Where's Your Sense of Adventure: A Grudge Story

Where's Your Sense of Adventure?

Yugo placed his backpack on the dirty ground next to a stone well, looking behind himself in eager anticipation. "Come on! We're here."

The house sitting in front of him was decrepit and abandoned, yet beautiful as a traditional Japanese home. Vines grew up the outside of its walls, an elegant decoration added by the rural neighborhood. Fireflies illuminated the night air around the structure and cicadas echoed their song in the distance.

"Are all Americans this crazy?" Himari asked. She ran up the hill in a sort of half-step to catch up.

Yugo smiled boyishly. "We're all some kind of crazy. Besides, this old neighborhood is perfectly weird. I can't believe you've never been up here. Don't you Japanese girls like ghost stories?"

"Japanese girls have a little more respect for the dead."

"Aw, come on. It's just a little adventure. Good writers need to be like that." Yugo leaned against the well—his arms spread in cool nonchalance for support. "We don't have to go inside or anything if you're scared."

Himari smiled and moved with seductive motive, apparently feeling the mood of the warm summer night. "It sounds like you're the scared one," she said, pushing her body into his. She touched his face with soft hands, and he leaned into her anticipating lips. Neither pretended as if this night were about anything else.

Kissing turned to touching, and Himari's hands moved underneath Yugo's shirt as he pulled her closer. He was entranced by her, chasing her as much as his story. The flirting was finally turning into something. Finally.

Lost in Himari's taste and smell, he almost didn't notice the sudden and utter silence surrounding him. The cicadas stopped their song. Fireflies darkened. Underneath his legs, the stone turned icy cold.

Himari froze, halting her passionate exchange with him. Her eyes gleamed with terror, wide and afraid. She couldn't speak, as if physically losing the ability.

Yugo turned his head around.

A pale woman crawled unnaturally out of the well Yugo leaned against. Her long black hair fell wet and stringy in front of her face, as if her home was the sludge underground. A white dress fell dripping beneath her, and her thin legs stretched contorted against the inner tunnel. With a deafening scream, she launched out of her eerily crouched position with unbelievable speed and snatched Himari by the hair, dragging the young woman kicking and screaming into the surrounding tree line.

Yugo sat in paralyzed fear for a moment, entirely alone. The screaming abruptly ended and dark silence returned.