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Inside a building, decrepit and black with soot, stood a lone young man holding a camera and a flashlight in both hands. He then turned the camera on and placed it on the floor beside him, “As always, I’m going to put you here. Let’s enjoy the night together, okay?” Murmur Takemichi. Right now he’s filming for another of his Horror Vlog, in which he travels to haunted places and stay there for a night. What piqued his interest in filming this type of content? Well, he was once a vlogger and used to upload his A Day in My Life or study videos to Youtube. He had a decent following and he was satisfied with the number of views he got, after all, he did this because he loved doing it. He didn’t use Youtube as means to pay his bills because he has another job.
Then one day he stumbled upon this old building that seemed well cared for enough, interested, Takemichi decided to visit it. After an hour of exploring, he decided to record his experiences and found odd things being caught in his videos. The moment Takemichi uploaded it, his comment section exploded and that video became his first-ever video that reached 1 million views.
Exploring haunted places is fun and Takemichi, who is sensitive to supernatural things, has always had a penchant for attracting troublesome entities. So he challenged himself to stay overnight at some places that seemed decent for him.
At first, it was a haunted house, with permission from the current owner he stayed there. Nothing big happened, he was just bothered by some ghosts who like to prank him. Then camping in a notoriously haunted camping place, with the woods behind him. Some occult tried to talk him into joining them (Most likely as a sacrifice) but he quickly hightailed it away as soon as he saw a few vengeful ghosts trailing behind the masked person. Fortunately one of them helped him get away and he was able to go home safely.
But he continued anyway. Now he’s inside a building that used to be a factory with an employee dorm beside it. It’s just that because of how many people are dead here, the factory closed down. It has been abandoned for five years. He got permission from the local Uncle that held the keys to this factory, he said for Takemichi to take care and pray. The Uncle also gave him some holy water, to ward off evil.
Takemichi only nodded and smiled before he went on his way.
Back to the present, said young man is in an employee room trying to adjust his sleeping bag properly, after that he sat on it and looked around the room. It’s the first room on the first floor, the room is full of dust but otherwise, it’s alright. But compared to the state of the other rooms and the living room who showed signs of chaos, this room just looked like the owner left abruptly. Some stuff is still here, just covered in dust.
“Still, it feels way too lonely here.”
Yes, he’s alone, it should be common sense to feel lonely. But Takemichi had never felt this way before, even when he stayed alone in abandoned buildings, there will always be ‘their’ voices, footsteps, the constant knocking, and even some figures who came to greet him. This is why he’s not entirely scared. Only when it’s silent did it get creepy.
Maybe because it’s a factory, the common ghosts here should be adults, but surely there would be some stray ones that are bound to stay here, right? Takemichi frowned.
What if….
“What if they all left because something terrible is here?”
Takemichi sighed. He decided to lay in his sleeping bag and closed his eyes. As soon as he did that though he felt a presence in the room. Takemichi sat up abruptly and looked around. Nothing. He turned around and found a shadow. Not like any shadow he saw in his previous adventures, no. This one is different. He glanced at the window, a head peeked in. As if afraid to come in. A child’s head.
‘So this is something terrible’.
He grabbed his camera and pointed it at the door, of course, nothing showed but his EMF Reader is going crazy too. “You are not going to believe me-“ and his camera felt hot in his hands before turning off. Takemichi’s danger alarm turned on,
‘DANGER DANGER DANGER GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE MICHI!!!’
He stared at the shadow then glanced at the child’s head peeking in. It seemed like it wanted to warn Takemichi. He smiled and gave them a thumbs up and mouthed an, “I’m okay”. The child didn’t leave though, he guessed he’ll count his blessings.
The shadow didn’t move. It stayed there and Takemichi placed his camera inside of his backpack. “Hey,” he greeted the other. “Is it okay if I stay here? I’m not going to record if that’s what you want.” Takemichi puts himself in a relaxing sitting posture, his arms hugging his backpack.
Then a tall man with black hair and lifeless eyes formed inside the shadow. He continued watching Takemichi as the shadow lounged languidly around him. He had a blue worker uniform, the ones you often see at workshops. The pale skin reminded Takemichi that the man who stood tall before him is a ghost. In other words, he’s dead.
The man stared at him, unblinking. Takemichi stared back, blinking a few times before the situation dawned on him. “If you don’t mind, let’s have a chat?”
After that Takemichi had a chat with the man. He confessed that he only remembered his name ‘Shin’ and nothing. When asked did he want to harm Takemichi, Shin said no. Because Takemichi has been nothing but respectful, he also asked permission from the ghosts to film.
“I only came because you had something of mine.”
Takemichi raised an eyebrow and dug through his jacket pocket. He pulled out a chain necklace. “This necklace, it’s yours?” he asked Shin. The man only nodded, “It’s familiar and I feel like it’s important somehow.” He answered. Takemichi was about to place the necklace beside Shin when he reached out to stop Takemichi, even though his hand phased through Takemichi’s.
“You have to keep this close to you.” Began Shin, although his face showed no expression Takemichi can feel a hint of worry. “You’ve brought all kinds of entities, Takemichi. Most of them might be docile, happy to follow, but not all of them are. You see, you’ve attracted those at the factory because of it.”
Takemichi flinched. ‘Those at the factory’ sure he did feel a chill and more nervous than usual when touring the factory, maybe that’s his survival instinct telling him to run. He chuckled, “That’s my specialty, Shin-san.”
“It seems my necklace found its use, keep it in your person at all times, Takemichi.”
“But it’s your necklace. The only thing from when you were alive!”
Shin’s unblinking eyes stared through Takemichi’s own blue eyes. It seems like there’s no room for argument, thought Takemichi. He stuffed the chain necklace inside his jacket pocket again. “You’re sure?” he asked.
Shin nodded.
“You can’t take it back okay?”
Shin nodded again.
“Well I’m going to sleep now, are you going to sit there?”
Right now Shin is sitting right beside Takemichi, dangerously close to his sleeping bag. Hearing no answer from the man, he decided to just sleep in because Takemichi needed to recover his energy after talking with Shin. The last thing he saw is Shin’s shadow enveloping him, covering his world in darkness. But Takemichi found himself too tired to complain and fell into La La Land rather quickly.
̶̶̶̶ From then on, Takemichi found himself a companion in the form of Shin’s shadow, always there behind him to ward off the truly evil ones that wanted to harm him. Shin drains the energy of those around him when he stayed in his human non-blemished form, but when he stays a shadow he can last longer. Truthfully Takemichi still felt bad when he brought Shin’s necklace home, but when the man showed up as he was brushing his teeth in the bathroom he took all of it back.
Shin showed up at a really bad time. That’s it. After that Takemichi refused to talk to Shin for a few hours. Before caving in because his mind was making up sad dog expressions when he saw Shin’s sulking (no he was not sulking) form. Although Shin seemed to chase away all the spirits in his area, one stayed. A child and Takemichi found himself not caring because he saw the child is only curious, with no malicious intent.