Sitting next to Akira in his car, Akiko looked out of the windows as he drove around, keeping her awareness on the kegare. Akira seemed remarkably resigned to strange requests, but after she had discovered that she couldn’t walk around without bumping into things while looking for kegare she had had to ask for someone to drive her — and Akira was the only person she had thought might actually agree.

Akiko could see some kegare on all the houses they passed, crawling over some like vines, settling on others like mould, drifting around still others like smoke. She wondered whether the appearance of the kegare meant anything, or whether it was just random.

“Stop!â€ she said, and Akira brought the car quickly to a halt. The house on the corner was almost hidden in black fronds, cascading from the walls and roof. As she looked, it seemed to move within the kegare, as if shifting in place, and a cloud of brown spores rose from it. “This one is heavy with kegare.â€

Akira leaned over, and looked out of the window.

“Hmm. So, what do we do? Just walk up and say “your house is…â€ Hang on.â€ He leaned over the satnav on the dashboard, checking where they were and then looking back at the house. “Actually, we can just walk up. I know these people.â€

“Really?â€

“Yes. The Tanakas. I was friends with their son at high school. He’s at university in Kyoto now, but I know them all. Come on.â€ Akira got out of the car, and Akiko quickly followed him, hoping that this really was a piece of good luck.

Akiko let her vision return to normal as they walked up to the house, to avoid bumping into anything. Without the overlay, it looked like a perfectly ordinary house, maybe a little old, but still in good shape, and well cared for. Akira rang the bell, and they waited.

“Yes?â€ A woman opened the door, and then, almost immediately, smiled. “Akira! It’s been ages. Come in! Oh, and your friend, too. What brings you here?â€ She looked really pleased to see him, and Akiko relaxed a bit.

Inside the house, sitting at the dining room table, Akiko shifted her vision back. Everything was now covered with a layer of mould, and every movement stirred up a cloud of spores, which obscured her vision and made her cough, an acrid taste in the back of her throat.

A figure entered the room, swathed in dark strands of webbing, with malformed spiders in dozens of unhealthy colours scuttling here and there across it, disappearing into the folds only to reappear at the other side. The surface of the webs heaved and shook, as if ten thousand maggots waited inside. Akiko suppressed the urge to scream, and desperately tried to switch back to normal vision.

“Lovely to see you Akira,â€ an old woman said. “I won’t come any closer; I have a bit of a cold.â€ As she finished, Akiko found that she could no longer see the kegare, and could see the woman, a white mask over her mouth and nose, leaning on the kitchen counter.

Akiko looked at Akira, and nodded. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath before starting.

“This is going to sound really strange, but…â€