The air in the Otsuka Sanatorium didn't just feel cold anymore; it felt heavy, as if the oxygen had been replaced by the weight of a stagnant, deep-sea trench.
Seijirou stood frozen, the phantom pressure of the translucent, missing-fingernail hands around his waist sending a primal alarm through his nervous system.
In the world of the supernatural, there is a classification of entity far more tragic and deceptive than a mere ghost or a vengeful wraith: the Living Spirit.
Unlike other types of spirits who are bound by their hatred or their final moments of agony, Living Spirits are anomalies of denial.
They are the souls of those who died so suddenly, or under such traumatic circumstances, that their mind fractured, and they simply forgot that they had died.
Then, driven by an absolute, subconscious refusal to face the void, they continue to believe, with a conviction that borders on a divine law, that they are still breathing, still warm, and still part of the waking world.
