Nightmare of an Endless Night

Chapter Fifteen

I exited the kitchen and returned to the living room then back to the main. I slowly went up the stairs, my body suddenly becoming tired, and looked up to see Naoki watching me at the top. He didn’t scream, meow, or whisper eerily, he just ran down the hall soundlessly.

I sucked in a breath. Hopefully this didn’t mean anything.

I opened all the unlocked doors until I made it to the locked one. This room was plain, no furniture was inside. When I went to the closet a police’s hat fell from inside, the brim was bloodied.

I looked inside the closet to see that it did not end with a cement ceiling, but led to the attic. I climbed up the shelves to push the piece of wood up.

There were a few large garbage bags and an object was next to them, but before I could inspect it Kaiju appeared behind me. Her eyes were nothing, just all black as she held tightly to my arm. When her eyes rolled back into her head she pushed me off the attic back onto the top shelf of the closet.

The wind had been knocked out of me and when I looked up I saw her peer over to look at me in my state of pain. With the energy that had returned in me I jumped down.

I went back downstairs, smoothing my back with my free hand, and looked around the main floor. I heard a barking sound; could that be Cho or a confused cat?

I opened the front door, no longer having Kaiju’s hair squeezed around it. But instead of the dark of the night I saw Kaiju, her eyes were an odd shade of milky grey, and her mouth was agape. She knocked me over again, but this time I fell in an awkward position (horrible for my knees) into a pile of shattered glass.

I tried getting up but that simple task was impossible now. Kaiju had managed to close the front door behind her.

A sound came from upstairs. I recognized it has footsteps descending from wherever. I painfully moved my neck and flashlight to see what it was. It was Naomi, not Kaiju in with her unruly hair and bloodied hospital gown, but truly Naomi. She was wearing a neat black seifuku, a school uniform, and a pair of clean white uwabaki, indoor shoes.

She looked at me as she walked down the steps. But then she got on her hands and knees and slowly morphed into Kaiju, dragging her body down the stairs instead.

Kaiju briefly morphed into Naomi again before turning back. She then took me by the arm and dragged me up the stairs. I knew this was it; I had not more energy to resist her anymore.

And somehow I let this nightmare of an endless night take me into surrender.