The Hunt

  The digital clock on Kayo's desk blinked 3:42 AM as he hunched over his laptop, eyes bloodshot from hours of research. Dozens of browser tabs displayed obscure forums, occult websites, and ancient religious texts. His notebook was filled with frantic scribbles, theories crossed out, symbols hastily sketched.

  "Come on, come on," he muttered, scrolling through another page of demonology. "There has to be something."

  When he finally found it, the revelation came not from some scholarly source but from an anonymous post on a paranormal forum, buried seventeen pages deep in a thread about entities that manifest through visual media:

  "What you're describing sounds like what my grandmother in Okinawa called a 'Warai-oni'—a smiling demon. They're not Japanese in origin—older. Much older. They use images as gateways, strengthening with each viewing. Traditional exorcism methods don't work because they don't possess—they replace. Only way to banish one is to pierce its core with a consecrated object while in its dwelling place. Don't try to fight it alone. Please."

  A reply underneath simply read: "OP hasn't posted in 3 years. Guess we know what happened."

  Kayo's fingers trembled as he closed his laptop. "A consecrated object... something with religious value."

  His father's faith had always been a quiet thing—not something the family discussed often, but present in small ways. The wooden cross that hung in his parents' closet during the rest of the year came out only for Christmas and Easter.

  "That should work," Kayo whispered, glancing at his bedroom door.

  The house was silent as he crept down the hallway to his parents' room. The door hinges whined softly as he pushed it open, freezing him in place. His father stirred, mumbled something unintelligible, then resumed his deep breathing. Kayo slipped inside, navigating by the dim light filtering through the curtains.

  The closet door slid open with a soft hiss. He rummaged through hanging clothes and stacked boxes, trying to disturb nothing. His fingers finally closed around the smooth wood of the cross tucked inside a velvet pouch.

  "Sorry, Dad," he whispered, slipping it into his pocket.

  In the kitchen, Kayo selected the sharpest knife from the block. The metal caught the moonlight as he turned it over in his hand, considering its purpose. Back in his room, he methodically sharpened one end of the cross into a lethal point, wood shavings gathering on his desk.

  As dawn broke, Kayo tested the improvised stake against his thumb. A bead of blood welled up at the slightest pressure. He nodded, satisfied, then packed his backpack: the stake, the kitchen knife as backup, a flashlight, a bottle of water, and the crumpled drawing of The Smiler.

  He dressed in layers despite the mild weather, then slung the backpack over his shoulder, carefully hiding the stake in his waistband.

  "Mom, I'm off to school," he called, his voice impressively steady.

  His mother appeared in the kitchen doorway, coffee mug in hand. "OK, love you, hun. Don't forget we're visiting Grandma this weekend."

  The casual normalcy of her smile made his chest ache. Would he ever see it again?

  "Right. See you later," he managed, closing the door behind him.

  At the train station, Kayo purchased a ticket to Tokyo's northern district with cash he'd been saving for a new game. The train car was nearly empty at this hour, allowing him a seat by the window. As urban sprawl gave way to the densely packed buildings of Tokyo, Kayo rehearsed his plan.

  Finding the house from the video proved easier than expected. The urban explorer had helpfully included landmarks in his footage. The neighborhood had once been middle-class, but economic downturns had transformed it into a neglected area of abandoned properties and makeshift shelters.

  The house itself stood apart—a two-story Western-style building with boarded windows and a sagging roof. Even in daylight, it emanated wrongness, like a wound in the fabric of reality.

  And there—just as in the video—a figure watched from an upstairs window. Not hiding, not lurking, but standing in plain sight. Waiting.

  The Smiler's grin was visible even from the street, a slash of crimson against its void-like form. As Kayo stared, it raised one elongated hand and beckoned him forward with a single crooked finger.

  Kayo's hand found the stake at his waist. "I'm coming for you," he whispered, approaching the house.

  The front door hung off its hinges, covered in faded police tape and graffiti. The moment Kayo crossed the threshold, a wave of disorientation washed over him. He staggered, blinking rapidly as the interior transformed before his eyes.

