I'm the Ghost Girl

I started with a breath.

All that time spent on the gallery had let the tension drain clean out of me, but I couldn't allow that now. I had to get a proper edge back and hold it.

Time to move again.

It had been fun, I'll admit that, and for a little while I'd even felt as if I'd slipped free of the threat. It was close to just browsing the internet the way an ordinary person would. But I had to get my head on straight.

Time to get out.

However pleasant it had been, those things were still nothing but anomalies, and I was still in danger. I could still die. I shut my eyes on that fact and opened them again. A fine tremor ran back through my whole body, and I could feel the tension settle in where it belonged. From here on, I had to move.

"Let's go."

I closed the gallery and walked slowly up to the door. I eased it open and checked the gap for anything that might kill me. Luckily the corridor was empty. Only dark.

Judging it safe, I stepped out of the classroom at once.

I stood for a moment in the wind coming down the hall and thought.

Should I head toward the wind?

Right now, whichever way I went, I had no way of knowing what I'd find. I turned it over fast.

"......I won't go toward the wind."

The floor I was on was the fourth at the very least. That meant I needed stairs going down. Wind didn't make an exit, so the first thing to do was find wherever the stairs were.

"Then I'll go the opposite way."

I walked slowly, watching everything around me. With the anomaly that had grabbed me possibly still wandering the building, I checked the gallery constantly. Fortunately, there was still nothing about the school.

When I reached the end of the corridor, doubt caught up with me.

"......Where did the stairs go?"

I hadn't found a single trace of them. The fact left a bad taste, and I frowned for no good reason.

"Figures. This isn't a normal school."

Maybe the corridor simply didn't have stairs. I hadn't checked the side the wind was coming from, true, but in an ordinary school the stairs sat at both far ends of the hall. There might be a way down hidden inside one of the classrooms instead. For now, I had to think.

......The wind that never stops is suspicious, though.

Normally I wouldn't have thought twice about a draft. I would have assumed some window was open somewhere. But outside the windows there wasn't a breath of air. Everything was still. Not even a leaf moved.

It was deeply wrong. The unease came especially from the wind blowing out of only one direction, on and on, as if someone had set it going on purpose.

If I go look, I could walk into something worse.

Getting closer for no reason might turn into a disaster. I only had one life. I had to be careful.

Then I should search the classrooms.

I started with the room in front of me and worked my way through.

The inside wasn't much different from the classroom I'd already been in. Just old desks and chairs.

The search went on. I poured nearly thirty minutes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into each room, looking for any sign of a way somewhere else. Unfortunately, I found nothing. After going in and out of several classrooms, I ended up back at the first one.

"......Goddamn it."

The room was still a wreck. I clicked my tongue and moved on to the others. Still not a single trace. The fact soured me enough that I had to stop.

At this rate I'm just going to end up walking into the wind.

That wouldn't do. I'd only be following the intentions of something I couldn't even name.

And there's nothing useful on the gallery, either.

The bastard of an anomaly that had caught me was already posting in real time about snatching a new human. Which meant this situation wasn't something that thing had made. The dread nearly doubled.

Do I just jump out a window?

In the worst case, I needed to keep that option in mind.

"Think first."

I did have the gallery. But even a rough search turned up no posts about what was happening to me now, and it wasn't as if anything similar had come up before, either.

"......Come to think of it, I've never searched for wind."

I'd only been searching school, classroom, corridor. I'd never even seen a post about wind. Figuring this was my last shot, I tried wind-related keywords.

Call it luck. I found a post that looked like a hint.

The post was hard to make sense of. Out of nowhere it demanded to know who had made the wind blow, then said that was why a human had gotten away. I couldn't see the connection. I didn't think the notices had said anything about this, either. I dug up a few more posts and found others that were similar, some of them nearly identical.

I thought for a moment, then wrote one of my own.

The title wasn't even very inflammatory, but someone commented almost at once.

So an ability like that existed. I couldn't help being a little surprised. I hadn't thought the anomalies shared that kind of thing with one another.

Which means if I follow the wind, I end up moved somewhere else.

