Kaori Saejima -2021- [ 90% FULL ]

"Did you?" The figure stepped forward, hat tilting back just enough to reveal a chin, a mouth that smiled without warmth. "Or did you simply forget that when a master plays alone for long enough, the ghost learns to play back?"

—The Caretaker

The rain had not stopped. It would not stop for three more days. The old prefectural library had been condemned in 2019—mold, structural decay, a stairwell that led nowhere. She knew because she had walked past it once, two years ago, on the anniversary of her mother's death. The gates were chained. The windows were boarded. A sign in faded red paint read: DANGER. KEEP OUT. Kaori Saejima -2021-

She adjusted her posture. Her left hand rested uselessly in her lap, wrapped in a compression glove. Her right hand hovered over an imaginary board. Visitors who didn't know better assumed she was praying.

The figure sat down. Gestured to the empty chair. "Did you

And somewhere deep in her mind, on the immaculate 81 squares she had built to survive the silence, the silver general she had moved in her apartment that morning began to glow with a cold, impossible light.

For three years.

Kaori stepped through. The rain immediately soaked through her cardigan, but she did not shiver. Her mind was already arranging the pieces on the board of the library's foyer: marble floor (81 squares if you counted the tiles), a collapsed information desk (rook, immobilized), a staircase spiraling upward (lance, threatening).