Akiko got out of the bath quickly, and pulled on the door. It opened as easily as ever, and the air outside was cool on her wet skin. She grabbed a towel from the rack and began drying herself. She could feel her heart racing, and breath was coming in gasps, almost panting. Slowly, she forced herself to calm down. She had just fallen asleep in the bath, and dreamed the whole thing. It was just a strange dream, and nothing to really worry about.

The small flat’s bathroom was across the entrance hall from the kitchen, and the only other room, with a tatami-matted floor, served all other purposes. It was six mats in size, so not too small, but Akiko did not want to bring any of her friends, and certainly not Naoyuki, here. Still wrapped in the towel, she pushed the table to one side and laid out the futon, shaking her pyjamas out of the middle.

In her pyjamas and curled up in her bed, things seemed a lot safer. Her heart rate was back to normal, and the strange dream she’d had in the bath was just that. Outside, it was still raining heavily, the wind driving it against the window, but she was safe inside, and warm.

With a crash, the window blew open, and the howling wind rushed into the room, bringing the rain with it. Akiko sprang out of bed, and pushed the window shut again, against the force of the storm. She made sure the catch was properly fixed before returning to bed.

As she was drifting off, she saw movement across the room, colours and metals shifting, two lights in the darkness, pointing in her direction.

The bang of the window blowing open again jerked her awake. There was no snake in the room, but there was a lot of rain, and she got up to close the window once more. This time she looked carefully at the catch as she closed it, but she couldn’t see any problem; she made doubly sure that it was closed properly before returning to bed.

She had almost drifted off when a small sound pulled her back towards consciousness. She opened her eyes, to a wall of colour mere centimetres from her face. She could see individual scales, glittering in the light that filtered in from the street. Slowly, she turned to look upwards, at the great ophidian head hanging above her, its tongue flashing in the darkness.

The crash of the window slamming into its frame and the howl of the wind brought her awake again. Staggering upright, she pushed the window shut, closed the latch, and then found some string to tie the latch down. The wind and rain had yet to die down at all, and even through the closed window they were loud. She decided that it was the sound of the rain that was making her dream of the snake.

She lay down again, hoping for some undisturbed sleep.

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Akiko yawned as she looked at her monitor. The storm had raged all night, and that window had kept coming open, no matter how she tried to seal it shut. She had kept dreaming of the snake, as well, and she didn’t feel that the sleep she had got had been very restful. Fortunately, she wasn’t the only one with such a problem.

“Dreadful storm last night.” Satomi looked sleepy, and stifled a yawn as she sat down. “It kept waking me up.”

Megumi looked up from her desk.

“I couldn’t hear it while I was in bed. Lucky me. But it was terrible, wasn’t it?”

Akiko nodded her agreement, and, when she failed to stifle the yawn, quickly covered her mouth with her hand.

“You look even worse than I feel,” Satomi observed. Akiko nodded again.

“One of my windows kept coming open in the wind, so I had to keep getting up to close it. I feel like I hardly slept.” Satomi pulled a face.

“You want to get the landlord to look at that.” Akiko knew she was right, but her landlord was not renowned for fixing problems quickly. In addition, when she had looked in the morning, she couldn’t for the life of her find anything actually wrong with the catch. The window just should not have been coming open.

“Well, I guess I need to get on.” Akiko tried to focus on the screen as she said that, but the dull ache behind her eyes got worse, and she pressed her fingers to her temples in an attempt to ease it. Resting her head in her hands, she looked at the words on the screen, as meaning seemed to drain away from them, turning them into abstract patterns. She felt her head nodding forward, and quickly sat upright, reaching for the mouse.

A few minutes later, she had to support her head again, as she tried to work out what she was supposed to do with the numbers at the bottom of the report. It was a simple matter of copying them to other places, but her mind was moving too slowly, and she just couldn’t sort out which was supposed to go where.

Her head nodded forward, and she jerked it up, glancing at her coffee cup. Empty. She thought about going to refill it, but she really didn’t have the energy. Her eyes lost their focus as her head fell forward again.

The monitor went dark, as the energy saver kicked in, and the reflection of the office sprang into prominence. Tamao’s iridescent form rose up behind her, the fiery gems of his eyes boring into hers through the monitor. Akiko just stared at it. There was no giant snake in the office, she told herself. People would panic. I’m just falling asleep at my desk.

The surge of panic at that thought jolted her, and she lifted her head. The monitor screen was still blank, but the reflection was of nothing stranger than her colleagues going about their business behind her. Shaking her head in an attempt to get properly awake, she moved the mouse, bringing the figures back, and started work on copying them around.

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“Storm keep you awake?” Naoyuki sounded sympathetic, and certainly looked like he should understand. Akiko just nodded, and sat down heavily in her chair. She ordered a coffee with her food; the caffeine seemed to be the only thing keeping her awake.

