Chapter Text
Majime hated to wear wrinkled clothes, but she had no time to iron out her wrinkled mourning dress. Hiroko, the naughty girl, had hidden it somewhere in her closet, stuffed in a ball. In her six-year-old mind, she figured that if her mother had no black dress to wear, then she wouldn't have to go to Azelma's funeral. Majime did eventually coax Hiroko to give it back. Dressed in a spotless black suit, Hiroko pouted the whole ride to her aunt and uncle's house.
"You're going to be on your best behaviour tonight, aren't you?" Majime called out from the front seat of the hover.
Hiroko curled up on herself. "I don't wanna go."
"We have to be there for Oba and Oji. They're really sad right now."
"But Azelma won't be there." Hiroko began to cry. "I don't want to go without Azelma."
Majime sighed. The rain outside was torrential, and she forced herself to blink back her own tears so she could focus on her driving. She was on the brink of putting the hover on autopilot. "We're going to say goodbye to Azelma. You need to tell her how much you love her."
Hiroko hid her head under her arms and sniffed loudly. She said nothing more until they arrived at their destination: Urushima Chiro's lovely countryside home was the picture of despair under the grey clouds and evening sky. Every window had been covered in black curtains and the flowerpots were filled with white lilies. There was no laughter, no music, no lively conversation; only hushed whispers and sobs heard from the occasional mourner. Majime found her older brother seated on the couch, his hands folded in his lap. His eyes were red from crying.
Majime held Hiroko's hand and kept the girl close. "Chiro..." she approached her brother, "are you alright?"
"Yes..yes, I'm—" Chiro rubbed his face. "I'm alright. Just peachy."
"I'm so sorry," she whispered.
Her brother turned away from her, surrendering himself to a fresh wave of tears. Majime slowly backed away, feeling uneasy. She could tell that Hiroko was getting impatient. "Why don't you go and say hi to your cousins?"
"I'm gonna go to the bathroom," Hiroko deadpanned. The child walked away, leaving Majime alone in the middle of the room. She glanced at a nearby table, where a large portrait of a smiling Azelma was placed along with lily bouquets. It was chilling, staring into the eyes of a girl-now-dead.
She heard someone coming up behind her, and she turned to see Meryam, her sister-in-law. Azelma had looked so much like her mother. "He sleeps all day, he doesn't move...it's all too much for him," Meryam sighed.
"I'm so sorry for your loss," Majime replied.
"It doesn't make sense, Majime. She was a good girl."
"She was."
"I've spent hours on the net and I've spoken to four different doctors...none of them can tell me what happened to my daughter."
"How did she...how did she die?"
Meryam swallowed a sob. "They say her heart just stopped. When has that ever happened to a sixteen-year-old girl?"
"I don't know." Majime shook her head. "You're right, it doesn't make any sense."
"Can you find out what happened?"
Majime blinked. "Pardon?"
"Isn't that what you do? Ask questions?"
"Meryam, I don't think—"
Suddenly, Meryam took Majime's hand and lead her down into the study. She frantically pulled out an envelope stamped with confidential on the paper. She pulled out some photos and what looked like a coroner's report. "I saw her face, when I found her in the closet...it was unlike anything I've ever heard of." She held up a terrifying picture of Azelma's corpse, curled in the fetal position, her face distorted and bloated beyond recognition. Majime's lunch threatened to make a reappearance. "Can you tell me what did this to her?"
"No," Majime managed to say.
"If there's anyone who could find out, it's you. Please. Put our minds at ease—we need to know what happened.
Majime swallowed the bile in her throat. She could no longer stand her sister-in-law's desperation and the disturbing pictures. She walked away and stepped outside for some fresh air. It was still pouring, and the few people loitering about were seated beneath the porch. She came up beside a couple of teenage girls who were smoking and chatting between themselves.
"There's this guy that records you watching it and then kills you, and it's not just in Hokkaido...there's more than one chip, they say." The first girl took a drag of her cigarette.
"That's bunk. Az probably just OD'd on some meth or something."
"You know that she didn't do meth. She was too poor for that."
The second girl rolled her eyes. "Well, she didn't die because of some stupid chip—"
"Hi," Majime cut in, holding her hands behind her back. The two girls turned to stare at her, obviously displeased at her intrusion. "What's this chip that you're talking about?"
"The one that kills you when you watch it," said the first girl.
Majime blinked. "Did Azelma watch it?"
The girl shrugged. "Az mentioned something about some chip she bought off a sketchy guy and eventually, this jackoff at school started saying that she had gotten a cursed chip."
"You went to school with her."
The second girl took a drag. "Yeah. She was acting sort of strange last week; she seemed freaked."
Majime felt a chill run down her spine. "So, she did watch it?"
"Dunno. I find it hard to buy into some urban legend."
Majime felt that this was the extent of the information she would get out of the two girls. She left in search of Hiroko; she was surely finished using the bathroom by then. She couldn't find her daughter anywhere downstairs, so she went to the second floor, despite her unease. She found Hiroko poking around in Azelma's bedroom. She went about her cousin's things without shame. The reporter felt her cheeks flush with anger at such disrespect.
