The screen glowed. A cheerful theme song, a rabbit puppet with mismatched eyes. But three minutes in, the rabbit stopped moving. Its head tilted. And then it spoke—not in the high-pitched voice of the show, but in a low, dry whisper.
He shoved the note into his pocket. Chakku. Tsuiteru. It was becoming his mantra. Midnight found him outside the skeletal remains of the old broadcasting center. The wind moaned through broken antennas. He climbed through a rusted grate and followed the flashlight beam down a corridor of peeled posters and shattered CRT screens. chakku! tsuiteru!!
“Tsuiteru,” he muttered under his breath. Lucky. If she hadn’t shouted, he’d have lost everything. The screen glowed
The screen went black.
Behind her, the monitor flickered back on. The rabbit was smiling. Its head tilted
“You found it,” Sachi whispered. “The talisman. It only attaches to someone who’s tsuiteru —lucky enough to survive the curse once already. That’s why I called out to you this morning. I needed to see if you’d hear me.”
And this time, it was staring right at him.