The four teenagers observed silently as the old priestess gathered herbs and poured water into a small earthen bowl, mixing them together. She muttered something under her breath and the liquid began to steam almost immediately, as though it had been simmering over a fire.

"What is this for, Tomoko-san?" Miko inquired sheepishly.

"I will pray to Lady Toomo for the strength to defeat her enemy, but first we must be purified."

"We?" Ryuji ventured. He wasn't entirely comfortable with this, and Hinata's words still stung. As if any of them would stick their necks out for him! Actually, they probably would, which just made him feel even shittier.

"You will help me."

Nervous, the four companions knelt before Lady Toomo's shrine, cups in hand. Tomoko spoke with the calm solemnity of ritual, her voice ebbing and flowing like the ocean's tides.

It lifted their spirits, making space for the hope that all would be well, that Toomo and Tomoko would save Nekojima.

The fog would be lifted, the monstrous mannequin creatures would be banished, and their loved ones would be returned to them.

Even cynics like Ryuji couldn't deny there was a power in that place, gathering like static electricity before a storm.

Naru, who had some passing familiarity with the supernatural, could tell that Tomoko's mixture was potent, whatever it was. It coursed down her throat like liquid fire.

Hinata closed her eyes and inhaled the fragrant steam; it immediately went to her head, like she imagined a cup of sake would.

Miko's senses felt strangely heightened: every color seemed richer, the lights almost bright enough to hurt. She could hear her companions' breaths, rising and falling, yet she felt oddly remote, floating.

And then, she felt nothing at all.

Lin: Just as I thought... This inventory doesn't match the sales. How troublesome...

Hinata wasn't sure what they would find inside: maybe Doctor Fujiwara collapsed on the floor, maybe worse. Maybe nothing.

Despite the latched door, the doctor was (inexplicably) nowhere to be found, but he had left behind a collection of scribbled notes.

What the notes contained...was nothing short of disturbing.

"Well? What does it say?"

Hinata squinted at the topmost paper, and swallowed in dry throat.

"I have forgotten the first commandment: thou shalt do no harm." "If the eyes are the window to the soul, then I must be blind."

"It just goes on and on like this."

"So the doc lost his fucking mind. Great."

"Shh! Is there nothing else that's...coherent, Hina-chan?" Miko asked, strangely reluctant to read the notes herself.

"This one says 'And when the world remembers, that world will cease to be.'"

"The fuck does that mean?"

"I...don't know. The rest are just random words, scribbled on top of each other, and some parts are crossed out entirely."

Hinata's blood ran cold, staring at the word "HELP" written over and over in red ink. It looked like the last thing Doctor Fujiwara had written before whatever befell him happened.

She suddenly felt a strong desire to get out of that house.

"Doctor Fujiwara! Fujiwara-sensei! Sensei, are you home? It's Mori Hinata!"

Craning her neck, Hinata could see a light on in Doctor Fujiwara's upstairs living space, which made a change from the dark, lonely places she'd explored so far.

Meanwhile, Miko tried the front door to the small medical practice.

"Ugh, it's latched shut from the inside!"

Doctor Fujiwara wasn't answering, either. Perhaps this was another dead end after all...

"Hey! Nerds! Over here!"

The girls jumped, startled by the sudden appearance of a skinny boy with a shock of blond hair waving at them through the mist.

Miko smiled broadly at the new arrival, her cheeks a little pinker than before.

"Ryu-kun! It's so good to see you!"

Hinata nodded; she wasn't Ryuji Kokei's biggest fan, but was glad he was okay. And more help on their search couldn't hurt.

Ryuji had a familiar story to tell: he woke up that morning, only to find that everyone around him was gone and a strange, heavy fog had engulfed the town.

"...I tried calling people, including my folks on the mainland, but as you know the signal here's shit even at the best of times. Guess what? Turns out all lines are dead. There's no phone, no internet, nothing."

Miko and Hinata exchanged a worried glance: more and more, this was beginning to feel like a concerted attempt to cut off Nekojima from the rest of the world.

"So, I assume you two have some kind of plan?"