“Akiko? Hello?” Naoyuki waved his hand in front of her face.

“Oh, sorry. I really didn’t sleep last night. What about you?”

“The storm woke me up occasionally, but it wasn’t that bad.”

“Your window didn’t keep blowing open, then.” Akiko wasn’t about to mention the dreams.

“No, it didn’t. Anyway, there’s no nomikai tonight; do you want to come round?” Akiko ordered her food to play for time. Naoyuki didn’t like it when she turned his invitations down, and she did enjoy spending the night with him, but she really wasn’t sure she could stay awake. She suspected that Naoyuki would be very unhappy if she fell asleep in flagrante. “Well?”

“I’m really sleepy, sorry. I think I’ll just go home and get a very early night.”

“I could come to you.” For a moment, Akiko panicked.

“Really, I’m just going to be asleep. No fun.” Naoyuki looked very disappointed as he nodded.

“It’s a shame; there are so many evening things I can’t get out of that it’s a pity to lose a free evening.”

“Yes, it is.” Akiko desperately tried to stifle a yawn, and then settled for trying to keep it under control. “But I really don’t think today is viable.” Naoyuki smiled slightly.

“No, maybe not. Try not to fall asleep in the pasta.”

“You think you’re joking.”

Akiko looked around the restaurant as they ate; she wasn’t able to form coherent responses to Naoyuki’s comments, and he’d given up trying. The decor was Western style, with elaborately carved frames around the mirrors on the walls. Looking over Naoyuki’s shoulder, she could see her own face, and she was shocked at just how tired she looked. I look ill, she thought, and old.

She quickly looked away from that mirror, not needing any reminders that her life was flowing away. The one next to it was at the wrong angle to reflect her, and for a moment she couldn’t work out what it was reflecting.

Then she recognised the shrine building at Tamao Shrine, the green copper roof slick and shining with rain as a storm beat silently on it. The trees waved beyond it, leaves dark green against a black sky, and the whole scene was lit by a flash of lightning, harsh shadows falling across the ground, the rippling surfaces of the puddles frozen by the light.

Akiko’s mouth was dry, and the handles of the knife and fork dug into her hands as she gripped them tightly. Her stomach lurched, and then lurched again as lightning flashed once more in the mirror. The shrine building drew closer, or maybe she moved closer to it, and the trees seemed to leak out of the mirror’s frame.

“Akiko? Are you all right?” Naoyuki’s voice broke the spell, and she dragged her head round to look at him.

“I’m fine. Sorry. Just sleepy.”

When she glanced back, the mirror was reflecting the restaurant, as it should.

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Several cups of coffee had done nothing to wake Akiko up, but at least the frequent trips to the toilet had stopped her falling properly asleep. Neither helped with work, however, so she was trying to get through at least an hour without coffee. As the screen swam in front of her eyes, she wasn’t at all sure she would make it.

She shook herself awake, and shifted to get comfortable on the tatami, catching her sleeve out of the way with her left hand as she picked up the brush with her right. Before she could dip it in the ink, however, she noticed a flaw in the paper, a speck of greenish black in the white. She brushed at it, but it seemed to be part of the paper, sticky, grasping at her fingertips as they passed over it. The mark was larger already, now covering half the paper and growing rapidly, the stench of decay rising from it as the lacquer writing desk also began to crumble. Akiko stood up and stepped back, her sleeves becoming heavier as they turned black, the smell filling her nostrils, the rot crossing the floor and devouring her tabi, cold, slimy, and alive underfoot, writhing and trying to push through her toes.

She turned and ran deeper into the shrine, as the groans of the timbers behind her became tortured screams, rotten bases no longer able to support the weight of a roof itself turning to decay, even the copper splitting and falling as scales with the sound of a thousand crashing cars.

Tamao was sleeping on his dais, his scales still shining as she reached him. She tore away the rotten remnants of her kimono and gathered him up in her arms, his skin against hers, cool metal and warm gemstone sliding along her arms and round her stomach as the kami coiled around her, his head resting between her breasts. Even in sleep, the lightning of his tongue played around his mouth, jolting her body and making her gasp for breath.

The decay was rushing to meet her, spreading from the fallen fragments of her clothes, and she stumbled with every step as the floor sagged and cracked under her weight, or flowed away from her, or seized her feet and tried to pull her down. Dragging her feet forward, she moved to where she thought the exit should be, but the shrine was changing as it collapsed.

And then she felt something cool and slimy on her side, and looked down to see tarnish covering the gold and silver of Tamao’s skin as the gemstones cracked and clouded, grey mud oozing out from around them as the lightning tongue turned a sickly green, its touch provoking nausea and making Akiko stagger. She could feel her fingers sinking into the kami’s flesh, as…

“Akiko! Wake up!” The urgent hiss was accompanied by a poke in the ribs, and Akiko brought her head up with a start. Satomi was next to her, looking at the screen. “Pretend you’re showing me something.” Still half asleep, Akiko pointed at the screen, and Satomi nodded. Akiko surreptitiously glanced around the room, but no-one seemed to have noticed.

