The House in Which Nightmares Dwell 1.2

[touchturnfly]

1.2

At first, what worried Midori after she moved into her new house was the many troubles with the electrical system.

The circuit breaker fell out at an unbelievable amount of instances. Appliances that hadn't failed until then broke down one by one, and no matter how many times they were repaired, the same defects occurred incessantly. Noise entered the telephone, the television’s image contained distortions, and everything else stayed broken no matter how many times they dispatched the repairman.

Next was the water. During the rainy season, water entered and started to leak here and there inside the house. Even the repairman could not restore it. He said it's because the building wasn't made well. Even taking a single glance at the building would tell anyone as much. When they were told that it was due to the building's old age in the first place, neither Midori nor Reiko said anything in return. The brand new wall had become fully stained; moreover, the humidity was incredible, and it went without saying that the wall and the floor became dense with mould.

"... ...Wouldn't that pertain to being a problem with the building?" Hirota interrupted while listening to Midori's story, but Midori shook her head.

"That might be possible. The man who came to repair told me the same, but... ..."

Hm. Hirota folded his arms. He looked back at Midori’s eyes. They were filled to the brim with anxiety, long lashes framing them delicately.

"I think it was around from that time. It became very smelly."

"What do you mean by smelly?"

"It was a smell of something rotting. - At first I said, isn't it the smell of dead mouse? If it wasn't that, I wondered if it was the smell that came up from the sewage. Then with mother, I searched for the source of the smell, but we were not able to find where it was. Anyway, it was smelly in the whole house no matter where we went."

Midori faintly felt the smell rising to the tip of her nose and wrinkled her eyebrows.

Until around that time, Midori also thought, of course. Of course there was a problem with this building. That's why it was so cheap.

And then, whenever the rain stopped, she came to find it strange when her mother Reiko quickly closed the shutters during nights.

"- Mother, won't it be hot if you drew back the shutters?"

Midori had been watching the television's grainy projection in the living room. The heat had not been at a point where you would not hesitate between turning on the cooler or not, but it had been quite a hot night.

"Then you should turn on the cooler," Reiko said as she closed the shutters in a hurry.

"But that's wasteful."

"Isn't it fine though? I don't want to endure such a heat."

"The smell will get in the way. Stop it."

That made Midori's tone of voice somewhat tight, because the continuation of troubles inside the house irritated her chronically.

Reiko looked at Midori with worry in her eyes and silently closed the remaining shutters.

"Mother."

"I don't like it. Somehow... ..."

"What do you mean with somehow?"

Reiko went as far as closing the curtains tightly shut.

"I feel like someone is watching us."

Midori looked at Reiko in confusion, her mother's expression vacant.

"Even if the windows are open a little, even if there is a little gap in the curtains... ...Somehow, I feel as if we're being observed from the outside. - That's why."

Midori's hands shook faintly. It was a feeling familiar to her as well. In a season like this, it was typical that she wanted to open the window if she could, but each time she opened the window at night, she felt as if she couldn't calm down, like someone was watching her. There was no doubt it was her imagination; she found herself unreasonably opening the windows here and there, but when she suddenly became aware of what she had been doing, she would close them wordlessly. She understood Reiko's actions.

"You're imagining it."

"That's what I thought, but... ...but I can't calm down you know," Reiko said and looked up with her clouded eyes. "Hey - Could it be that the neighbours are watching us?"

"Stop it, don't say such strange things."

But, Reiko began to say, though she closed her mouth. Midori grew restless. However, what if there was truly a possibility that they were being observed?

The ones who lived in the house to the left of theirs was a young couple, and she wondered whether they had a dual income, for it seemed that they were away until late at night. To the right was a family of three people, a married couple with a son of about senior high school age. Midori wasn't quite fond of them. They were neighbours so they greeted each other when they would meet outside, but they were unusually sociable, and without any meaning, they would come to talk and ask about the mother and daughter's circumstances and about what goes on inside their house. It seemed as if they were being investigated. Every conversation they had never left her with any good sentiments.

"There's no way they would look at another person's house."

"... ...I wonder," Reiko said, seemingly unsatisfied. She reclined against the window for a while, hanging her head. A little time passed, and with a low voice, the words spilled. "I get the feeling that they came into our house... ..."

"Mother," Midori said with a stern tone. "There's no way they can do such a thing. I don't think you're in the right mind."

"But the places of the things in the house keep changing."

"Aren't you just imagining it?"

"I am not. The place changes although it's trivial. I thought, was the house broken into by a burglar? And were there any lost things? Because of that, I tried to investigate often."

"I’m sure it's just a misunderstanding."

"You're wrong. There's certainly someone moving things around. - If you were here at that time, I would wonder whether it was you playing around. Though, it frequently happens while you’re away. If someone hadn't come in, why did such things happen?"

"Are you sure it wasn't just a stray cat?"

"Can a cat change the position of a saucepan? While I went to pick up the laundry, a saucepan with cooked food moved on top of a different stove. Lifting up the hot saucepan, moving it, going so far as turning off the fire of the stove in use, and then turning on the stove's fire next to it? Something like that cannot be expected to happen if it isn't done by a human being."

Midori grimaced. - If that was true, it was obviously the action of a human being. Still, for what reason would someone do such things? If there was an intruder, that character surely would not want to leave behind traces of trespassing. If they didn't move something unintentionally or by accident, could this have been an act of flaunting?

"Is it really not mother's misunderstanding?"

"It's not. I felt uneasy, so now I'm watchful of the positions of the things. I am absolutely not imagining things." After saying that with a strong tone in her voice, Reiko sat by the window. "... ...It feels bad."

"That's why I think it's easy to suspect people."

"You're right. There was one time when Sasakura-san from next door was adamant, even asking me if I would let her have a spare key for the house."

Midori blinked. "A spare key? For what reason?"

"That woman said, 'If you're out to do shopping and it's going to rain, you'd worry about your laundry, right? ' ... ...She's a little strange."

"People don't normally say that. And it's not like we're even close... ..."

"Right? The strange troubles keep going on and it feels like I'm being pestered by someone."

"If she wants a key that much, then there's no way she has one, right? Mother, don't you keep the key during daytime?" Midori said, biting her fingernails.

"I have it. It’s even on a chain."

"If that's the case, people can't get in for sure, am I correct?"

"But I can't think of anything else!"

At some point while Midori and Reiko raised their voices, a small resounding sound abruptly interrupted them. The faint sound of ticking came from the direction of the dining room. Midori and Reiko exchanged glances and then the two peeked into the room.

Tick, tick. That was the sound of the glass being tapped. It seemed as if someone was knocking on the outside of the window in the dining room.

Midori took one breath and came closer to the window with the mirror. The knocking sound continued. Beyond the window was the wall outside the Sasakura house.

"- Hello?"

With a strange feeling gnawing her insides, Midori unfastened the lock of the window latch, and when she gently put her hands on the window, the sound suddenly stopped.

She opened the glass. Beside the sash, there was a screen door, and beyond that was an old looking outer wall. The gap that extended between the houses was dark.

"Hello?" Midori repeated as she looked out the window.

- There was neither a figure nor any shadow.

---

Edited by meepyonee.

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