Year 2025 – Tokyo, Japan
The morning didn't feel like anything special.
It was gray, and colder than it should've been. The wind kept lifting the curtain beside Takaya's desk, brushing papers across the floor. His school bag lay open and half-packed, socks draped over the side like they'd been trying to escape all morning.
Takaya sat on the edge of his bed, one sock on, the other clutched in his hand. His phone buzzed again.
"Leaving at 6. Don't be late. I swear, Sayaka's gonna start a headcount like it's the army."
"Also, don't forget snacks this time."
It was from Arata. Of course.
Takaya sighed. He stood up, pulled on his other sock, and checked the clock. 5:42 AM. Just enough time to pretend he had things under control. He grabbed a jacket, shoved a few last-minute things into his backpack, and paused by the window.
The sky outside was quiet. Clouded, but not dark. The kind of sky that looked like it wanted to rain but couldn't decide how badly. Three pigeons sat on the wire across from his apartment. They hadn't moved in the last ten minutes. Just watching. Staring out at the city like they were waiting for something to break.
Takaya stared back at them for a second too long. Then turned away.
This would be the last trip of the school year. Officially a cultural field outing. Unofficially, just a chance to vanish into the hills with friends before exams pulled everyone apart. They were headed to a preserved village deep in Kyoto's mountain regions. Trees older than most cities. Air that still smelled like leaves instead of fumes.
Eight of them. Same eight since middle school.
Takaya. Mira. Yuki. Sylvia. Reiji. Touma. Arata. Sayaka.
They called themselves the Seven Stars.
There were eight of them. The name stayed anyway. Arata liked how it sounded, and no one had the energy to fix it.
They met at the station just after sunrise.
Hanabira Mira stood by the platform board with her arms crossed and her ponytail already looking windproof. Renari Yuki stood quiet beside Morikawa Sylvia, who was draped across her like a second coat. Kurosawa Reiji had his hoodie up, coffee in one hand, and was already ignoring everyone. Isurugi Touma leaned on the railing with his earbuds in, eyes scanning the crowd.
Fushimi Arata was loud, naturally. Arguing about whether four bags of chips counted as "prepared." His sister, Fushimi Sayaka, stood next to him with a clipboard, a frown, and no patience.
Takaya arrived just in time to catch the end of Sayaka's speech about punctuality. No one really listened. But they followed anyway.
The train ride out took hours.
Reiji took the corner seat and sank into a book. Yuki and Sylvia curled up across from each other, both half asleep. Arata tried to beat Touma in a card game and failed immediately. Sayaka sat with her tablet open, mapping their itinerary like it was a campaign plan. Mira stared out the window in calm silence.
Takaya sat in the back, beside a dusty window. He watched the city fall away, one building at a time. Roads turned to hills. Steel turned to trees. The longer they rode, the quieter it got. The farther they went, the more he felt it.
Like something had been waiting.
Around the two-hour mark, Mira sat across from him.
"You're staring again," she said.
"I do that."
"What're you thinking about?"
Takaya shrugged. "Nothing."
"Liar."
He smirked, just a little. "The sky."
She looked. The clouds were starting to split. A few beams of sunlight pushed through, catching on the hills in gold slivers.
"Feels weird," she said.
"Yeah."
"Like something's about to happen?"
"…Yeah."
Mira looked at him a second longer than usual. Not worried. Just searching.
"Do you ever feel like we're not supposed to be here?"
Takaya met her eyes. Then nodded.
"All the time."
Far above the train, above the clouds, above the birds and wires and engines, something moved. Not quickly. Not loudly. Just a small shimmer across the fabric of the sky.
Not open. Not torn.
Just remembering it could be.
The train pulled into the station just before noon.
The air changed the second they stepped off the platform. It wasn't just cleaner — it was quieter. Heavier. Like the ground had its own gravity and the trees were listening. The sky overhead hadn't cleared fully, but it was no longer gray. Just pale and waiting.
The village was smaller than the pictures made it look. A line of houses built from dark wood and stone, roofs sloped low, tiles faded from generations of rain. The roads weren't paved, just packed earth and gravel, and they wound through hills like they'd always been there.
Sayaka clicked her tongue the second she stepped onto the path. "This map's wrong. The shrine's supposed to be five minutes up the hill."
Arata squinted ahead. "Looks more like fifteen."
"Then you can carry the bags."
He groaned. "My life is suffering."
They laughed, argued, split into groups. Sayaka and Mira led the way with Sylvia and Yuki drifting behind them, whispering. Reiji walked alone. Touma took slow, careful steps as he fiddled with the lens on his camera. Arata followed, dragging two overstuffed duffels and muttering about injustice.
Takaya walked behind them all.
The trees lined the road so thickly in places that sunlight broke in only narrow lines, like golden cracks across the trail. He kept glancing at the branches, not sure why. They weren't moving. There was no wind. But something about the silence between each step felt unnatural.
He didn't say anything.
Not yet.