"Hiroko!" Majime admonished. "You shouldn't be in Azelma's room!"
The girl cocked her head. "It's not her room anymore."
Majime froze; she had never heard her daughter say anything so callous. Hiroko turned her back and peered at her dead cousin's desk, where a few open binders rested, one on top of the other. Despite her better judgement, Majime risked a glance around. The room was pristine, save for the obvious water stains on the wood floor. They lead in a trail to the netscreen. She pursed her lips and stepped closer. Beneath the screen was a shelf of drives and chips full of various games, shows and movies. One immediately stood out to her: it was blank, white and covered in shimmering dust. Its appearance made it seem so otherworldly.
Her hand trembling, Majime gently plucked the odd chip from the collection. It felt like poison on her palm. Somehow, inexplicably, she felt that this was the chip Azelma had bought on a whim. After a moment, she took a deep breath and slid it into her pocket. "Come, Hiroko. We shouldn't be in here."
The girl ignored her, approaching the netscreen in turn. She powered it on and the photo album was displayed before them. The most recent folder had pictures of Azelma, Morgan, their boyfriends and classmates. There was a certain peculiarity to all of them: Azelma's face was strangely distorted, while the others were fine. Majime shook off a chill. These pictures had all been taken at most a week before Azelma's death. Her body stiff, she turned off the netscreen and grabbed a resistant Hiroko by the hand. She was unable to shake off the sense of dread as she led them both out of the room and back down to the reception.
They got home quite late. Hiroko was immediately put to bed after changing into her pyjamas, and Majime was fixing up her usual evening tea before she too retired for the night. The house seemed cold and empty to her as she quietly sipped her kocha on the couch. She was still wearing her mourning dress. As she settled into a more comfortable position against the cushion, she could feel the chip in her pocket poking her hip. She frowned and set down her tea before digging the offending object out.
The chip shimmered in the faint light emitted from the table lamp. The more she thought about it, the more the story seemed to make sense...but she couldn't bring herself to fully believe it. Azelma's death was so sudden and out of place, and the fact that she had this weird chip seemed like an impossible coincidence. The pictures only further shed light on the oddness of what had happened. However, Majime was a creature of logic, and none of this followed the rules of reality. She investigated everyday news, not ghost stories.
It couldn't hurt to see what was on it, she decided. The chip fit perfectly in the drive on the netscreen. She remained kneeling on the ground as the device detected the chip and opened up the contents. Inside the data folder was a single video file without any title, not even an extension. The thumbnail was the standard movie reel. Majime wondered if the screen could even play a file like that—it had to be corrupted somehow. Majime pressed on the file and for a moment, nothing happened. The video player suddenly flashed on the screen and a horrible static sound rang through the speakers. She jumped and scrambled to turn down the volume; surely something that loud would wake Hiroko. Before she could, though, the sound cut out and focused into soft, muffled buzzing.
A glowing ring of light appeared in the darkness. It hovered menacingly in the center of the video before cutting to what seemed like running water. The footage lacked any colour except for grey and black hues. The sequences came and went in a similar fashion throughout the whole thing—after the water, it was a woman brushing her hair in a mirror...except it was only her reflection. There was no one standing in front of the mirror. This woman appeared to have had half of her face burnt away. She was smiling off into the distance, and for a fleeting moment, the silhouette of a little girl crept up behind her.
Majime could only stare. It were as if she was being held to the spot by some unknown force. The video took a more horrific turn, showing a person being gutted and a fingernail getting ripped off with a screw. A doll was slowly burnt to nothing from the inside. A chair spun upside down in the air, seemingly on its own. The Earth and the Moon twirled around each other in a demented dance. Dead wolves floated in the middle of clear water. In the background of that shot, Majime could barely discern a large, elaborate structure. It cut back to the woman, who this time shot herself through the head with a handgun. Bits of brains and blood splattered onto the mirror.
Right then, the humming started; it was a child's voice, sweet and eerie. Majime couldn't make out the words. After what seemed like an eternity of staring at that woman's remains, the screen faded to black and the glowing ring appeared once again. The same child's voice began to scream frantically, calling for its mother. This was followed by the final scene, a still shot of a well situated in the middle of a meadow. The video suddenly ended in static.
Majime snapped out of her trance to quickly shut off the netscreen. She was quaking and panting; cold sweat ran down her neck. She wiped her damp hands on the velvet of her dress. Never in her life had she seen something so bizarre. She was shaken to her very core, she could barely breathe—
Her portscreen chimed repeatedly, signalling an incoming comm. Majime couldn't help the sob that escaped her.
You get a comm once it's over. Someone knows you've watched it.
With a trembling hand, she grabbed her port and accepted the comm. Her mug was knocked over in the process. Hot tea soaked the carpet. Her eyes glistened with tears as she brought the port to her ear. "H-Hello?"
"Seven days," were the only two words said.