Akiko woke the next morning in the manga cafe, her bag of wet clothes smelling slightly from under the desk. The shower room was fine for changing in, but there wasn’t anywhere to dry her things, so her first job today was finding a laundrette and running the clothes through the drier. The clerk gave her directions, and she found the laundrette a short walk away, across the swollen river churning its way to the Tama.

The laundrette was on the ground floor of a derelict block of flats, and although there was another woman there when Akiko arrived, her washing soon finished, and Akiko was alone with the tumbling machine. She sat, listless, in a chair, and for the first time allowed herself to properly remember what she had seen Naoyuki doing. She started crying, and at first she thought it was just the tears making the room swim.

It was as if there was dust in her throat, and she started to cough. As she gasped for breath, she felt the grittiness of disintegrating concrete all over her, on her skin, inside her clothes, chafing against her as she moved. She wiped the tears away and tried to take a breath, but she only coughed again. Her vision cleared, and she saw it.

The dark grey of old concrete, riddled with cracks, surrounded by the dust it created every time it moved, it was watching her with eyes like broken windows, gaping holes into an empty soul. Two canine heads had their attention fixed on her, and it moved towards her, every footfall grating like metal on stone. One shoulder flexed in a cloud of dust, and Akiko could see the brown of rusted iron within. It opened its mouths, dust flying out.

Akiko sprang to her feet, grabbing her bag, and ran out of the building. She looked behind her; the thing was following. Seized by panic, she sprinted out and down the street.

The road wasn’t that quiet, and she had to dodge pedestrians and cyclists. Quite a few people protested as she barged past them, but whenever she looked back the thing was still following, dodging around people, and gaining slightly.

She had been running for some time before she realised that, although people reacted to her, no-one else was reacting to the monster chasing her. Just like the snake, she thought, her heart going cold and her breath stopping for a moment. <em>They can’t see it.</em>

Renewed panic gave her a burst of speed, and she changed her direction. <em>The shrine,</em> she thought. <em>Head for the shrine.</em> Her skin, abraded by the dust under and in her clothes, was getting very sore, and she thought she could even feel some blood flowing, but she couldn’t stop. The thing was definitely gaining on her.

She stumbled as she turned up the hill, and for a moment she could feel its breath, cold, dank and gritty, on her back, before she pushed off again, gasping for breath, her legs and lungs protesting as the steps to the shrine finally came into view, the creature barely behind her now.