The platform reeked of smoke, sweat, and concrete dust.

Matsugasaki Station had once been clean. Modern. A local hub for tourists. Now, its tiled walls were cracked from tremors, its ceiling scarred by soot where something had tried to burn its way in. Fluorescent lights flickered, coughing out weak beams that barely lit the floor. Dust drifted in broken light. Tiles lay scattered like teeth. A digital map flickered overhead, still trying to announce train arrivals that would never come. The walls were cracked. The ceiling scorched. Someone had written "Help Us" in soot.

Now, forty-six people huddled beneath that dying message, unsure if help was even worth hoping for.

Dan knelt beside a teenager with a gashed leg, his glow barely visible now – more gold ember than flame. His fingers trembled. The boy winced as the light sealed a torn artery, but didn't cry. He just clutched his school badge like it still meant something.

"You'll be okay," Dan said, voice soft. "No running marathons, but you'll walk."

The boy nodded. Silent gratitude.

Across the station, Alyssa was directing traffic. She'd taken control like it was muscle memory. Survivors huddled in uneven clusters, some crying, others silent. She paced through them like a drill sergeant with too much adrenaline and not enough patience.

"You three – up against the wall. No sitting near the edge."

"We don't need fights over water," she snapped at two arguing men. "Sort it or I sort you."

They listened. Eventually.

Most people did now.

A man with an injured arm offered his jacket to a shivering teen. A woman in her seventies kept humming softly – always the same melody. Some kind of lullaby. A boy, maybe twelve, had drawn circles in the grime with his finger. When Alyssa passed, he whispered, "I think the train might come back."

She didn't answer. There was no train. Just ghosts.

She paused beside a young mother tending to a toddler with a torn sleeve. Her hands softened.

"Hey. There's an old locker room through that door. Take your boy, get some quiet."

The woman nodded gratefully and shuffled off.

Dan finally stood, joints aching. His glow sputtered, then went out completely. He leaned against a cracked support column, catching his breath.

"You're pushing too hard," Alyssa said as she joined him.

"Tell that to the thirty-two people bleeding out."

"It's forty-six now," she said, checking a scavenged clipboard. "You missed a few."

Dan exhaled. "Wonderful."

They shared a moment – a real one – watching the station floor settle into a kind of uneasy calm. A man in a suit offered bottled water to a group of elderly women. A teenager with pink hair helped tape off the broken stairs using a ripped train map. It was a miracle. A fragile one.

Then Alyssa saw the little girl.

She sat alone near the stairwell, maybe six or seven. Her clothes were soaked, not with blood but subway water – murky and cold. But it wasn't the cold that made Alyssa pause.

It was the object in the girl's hands.

A fox mask.

Small. Wooden. Painted white with faded red trim. Its surface was cracked, splintered at one corner. But something about it seemed… off.

The girl cradled it like a doll.

Alyssa crouched, slow. "Hey, sweetheart. What's your name?"

The girl didn't answer. Just held up the mask.

"He said I should wear it," she whispered.

Alyssa's throat tightened. "Who?"

"The smiling boy."

Dan's head jerked up. He was already moving.

Alyssa crouched lower. "What did he look like?"

The girl shrugged. "He was wearing a mask too. With a big smile," she mumbled. "He looked like a doll."

"Did anyone else see him?"

The girl shook her head. "He said he only talks to people who are almost alone."

Alyssa took the mask gently. It felt… warm. Not like wood. Like skin left out in the sun. The inner side was damp. Fleshy.

She wrapped it in an old towel and stood.

Dan joined her, eyes narrowing. "Did you see a boy?"

The girl shook her head. "He was there. Then he wasn't. He didn't blink."

Dan looked around. "We've got problems."

Alyssa nodded. "No more playing defence."

They both turned to the makeshift command post – the old service room now doubling as a triage and storage hub.

Behind them, the girl sat in silence. Staring into the shadows of the tunnel.

Waiting for the smile to return.

…………………

The flashlight beam caught bent steel and silence.

Alyssa moved first, her boots crunching over shattered tiles and flakes of paint. The tunnel sloped gently downward – an old maintenance access, barely wide enough for two people shoulder to shoulder. It stank of mould, piss, and something chemical. Old subway grease, maybe. Or blood that had dried and been forgotten.

They were searching for a ghost.

Not a literal one. Not yet. But a name passed in whispers, a shape in the corner of a child's eye.

The smiling boy.

She hadn't liked the sound of it. Neither had Dan. But someone had to check the tunnels. If there really was a threat down here, better they find it than wait for it to find them.

Behind her, two volunteers followed. The first was Kenji, a retiree with a stoop and a stubborn jaw – former postal worker, Alyssa remembered. Carried a crowbar like it was his oath. The second, Mari, barely twenty, had a tear in her jacket and the look of someone trying not to panic. She held the flashlight with both hands. It wobbled when she breathed.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Stay close," Alyssa said, her voice low but steady. "If you hear anything, don't shout. Just tap the wall."

