Nightmare Apostle

Chapter 1872: Chapter 1064: The Missing Older Sister (Part 2)

What made it worse was that this was the Nightmare World that ate people without spitting out the bones; once the seed of suspicion was planted, there was a high chance his teammates would join forces to screw him over and kill him.

This time was different from the last. This time, dying meant really dying, and he no longer had trustworthy teammates like Tong Han, Tong Hanjiao, Yamashayue, or Beiyu Ye. This time, he could only rely on himself.

Suddenly, noisy voices echoed from the corridor outside, followed by a burst of hurried footsteps. The steps rushed from far to near, shoes slamming on the floor with a "thump thump thump." Yang Xiao’s heart jolted; he guessed something had happened.

And very quickly, as the door was pushed open, his guess became reality.

"Something’s wrong! Sasakimotoka is gone!" Ogawa Haruka, who ran back to report, was gasping for air, eyes full of panic, the whole person flustered and at a loss.

"What happened?" Suzuki Takashi was first startled, then snapped in anger: "Four living people and you can’t keep an eye on one?!"

"N-no, it’s not like that, you guys..."

Knowing this girl had a habit of talking incoherently, everyone pushed her aside and ran toward the restroom. Before leaving, Yang Xiao instinctively turned back for a glance. He knew the office couldn’t be left empty; someone had to stay and watch. Who knew if this was a ploy to lure the tiger from the mountain.

But someone else had had the same thought. Kato Shinjiro hadn’t moved at all; he was standing in front of the office sofa and gave Yang Xiao a nod.

Yang Xiao returned the nod, then grabbed the trembling Ogawa Haruka and ordered, "You stay too. Don’t go anywhere. Stay with Mr. Katou!"

Also staying behind were the frustrated, unaccomplished food-processing plant employee Xiao Lin Zhengyan and the newbie college student Sakai Misaki.

After giving instructions, Yang Xiao rushed out. By the time he arrived, people were already crowding outside the women’s restroom door, and arguing voices were coming from inside.

There was no room left to fuss over the difference between men and women; Yang Xiao went straight in.

The restroom was fairly spacious, divided into two main areas: outside was the public front area, and deeper in was the core toilet area.

Entering the toilet area, his eyes fell on a row of shabby stalls, the kind with doors for privacy, and the doors weren’t semi-transparent glass but a series of old wooden doors.

Yang Xiao hadn’t seen this kind of wooden door in many years. The wood was dilapidated; the edges were badly damaged, whether from knocks or who knew what, and the whole area reeked of the musty, rotten smell of moldy timber.

At the moment, all the stall doors had been pushed open. There was practically no visual blind spot anywhere in the toilet area, yet Sasakimotoka was nowhere to be seen. freewёbnoνel.com

When Yang Xiao came in, Suzuki Takashi had just been arguing with Mimura Kaori, but now, after being scolded by Yandeta Chiyoda, the two had quieted down.

"What happened?" Yang Xiao stepped forward and asked in a low voice, choosing to direct the question at Takagi Reina.

Takagi Reina was one of the first four who had accompanied Sasakimotoka to the restroom; she had to know what had happened.

Takagi Reina’s brows were tightly furrowed, her attitude unusually serious. "We walked Sasakimotoka here. She washed her face first, and I handed her a tissue. Then she said she needed the toilet, so Mimura Kaori and I accompanied her in to the toilet area."

"She chose this stall. I had Mimura Kaori stand guard outside the door, and I went into this one."

Following the direction of Takagi Reina’s finger, Yang Xiao saw that the stall she had chosen was on the right side of Sasakimotoka’s stall—right next door.

One person at the door, another in the adjacent stall; by any logic there was no way for someone to simply vanish. Yet a living person had disappeared right under their eyelids. It sent a real chill down his spine.

"And then? After Sasakimotoka went into the stall, what happened next?" Yang Xiao knew it couldn’t be as simple as it looked.

"I’d been paying attention to the sounds from the stall next door. I heard a rustling, like she was taking off clothes, then the sound of someone squatting down."

