The artifact felt cold beneath my fingertips—far colder than any stone should be in the humid air of the Kyoto research facility. I leaned closer, my headlamp casting harsh white light across the carved surface. Ancient kanji spiraled inward toward a center point that seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it.
"Ryan, you should pack it up for the night." Dr. Tanaka's voice echoed from somewhere behind me in the storage vault. "It's past midnight."
I didn't respond. Something about the pattern pulled at my attention, a geometric impossibility that my archaeologist's brain couldn't quite parse. My fingers traced the innermost ring, following the spiral.
The stone pulsed.
Not metaphorically—it pulsed, like a heartbeat against my palm. Heat replaced cold in an instant. The kanji began to glow with a sickly green luminescence that had nothing to do with my headlamp.
"Dr. Tanaka, are you seeing this—"
The world inverted.
That's the only way I can describe it. Reality folded inside out like a sock being turned, and I fell through the space where the floor used to be. My stomach lurched. My vision blurred into streaks of color and darkness. The smell of sterile research facility air became thick, organic decay.
Then I hit ground.
Hard.
I gasped, lungs burning as if I'd been holding my breath for minutes rather than seconds. Cool dirt pressed against my cheek. Grass—actual grass, not the manicured lawn outside the facility—tickled my face. I pushed myself up, spitting soil from my mouth.
Where the hell—
The research vault was gone. Dr. Tanaka was gone. The artifact was gone.
I knelt in a small clearing surrounded by massive trees that definitely didn't exist in modern Kyoto. The trunks were easily three meters thick, their branches forming a canopy so dense that only fragments of moonlight penetrated to the forest floor. Everything smelled wrong—too clean, too wild, absent of any industrial taint.
My phone. I fumbled for my pocket, pulled out my smartphone. No signal. No GPS. The screen's glow seemed obscene in the darkness, and I quickly dimmed it. The time read 12:47 AM, same as when I'd been examining the artifact.
"Hello?" My voice sounded small in the vast silence. "Dr. Tanaka? Anyone?"
Nothing. Not even the sounds you'd expect from a forest—no insects, no birds. Just an oppressive, watchful quiet.
I stood slowly, every rational part of my brain trying to construct an explanation. Hallucinogen on the artifact? Elaborate prank? Some kind of accident that knocked me unconscious and transported me to a remote location?
None of it made sense.
A branch snapped behind me.
I spun, my archaeologist's reflexes pathetically inadequate for actual danger. In the shadows between two trees, something moved. Not with the gait of an animal. Not with the posture of a human.
It shuffled forward into a shaft of moonlight, and my mind recoiled from what I saw.
The thing had once been human—or wore the rough shape of one. Its skin hung in gray, mottled tatters. One eye socket was empty, the other contained a milky orb that fixed on me with unmistakable hunger. Its jaw hung at an unnatural angle, revealing broken teeth and a tongue that had gone black with rot.
"No," I whispered, backing away. "No, that's not—"
It lunged.
Fast. Far faster than something that looked half-decomposed had any right to move. I threw myself sideways, barely avoiding its grasp. Dead fingers scraped across my jacket, and even through the fabric, I felt an unnatural cold.
I ran.
Branches whipped at my face. Roots tried to trip me. Behind me, I could hear it coming—that shuffling gait interspersed with bursts of inhuman speed. My lungs burned. My legs, used to nothing more strenuous than climbing library ladders, screamed in protest.
I broke through a line of bushes and nearly fell into a ravine. I caught myself on a tree trunk, gasping, and risked a glance back.
The creature emerged from the undergrowth, its head cocking at an angle no living neck could achieve. In the moonlight, I could see its torso was torn open, ribs visible through desiccated flesh. But it moved. It moved, driven by something that had nothing to do with biology.
In my graduate studies, I'd read dozens of accounts of yōkai—Japanese spirits and demons. Folklore. Mythology. Stories to explain the inexplicable in an pre-scientific age.
The thing advancing on me was no story.
My back pressed against the tree. Nowhere left to run—not with the ravine behind me. The creature's working eye glinted with what might have been satisfaction. Its broken jaw worked, producing a wet, grinding sound that could have been laughter.
It raised one clawed hand.
And in that moment, as death shambled toward me wearing the rotten skin of a man, my stomach—my actual stomach—cramped.
Not the dull ache of hunger or the sharp pain of indigestion. This was something else entirely. Heat bloomed in my gut, spreading through my abdomen like I'd swallowed burning coals. I doubled over, gasping.
The creature paused, its head tilting the other direction as if confused.
The heat intensified, becoming something close to agony. And with it came hunger. Not for food in any normal sense. My eyes fixed on the creature, and for a split second, I didn't see a monster.
I saw meat.
The thought horrified me even as my stomach cramped again, almost eager. The creature reached for me—