Mari nodded. Kenji grunted.

The walls narrowed the deeper they went. Concrete peeled in wet strips. Someone – no, something, had scrawled across the surface in charcoal and ash. Repeated symbols. Eyes. Masks. Over and over again. Fox faces. Smiling. Always smiling.

One handprint had six fingers. Another was small – child-sized – but smeared down the wall like it had been dragged. A single phrase was scratched again and again in hiragana: "become, become, become."

Alyssa slowed, flashlight sweeping the graffiti. Some of the drawings were childlike. Others were wrong – too many teeth, or no mouths at all.

Mari whispered, "Do you think someone lived down here?"

Alyssa didn't answer. She wasn't sure yet if it was someone or something.

They reached a service alcove – bare concrete, half a fuse box, and a mattress that had been burned to the springs. Piles of torn paper surrounded it – pages from school notebooks. Scribbles. Names.

Kenji crouched beside a lump in the far corner. Then he froze.

"Alyssa-san," he said. "You'll want to see this."

She moved fast. One look, and her breath caught.

It was a body. Teenaged. Male. Slumped against the wall like he'd just sat down and never got back up. His uniform was torn, soaked in brown-black stains. One of his shoes was missing. And where his face should've been—

Gone.

Just… gone. Torn skin frayed out at the edges of a hollow cavity. No mask. No expression. Just red ruin.

Beside him, still sticky with blood, lay a wooden fox mask. One eye cracked. The edge jagged, like it had been torn off mid-fusion.

Mari turned away, gagging. Kenji stood slowly.

"What the hell happened to him?"

Alyssa crouched beside the body. Her hands didn't shake, but her pulse was screaming.

"He fought it," she said quietly. "Or someone did. Broke the mask before it finished."

Kenji crossed himself. "You think that thing did this to him?"

Alyssa's eyes didn't move from the broken grin beside the corpse. "Yeah."

A sudden clatter echoed behind them. Not loud but sharp. Dry nails across stone.

Mari spun, flashlight jerking.

"Did you see that?" she whispered.

Alyssa reached for the crowbar strapped to her back. "Keep moving."

They turned back towards the station. They didn't run but they didn't talk again either. Not until the tunnel opened back into light.

And even then, the silence followed.

…………………

The scream tore through the silence like a wire snap.

Dan was already on his feet, the golden glow flaring instinctively from his palms. "Where—?"

The crowd parted near the platform stairs. A young man – early twenties, jeans torn at the knees, blood already running down his face – was thrashing against the wall. Two friends clung to him, shouting his name: "Kaito!"

He didn't hear them.

Kaito's body jerked with unnatural spasms – not convulsions. Something deeper. Like his nerves were being rewritten. He laughed and sobbed at the same time, slamming the back of his skull into the wall with a crunch.

Dan shoved through the crowd, dropping beside him. "Hold him—!"

One of the friends shouted, "He found something in the tunnel— he said it was just a souvenir— he didn't mean to—!"

Dan's eyes locked on the boy's face.

A warped sliver of wood, half the size of a palm, was burrowing into his cheek – red-streaked, splintered, and pulsing faintly. It looked like it had once been part of a fox mask.

"No, no, no—" Dan pressed his hand to the fragment, his healing glow lancing out but it didn't take.

Dan didn't just feel heat – he felt absence. Like the mask fragment radiated unmaking. The glow around his hands flickered violently, retreating from the fragment as if afraid

It recoiled. Like it was feeding off something deeper. The boy let out another distorted laugh, and the glow pulsed back black.

Alyssa arrived seconds later. She pushed through, took one look – and froze.

The fox fragment had reached his eye socket now. Skin bubbled around it, and his left eye was going grey. Clouded.

Dan tried to grip Kaito's arm. "We can fight it— just hang on— stay with me—"

"I see her," Kaito whispered, voice gurgling. "She's smiling…"

His jaw cracked sideways.

"No!" Dan grabbed both shoulders and poured more glow into him. "You're not gone yet. I can fix this— just hold on—!"

The bones in Kaito's ribs popped. One of the friends screamed.

"Why did he put it on?" a girl sobbed. "He said it was just a joke— he found it and thought it was cool—"

"I didn't know!" another stammered. "I told him not to—!"

Kaito thrashed once more – his whole spine arching off the floor. Then he dropped limp.

Not dead.

Just… still.

Dan leaned over him, palm trembling near the ruined cheek.

A slow exhale. A wheezing, laughing sound.

The boy's eyes opened.

Now fully red.

…………………

The young man sat up slowly.

Too slowly.