Look at it kindly, and it meant I could escape the school. Look at it straight, and it meant I'd be delivered to wherever that anomaly lived. Walking into the tiger's den on my own two feet. I couldn't call that a good idea.

"Shit."

For now, I decided to keep asking.

Not whenever?

If someone was already using it, you couldn't?

The moment I read that, one method came to mind.

If I know where I'm going, it isn't all that dangerous, is it?

If I knew, I could prepare for the risk. I might even use the gallery itself to steer things toward a direction where I'd be safe. It was still dangerous, but my odds of surviving had just gotten bigger.

I left one last comment.

I'd asked so I could keep an eye on whichever anomaly was the one using it.

So it was you.

I closed the thread with a small smile.

I closed the gallery and looked again toward where the wind was blowing.

"So. That means the anomaly called Ghost Girl is over there?"

I went through Ghost Girl's posts. Most of them were nothing special, just shitposts piled on shitposts. But I found one thing that mattered.

"A serial?"

A serial? She was publishing something?

I couldn't stand the curiosity. I searched the keyword at once, skimmed what came up, and understood what it meant.

"Ah, fuck. For real."

To put it in a single line: gather a bunch of humans, then guess which one survives to the end. That wasn't all of it. When she described the situation live in her posts, she apparently wrote them like a novel.

"Absolute pieces of shit."

I wasn't joking. I tried not to swear and couldn't manage it.

"Hoo. Calm down."

Fortunately, I now knew how the thing was built. Stages made of one ghost story after another. The stories changed every time, so I still didn't know how to clear them. But it was a completely different matter, knowing which existence I had to watch most carefully.

"......I can survive."

I wasn't going to die. I swore it, and walked toward the wind. It was still ominous, but maybe because I knew what it was, I could shake off a little of the fear.

The farther I went, the fiercer the wind became. I raised an arm as if to shield myself and kept pressing forward. Then it happened.

WHOOOOM.

All at once the wind reversed and started dragging me in.

"Ah. So that's what this is."

I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them. I stripped the fear out of myself as far as I could and gave my body to the wind. Little by little, it sucked me under.

When I came to, I was already somewhere I had never seen. I got to my feet at once.

Nothing's hurt.

I swept the surroundings fast, trying to work out where I was.

"......A forest?"

A foul smell stabbed at the tip of my nose. Trees that hurt to look at crowded in front of me. What filled my vision was a vast green forest.

Damp fog spread in every direction. I couldn't see ahead, like a man gone blind, and my senses were dull, as if I had only just woken. The color had leached out of everything around me, and it felt as if something had taken hold of me in the space of a blink. The fog was thick. Far too thick.

"Hey. You all right?"

That was when a man's voice reached me. I turned my head on reflex and only glared.

"What? Not gonna answer? You mute?"

Face twisted like I'd offended him, the man strode right up to me. Was he about to start a fight? I decided he wasn't worth my attention yet and looked around some more.

"Stop that. That person might just be too scared to say anything right now."

A girl with long hair came toward me quietly. Her skin was so white it made mine crawl, and she spoke first, wearing an attractive smile.

"Are you all right? He isn't trying to threaten you on purpose, so please understand."

"Ah, no. I didn't even do anything."

The man muttered beside her, sounding put out. I looked at the girl for a moment, then took in the whole place.

......About six of them.

Six people stood in a ring around me.

"Hello?"

My silence seemed to bother her. She spoke with open irritation, and I had no choice but to open my mouth.

"Yes, I'm fine. Thank you for worrying."

Only then did she nod, satisfied.

"Well, good. More importantly, I think everyone's here now?"

"Everyone? What do you mean, everyone?"

I put the doubt into the question, and the girl held out the paper in her hand. I took it and read.

Reading it, I couldn't help feeling sick.

So it's about to start.

I opened the gallery beside me at once, found Ghost Girl's post, and read it.

Seeing the post, the question hit me before the disgust.

Why are only six of them in the picture?

Was there a reason? Don't tell me...

I looked straight at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the face of the person who wasn't in the photo. It was the girl I had just been talking to.

You. Don't tell me.

You're Ghost Girl?