  Gone was the abandoned, debris-filled home he'd expected. Instead, he stood in an exact replica of his own house in Kamakura—from the arrangement of furniture to the family photos on the walls. Even the scent was the same—his mother's favorite sandalwood incense lingering in the air.

  "What the hell?" he breathed, taking a hesitant step forward.

  The lights flickered once, twice—then darkness engulfed him completely.

  Cold breath tickled the back of his neck.

  Kayo whirled around, fumbling for his flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness to reveal... nothing. Yet the sensation of being watched intensified, pressing against him like a physical weight.

  A whisper came from somewhere to his left: "Kayoooo."

  He swung the flashlight toward the sound. For just an instant, the beam illuminated The Smiler standing in the kitchen doorway, its grin wider than humanly possible, blood now dripping steadily from between needle-like teeth.

  Kayo reached for the stake, but by the time his fingers closed around it, The Smiler had vanished again.

  "Stop hiding!" Kayo shouted, voice cracking. "Show yourself!"

  A giggle answered him—childlike yet ancient, emanating from everywhere and nowhere. The sound circled him like a predator.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Do you want to play?" The voice sounded like his mother's, but distorted, as if spoken underwater.

  Kayo backed against the wall, eyes darting frantically. "You're not real. You can't hurt me."

  "Can't I?"

  Something brushed against his cheek—a cold, wet touch that left a burning sensation. Kayo slapped at it with a strangled cry, his hand coming away smeared with a black, tar-like substance.

  The Smiler appeared at the top of the stairs, its form flickering like a damaged film reel. It crouched on all fours, limbs bent at impossible angles, head rotating a full 180 degrees to maintain eye contact as Kayo edged toward the staircase.

  "I'm not afraid of you," Kayo lied, gripping the stake so tightly his knuckles whitened.

  The creature's smile somehow widened further, splitting its face nearly in half. "Your fear is delicious."

  It skittered sideways along the wall like an insect, defying gravity, then vanished into his parents' bedroom.

  Kayo ascended the stairs slowly, each step creaking beneath his weight. The temperature dropped with every step, his breath soon visible in crystalline puffs before his face.

  When he reached the landing, the hallway stretched before him, impossibly long. Doors lined both sides, despite his house only having three bedrooms. From behind each door came sounds: his mother sobbing, his father screaming, a child laughing, bones breaking, flesh tearing.

  Kayo pressed forward, focusing on the door at the end of the hall—his own bedroom.

  As he passed the first door on his right, it flew open. Inside, he glimpsed his mother suspended from the ceiling by hooks piercing her flesh, her skin methodically peeled away in strips. She turned her flayed face toward him and smiled with The Smiler's teeth.

  "Not real," Kayo choked, tearing his gaze away.

  The next door revealed his father kneeling in a pool of viscera, meticulously removing his own eyes with a spoon. "Look at me, son," he said, holding up the dripping orb. "See what I see."

  Kayo stumbled forward, bile rising in his throat. "Not real, not real, not real."

  Door after door revealed new horrors—each featuring his loved ones in states of impossible torture, each bearing The Smiler's distinctive grin, each reaching for him with desperate, mutilated hands.

  The hallway contracted and expanded around him like a breathing thing. The walls wept black fluid. The floor beneath his feet softened, becoming spongy and warm, pulsating with an unseen heartbeat.

  Halfway down the corridor, The Smiler appeared directly in front of him, its face inches from his own. The stench of rot and copper flooded Kayo's nostrils.

  "You could join us," it whispered, voice now a chorus of everyone Kayo had ever loved. "Be part of something greater."

  Kayo thrust the stake forward, but The Smiler dissolved into oily black smoke that slithered between his fingers, reforming behind him.

  "Too slow."

  A burning pain lanced through Kayo's shoulder. He cried out, spinning to find The Smiler licking its fingers, now coated in Kayo's blood. Five perfect puncture wounds marked his shoulder where it had grabbed him.

  The chase intensified. The Smiler would appear, Kayo would lunge, and it would dissipate only to reappear elsewhere. Each failed attempt cost Kayo—a slash across his cheek, an invisible weight crushing his chest, visions of his family's desecrated bodies seared into his mind's eye.

