Twilight filtered through the dusty windows of the old mansion, staining the corridors a dull red that seemed to bleed from the sky itself. The walls, once adorned with life, were covered with cobwebs and echoes. The air smelled of aged wood, of dead flowers in forgotten vases.
The patriarch, Soutarou, sat alone in the studio. His hands trembled as he held a silver frame: the photo of his wife, Rika, taken in the gardens in the spring. Her smile was calm, serene, the same smile he had not seen since that rainy morning when the earth swallowed her forever.
-Today... would have been your birthday, Rika..." he murmured in a watery voice, pressing the frame against his chest.
Years had passed since his death, and still, the void was not filled. Only his daughter, Airi, illuminated a corner of his existence. Ever since she was a little girl, he would give her a new stuffed animal every year, as a symbol that his love as a father would never run out. Airi had grown up surrounded by teddy bears, rabbits and plush creatures that decorated her room like a procession of memories.
Everything changed that day.
A fine rain had soaked the garden and Airi, then eleven years old, returned drenched, her knees stained with mud and her eyes fixed on a strange doll. An antique stuffed animal, stained and crooked, which she said she had found "next to a broken tombstone" in the family cemetery.
-Can I keep him, Dad? -He talked to me... he said he didn't want to be alone.
Soutarou, puzzled but used to his imaginations, nodded without thinking. The last thing he needed was to see sadness return to his eyes.
From that night on, Airi changed.
She no longer played in the garden. She spent hours cooped up with her stuffed animals, mumbling things that no one else understood. Sometimes, Soutarou would hear her laughing alone in the early morning, or singing songs without lyrics. As the days went by, her speech also changed. She used phrases that did not correspond to her age. Looks that were too heavy. Gestures... inappropriate.
One day, she entered his studio without knocking. She was wearing a white dress, clean, almost ceremonial. She sat on his lap without permission, as if she knew him better than she should have.
-Dad..." she whispered close to his ear. Do you still love me?
Soutarou, uncomfortable, tried to smile. But his daughter was no longer his daughter. Her eyes were two black wells full of desire disguised as tenderness.
-I will always love you, Airi... but you are acting strangely, daughter. Are you feeling well?
She laughed softly, as if the question was funny to her.
-Today is a special day. -Don't you remember? You gave me a new stuffed animal the day Mom died... Did you do it on purpose? So I wouldn't cry?
He was silent. The mention of Rika disarmed him.
-She's still waiting for you, you know. -But now it's me who loves you more. Much more.
That night, the tea tasted different. Bitter. Like metal. Soutarou tried to get up, but his legs wouldn't respond. He collapsed on the couch as Airi locked the door.
-Dad... you don't have to fight. No more.
Memories turned to mist. The heat of the room became suffocating. Airi, or whatever inhabited her body, was stripped of all humanity, approaching like a slow poison. What happened in that studio was an unholy union between love and horror. A nameless act, where roles dissolved and the soul of the old man was dragged into the abyss.
In his last breath, in tears that he could not stop, Soutarou did not say his daughter's name.
-...Rika... forgive me...
And he died with his eyes open, as if he expected to see his wife's face greeting him on the other side.
Airi approached his limp body and caressed his cheek tenderly.
-Dad... I'll see you soon.
The rain returned that night.
In the girl's room, stuffed animals surrounded her like faithful servants. In the center, the doll found in the cemetery glowed faintly, its eyes red as burning coals.
She sat in the middle of the room and hugged her belly.
-Now we are one... aren't we?
And a girl's laughter, sweet and hollow, echoed through the empty corridors of the mansion.
Illustration of the Airi:
https://www.deviantart.com/stash/01edg29j5waq