Chapter 8: A Sister's Confession

Chapter 8: A Sister's Confession

The wait for Jenna was a new and exquisite form of torture. For twenty-two agonizing hours, Remi was a prisoner under observation. The television remained off, the laptop screen stayed dark. The malevolent energy in the apartment, which had previously manifested as a chaotic, attention-seeking force, had now refined itself into a quiet, suffocating pressure. It was waiting, too. It knew company was coming.

Remi huddled in her bedroom, dozing in fits and starts in a chair wedged against the door, waking with a jolt at every creak of the building's old bones. She didn't dare sleep in her bed. She couldn't shake the image of the childish scrawl on the living room wall, a possessive claim that made the idea of unconsciousness feel like a suicidal risk.

When the frantic buzzing of the intercom finally came, it was so sudden and loud that Remi let out a small scream. She scrambled to the panel, her hands shaking as she pressed the 'talk' button.

"Jenna?" she croaked.

"It's me! Buzz me up, I'm triple-parked and my suitcase weighs a ton." Even through the tinny speaker, Jenna's voice was a tidal wave of real-world energy, a sound that didn't belong in this tomb.

Relief and terror warred in Remi’s chest as she unlocked the lobby door. She undid the locks on her own door and stood in the entryway, a ghost waiting for her own haunting to be validated.

Jenna burst in a moment later, a whirlwind of airport air, faint perfume, and frantic concern. She dropped her rolling suitcase with a thud, her bright flight attendant uniform looking impossibly crisp and clean in the grim apartment. Her eyes, wide and worried, took in Remi’s appearance—the shadowed eyes, the rumpled clothes, the tremor in her hands—and her confident demeanor softened into shock.

"Oh, Remi," she breathed, pulling her sister into a tight, fierce hug. "You look like you haven't slept in a year."

Remi stiffened in her embrace, her gaze darting over Jenna’s shoulder into the living room. "It's in there," she whispered, her voice thin and brittle.

Jenna pulled back, holding Remi by the shoulders. "Okay, talk to me. And I mean really talk. What the hell is going on? Someone broke in? Is that it? Did you call the police?" Her mind was clearly scrambling for a logical foothold, a rational explanation for her sister's terrified, hysterical phone call.

"It wasn't a person, Jenna." Remi's voice was flat, exhausted. "Come see."

She led her sister into the living room. The first thing Jenna saw was the armchair, still sitting at its bizarre angle in the middle of the floor, the ugly scuff marks marring the laminate.

"Okay, weird," Jenna admitted, her brow furrowing. "Did you move that?"

"No," Remi said simply. "It did. Mrs. Millar from downstairs complained about the noise. Scraping furniture across the floor all night."

Jenna’s gaze flickered from the chair to Remi's face, a flicker of doubt still warring with concern. "Remi, maybe you were sleepwalking? You've been under a lot of stress..."

"Look at the wall."

Jenna followed her sister’s pointed finger. Her breath caught in her throat. The two enormous, childishly scrawled words in waxy red seemed to pulse with malice in the dim light.

MY TURN.

"Jesus Christ," Jenna whispered, taking a step back. "Okay. Okay, that's not sleepwalking. Remi, someone is messing with you. A stalker? Did you give your key to anyone?" She was still searching, desperately, for a human culprit.

"No one has a key but you," Remi said, her gaze drifting to the coffee table. "It was her."

Jenna finally looked at the doll. It sat in the center of the table, a silent, impassive monarch on its throne. It looked exactly as she remembered it: old, delicate, vaguely creepy. Just a doll. She took a tentative step closer, her skepticism resurfacing.

"Remi, honey, it's just a doll. It's made of wood and porcelain. It can't write on walls or move furniture." She reached out a hesitant hand, as if to touch it, to prove its inanimate nature to them both.

The moment her fingertips were an inch from the doll's silk kimono, it happened.

WHAM!

The sound was like a gunshot in the confined space. The bedroom door, which Remi had left ajar, slammed shut with impossible, violent force. Jenna yelped and snatched her hand back, her heart leaping into her throat.

Before she could even process it, a deafening cacophony erupted from the kitchen.

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM-WHAM-WHAM!

Every single cupboard door and drawer slammed shut in a rapid, percussive succession, a sound like a giant, angry poltergeist having a tantrum. The violent bangs echoed off the walls, one after another, a volley of supernatural rage. The closet door by the entryway slammed shut. The bathroom door down the hall slammed shut. The small metal door of the medicine cabinet rattled in its frame with a final, vicious CLANG!

And then, silence.

A profound, ringing silence, thick with the aftermath of impossible power.

The sisters were frozen. Remi was pressed back against the wall, her eyes wide with a terror that was sickeningly familiar. But Jenna… Jenna had dropped to her knees, her hands covering her mouth, her face a mask of ashen disbelief. The globetrotting, seen-it-all flight attendant was gone. In her place was a terrified young woman whose rational world had just been systematically, violently demolished in under five seconds.

Tears streamed from her eyes, silent tracks of pure, unadulterated fear. Her gaze was locked on the doll, which sat serene and unmoved amidst the psychic wreckage it had just caused.

"Oh, god," Jenna sobbed, her voice a choked, horrified whisper. "Oh my god, Remi. It's real."

Remi slid down the wall to sit on the floor, her own tears finally falling in exhausted relief. "I told you," she whispered.

Jenna looked up, her face streaked with tears and dawning guilt. "I'm so sorry," she cried, crawling the few feet to her sister and grabbing her hands. Her own were ice cold. "I'm so, so sorry. I didn't listen. I thought you were just being… you know. Anxious."

"What is it, Jenna?" Remi asked, her voice pleading. "Where did you really get it?"

Jenna’s composure crumbled completely. The confession spilled out of her between ragged, guilt-ridden sobs. "It was a temple," she said, her voice shaking. "A little ruined one, way out in the countryside. I found it in a dusty little shrine inside, all alone."

She took a shuddering breath. "There was an old woman there, tending the grounds. She saw me with it. I tried to ask her about it, using the translation app on my phone. I thought… I thought she said it was a kirei doll."

"What does that mean?"

"'Beautiful' or 'kind,'" Jenna whispered, squeezing Remi's hands so tightly it hurt. "But my Japanese is terrible, Remi. The connection was bad. I got the words mixed up. She didn't say kirei."

Jenna looked from Remi’s desperate face to the silent doll on the table, her own eyes reflecting the same terror she now saw in her sister’s.

"She said it was kanashii."

"Kanashii?" Remi repeated, the foreign word feeling alien on her tongue.

Jenna nodded, a fresh wave of tears spilling down her cheeks. "It means 'sad.' She said it was a very sad doll. And she warned me. She said… she said it clings." She choked on the word. "Shiritsuku. It clings to whoever takes it from its home."

The truth landed in the silent room with the force of a physical blow. It wasn't just a haunting. It wasn't a random evil. It was a curse of profound, clinging sadness. A sorrow so ancient and powerful it had followed her sister halfway across the world, had refused to be thrown away, and was now holding them both hostage.

Jenna's prank hadn't just brought a creepy souvenir into their lives. She had stolen a vessel of eternal loneliness from its resting place, and in doing so, had offered it a new home. She had offered it Remi.