The Smiler

  The blue light of Kayo's monitor cast an eerie glow across his darkened bedroom. Outside, the autumn wind whispered through the ancient trees of Kamakura, but Kayo noticed nothing beyond the endless scroll of supernatural content flooding his screen. Video after video—orbs in abandoned hospitals, EVP recordings from condemned buildings, shaky footage of alleged apparitions—blurred together until his eyes grew heavy.

  That's when the thumbnail caught his attention: "Strange black mist in abandoned house in Tokyo."

  "Probably another fake," he muttered, clicking play out of habit rather than expectation.

  The video showed the standard fare—an urban explorer with a trembling flashlight navigating the decayed remnants of what was once someone's home. Peeling wallpaper, broken furniture, the occasional startled rat. Kayo's finger hovered over the skip button when something in his peripheral vision caused his heart to stutter.

  "Wait—what was that?"

  Rewinding to the 6:20 mark, he paused and leaned closer to the screen. His breath caught in his throat.

  There, framed in a cracked window pane, stood a figure so utterly wrong that Kayo's mind struggled to process what he was seeing. A humanoid silhouette, composed not of flesh but of absolute darkness—a void cut precisely into the shape of a man. Where a face should have been was only smooth obsidian nothingness, interrupted by a single grotesque feature: a smile that stretched impossibly wide, lips pulled back to reveal crimson-slicked teeth arranged in too-perfect rows. The contrast of that vivid red against the lightless body sent a primal tremor down Kayo's spine.

  "This has to be edited," he whispered, rewinding again.

  He played the footage once more, frame by frame. The figure was still there, but now—Kayo's blood turned to ice water in his veins—the head had rotated several degrees toward the camera. The smile had widened, stretching beyond anatomical possibility, crimson dripping from the corners.

  Another replay. The figure now pressed against the glass, its featureless face pressed flat against the window, that hideous grin maintaining its perfect curve despite the distortion of its head. Blood now seeped from between each tooth, trickling down the glass.

  Kayo's fingers shook as he clicked replay again. The figure now stood inches from the camera, filling the entire frame. No longer confined to the window, it reached toward the lens with elongated fingers that ended in needle-sharp points.

  "No—this isn't possible," Kayo gasped, slamming his laptop closed.

  The screen of his desktop computer flickered to life of its own accord.

  There it stood, no longer contained within a video frame. The thing stared out from Kayo's desktop background—where a photo of Mount Fuji had been moments before. Its smile had transformed into something more horrific: the lips had split at the corners, extending the grin up past where ears should be, nearly encircling the smooth black oval of its head. Each tooth now appeared jagged, dripping with viscous crimson that pooled at the bottom of the screen.

  Kayo lunged for the power cord, yanking it from the wall. The screen should have died instantly—but instead, the image grew brighter, the creature's form becoming more defined as the rest of the room dimmed around Kayo.

  "What the actual f—"

  His voice died as he scrambled backward, knocking his chair over in his haste. A sudden, desperate thought seized him—he needed evidence, needed to document what he was seeing before it vanished. With trembling hands, he grabbed a sketchbook and pencil from his desk drawer and began drawing frantically, his eyes darting between the impossibly active unplugged screen and his paper.

  The creature's outline. The absence of features. That terrible, bleeding smile.

  As the graphite scratched across the paper, Kayo noticed something horrifying. The more details he added to his drawing, the more the creature on his screen seemed to recede, as though being pulled into the page through Kayo's frantic strokes. By the time he finished, writing "THE SMILER" in bold letters at the top of the page, his computer screen had returned to black.

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  Silence fell over the room, broken only by Kayo's ragged breathing.

  Hours passed as Kayo huddled against his headboard, the sketch placed face-down on his desk. He rationalized, dismissed, and doubted what he had seen until exhaustion finally overcame terror, dragging him into unwilling sleep.

  The dream began normally enough—walking through his school hallway, empty after hours. But the fluorescent lights overhead began to flicker, and the corridor stretched impossibly long before him. At the far end stood a figure of perfect darkness.

