Chapter 18 - A Deeper Kind Of Breathing

Anastasya: "I'm not giving up."

The words barely left her lips as she stared down at her notebook. Her candle flickered on the table, casting dancing shadows across the shrine room. The air was heavier tonight. It felt like the whole building was holding its breath.

She flipped to a blank page and drew a rough outline of the shrine’s layout, marking the Hollow’s entrance beneath the offering stones with a shaking hand.

Anastasya: “You didn’t want me to find it. Which means I was close.”

A distant creak sounded from the hall. She froze.

Nothing followed.

She continued writing. Her handwriting was fast and jagged, more like claw marks than script now. She didn’t care. Her head throbbed, her skin itched. The shrine was in her. Breathing with her. She could feel it.

And yet she smiled.

Anastasya: “You’re scared of me too, aren’t you?”

...

The next morning, Anastasya stood beneath the peach tree in the garden, half-eaten rice ball in one hand, the other resting on her hip.

Haruki sat on the low stone bench beside the pond, brushing away a koi fish that kept trying to jump into his lap. He had bed hair. Again.

Haruki: “I think the fish likes me.”

Anastasya: “Probably thinks you’re edible.”

Haruki: “Wouldn’t be the first time someone tried.”

Anastasya rolled her eyes, but the moment made her chest ache with warmth. She took a deep breath and laughed, despite everything.

Anastasya: “You always act normal.”

Haruki: “Maybe I am normal. Maybe you’re the strange one.”

Anastasya: “I am the strange one.”

Haruki looked at her for a second too long. His usual grin softened, but he didn’t say anything.

Instead, he plucked a flower off the bush beside him and tucked it behind her ear. It was purple and star-shaped. Not native. Probably conjured.

Haruki: “You should get going. You’ll be late.”

...

Sneaking back into her bedroom had become second nature. She slipped in through the side entrance, brushing her shoes off and ducking past creaky floorboards.

She passed her parents’ room. No sound. No lights. The hallway still smelled like incense and black tea.

She paused at the mirror in the hallway. Her reflection hesitated before following her movements.

Anastasya: “... Don’t.”

She turned away before it could smile again.

...

At school, Tanya and Sasha were arguing about something dumb in the hallway, flavored erasers or maybe ghost stories again. Darya gave her a knowing look and mouthed “You okay?”

Anastasya nodded.

She didn’t feel okay.

By lunch, her hands were shaking. She claimed she had a stomach ache and slipped off to the library.

It was cool and quiet and smelled like old wood and silence. She sat in the farthest corner, arms wrapped around herself, flipping through books on obscure Shinto lore, curses, purification rites, even death rituals.

Nothing matched the shrine.

Every page felt like a lie.

She found one faded book tucked in the corner of the spiritual section, with a cracked spine and inked-over margins.

It mentioned something, a temple between moments, a place where time curled inward like a sleeping snake.

Anastasya: “That sounds close.”

But close wasn’t enough.

...

That night, back at the shrine, she traced her fingers across the old stone walls near the back rooms, the ones that had no doors but whispered with footsteps. The wind felt warmer now. Thick. Like breath on her neck.

She visited the cracked basin room again. The cracks were deeper. The air above the basin shimmered faintly, like heat over pavement. She touched it with the tip of her finger. It stung.

She whispered into it.

Anastasya: “Let me through.”

It didn’t respond.

She sat beside it for a while, notebook on her knees, writing with one hand and holding a glowing charm Aurelya had left behind with the other.

Hours passed.

...

That night, in her sleep, she dreamed she was in a room that had no edges. Everything was white. Everything was listening.

Haruki stood far away, behind a wall made of skin and mirrors.

He looked at her and whispered:

Haruki: “You’re almost ready.”

She reached out and her hand split into light.

...

Anastasya woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat.

The paper beneath her cheek was soaked through. She sat up slowly, heart racing, mind in a spiral.

The Hollow hadn’t taken her again but it was close. She could feel it.

Her plans weren’t enough anymore.

Anastasya: “I need something stronger. A key. A tether. Something they didn’t want me to find.”

She stood up, barely noticing how her feet no longer left prints on the wooden floor.

Outside, the shrine was humming like a throat clearing in warning.

Still, Anastasya stepped into the night, notebook clutched tight, determined to tear the shrine apart if it meant she could understand what it was hiding.

She wasn’t giving up.

Not now.

Not ever.

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