Her hands were shaking, possibly due to all the coffee she had been drinking, but she decided to have another cup anyway.

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Akiko was entirely on autopilot as she went home, to the point that she had been standing still for over a minute before she realised she had stopped, and long seconds passed before she could work out why she wasn’t walking anymore.

The road ahead of her was completely closed, with workmen all over it testing the drains and digging up sections of the surface. She briefly wondered which politician or bureaucrat had been inconvenienced by the water, before her attention moved on to the question of how she was going to get home.

She knew perfectly well what the best route was: past Tamao Shrine. However, she also knew that she didn’t want to go that way.

It’s just a shrine. I’m just having odd dreams. The weather is even quite good today.

Only the last point carried any conviction; a handful of clouds chased each other across the sky, but the wind wasn’t strong and there was no sign of coming rain. Akiko watched the workmen for a bit longer, and then gathered her courage, breathing deeply to calm herself.

It’s not real. I’m just having strange dreams. Passing the shrine will be perfectly safe. I don’t have to go in. I won’t be attacked. I won’t fall in a flood.

Choosing to believe herself, Akiko turned and made her way up the hill, her pace slowing as she climbed. At the corner where the shrine would come into view she paused, her stomach churning. She realised that she was shaking, but she blamed that on the amount of caffeine she’d drunk during the day.

She darted forward, running round the corner and along the road that followed the edge of the shrine precincts. The green of the trees was particularly vivid after the rain, and the leaves rustled in the breeze, a calming noise like running water.

As she came up to the torii there was a deep noise from within, and her stomach lurched as her heart beat faster. She didn’t stop, keeping running and picking up her pace as the beats of the drum also got faster.

And then she was past the shrine and running down the hill on the other side. Gasping for breath she slowed down, suddenly aware that she might lose her footing and fall. She risked glancing back over her shoulder, but the trees rising into the sky presented no threat. A small flock of birds burst into the sky from them, sweeping through the air over the shrine twice, three times in a rush of wings, and then settling back into the green of the leaves.

Akiko got home without incident, but the first thing she did after taking her shoes off was to look for her map of Kawasaki and check possible routes home from the office, routes that could not take her past the shrine, no matter which roads were blocked. The available options were all longer, of course, but if she stayed on the train for another two stops there was a road that wasn’t too long, with her flat squarely between the station and the shrine.

She put the map out ready to take to work with her the following day.

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The sky was clear the following night, but the wind was picking up as Akiko boarded the train. She didn’t care. She had slept with no dreams to speak of, and, despite being very tired she had got through the day without seeing any giant snakes. And now she was going to go home without going anywhere near the shrine.

The train drew into her usual station, and Akiko stayed there, holding on to the ring and peering out of the window. The chime sounded and the doors closed, but the train didn’t move. As the time stretched out, Akiko felt her nerves in her stomach. Why wasn’t the train moving?

“Your attention please.” The public address system sprang into life. “There appears to be a fault with the train. We will be opening the doors again, and we will make further announcements as we have more information. We apologise for inconveniencing you this evening.” Ripples of muttered conversation passed through the train, and Akiko realised that her fingernails were digging painfully into her palm. As time passed, some people got off the train, but Akiko refused to move.

“Our deepest apologies, but this train is no longer in service. We would like to ask everyone to get off. At this point, we do not know when services out of Tokyo will resume on this line.”

Even then, Akiko was the last off the train, not wanting to admit what had happened. The station announcement said that trains would be run from three stations up the line, and that a bus service would be provided, but even as people began to flow off the platform Akiko found herself accepting her fate. The bus would break down. The roads would be blocked. At least if she just went, it wouldn’t cause trouble for everyone else.

She walked out of the station, and started walking towards the shrine. The wind was still strong, and seemed to be getting even stronger, blowing from behind her as if helping her along.

By the time she reached the shrine, the leaves on the trees were surging like waves at sea, and some had been torn off to dance on the wind, circling round her as she reached the base of the steps.

And the wind changed direction so suddenly that Akiko staggered, lurching towards the steps as the gale started blowing straight into the shrine. She grabbed the central railing to steady herself, and looked up the steps at the torii.

I’m not going in, she thought, and turned away to the path home.

As soon as she started walking the wind shifted again, blowing directly into her face. It was hard to keep her eyes open, and when she did the wind blew grit into them, forcing her to blink and look down. Step by step, she pushed her way forward against the wind, slowly descending the hill.

Abruptly, the air was still, and Akiko stumbled forward, nearly falling. She looked behind her, but the shrine was out of sight already. She stood still for a moment, but then found herself running home, heart pounding.