The inn was small, built with old nails and thicker charm strips. A woman in her sixties greeted them with a bow and polite instructions on shared rooms, meals, and silence after ten. Arata tried to flirt, got ignored. Mira asked about the shrine. The woman paused, then gave a short answer — "Still closed for restoration. Earthshift cracked the path."
Takaya noticed the look in her eyes when she said it.
She was lying.
They split into rooms. Girls on one side, boys on the other. Sayaka ran room checks like it was a school trip. It sort of was.
They had the afternoon free.
They wandered.
They split off again.
Takaya followed the path toward the edge of the village where the trees grew wider and the sun hung lower behind the hills. Touma walked beside him, quiet as always. His camera clicked once every few steps. He didn't look at Takaya, but after a while he said, "You feel it too, right?"
Takaya glanced over. "Feel what?"
Touma didn't answer. He just kept walking.
There was a shrine just beyond the trees.
Not a large one — just a raised stone platform with twin gates, one half-collapsed. The path leading to it was roped off. A weathered wooden sign warned of unstable ground.
Takaya ducked under it without thinking.
Touma followed a few steps behind.
The deeper they walked into the grove, the more still everything became. Not peaceful. Hollow. Like a place left behind by something older than people.
The shrine itself was overgrown, covered in moss and age. The air around it smelled like dust and metal.
Takaya stepped closer.
The moment his foot touched the stones, something shifted.
Not outside.
Inside.
The back of his skull buzzed, just faintly. His skin tingled. Like the space in front of him didn't agree with the shape of him being there.
He stared up at the broken torii gate.
Something about it made his chest tighten.
He reached out. Touched the wood.
A whisper passed behind his ears.
Not a word. Just the shape of one.
He turned sharply.
No one there.
Touma stood several steps behind him, lowering his camera.
"You okay?"
Takaya blinked. "Yeah. Just…"
He looked at the gate again.
"Never mind."
They left.
He didn't tell the others what he felt. He wasn't sure how.
But that night, the sky over the mountains stayed open just a little too long before it turned black.
And Takaya dreamed again.
Of a place with three moons.
Of wind without air.
And a ring burning like a wound in the shape of a promise.
The weather held.
For a while, anyway. The clouds never quite cleared, but the sun peeked through more often now, sharp gold lines streaking the trees and rooftops. Everything looked a little more awake, though no one could explain why.
The innkeeper greeted them with less hesitation that morning, and Sayaka, clipboard in hand, took full control of the schedule. A walk through the old cedar grove, lunch near the riverside shrine, and a return to the main village square for a short lecture from the town's elderly historian.
Takaya didn't say much. Neither did Mira.
He noticed the quiet first. It wasn't the silence of peace, but of watching. As they walked through the grove, birds chirped once, then fell silent again. The trees creaked, but the wind didn't move. The sun warmed his jacket, but he didn't feel it.
He looked over his shoulder more than once. Touma walked behind him, camera around his neck. Reiji brought up the rear. Both kept glancing toward the trees, but no one said a word. Yuki and Sylvia held hands again. Arata was less loud than usual. Even Sayaka had stopped reading from her map.
Only Mira seemed unfazed.
"You alright?" Takaya asked as they crossed a wooden bridge, damp with moss.
"Hmm?"
"You're… calm."
She shrugged. "Nothing's happened yet."
The word yet landed heavier than it should have.
They reached the shrine by noon. Old stone lanterns lined the path, and a cracked bell hung under a wooden awning. It wasn't much to look at, but it had weight. Like it had been standing for too long to fall now.
Sayaka led them to a shaded clearing where flat stones had been arranged like seats. They sat in a loose circle, and soon the local scholar arrived.
He was thin, gray-haired, maybe in his seventies, wearing layered robes too thick for the weather. He bowed politely and introduced himself as Professor Nishimoto. Then, without waiting, he began to speak.
He spoke of old gods. Not the ones from temples or textbooks, but older ones—of cycles and sleeping spirits, of realms that once touched this one and no longer could. Of tears in the world, sealed by time and silence. Of those who went missing from history not by death, but by being taken.
Most of the group listened out of politeness.
Takaya listened like he was trying to remember something.
Because something in the way the man spoke—the rhythm, the phrasing, the strange familiarity in names he couldn't quite hear—struck something deep inside his chest.
When the lecture ended, and the others stretched and stood, Takaya stayed sitting.
Mira noticed.
"You okay?"
"Yeah." He looked up. "Just thinking."
She nodded. "Come on. The others are heading back."
He stood slowly, dusted off his hands. As they walked away, Takaya glanced back at the shrine bell. It hadn't moved. But the rope swayed. Even though there was no wind.
Later, as they passed back through the trees, a new path appeared between two trunks where there hadn't been one before. It was narrow, swallowed in shade, and steep enough to be unsafe. But the air coming from it was colder. Different.
Takaya stared at it as they passed, trying not to slow down.
Reiji noticed him looking. "Something wrong?"
"I don't know. I feel like it's watching us."
Reiji said nothing, but didn't look away.
