Chapter 17
When Masahiro woke up, he realized he was still on that couch, and that what had just happened had only been a terrible nightmare. Not that reality was any better: he was alone, lost, trapped in that house.
He looked around as soon as the grogginess of sleep faded. He wasn't in the same room he had fallen asleep in. The walls were a reddish-brown color, one that far too closely resembled dried blood. The furniture was completely different, the entire room had changed. He was no longer in the same place where he had dozed off. The house had shifted once again.
The new room didn't have much furniture, apart from the couch he had awakened on: there was a small glass coffee table, and on the wall opposite the couch, a low bookshelf with a few dusty volumes and some old, forgotten-looking knickknacks.
Masahiro then lifted his head, looking straight ahead: he recognized what was in front of him immediately. It was the closet from the dream.
He stood up from the couch without hesitation, though a part of him doubted he was truly awake. Maybe he was dreaming again, trapped in a loop of consciousness he could no longer escape from.
Either way, he walked up to the closet and opened it. As he had suspected, there were no clothes inside—only boxes and cartons stacked haphazardly one on top of the other. Maybe the truth he was looking for was hidden in there. Maybe that nightmare had been a clue, instructions for what he was supposed to do.
He began rummaging through the boxes. In the first containers, he found some of his mother's old clothes, neatly folded—probably stored away by his father after her death. They still held a trace of her scent. That faint, familiar fragrance was enough to make him freeze. A sudden wave of nostalgia struck him so hard it left him breathless.
In another box, he found an old backpack. He decided to take it with him: since the house kept changing, anything he wanted to hold onto had to stay on his person. The rooms changed, objects vanished, certainties dissolved.
As he kept searching, he found boxes of old Christmas decorations—some broken, others still wrapped in newspaper—and some of his old school notebooks, dusty and damp. The more boxes he opened, the more discouraged he felt. He had expected to find something revelatory, some hidden secret, and now he felt foolish for having been so hopeful.
After digging through piles of useless stuff, he finally reached the last box. This one seemed to contain belongings that had once been his father's: old gardening manuals, Go stones, and mahjong tiles neatly arranged in their boxes. Each item had been stored with care—almost lovingly. In that moment, it felt like he was discovering new sides of a man he had never truly known. Those objects made his father—always seen as stern and distant—feel a little more human.
At the bottom of the box, he found a notebook. Masahiro had never seen it before. While the other items felt at least vaguely familiar, this one didn't. He was certain he had never come across it anywhere in the house. It had to be something his father had hidden carefully. And if he had hidden it, it meant it was important.
He grabbed it and gently opened it to the first page.
"What the… it's empty?"
There wasn't a single pen mark. It looked like no one had ever used it. He began flipping through the pages one by one, and finally, among dozens of blank sheets, he found something handwritten.
The handwriting was unmistakable. It was his father's. He began to read.
08/19XX
I've been writing for some time now, because it's necessary to document everything. Whether it's reality or the product of my madness, I must keep a record of what has been happening over the past year. It all started when we moved into the new neighborhood. That's when strange things began.
Objects in the house move, disappear, or things appear that don't belong to us. I'm not talking about small remnants of someone else's life lived here. I'm talking about entire pieces of furniture. Whole furnishings I've never seen before.
And then things fall for no reason, objects that seem like they're trying to hurt us. Always just a step away from injuring Akiko or Masahiro.
I seem to be the only one who notices. Masahiro is too young to worry about these things, and Akiko… Akiko doesn't seem to notice anything.
At first, I thought it was some local kid playing pranks. Over time, I began to believe we were being targeted by someone trying to get into the house.
Six months ago, I installed cameras, though Akiko thought I was being paranoid.
Now I can confirm with certainty that whatever is happening is beyond anything we can imagine.
There is something wrong with this house.
Masahiro was cold with sweat as he read. Each line dried out his mouth, each word stiffened his fingers. Inside him, a dreadful awareness was beginning to form: his father had understood everything, decades before Masahiro had even begun to suspect anything. The pieces were coming together in his mind, like a puzzle he had always had in front of him but had never been able to solve. He thought back to how his father had acted in his memories. Maybe he hadn't just been a strict, rigid man. Maybe he had been trying to protect them, and no one had ever realized it.
He placed the diary into the backpack. Even if it only contained that single page, there was no way he was going to lose it.
By that point, he had gone through everything in that closet. There was nothing more to be found inside. It was clear that the house had changed again, he understood the pattern now. It never changed just one room at a time, but the entire house. He had to uncover its new layout. He had to explore it, understand it, uncover its secrets. He now understood that the only way to survive was to know it inside and out.
Only then could he hope to make it out alive.