Kaori Saejima -2021- File

The ghost countered.

—The Caretaker

The rain fell in vertical sheets over the port city of Nagasaki, turning the cobblestone slopes into mirrors of blurred neon. In a cramped, fourth-floor walk-up that smelled of old paper and dried herbs, Kaori Saejima sat cross-legged on a tatami mat, her back to the wall, her eyes fixed on a chessboard that held no pieces.

The Eighth Square is empty. The pawn you abandoned in 2014 still waits. Come to the old prefectural library before the autumn equinox. Bring nothing but your memory. Kaori Saejima -2021-

Behind the table stood a figure in a long coat, face obscured by a wide-brimmed hat. The figure did not move as Kaori approached. The only sound was the rain against the cracked window high above.

She had not received a letter in seven years. Not since the hospital bills started arriving in her dead mother's name. She picked it up with her right hand, turning it over. The seal was a crimson wax droplet stamped with a character she did not recognize: 雨 —rain.

"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 ghost countered

"Sit, Kaori Saejima. Let's finish the game you started in 2014."

She pulled on her coat. It was too large—her mother's, from a decade ago, the wool frayed at the cuffs. She did not own an umbrella. She did not own a phone that worked.

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). The Eighth Square is empty

The figure sat down. Gestured to the empty chair.

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.

The game was about to begin.