His spine moved like it had too many joints. His head lolled, then jerked upright, and he smiled at Dan – wide, blood-rimmed, too many teeth.

"I didn't want to—" he said, voice bubbling at the edge of a laugh.

Then the voice stopped. Mid-syllable.

His jaw clicked once. Then locked into a grin.

The scream came next but not from him.

A bystander shrieked as Kaito lunged forward, grabbing Dan by the collar and hurling him backward. Dan hit a bench with a grunt and rolled.

"Back!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet. "Everyone back, now!"

The creature turned toward the group, movements stuttering like a video out of sync. His body was changing – bones bulging beneath the skin, eyes blank-gold. The remnants of the fox fragment were now fully fused to his cheek, embedded like a brand.

Alyssa didn't hesitate.

She surged forward, her gauntlets flaring with sudden density. One massive fist cracked into the side of Kaito's face. The sound was sickening – bone crunch, blood spatter, a wet snap.

He didn't fall.

He turned, slowly. Still smiling.

Dan stepped in behind him. "Keep him facing you!"

Kaito swung. Alyssa ducked but barely. The punch clipped her shoulder, and the force nearly lifted her off her feet. She gritted her teeth, twisted, and jammed an elbow into his ribs.

Nothing.

His body was already healing. Bone re-knitting. Muscle swelling.

"Dan—!" she shouted.

Dan grabbed him from behind, locking his arms around Kaito's shoulders. "Hold still—!"

He poured everything in.

The glow erupted from his chest, golden and white-hot, spiralling down his arms. Kaito howled – final – no laughter now. Just pain. Smoke rose from where Dan's hands touched skin. The soul-glow wasn't healing. It was burning.

Inside-out.

Kaito convulsed once, then twice. Then dropped.

Dead weight. His body hit the concrete with a slap of steam and silence.

Dan collapsed beside him, gasping.

The platform was frozen. Forty-five survivors stared in wide-eyed horror. No one moved.

No one breathed.

Then – softly – an older woman stepped forward. She was holding something in both hands.

A fragment of the fox mask.

Her voice was trembling, but reverent. "It showed him something, didn't it? Maybe it's a god. Maybe it was— mercy—"

Alyssa stepped forward, voice low but sharp. "That thing didn't save him. It tore him apart."

She reached out, took the mask fragment from the woman's hands, and held it up just long enough for everyone to see the blood-stained edge.

For a second, Alyssa's eyes stung. She thought of Jack – his broken body, his last breath – and demon that had killed him. She took a breath that hurt to hold. Then spoke.

"Don't pray to things that smile while they rip you open."

She tossed the fragment into a duffel bag and zipped it shut. Hard.

No one argued. Not anymore.

Dan looked up from the body. His hands were still glowing but only faintly now. Like an old light fading.

"We're running out of time," he said.

And this time, no one doubted it.

…………………

The silence after the battle felt heavier than the fight itself.

The young man's body still smoked faintly where Dan had burned the corruption out. The platform smelled of char, blood, and now something worse – soul rot, like incense left too long in a locked room. Sweet, rancid, wrong.

Dan stood at the front of the group – forty-five survivors now. Some sat slumped against pillars. Others huddled close, hands wrapped around one another like lifelines.

He raised his voice, but not to shout.

"We stay together," Dan said. "We find others. We survive. But we do not—" he looked around, pausing on the crushed mask fragments "—we do not touch the masks."

Nobody answered. But they were listening.

Alyssa pulled him aside toward the old service chamber they'd turned into a shelter. She didn't say anything at first. Just stood in the flickering light, arms folded, brow tight.

"You couldn't heal him," she said finally.

Dan's jaw worked. "No... it's not an injury or disease. It's like the mask took his soul. It was like reaching into a furnace and finding nothing. No soul, no spark. Just heat and hunger." He shook his head. "All I could do was burn away the void that was left."

Alyssa looked back toward the platform. "How many more of these are there?"

Dan didn't answer at first.

"Enough," he said at last. "We're going to get overrun if we stay here."

She didn't move. Just stared at the wall like it might offer some better option.

"We're not soldiers, Dan," she whispered. "What if we can't hold this together?"

Dan stepped closer. His hand landed on her shoulder – steady, warm, like he meant it to hold more than weight.

She didn't flinch. Didn't pull away.

"Then we hold each other together. That's all we've got."

She looked up at him, tired and raw and still trying not to show it. "We can't leave these people."

He nodded. "We won't. We save them. All of them."

Behind them, in the tunnel's far throat, came a sound.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Something crawling. Not fast. Not close.

But coming.

Alyssa's grip inside her gauntlets tightened.

Dan's voice stayed steady. "We stay alert. I won't let anyone else die tonight."

And then the sound stopped.

"It's still down there," someone whispered. "Listening."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.