ghost story features in publishing houses,' 'If you spread this any further, there's no going back,' 'The warnings you wrote are buried in the parts that aren't being read.' Only the last one had different words: 'Please, I'm begging you, don't look at the screen tonight.'

The notifications wouldn't stop. Emails kept coming. Mentions on social media increased. Unknown accounts called out to her, and unknown people clipped her article, summarized it, and spread only the scary parts. The paragraph showing consideration for the hospital was barely read. Fumie Sawai's anger, the siblings' silence, and Tatsuo Nogami's work light were all sinking into the long body of the text.

What remained instead were simple, easy-to-understand words.

The slit-mouthed woman running through the water.

The woman appearing on reflective surfaces.

The question that won't disappear unless you answer it.

Rena was beginning to regret the title of her article.

That headline was too strong. It was necessary to get it read. But words meant to be read also become easy paths for the supernatural. She should have known that even before she published it.

At 3:00 AM, she opened the screen to set the article to private.

Her fingers stopped.

Even if she made it private, it was already too late. There were reposts. There were screenshots. There were quote tweets. Video streamers were reading it aloud. Summary sites were being created. Someone was even making a map, trying to pinpoint the location of Mizushiro City. Rena hurriedly added a note that it was not a real place name and that people should not look for the hospital or school.

Even so, the rumor moved on.

Modern rumors are faster than deletion.

In 1979, children carried rumors during recess and on their way home from school. Newspapers and weekly magazines followed later. Now, it was the opposite. The article ran first, the readers caught up, and social media dressed it up. Rumors cross prefectural borders and national borders in a single night.

Rena read the message that had arrived from Hiroshi.

Before that, a short notification with no number had arrived: 'You found it again.' She didn't know the sender. But Rena remembered the damp tone of that sentence. A long time ago, at the exit of a dark shop, a person who said they would protect her had sent a similar message. There was a time in her life when people watching people was scarier than ghosts.

Even so, the current Rena could not determine whether that notification had truly come from a human.

"I heard from my younger brother. He says he's been having dreams again since reading that article. I'm a bit unsettled myself. I appreciate that you wrote about the hospital so carefully. However, I can't help but think that you might have called that woman back once more."

I started to write a reply, then deleted it.

Any words felt light.

There was also a call from Sawai.

"Thank you for not turning the patient into a monster."

His voice was tired.

"But, Misaki-san. Now that you've written an article about that woman, you are no longer just an observer either."

"What do you mean?"

"You are the one being observed."

The call ended there.

Rena placed her smartphone on the desk. The screen went black, and her own face was reflected in it. She immediately turned it face down. She had come to hate looking at black screens. She hated windows, too. The mirror in the washroom, the train doors, the automatic doors at the convenience store, the windows of cars at night.

You cannot erase reflective surfaces from your life.

Water, glass, liquid crystal, polished metal, even the surface of your own eyes.

In the afternoon, Rena tried to write a follow-up to the article.

That much of the spread information was unverifiable. The possibility of image manipulation. The number of bandwagon posts. A request to stop harassing the hospital and those involved. Not to identify the location. Not to incite prejudice against psychiatric care.

It was a necessary piece of writing.

However, the more she wrote, the more she felt that she was not putting out the fire, but adding fuel to it.

If she wrote "unverifiable," readers would try to verify it.

If she wrote "don't search," people would search.

If she wrote "don't answer," people would wait for questions.

Prohibitions do not stop rumors. They give them form.

Rena closed the draft of the follow-up report.

Night fell, and she turned off the lights in her room. She had to sleep. But she was afraid of the bedroom window, so she pulled the curtains shut twice over. When she went to the washroom, she made sure not to look in the mirror. She knew it was childish. She was thirty-four years old, a reporter who was supposed to not believe in ghost stories.

The phrase "supposed to" crossed her mind, and Rena gave a bitter smile.

What does it mean to believe?