  It beckoned with one elongated finger, its crimson smile the only feature in the void of its face. Each time the lights flickered, it moved closer, never appearing to take a step, simply occupying less distance with each pulse of darkness.

  When it stood before him, the smell hit Kayo first—metallic and sweet, like copper pennies soaked in honey. It reached for him with fingers that seemed too numerous, too jointed, closing around his wrist with the cold finality of a manacle.

  The hallway dissolved around them, replaced by a door materialized from the darkness. It was an ordinary wooden door, except for the dark liquid seeping from beneath it, forming a growing pool around their feet.

  The Smiler pushed the door open.

  Kayo tried to scream, but horror stole his voice.

  The room beyond was his family's living room, but transformed into an abattoir. His mother hung suspended from the ceiling, her body flayed open from throat to pelvis, organs glistening wetly as they spilled from the cavity. His father was propped in his favorite armchair, head tilted at an impossible angle, his throat opened so deeply that his head was attached by only a thread of spine. His eyes had been removed, replaced with small, grinning mouths that matched The Smiler's own.

  Along the walls, displayed like grotesque trophies, were the remains of everyone Kayo had ever formed a connection with—distant relatives, teachers, even the convenience store clerk who sometimes gave him free snacks. Each had been arranged in postures of agony, their bodies manipulated into unnatural contortions, skin peeled back in precise patterns that formed smiling faces across their exposed muscle tissue.

  The metallic scent was overwhelming now, thick enough to taste. Kayo's legs gave way beneath him, plunging his knees into the inch-deep blood that covered the floor.

  "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" he screamed, tears cutting clean tracks down his blood-spattered face.

  The Smiler's laugh began as a low vibration that Kayo felt in his chest before he heard it. It built until it filled the room, a sound like wet stones grinding against each other, punctuated by high-pitched keening that reminded Kayo of the neighborhood cats when they fought at night—but drawn out, warped, wrong.

  As the laughter subsided, The Smiler pointed to the far wall. Letters began to appear, not written but carved directly into the plaster, blood welling from each savage stroke:

  "COME FIND ME"

  A bloody smiley face materialized beneath the words, its simplistic curve a mockery of the eldritch grin of The Smiler.

  Kayo bolted upright in bed, a scream tearing from his throat. Sweat plastered his shirt to his back as he gasped for air, his heart hammering against his ribs. Disoriented, he stumbled from his bed and threw open his bedroom door, nearly falling down the stairs in his desperate rush to the living room.

  His mother looked up from the couch, startled by his sudden appearance. A bowl of popcorn rested in her lap, his father beside her with a beer in hand, both illuminated by the gentle glow of their favorite Friday night movie.

  "Kayo? What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost," his mother said, concern etching her features.

  Relief washed over him in dizzying waves. "Just—just a nightmare," he managed, his voice hoarse.

  Back in his room, Kayo paced, unable to shake the lingering terror. The dream had felt more real than any nightmare he'd ever experienced. Even now, he could smell the metallic tang of blood, feel the cold touch of The Smiler's fingers around his wrist.

  His eyes fell on the sketch he'd made, still face-down on his desk. With trembling fingers, he turned it over.

  The drawing had changed. The crude outline he'd sketched now contained intricate details he knew he hadn't drawn. The smile was more defined, rendered with such precision that it seemed to pulse with malevolence on the page. And in the corner, written in what looked disturbingly like dried blood rather than graphite, were the words:

  "I'M WAITING."

  In that moment, staring at the message that couldn't possibly exist, Kayo made his decision. Throughout his life, he had been the observer, the invisible one, the boy who merely existed without impact. For once, he would take action.

  "I have to find it," he whispered, his fingers closing around the sketch, crumpling it slightly. "I have to find it and destroy it before it comes for everyone I love."

  As if in response, the shadows in the corners of his room seemed to deepen, and for just a moment, Kayo could swear he heard the faint, wet sound of something smiling.