They returned to the village. There were fewer people out than before. The houses felt… stiller.
That night, Takaya couldn't sleep. He sat outside their shared room, watching the dark sky. No stars. No wind.
He checked his phone. No signal.
For just a second, he thought he saw a line in the sky. Not a shooting star. Not a cloud.
A crack.
But when he blinked, it was gone.
The inn made no sound. Not even wood shifting in the cold. As if the building itself was holding its breath.
Takaya sat for a long time, not knowing what he was waiting for.
But knowing something was coming anyway.
They stayed in the village another day.
Sayaka made them follow the itinerary anyway. Reiji didn't protest, but he kept checking over his shoulder. Yuki seemed tired. Sylvia asked her more than once if she was okay. Arata didn't joke as much. Touma barely used his camera.
Even Mira, usually steady, was quiet as they made their way up a side path toward the cliffside lookout that was supposed to show the whole valley. The view was misted over when they got there, the mountains painted in gray. It wasn't beautiful. Just distant. Takaya leaned on the railing and tried to focus on nothing.
He could still feel it.
The same itch behind his ribs. The same pressure in his ears when he got too close to the edge of thought. It hadn't gone away since the shrine.
When they headed back, Takaya stayed at the rear.
There was a narrow path he didn't remember seeing the day before. It curled through the trees, low to the ground, half-covered in dark roots and dry leaves. He wouldn't have noticed it at all — except it was perfectly centered in the space between two trees.
Mira had noticed too. She stopped, glanced at him.
"You see it, don't you?"
He didn't pretend not to. "Yeah."
"You want to check it out?"
"…Yeah."
They didn't tell the others.
They slipped into the trees while the rest of the group argued about dinner. The path grew colder the farther they walked, the light dimmer even though the sky hadn't changed. The roots twisted in strange directions — not growing outward from trees, but into the path. Like something below had pulled them that way.
They came to a clearing.
In the center was a stone slab. Circular. Carved with rings — seven of them — all etched with symbols neither of them could read.
Takaya stepped forward.
The slab lit up.
Only a pulse. One circle, the innermost. Just for a moment. But it was enough to make him freeze.
Mira's voice was quiet. "What did you do?"
"Nothing," he said. "I just… stood here."
She stepped beside him. The light flickered again. A different ring.
They backed away.
Neither of them said a word.
That night, Sayaka called for an early sleep.
No one complained.
They were tired in a way that didn't come from walking.
Takaya couldn't sleep.
He heard movement around 2 a.m.
Reiji was already sitting up, staring at the window. Touma was dressed. Arata hadn't said anything, but his eyes were open.
Something about the dark outside felt heavy.
Then they heard it.
A hum.
Faint. Like something enormous moving just outside hearing.
No one else stirred.
Just them.
Takaya felt the air in the room shift. Like the whole world had tilted three degrees without telling anyone.
His phone buzzed.
No notifications.
Just light.
The screen glitched. Froze.
Then showed a blank white circle.
And nothing else.
He looked at the others.
They were all seeing the same thing.
The hum grew louder.
And then stopped.
No flash.
No scream.
Just silence.
Followed by the faintest sound of something cracking in the sky.
The morning started with one more arrival.
The morning started quiet. Heavier than it should've been.
There was no breakfast conversation, no arguing over tea or side dishes. The innkeeper didn't greet them this time. The sky hadn't brightened, though it wasn't dark. Just pale. Watery. Like the light had lost interest.
The group gathered outside the shrine path without much direction. No one said what they were waiting for, but none of them wanted to go back inside.
Sayaka checked her clipboard. Nothing left on the schedule. Arata tapped his foot. Reiji scanned the trees, silent as always. Sylvia leaned against Yuki. Touma adjusted the strap of his camera, not because he meant to take pictures, but because his hands needed something to do. Mira watched Takaya.
He hadn't spoken much since yesterday. Just that something was wrong. And he was right.
They all felt it now.
A pressure. A tone. A silence that didn't feel natural.
Then the sun vanished.
Not dipped. Not set. Just blinked out. One moment it was there, soft through the clouds. The next, it wasn't.
The village dimmed. A strange, shadowed tone fell across the mountains.
Birds screamed.
All at once. All together.
Every phone buzzed. Takaya reached into his pocket, then froze. His screen was black. Then white. A circle pulsed in the center. No notifications. No controls. Just the ring of light.
The others were seeing the same thing.
"This isn't normal," Reiji said.
"No kidding," Sylvia muttered.
Takaya looked up.
The sky folded.
It started like a ripple in glass. Then a seam. Then light poured down from nowhere—a curtain of white, drawn from the highest point in the world to the dirt beneath their feet.
The shrine cracked open. Not shattered. Not broken. Just opened.
A circle of runes flared across the ground beneath them. Bright, complex. Moving. Like the symbols were alive.
There was no wind. No heat.
Only that hum—low and rising.
And then the light hit them.
Takaya tried to call out.
He didn't have time.
He reached for Mira. She reached back.
And the world vanished.