youkai of dusk

"Your profession?"
Keiji blinked and squinted his eyes. There was a figure addressing him, standing behind a wooden podium. The voice was feminine, but stern and to the point. He could make out the silhouette of a round, tall hat with ribbons coming off of it, but any specific detail of the person before him was obscured by the shining light behind them that stung his tired eyes.
"Where - where am I?" He managed. He was fairly shaken up and quite confused, which was understandable. Taken from his home by a tall woman with a scythe and no explanation, other than 'I'm sorry' and 'at least you didn't suffer,' straight to the edge of the village to a strange river he had never seen before, where they sailed across on a tiny, rickety boat, delivered directly to the chair he sat. In a far too brightly lit building made out of a strange smooth rock-like substance that the woman told him was 'marble,' being questioned by an unknown interrogator who would not identify themselves.
"You stand in judgment, Ushiguma Keiji. Should you cooperate, and your records are deemed clean of sinful conduct, you will pass on to paradise where you will live peacefully with your loved ones." Her dutiful voice resonated, bouncing off the walls. Something caught in Keiji's throat. "However, make things difficult, and this will not go so smoothly."
She held a strange, thin device between her fingers that Keiji had never seen before. It was transparent and inside was some kind of black cylinder. She pressed it against a piece of paper repeatedly, her gaze shifting back and forth from the paper to Keiji.
"I do not enjoy repeating myself. What was your profession?"
Keiji had never truly labored a day in his life. His parents were simple dairy farmers and his duties were similarly very simple: feed and water the cows and spread salt lines around the pens. He never fully understood why he made salt circles. Something about ‘warding off demons,’ but he never really believed in any of that. The silly superstitions of silly old folks, he thought.
"Dairy farmer, sir… uh, ma'am...?" He murmured, shifting in discomfort. The figure noticed his hesitation and smiled inwardly.
"You may address me as ma'am if you like." She scrawled something onto her paper. "So you tended cows for your parents' farm, is that correct?"
    "Yes, ma'am." He said weakly. He felt like he hadn't eaten in weeks. He had not thought to look at his reflection while they were on the river, but he noticed his arms were very pale, which was unusual for someone like him, who spent nearly all his time outside.
"Are you aware of where your parents have gone?" She asked pointedly. Though unable to see her eyes, Keiji could tell she was looking at him intently, searching for any sign of untruthfulness.
He stared at the white tiling on the floor and muttered to her, “no.”
"Do you know where you are?"
"... Sorta."
"Ushiguma." There was a gentleness in her voice, though it was surrounded by an air of authority. "Think about what happened. Think about why no one has spoken to you in days."
His hands covered his face and he hunched over in his seat. The room around him seemed to fade away. The woman at her desk was miles ahead of him, far in the distance. The cold floor vanished beneath his chair. He closed his eyes and memories crept in.