It is not about acknowledging that the supernatural exists. It is holding your breath for a split second before looking at a screen at night. It is searching for something white before opening a photograph. It is checking the reflection in the window to see if there is a silhouette other than your own. Perhaps those small changes in behavior are what it means to believe.

1:17 AM.

A sound came from the earphones.

Rena froze while still facing her desk. The earphones were not connected to her smartphone or her computer. One earbud hung off the edge of the desk, and the other lay on top of her notebook.

At first, it was the sound of water.

The sound of something brushing against a narrow waterway. The sound of something that was not the wind running across the surface of a rice paddy. Then, a voice came through, as if muffled by cloth.

"Me"

Rena could not stand up.

The room was dark. On the desk were her computer, her smartphone, printed photographs, and her interview notebook. The curtains were drawn. She could not see the window glass. But there were several reflective surfaces right in front of her.

"Am I pretty?"

The voice did not come only from the earphones.

The black screen of the computer.

The edge of the face-down smartphone.

The glossy surface of the photograph.

The glass door in the corner of the room.

Each surface seemed to be echoing the same question, each with a slight delay.

Rena did not answer.

Not answering was the only resistance left to her. She would not say it was beautiful, or ordinary, or like pomade. She would not return words. She would not participate in the story.

However, she had already written the article.

Even without answering the question, she had already spoken.

To avoid looking at the screen, Rena closed her laptop. She turned her smartphone completely face down. She flipped the photos over and closed her notebook. She erased the reflections in the room one by one. The more she erased, the darker the room became.

Finally, she looked at the earphones on the edge of the desk.

The white cord hung down like a snake. The small hole of one earbud was facing her.

From there, a voice spoke again.

"Even like this?"

Rena held her breath.

She was not looking.

She was not looking at anything.

That was why she did not know what "this" was. Was it the face without the mask? The face in the water's surface? The woman who had approached her on the screen? Or was it the new image itself that had spread across the country through the article?

Even like this.

The question was not asking about beauty or ugliness.

Will you still talk about me, even like this?

Will you still record it, even like this?

Will you still show it to someone, even like this?

Rena did not answer.

She sat with the room lights on until morning.

Before dawn, the notification sounds started ringing again. From all over the country, similar posts were increasing.

“I heard a voice from my earphones.”

“I can hear it even when I turn the screen face down.”

“I didn't answer, but it said, ‘Even now?’”

“There is the sound of water.”

“I’m not running. It follows me at the same speed in the reflection.”

Rena did not reply to a single one.

At 9:00 a.m., a short note was posted under the editorial department's name.

“We have received numerous reports regarding this article. Please refrain from contacting or visiting actual medical institutions, schools, or individuals. Currently, Rena Misaki has suspended additional reporting.”

They did not write that she had disappeared.

Rena was alive. She answered the phone. She ate. She replied to necessary work communications. However, she no longer felt that she was outside of the reporting.

The article can be deleted.

But screenshots do not disappear.

Citations do not disappear.

A question that has entered someone's memory does not disappear.

In the Mizushiro of 1979, children saw a white mask in the second-floor window of the hospital. They talked about what they saw. The woman who was talked about wore a coat, came to the main gate, came to the farm road, and ran through the water.

And now, through Rena's article, the woman has gained a new body.

A body wider than a rice field, faster than a river, and more numerous than windows.

A screen.

The last words Rena wrote in her notebook were not included in the article.

"I did not find her. I simply increased the places where she could find me."

That night, somewhere in the country, someone turned off their screen.

Their own face was reflected in the black liquid crystal.

Behind them, there was a white mask.

And then, from an unplugged pair of earphones, a woman's voice spoke.

"Am I beautiful?"

Editor's Note

Since the publication of this article, no additional manuscript has been received from Rena Misaki herself.

However, she has not gone missing. We are in contact. There are short replies. She wrote only, "If I say any more, they will multiply." The editorial department initially judged this sentence to be the result of psychological fatigue. It is not rare for a reporter who has become too close to their subject to temporarily step away from their articles.

