The Seniors Secret

Minato Kentarō could not stop thinking about the quiet, mysterious senior from his high‑school. Outwardly she seemed soft‑spoken and gentle, but she always kept her distance from others. When classes were over, she would slip away without explanation, and no one knew where she went. Driven by burning curiosity, Kentarō resolved to dig up the secret she had been concealing.

On one overcast afternoon after school, he tailed her quietly across the campus. She headed straight for the long‑deserted old annex building, a place most students feared and chose to avoid. The aged building lay wrapped in heavy shadow, already polluted by faint distortion leaking from the Inner‑World fracture.

Kentarō took cover behind a broken concrete pillar, holding his breath. Peering through a dusty window, he watched the senior standing alone inside the vacant classroom. Her usual mild expression faded slowly from her face. Her shadow stretched abnormally across the floor, writhing and twisting independently, no longer matching her physical outline.

The horrifying secret gradually revealed itself to him. The senior was not fully human. A large part of her had already been consumed by the power of the Inner‑World. The gentle side everyone saw was merely a thin disguise. Once night fell and the school grew quiet, her distorted true self would awaken. Several students who had grown too close to her had disappeared without a single trace.

A chill crept down Kentarō’s back. He crouched motionless, paralyzed by raw fear. The senior slowly turned her head. Her sharp gaze pierced right through the grimy window, landing exactly upon his hiding spot. She had been aware of his presence from the very beginning.