  "Your soul smells sweet," The Smiler taunted, now crawling along the ceiling directly above Kayo. "I'll wear your skin like a glove when I visit your mother tonight."

  Rage surged through Kayo, cutting through his terror. He feinted left, then pivoted right as The Smiler descended, driving the stake upward—

  And hit nothing but air.

  A mocking laugh echoed from his bedroom at the end of the hall. Kayo staggered forward, blood dripping into his eyes from a wound he couldn't remember receiving.

  When he finally reached his bedroom door, he found it plastered with photographs—images of himself sleeping, eating, at school, in the shower. Thousands of them, documenting every private moment of his life. In each photo, barely perceptible in the background, stood The Smiler, watching.

  "I've always been with you," came its voice from inside the room.

  Kayo pushed the door open.

  His bedroom appeared exactly as he'd left it that morning—bed unmade, research scattered across his desk, closet door slightly ajar. The Smiler sat casually on his bed, legs crossed, looking almost human except for its void-like composition and that eternal, bleeding grin.

  It patted the mattress beside it. "Sit with me. We have so much to discuss."

  Instead, Kayo charged forward with a primal scream, stake raised high.

  The Smiler moved with impossible speed, but this time, Kayo anticipated it. He pivoted mid-stride, changing direction to intercept the creature as it materialized beside his desk.

  The sharpened cross plunged into The Smiler's chest with a sound like tearing silk.

  For a moment, time seemed to stop. The Smiler looked down at the stake protruding from its chest, head tilting at an inquisitive angle. Then its form began to convulse, rippling like disturbed water.

  A scream erupted from its mouth—not a human scream, but a cacophony of frequencies that shattered Kayo's mirror and made his ears bleed. The sound contained multitudes: the wails of infants, the death rattles of the elderly, the sobs of the tormented, all layered into a symphony of absolute anguish.

  The Smiler's body expanded, black ichor spraying from the wound. Its limbs elongated, bones cracking audibly as they reformed into grotesque new configurations. The crimson smile stretched wider, wider, until it encircled its entire head like a gruesome halo.

  With its final moments, The Smiler lunged forward, seizing Kayo's left wrist in a grip of impossible strength. It pulled his hand toward that engulfing maw of teeth and darkness.

  Kayo tried to wrench away, but too late. The jaws clamped down with devastating force. Pain exploded up his arm as teeth sheared through flesh, tendons, and bone with horrific efficiency.

  "AAAGHHH!" Kayo screamed, falling backward as The Smiler released him, his left hand completely severed at the wrist.

  Blood fountained from the stump in rhythmic pulses. Through a haze of agony and shock, Kayo watched The Smiler collapse in on itself, folding inward like origami constructed of night until nothing remained but a small puddle of black fluid that sizzled and evaporated.

  "DEAR GOD MY HAND ITS GONE!" Kayo stared in disbelief at the ragged stump where his hand had been moments before. The severed appendage lay on the floor nearby, fingers still twitching slightly.

  Fighting against the encroaching darkness of shock, Kayo yanked his shirt off and wrapped it tightly around the wound, crimson immediately soaking through the fabric.

  Reality shifted around him once more. The pristine replica of his bedroom dissolved, revealing the true state of the abandoned house—moldering walls, collapsed ceiling, debris-strewn floor. Sunlight streamed through broken windows, illuminating dust motes and the stark absence of any supernatural presence.

  Clutching his makeshift bandage, Kayo stumbled down the rotting staircase and out into the street. The bright daylight seemed obscenely cheerful compared to the horror he'd just experienced.

  He staggered down the sidewalk, vision tunneling, each heartbeat sending fresh pain and dizziness crashing through him. Pedestrians stepped aside, some staring in shock, others averting their eyes.

  A middle-aged woman in a business suit finally stopped. "OH MY GOD YOUR HAND IS MISSING DO YOU NEED HELP?"

  Kayo tried to form words, but shock and blood loss were taking their toll. "Y-yes p-p-please," he managed before his legs gave way beneath him.

  As consciousness faded, Kayo's last thought was of the drawing still in his backpack. Was it still there? Or had it vanished along with The Smiler?