However, information from readers has continued to arrive since then.

The common thread was reflective surfaces.

Paddy fields, rivers, windows, mirrors, smartphones, tablets, car mirrors, station platform doors, night train windows, black television screens. A woman in a white mask is reflected there. Most of these are illusions, fabrications, or bandwagoning. The editorial department has not changed its stance on this.

Even so, I must note that the same sentence was included in multiple reports.

"It wasn't running."

"It followed me inside the screen at the same speed."

It is highly likely that this expression originates from Misaki's article. Readers are borrowing the words from the article to describe their own experiences. That is the most realistic explanation.

But then again, that is how modern folklore is born in the first place.

Someone says they saw it. Someone else borrows those words. The borrowed words become the mold for the next experience. Only things that fit the mold are told, and things that do not fit are forgotten. In this way, what was initially a vague white dot becomes a woman in a white mask.

Rena Misaki said this in her final phone call:

"I might delete the article. But the story that I deleted it will also remain. If I delete it, people will think it was real. If I leave it, it will spread. Whichever I choose, I can no longer return to the outside of this story."

That was her conclusion as a reporter.

In closing this article, the editorial department asks one thing of its readers.

Please do not search for the actual locations.

Please do not direct rumors toward real hospitals, patients, or those involved.

And, even if you see a white mask on a black screen or a water surface, please do not rush to turn someone into a monster.

Fear likes to borrow the shape of a person.

The one being borrowed is not necessarily to blame.

Furthermore, on the last page of the reporter's notebook left behind by Misaki, there was the following sentence.

"The rumor that you will be saved if you do not answer is wrong. The moment you hear the question, you are already inside the story."

The editorial department will not judge the truth of this sentence.

However, after finishing the publication process, the person in charge's monitor automatically went dark.

The black screen reflected the face of the person in charge themselves.

As for what was reflected behind them, I will not write it here.

The Last Image

One unorganized image remained on Rena Misaki's device.

The time it was taken was 1:17 AM, five days after the article was published.

The location data has been deleted. The image is dark. A smartphone lying face down on a desk, a closed laptop, a flipped-over photograph, and an earphone with one side hanging down. The entire room is not visible.

In the center of the screen is the back of a black smartphone.

The back is not a screen, so the reflection is weak. However, Rena's face is faintly reflected there. Only her eyes are visible. She is not looking at the camera. She is looking at something reflected on the back of the smartphone.

Behind her, there is something white.

The editorial department did not release the image. If they did, it would be circled in red again, its brightness adjusted, and spread around. Someone would call it 'real,' someone else would call it 'doctored,' and someone would take a photo with the same composition. The image would not be evidence, but a template for the next rumor.

Rena surely would not have wanted that.

Only the image's filename remains.

`kore_demo_001.jpg`

I do not know who gave it that name. It might have been Rena herself. It was not an automatic naming by the device. There is no record of anyone in the editorial department changing it.

The image was moved to the archives.

Access is restricted.

Even so, the person in charge sometimes wonders.

Is archiving not just another form of publication?

A place that is locked is also a place that will one day be opened. Unless deleted, recorded things wait for someone in the future. Just as the woman in the window from 1979 waited for Rena within the photographs and testimonies.

If this story remains in the reader's hands, that too becomes a reflective surface.

Paper does not shine.

However, an image is reflected within the person who reads it.

From the Author

Thank you very much for reading until the end.

This story is a work of fiction. The names of places, people, facilities, and events appearing in the work are all fictitious and have no relation to real ones.

Please, do not look for the real-life locations.
Please, do not trap anyone inside a rumor.
And, after you finish reading, even if you look at a black screen, a window pane, or a water surface, please do not look for meaning there.

There should be nothing on the reflective surface.

If you happen to see something, it is surely just the way the light hits.
It might be eye strain.
It might just look that way because you have only just finished reading.

We, for our part, perceive absolutely nothing.

And so, I will close the story here.

Please, do not look back, and turn off your screen.