Date: October 14, 2025 Location: Akihabara, Tokyo (Private Residence of Kenji Sato)
It began not with a scream, but with an argument.
Kenji, a freelance data analyst and anime archivist, was scrubbing through a 4K remaster of a vintage 90s series. He paused the video at timestamp 14:02. There, in the deep background of a crowded train station scene, stood a figure that wasn't in the original broadcast.
A middle school girl. Short black hair. Red-rimmed glasses. Sailor uniform. She was standing perfectly still, staring directly out of the frame.
"Look at the metadata," Kenji typed into the Discord voice chat. "It's a rendering error. A glitch. The pixels on her face are flat."
"You're blind, Kenji," his friend, Mike, replied, his voice trembling through the headset. "She's not a glitch. She's smiling. Look at her mouth. She's grinning like she knows I'm watching. It's... it's malicious."
Kenji frowned. He zoomed in until the image was nothing but blocks of color. "Mike, listen to me. There is no curve on the mouth. It is a straight line. You are projecting. It's pareidolia—your brain is making up a face because you're scared."
"No... she's moving. She's reaching for the screen! Kenji, help m—"
A wet, sickening thud echoed through the speakers, followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor.
Kenji sat in silence, his heart hammering against his ribs. On his screen, the girl remained exactly where she was. She hadn't moved. She hadn't smiled. She was just... there.
But as Kenji stared at her, consumed by a sudden wave of grief and guilt, the image seemed to shift. The girl didn't move, but the impression of her changed. She no longer looked like a glitch. She looked incredibly, profoundly sad.
"I see..." Kenji whispered, the terrifying realization washing over him. "You didn't kill him. You didn't do anything. You are just a mirror."
She was a blank canvas. Mike feared malice, so she became a monster. Kenji felt grief, so she became a mourner. She was the reflection of the mind that viewed her.