The futon seemed to get heavier and heavier, and finally Akiko managed to push it off, struggling to her feet. The room was bright, sunlight flooding in from the open windows, sparkling off the surface of the pond. Akiko quickly shrugged her yukata off, bathing quickly in the pond before putting on the white kimono and red hakama of her miko’s uniform. She walked out through the garden, into the shrine precincts.

They were deserted, the roof of the shrine shining green in the sunlight, while the rocks of the iwakura behind it seemed to suck the light in to the deep shadow at their heart. Birds were singing in the trees, and the sun shone from a clear sky, warm on Akiko’s skin. The grass was soft against her bare feet as she walked up to the shrine.

The doors were shut. Akiko frowned. They shouldn’t have been closed during the day; maybe Revd Shiraishi had forgotten to open them. Akiko reached out to slide the doors, but they wouldn’t move. She took out the key, and put it in the lock, but it seemed to be open already. She pushed again, but the doors wouldn’t move. Even rattling them didn’t help.

As she struggled with the doors, she felt as chill, as if a shadow had fallen over her, although the sun was as bright as ever. She turned, looking out from the shrine over Kawasaki.

She could see the hills, covered with houses, some topped with blocks of flats, the power cables running from one house to another, tying them down to the earth. The town was still in the sunlight. No cars moved on the roads, no people walked the streets. The neon signs on the love hotels flashed their desperate invitations, but no-one answered. The convenience stores were open for business, their automatic doors sliding open to entice custom, but there was no-one there to be tempted.

Akiko frowned, a frown that deepened as something did move. Something dark among the houses, something clouded and dusty among the flats, something wet and rotten among the love hotels. Tendrils shot out, like vines among the houses, like cracks among the flats, obscene among the love hotels, wrapping themselves around the buildings and spreading rapidly, darkening the scene and casting shadows across the city, even as the sky remained clear, the sun bright.

Akiko felt the chill again and shivered, hugging herself. As the tendrils spread, other things started to crawl along them, things that she had seen before, two-headed dogs of crumbling concrete, lizards made of desperate, furtive couplings, centipedes born from the death of bamboo groves. All the green in the landscape vanished, turning to brown, and then the black of decay or the grey of paving.

And then the first block of flats collapsed, folding into itself in a cloud of grey dust that formed into a flock of birds, birds that cried in harsh voices as they settled on another block, which collapsed beneath them, spawning yet more of the creatures. The houses were shrouded in darkness, and Akiko saw the first signs of fire among them. Only the love hotels seemed to prosper, their signs becoming larger, brighter, and more explicit, offering people as well as a place.

Akiko found her breath, and screamed.