"Keiji! You're slacking off again! This is the third time today I've told you to salt the pens!"
The young boy with sun-touched skin lay in the grass, daydreaming about a blonde girl from the village. With her hair of gold and many strings connecting her fingers to her to a parade of dolls, it was a simple matter to mentally displace himself from his boring farm house in the middle of nowhere. The puppeteer lady was young and pretty, unlike the old farmers he was surrounded by. His fantasies were only slightly troubled by her habit of speaking to her dolls in public.
In an unexciting place like his home, running and playing in the sun was a lonesome venture, and the only girls he could talk to were cows.
He grumbled at the voice, laying flat on his belly in the grass and soaking up the sun. He tried to get away with not responding by pretending not to hear. He rolled over like a summer sausage on a grill and sighed at the pleasing heat.
"If you don't get up right now, you're not going into the village for a week." The old man's voice was impatient and raspy. At this, Keiji slowly rose from the ground, but didn't open his eyes. His daydreaming had only began to get good.
     "I don't get why I gotta salt the stalls in the first place. What's gonna happen, some vampire's come in and suck their blood?" Keiji's head was propped up by his hand, still laying on his side. He didn't notice his father wince at this statement like it might be a real possibility.
    "Just do as I tell you. If I end up doin’ it myself again today, you won’t be gettin’ any supper, boy." He lumbered off, leaving Keiji there in the grass, but Keiji knew that was no empty threat. His beef rolls at dinner time could be in serious danger. He picked himself up from the ground and brushed the grass off his chest, lazily stumbling in the direction of the cow pens.
There was a bucket full of rock salt next to their modest barn. There were only two actual pens, though they sometimes stuffed up to four cows inside the small wooden structure for 'safety.' Keiji didn't understand, what could possibly happen to a bunch of useless walking beef bowls that they needed this silly salt 'protection?'
He took some of the salt in his hand and began sprinkling it in front of the barn door. When he was about half finished, both with making his salt line and fantasizing about the dim sum that would be served at dinner, he heard footsteps coming from inside the stall. It was probably just a cow making a big mess he’d have to clean up later, he thought; but curiosity got the better of him, and he pushed the door open to take a look.
What he saw didn't really make sense to him. It was a bright summer afternoon. With the door opened as wide as it was, one should be able to see clearly inside the barn and all the pens, but it was as if there were a hole in the middle of his vision. A circular void of blackness right in front of him, seeming to grow larger and move toward him. A cow mooed nonchalantly.
"Oh, hiya." A small girl's voice echoed from inside the darkness and Keiji rubbed his eyes - and then it was like the blackness was never there, and in its place was a girl, couldn't be older than eleven, standing in the middle of his barn. He had never seen her before and noted she was kind of cute with her red ribbon in her neck-length blonde hair and her conservative, western-looking black dress, not dissimilar to the kind of thing the puppeteer dressed her dolls with.
"You live in here?" She struck her arms out to emphasize her question, or perhaps to gesticulate an introduction.
     "Wha? Live in here? Only cows live in a place like this. Hay don't make good beds for people." He scratched the back of his head. It was a pretty nonsensical situation to him, but he wasn't complaining if it meant he got to talk to a cute blonde girl.
"Is that so?" She scrunched her lips, pondering. "Why do you keep these animals in here? Animals are meant to be free, in the wild." To Keiji this was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. Cows are big, stupid animals that just stand around and moo all day. They sleep standing up and fall over if you push them. They would just get torn up by wolves in the wild.
"We take care of 'em and in return they give us food. Milk and meat." Keiji thought this was a very good, easy to understand answer, but the girl’s curiosity grew instead of shrinking.
     "I think I get it, but that seems troublesome. I usually just go talk to people if I get hungry." She flashed a toothy smile. "There's a lot of nice people around here. Sweet old folks." There was something about the way she said this that made Keiji feel uneasy, but he couldn't put his finger on it. The strange emphasis on the word 'sweet,' maybe.
"Uhhh, I might have to talk to my parents, but I'll see if you can stay for dinner." He was going to comment on her mooching behavior but something about the way she looked at him was very compelling. Despite the odd things she said, he felt like she was trustworthy, and it wasn't often he got to invite a pretty girl into his house.
There was a loud knock at the front of the barn. "Are you done yet, Keiji?” His father stood there in the doorway. “I want you to come inside and start wrapping meat buns for di--" he locked eyes with the girl standing less than a foot away from his son. He knew her, as did most everyone who'd ever lost their way outside the village. She was infamous. He thought she only appeared at night, but then it occurred to him - the sun was setting, and the Youkai of the Dusk had arrived right on time.
Keiji felt his feet leave the ground as his father snatched his arm and took him to his side.
"Stay back, evil spirit. This is protected ground. Your kind aren't welcome here." He was trying to sound intimidating, but his voice was shaking in terror. He pushed his child behind him, and spoke orders to him very quickly, almost too quickly for the young boy to understand. "Keiji, run to the shrine near the border. Get the shrine maiden. Do not look back and do not stop running no matter what happens or what you hear. Go." He shoved Keiji out of the barn, who fell on his bottom, scrambling up as fast as he could. He took one last look at his father, who appeared to be drawing some kind of card from his shirt, and then scampered off with everything he had in him out of the barn and toward the road.
     Reaching the top of the hill near his house, he faltered and stumbled and nearly fell as an agonized scream rang out into the evening. He didn't stop to think who it was or the implications. He simply did as he was told. Too many thoughts about what would be happening would only complicate things, he figured - but there was no way to stop the endless thoughts racing through his head, the fear that was causing him to shake and nearly fall with every step.
He had only been to the shrine once before, he didn't have a good idea of where it was other than the fact that he knew he would expire before he reached it.
In his panic, he didn’t see the rock in the middle of the road. He was too busy with the worries running through his head, even has he tripped and fell flat on his face.


"Is that all you remember?" The woman in the funny ribboned hat had been jotting down everything that came out of his mouth. "Rumia doesn't typically target those minding their own business in their homes. If this story has any truth to it, there will be severe punishment."
The woman with the scythe approached from behind. "I haven't found the father yet. If he is truly dead, his spirit is still wandering." She then left the room, her business seemingly concluded. The girl at the podium tapped a wooden rod against its surface loudly, like a judge's gavel.
"Ushiguma Keiji, until this can all be proven, you will wait in purgatory for your final judgment. May the powers have mercy upon your soul."
Things suddenly became very dark. The podium, the woman, the light all left Keiji's vision. They were replaced with rows and rows of seats. A carpeted floor that stretched as far as he could see. He stood up and looked around, but there was no one else there. He had a terrible sinking feeling - he would be there a very, very long time.