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The Flickering Hallway Light

Melissa Peterson.

Introduction: Amanda gave me the idea. She said while she was walking her dog, the hallway light for her apartment would flicker; she got the idea that if when the light went out, the wall would disappear…and if you touched it, you’d go to a different place all together.

So…this is what I am making of it.

Chapter One.

“School Sucks.”

The rumor started three years ago, after the school outside of town burned down. They say the person who started it was looking for a hallway with a flickering light. The story is that if you find the hallway with the flickering light, and touch one of the walls that is no longer there…you disappear. The rumor started at that school, several students started an Occult and Horrors club and the only way to get into the club was to find the wall.

Touch it.

And survive.

Not many students survived what they found; most of them were too terrified to talk about it. When I arrived from the airport to my student home near Osaka University I was scared to return to school. My parents sent me to Japan to get a better education, the entrance exam was killer and so was the plane trip. I read on a student made website about the cursed elementary school and my curiosity was getting the better of me. I had to find it, I had to know what those kids found.

I suffer from insomnia, OCPD, and almost any other hypochondriac disease out there…so I am never sure of what is going on is actually happening; it bothers my parents but I can’t help it. Medication, therapy, school, friends; nothing seems to work. So they sent me to another country to start over the careful guise that the school system is far more reliable was in their favor.

I am pretty sure that I am going to find a group of people to go with me. We’re going to find that school and prove whether or not the rumors are true. I suppose I should write up a little bit more about myself. I don’t really want to bother with my name, so instead a nickname will take its place. Gaijin. That’s what the students call me, so that’s what I’ll go by.

Days, weeks, months go by and I settle into my new home. The landlady is amazing, without fail she is up with the sun and sweeping the walk. It seems almost rehearsed as if she is there to watch over me rather than do her chores. She is a short woman with black hair tied behind her head in a tight bun. The wrinkles spread their creases from her eyes to the base of her neck. Her ears are pierced with simple fake pearl earrings that she calls her treasures.
I asked her about them.

“They were from my husband. He bought them before he went to war. They are the only thing left of him.”

A pang split through my heart when I thought of her husband, laying there with his weapon. Dying like the man he wanted to be…fighting for what he believes in. A true hero. I clenched my fist in my pocket, trying to ease the tremors, but to no avail.

“Have a good day Heiko-sama.” I muttered under my breath, which she smiled at.

“You too, Gai-san.”

Her nickname, that everyone in town shared was wearing down on my resolve. I’d been here for almost three months with nothing to report or show…until the afternoon I met Yuugata and his friends.

“Gaijin!” They yelled at me from the fourth story class room window. “Hurry your a** up here! We want to talk to you!”

Their English was terrible…but they were classmates and the teacher instructed them to speak English to me for practice. It didn’t make me feel special, it made me feel singled out. Almost like I was a burden. Even though the idea that it was merely for a school purpose was prevalent in the back of my mind…I can’t help how I feel. I sneered up at them and fixed my bag over my shoulder. I was watching the ground, my feet, so I wouldn’t trip. I could see my face barely reflected in the waxed linoleum.

I was wearing a hooded sweat shirt with my hair in my face, I hated looking past my hood incase I’d see something I didn’t want. The part of insomnia that I rue far more than the restless nights; is the hallucinations. I forget important details in the moment, then feel the need to remind myself of them later on; like I am making things up to rationalize my thinking.

I don’t look around because I don’t want to see things that aren’t real – so I hide away.
But hiding is cowardice. Being a teenager in a foreign country, where the way they deal with spirits and death by building them shrines and giving them offerings, was the worst idea my parents ever had.

They know what I go through. They never believe me though.
I need proof that I can see things; but whatever follows me is too afraid to show its face. Just like me.