"At first there was a very faint sobbing, Sasakimotoka crying under her breath."

"But very quickly, in less than half a minute, I realized something was wrong, because all the sounds from the stall next door stopped. It went completely silent."

"I knocked on the partition wall and tried to talk to Sasakimotoka, but no one answered."

"That’s when I was sure something had happened, so I stepped onto the toilet seat and looked into the stall next door. That’s when I found the stall was empty—no one there."

"I shouted while Mimura Kaori and I kicked the stall door open together." Takagi Reina slowly let out a long, heavy breath. "After we confirmed something was wrong, Ogawa Haruka went back to call you. Everything after that you already know."

By this time, Yandeta Chiyoda had already examined the scene and confirmed that Sasakim Chiyoda’s stall hadn’t shown any signs of having been used recently.

The layout of this toilet area was problematic too. The gap under the stall doors and under the side partitions was very small. Unless you pressed your face to the floor and strained to look, you couldn’t see inside from outside.

Yang Xiao knew this wasn’t something he could blame on Takagi Reina and Mimura Kaori. The two were veteran players and had already been very thorough. For a living person to disappear under that kind of surveillance was beyond what common sense or science could explain. This was clearly a supernatural event.

Yang Xiao’s first reaction was that this was a Curse. Sasaki Sakura, the older sister, had vanished first, and now it was Sasakimotoka’s turn.

Worse, they had just had contact with Sasakimotoka not long ago.

If Sasakimotoka was some kind of infection source, then by now this Curse might have already latched onto them. Next time, it would be their turn to disappear without a trace.

By rights, the matter should have ended there, but Yandeta Chiyoda refused to give up. She led people to carefully inspect the restroom: doors and windows, sinks, the utility closet, even the ceiling.

Though they ultimately found nothing, Yandeta Chiyoda later explained to everyone that she had encountered a similar incident in a previous mission, and in the end they found the missing person in the space beneath the sink.

The person was already dead, and died a terrible death, folded up like a quilt.

Once they confirmed there were no clues at the scene, everyone returned to the office filled with doubt and dread. As soon as they walked in, they saw Kato Shinjiro sitting in the spot Watanabe Gou had occupied earlier, fiddling with the recorder.

Seeing everyone return, Ogawa Haruka said excitedly that they had made a new discovery.

Yang Xiao’s powers of observation were razor sharp. He sensed the atmosphere in the office was oppressively heavy; Xiao Lin Zhengyan and Sakai Misaki, who had stayed behind, looked unusually pale. They hadn’t looked like this when he left.

"Listen to this." Kato Shinjiro pressed the play button on the recorder.

After a burst of static and rustling, a steady male voice came from the recorder.

"Don’t be nervous. Sit down and tell us slowly. You’ve come to us with a problem and want our help, right?"

Everyone couldn’t help but frown. This was Watanabe Gou’s voice; these were the words he had just used to calm Sasakimotoka.

...

"Which train line?"

...

"And the photo?"

...

"What happened afterwards?"

...

"Don’t be afraid, we believe you. What’s your sister’s name?"

....

"Taoka, did you go to the station to look for your sister? The station she got off at was called Shirahata Station, right?"

...

Each sentence made everyone’s skin crawl. These were all questions they had just asked Sasakimotoka, yet on the recording, there wasn’t a single trace of Sasakimotoka’s voice.

It was as if everyone had been talking to themselves. It sounded indescribably eerie.

"It... it didn’t record her..." Slap Girl Yamamoto Naoko was already so scared her face had gone chalk white, her voice trembling.

"No, it’s not that it didn’t record; the machine couldn’t recognize her voice." Kato Shinjiro stopped the recording, his expression growing serious. He lifted his head and said slowly, "I’ve listened three times now. Every time it reaches the part where Sasakimotoka answers, there’s a strange burst of static, like...like something is interfering."

"This is some real goddamn ghost shit..." Suzuki Takashi said through gritted teeth.