The voice did not ring out.
It fell.
Behind Teiichi. Behind Yuuko.
Right there in the still corner of the ribs and the soul where fear wraps itself up and makes itself comfortable.
"You remember me too, don't you…?"
Teiichi slowly turned.
There was a girl in the doorway of the storage room.
At first glance, she was normal — school uniform, mid-length hair, pale skin — but her eyes were… off. Not glowing. Not empty. Just too knowing.
And wrong.
The air around her didn't shift — it bent. Like the space itself didn't want her around but couldn't deny.
Yuuko stepped protectively in front of Teiichi.
"Kanade," she said. Not a greeting. A statement. Like calling something that shouldn't be called out loud.
The girl cocked her head.
"You do remember," Kanade breathed, advancing a step. "That makes it real. That makes me real."
Teiichi's head spun. "But… you disappeared after Yuuko died. How can you—?"
"I found her," Kanade broke in, her voice fragile and shattered at the edges. "I found the ghost in the corridors. I wanted to assist her. I thought… perhaps she could assist me as well."
Yuuko's eyes widened in awareness.
"You attempted to die like a ghost."
Kanade smiled, and it was the saddest thing Teiichi had ever seen.
"Nobody remembered me," she said. "I disappeared while still alive. I thought… if I died in the place where the other ghosts used to live, perhaps someone would remember me too."
Teiichi's fingers grew cold. "You… suicided?"
Kanade did not reply.
Rather, she spoke to Yuuko. "But you didn't greet me. You didn't lead me. You weren't there."
"I was absent," Yuuko replied softly.
"No," Kanade replied, voice cracking. "You departed. There's a distinction."
And then the room creaked.
The walls inhaled again — the wrong type of breath. The type the school itself did when it remembered too much.
Kanade's eyes radiated — not light. But memory.
"Since you didn't assist me in living," she stated, her voice shaking, "you'll assist me in staying."
And with that — the darkness clinging to her stripped away like an epidermis.
It was present.
The same beast. But firmer now. More of herself. A warped imitation of Kanade's form — long arms, too many fingers, grin stretched too far, voice not belonging to the mouth.
Yuuko pushed Teiichi back. "Don't stare at it for too long. It'll take on your face next."
But it was too late.
Teiichi had seen it. And something shook in his chest.
It looked like Kanade.
It looked like Yuuko.
It looked like him.
"Why… me?" he breathed.
Kanade glared at him. "Because you remember us all. You carry us. And memories hunger."
The creature attacked.
Yuuko threw out her arm — not to attack, but to split the space. Like slamming a door made of light between them. A ghost trick.
The creature shrieked, soundless but shaking their bones. It recoiled, slamming into the lockers, distorting into static.
Kanade screamed too — not from pain. From loss.
"You're trying to forget me again!"
Yuuko grabbed Teiichi's wrist. "Come on. Now."
"Where?!"
There's one place left," she said grimly. "Where I was buried.