You are walking along a crowded and well lit city street. You can hear the The click click of stiletto heels. You cel phone rings. You look down for a moment. You see a short, blue and green plaid skirt, stockings, and black stiletto heels. You take a cel phone from your soft pink Louis Vuitton purse. The phone has a Doraemon cover to it and shows Doreamon jumping up and down on the screen. You see a highly manicured hand with bright red nail polish press a button on the phone. You say “moshi moshi” in a high almost squeaky voice as you answer the phone. You hear a short conversation in Japanese regarding being late and you look hurriedly down at your Mickey Mouse watch and notice that it is after 10 pm. You apologize for being late. You hang up, put the phone back into your purse, and then hurry down a dark alleyway.
You hear a quiet thumping noise, but cannot figure out where it is coming from. You arrive at a dark steel door. The thumping noise subsides. You knock – once, then twice, before you hear a voice over the intercom. You say “It’s me”. You hear a buzzer. You reach for the handle and open the door. Inside, the stairway is dark and dingy. Tattered signs and posters cover the walls of the entryway. You hear a baby crying and the sounds of a television playing some live talk show. Slowly, you walk up the stairs. You begin to hear the thumping noise again. You cannot identify its origin. You almost trip as you gets half way up the stairs. You look down and see that you have broken one of your stiletto heels. You swear, put the shoe back on and limp the rest of the way up.
You see a scarred wooden door with a sign “Hoshino Studios - Do Not Disturb” on the front and you knock. The thumping noise subsides again.
The door opens. You see an older man, mid 30’s. He has shoulder length, scraggly hair and an unkempt moustache and he has a cigarette hanging precariously from his mouth. He is holding a large Nikon digital camera. You say demurely “Hi, ready for your special date?”. He says “come in. I’ll be ready in a moment.”
It is a photographic studio. There are bright studio lights and a white backdrop at the far end of the studio. There is no one else there. Jazz piano music is playing from a boom box.
The photographer says “take off your coat.” He throws you a red silk robe. “You can use this later.”
You take off your coat, fold it up and throw it on a couch along with the red silk robe. You look down. The white blouse you are wearing has a coat of arms on the top left side. You unbutton the top two buttons of your blouse to reveal a small amount of the red push up bra beneath.
You straighten out the pleats on your skirt, turn right and then left and you see a cracked mirror. You walk toward the mirror. In the mirror, you can see your face. It is the unblemished face of a young girl with shoulder length hair, wearing heavy red lipstick and rouge. You toss your hair a bit, look intently at yourself in the mirror, and lift up your bra.
“Good enough,” you say.
Then, the lights behind you appear to go dim. You hear that thumping again – it starts slowly and increases in intensity.
The face of the young girl in the mirror dissolves and is replaced with a skull staring from the mirror with red, glowing eyes.
You smell blood and garbage and freshly dug earth. The thumping becomes faster and more desperate.
You hear a shrill scream.
You wake up. You feel cold sweat on your brow and find yourself breathing very heavily. Your heart is pounding against your chest.
Return to Chapter 2
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