While Miko and Hinata stood frozen in terror, Ryuji's more robust instinct of self-preservation kicked into action. His high-pitched scream, followed by a mad dash for the door, snapped everyone back to reality.

Hinata and Miko could feel the thing's baleful yellow glare burning holes their backs, and could picture its cold, inhuman hands reaching out for them.

They ran without looking back. To do so would be to invite madness.

An even deeper darkness had descended out of nowhere, as if night had fallen while they were inside the restaurant. The fog made it impossible to see further than the end of the street, but they ran on, blind and terrified.

The shuffling of unearthly feet followed them.

When a strong hand that was in no way human gripped her arm, Miko felt her sanity begin to fray. Another hand covered in rotting paint was reaching over her shoulder, beginning to close over her mouth.

Miko let out a piercing wail and twisted in her captor's grip, until her arm felt like it might come out of its socket. Useless; it might as well have been an iron shackle.

Bright spots exploded in Hinata's vision as she turned to see her friend's terror-glazed eyes staring back at her as the monster tightened its grasp. She looked around for some sort of weapon she could use, anything at all, but there was nothing.

"Ryuji! Help! It's got Miko!" she yelled, but the boy was already putting as much distance between himself and their pursuers as he could.

"RYUJI?!"

"Out of the way!"

"I think we should go up to see Tomoko - if anyone can shed some light on what's happening, it'll be her. I just hope she's all right..."

"Of course she is! She's the priestess of Lady Toomo!" Miko said firmly.

She refused to believe that Nekojima's divine protector had abandoned them! No, Tomoko-san would be fine, and Hinata was right: they needed some...expert help. If Doctor Minoru was in trouble...

"Hey, check it out: Ikuradon's open!"

"But - it was locked when I came down!"

Miko's heart shot up in her throat; could her family be back?! She rushed ahead of the rest of the group, eager to see.

Someone had been inside the Utagawa sushi restaurant, but Miko was quite sure it wasn't her folks. Nor anyone else she could think of.

That was because she couldn't think who would place several old, broken mannequins in the middle of Ikuradon, or why. It felt like some kind of bad joke.

Meanwhile, Hinata felt the blood turn to ice in her veins: something about those mannequins looked disturbingly familiar, like that brief glimpse she'd caught of something in the fog.

"No - it can't be..."

"Huh?"

"I...I think I saw one of these things earlier...well, something like them, anyway."

"You saw a creepy mannequin? Where?! Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because I wasn't sure what I saw. I thought I must've imagined it!"

"And now you think you saw a mannequin. In the middle of the road?"

"No, because mannequins don't move around on their own. But it looked a lot like this."

"You two can stand here talking crazy shit all you want, I think I'm gonna head back outside -"

Ryuji wasn't overly impressed with the idea of traipsing across the island in that spooky fog - not that he was afraid, obviously; it just sounded like a lot of work.

Still, it wasn't like he had anywhere else to be, and though he wouldn't admit it to those two, he didn't really want to be alone.

"At least we don't have to go to school!"

"Seriously? That's what you care about right now?"

"Hey, I had a test coming up I hadn't studied for!"

"Ryuji-kun is just trying to stay positive, Hina-chan. We could use a little positivity."

Hinata sighed; even in the middle of a crisis, her friend couldn't resist fawning over Kokei. Miko was great, but had terrible taste in boys.

"I suppose we should move on, since we can't check in on Doctor Fujiwara..."

"I could probably get us inside."

"The door is latched shut, Ryuji."

"Yeah, so? I can use the fence to get onto the balcony, then I should be able to get in through one of those open windows."

"Oooh!"

"I'm not sure that's a good idea -"

Ryuji did; in fact, it might just make this whole thing a little interesting.

*gasp* "Be careful, Ryu-kun!"

"Yeah; remember our doctor is unavailable, in case you fall and break something!"

Ryuji rolled his eyes; he'd done more dangerous stunts than this sneaking in and out of his grandparents' hotel. He was fully showing off now, which helped distract him from the nagging fear at the back of his mind.

"See, what did I tell you? Piece of cake."