The Last Wish

The First Encounter

On a fine, normal day, everyone immersed themselves in their work, the normalcy fading when a scream pierced the air. They first assumed it to be from the television, but the sound was far too clear, and was definitely from someone inside the dorms. But there was no one there.

“Maybe it was from somewhere else,” said Yoru, as he looked through the glass window to see if he could spot anything out of the ordinary. People walked around the streets in their usual daily routine. No one looked around as if they had heard a scream, as if they had heard anything out of the ordinary.

“That could be the case, but the scream was too loud to be from somewhere else. It sounded as if they were in the dorm,” said Aoi, shrugging. “Maybe it was the cat?” You gave him a skeptical look, as if wondering how a cat could make such a human-sounding sound.

That night after dinner, they headed to their rooms, bidding everyone else a good night. The senior group stayed up in the hall to talk and exchange stories about the day, when Kakeru came running in, fear etched on his face, looking as if he would burst out crying at any moment.

“What’s the matter, what happened?” asked Hajime, his tone serious with hidden concern.

“There’s someone in my room,” replied Kakeru, shivering as Kai ruffled his hair.

“Are you sure it’s not Koi?” asked Kai, tilting his head.

“He’s in his room!” Kakeru’s voice shook with every word. Haru leaned forward on his hands, and Shun sat on the couch with a cup of tea as if nothing in the world could bother him.

“If that’s the case, perhaps we should check it out,” said Hajime, rising as he walked to his room. Kakeru clung to Haru’s sleeve as they followed him. Hajime, switching on his lights, looked around the room. There was nothing there, save for the shadow of a terrace from the window. “There’s nothing here. You were scared of the shadow, weren’t you?”

“No, there was something in my room!” Kakeru said, shaking his head in disbelief. Haru patted his shoulder as Kai let out a nervous laugh.

“This is why I told you not to watch horror movies at night,” Hajime scolded. The three of them left Kakeru’s room to head to bed as well, when three collective screams rang through the dorm, stopping them in their tracks. Hajime knew the screams belonged to Aoi, Rui and Yoru. “What the?”

Hajime, Haru and Kai shared a look as Kakeru walked out, closing the door behind him. They ran to everyone’s rooms, but they were stopped by the three younger kids stumbling through the hall.

“There was someone in our rooms!” they said together. Hajime looked at Kakeru, wondering if all four of them had had a movie night together, and why a horror movie would be on their watch list. Calling for a short meeting at the shared common room, Hajime chastised them all for watching scary movies at night. He was satisfied only when they promised to never do it again. Iku watched with vague amusement as he leaned against the wall, and You stretched his arms above his head as he yawned, before throwing an elbow on Arata’s shoulder, who was watching the proceedings expressionlessly. Koi sat on the couch, leaning back against it, his eyes on Kakeru.

As they were walking out of the hall, they stopped when they spotted Shun, who hadn’t moved an inch even after all the chaos. Shun was smiling at the wall, and they glanced around at each other.

“What are you looking at?” asked Kai, following his line of sight to see only the wall. But the way Shun was staring at the wall, one would think they had an invisible guest. Arata turned to see the wall too, and You peered over his shoulder, before they glanced at each other and shrugged.

“Well, what do you think? How many people are in this room?” asked Shun.

Kai did a quick headcount, and was about to say eleven before he remembered that he had forgotten to add himself. “Um, there’s twelve, of course.

Shun’s smile softened. “No, there’s thirteen,” he said quietly. Looking at everyone’s disbelieving looks, he nodded to the corner of the room. “He’s standing there.”

“Wai– wait. You can see me?” The voice wasn’t one they were familiar with, and Koi jumped up and hid behind Kakeru, his face paling. Aoi and Yoru glanced around the room, as if they couldn’t track where the voice had appeared from. “You’re not supposed to be able to see me!”

“Was it you who scared all of us?” asked Aoi, his voice shaking slightly.

“Yes, it was me. And it was fun to see all of you so frightened!” Laughter rang around the walls.

“That wasn’t very nice of you,” said Yoru, his eyes narrowing.

“Whatever,” said the voice nonchalantly.

“Who are you? Why are you here? And what do you want from us?” asked Kai, as Haru nodded his approval to his asking those questions.

“So many questions.” Everyone turned to look at the centre of the room, finally pinpointing the direction of the voice. And they knew the person was standing there when they saw Shun shift his eyes from the wall to the room’s centre.

“We have more–“ started You.

“First of all,” the voice interrupted. “My name is Ray. As to why I'm here… honestly, I wonder that too. And finally, I would like you to help me get to heaven.”

Silence hung over the room, as everyone attempted to process his words. A silence that was broken only by the sound of Shun putting down his teacup.