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The sun shone from a clear blue sky, its rays warm on Akiko’s back as she walked along the road. The cherry trees in the corner park were in full bloom, and the ground was covered with blue sheets, which in turn were filled with groups of people, many in kimono, enjoying the season. A few waved to Akiko as she passed, and she smiled and waved back, but she couldn’t stop.

A gentle breeze kept her cool as she began to climb the hill, and her sense of happiness kept bubbling up within her, making her smile. The people who passed her all smiled back, which merely added to her sense of well-being. The road passed through a tunnel of maple trees, their red leaves forming a ceiling above and a carpet below, and they rustled quietly under Akiko’s feet as she continued on her way.

The camellias at the base of the steps into the shrine were in full bloom, a deep, rich red against the dark green of the leaves, and the dark stone of the torii stood out starkly against the clear sky. Akiko climbed the steps, bowing as she passed under the torii and entered the shrine precincts proper. The water was cool on her hands and sweet in her mouth as she purified herself, but despite the sun she shivered slightly as she crossed the grounds, keeping to the worn stone path.

The green roof of the shrine seemed to glow in the sunlight, the weather-darkened wood of the structure somehow welcoming, peaceful. Akiko found herself smiling as she climbed the steps and grasped the bell rope, shaking it to wake the kami. The bell sounded above her…

…And darkness fell over the shrine, the air turning cold, her feet freezing in a moment. She could see nothing, although she could feel the rough wood of the shrine’s veranda under her bare feet, and feel the cold wind blowing her night dress against her body. As her eyes adjusted, the shrine came into view in the dim light that filtered in from the street. The sliding doors at the front of the shrine building were shut, the donation box locked inside. Akiko shivered again, and turned to look around the empty precincts.

I’m dreaming the shrine again, she thought. At least there’s no snake this time. She shivered again, and wrapped her arms around her as she walked along the veranda, peering into the darkness and waiting for something to happen. She remembered her other dreams, of great trees or fires or rot and decay, and marvelled a little at how mundane everything seemed. As far as she could see in the darkness, everything was just as it was at the real shrine; she could even make out Shiraishi’s house, something that normally seemed to be absent from the dreams. Her feet were going numb, and she stamped them, flapping her arms to warm up. Going back to the front of the shrine, she tapped on the doors.

“Hey, Tamao!” she called. “Are you going to come out?” There was no response, but the wind blew again, getting up inside her night dress and chilling her body. She shivered again, her teeth chattering, and thought about the warm walk to the shrine, with the unseasonable flowers. In fact, she thought, she hadn’t seen anything strange since the shrine went dark.

A car went past on the road outside, and Akiko decided to finish her prayer, bowing and clapping. She stood, and waited to see if that would provoke a reaction. It didn’t; the quiet of the night was broken only by a distant siren. She sat down on the steps to rub her cold feet, brushing the dirt off them.

I’m not dreaming.

The realisation hit her with the force of a physical blow, and for a moment she thought she was actually going to be sick as panic rose within her.

I’m actually in the shrine, in the middle of the night, in my night dress.

For long moments, she couldn’t move, frozen into place as she tried to come to terms with what had happened. She had sleepwalked all the way to the shrine. In next to nothing. No wonder she was cold.

That brought the shivering back to Akiko’s attention, and she sprang to her feet. She had to get home, quickly, before she got hypothermia or something. The wooden steps of the shrine were cool and smooth underfoot, but the stone path was abrasive and cold, so she stepped off it to run on the bare earth as far as the entrance. The steps were very cold, and slightly slippery, and as she descended she felt the first drops of rain.

By the time she reached the bottom it was raining heavily, plastering her hair to her head and sticking her night dress to her skin. She glanced down, and her underwear was clearly visible through the light material. Grimacing, Akiko looked along the street, hoping it would be clear.

It was, and she darted out, running along the road, splashing through puddles, until she reached a corner. Pressing herself against the wall, she peered round, catching sight of someone walking further down the road. She pulled her head back, breathing heavily, and hoped that she hadn’t been spotted. She waited as long as she dared, but the cold rain soaking through made it hard to endure, and when she looked back the road was clear.

Running from corner to corner, she made it home without being seen, even as the rain got heavier and heavier. Her wet night dress clutched at her legs, apparently intent on tripping her up and leaving her sprawled in a puddle, but she managed to keep her balance all the way, and when she climbed to her flat she was only wet from the rain.

The door stood open, as she had clearly left it, and she pushed it closed as she got inside. The shivering intensified, and, staggering into the bathroom, she turned the shower on full, running it over her as soon as it was warm, not bothering to take any of her clothes off.

As she warmed up, she began to sob, and sank to the floor, putting the shower in its holder to flow over her, her tears washed away in the warm stream.

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