And Then It Rained (Sequel to Rain Again; Stand Alone Book) (Completed)

Chapter Thirty-one: Silhouettes and The Forest

"Ah, come on, Pedro. It will be a shame if you don't accompany me tomorrow to Aokigahara, aka the famous suicide forest," Victoria huffed, attempting to convince Pedro while she ran alongside him as they were about to bring their evening jog to an end. 

Taking in labored breaths, Pedro wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his arm. "I've never hated my job more than this, kawai girl. But what to do? At the end of the day, one needs money to survive."

"True that," Victoria commented with a sigh, accepting the ultimate reality.

"Anyway, you need to be careful in that place. Don't go too deep in the forest," Pedro suggested, stopping and clutching his waists, breathing heavily and bending over in exhaustion. "It's famous for uncountable suicides and is known to be haunted. So many people have gone in there and never returned—"

"Ah, that haunted stuff," Victoria cut in his spooky tale between breathing heavily herself. "There's some solid scientific explanation behind those disappearances—"

"But even those solid scientific explanations admit that the place is dangerous. Even a compass doesn't work in there—forget cell phones. Just don't go in too deep, okay?"

"Alright, alright, I will try not to."

A week had passed, and even in such a short time, Victoria had found a splendid friend in Pedro. As promised by Victoria, they had covered one of the lakes closest to Fuji san on Pedro's last day off from sunrise to sunset. No moments of incredibleness of the sun touching the earth matched one another.

Saying bye to Pedro, Victoria turned around and started to climb up the stairs. However, she halted midway, getting an uncomfortable feeling. Something in her peripheral moved, and she turned to her left. The vacant and unused land over there had no proper lighting arrangement.

Rays of light from a faraway lamppost and some light from Victoria's building demonstrated a stiff silhouette of a person—yes, it looked to be a person, standing absolutely still. Then she figured that it was not just one person—but two. And it seemed that they faced her direction.

F*uck!

Everything about this scene was freaky.

And honestly, Victoria was freaked out massively by it, so much that she didn't dare look away in fear that they, whatever they were, would move her way.

Absolutely slowly, she moved up the stairs and, reaching the top, suddenly sprinted towards her door. 

The lock of her door opened after fumbling with the key a few times. In those few seconds, her heart was sinking rapidly.

Sliding inside the safety of her apartment, at last, she slammed and tightly locked the door close. 

Her heart slammed against her chest as she breathed in relief.

"Phew..." That was quite a scare, she thought, walking toward the bathroom to take a quick shower. 

She decided to brush off the silhouette incident completely from her mind, deciding that she would call the police in case of any other suspicious activities or attacks, which was pretty rare in Japan. The country was mostly violence-free. Besides, they were probably just local Yankee farmers, curious about foreigners like her and Pedro.

Resting her head on the comfy pillow she had bought along with other household items from a store a ten-minute drive away, she scrolled through her phone with sleepy eyes. 

She had activated her other work mail ID for this long tour; and, for certain reasons, did not check the mail accounts available to the people back in the States. Rollan had been the bridge between them and her. Like a pigeon, he would filter out all the unnecessary stuff and bring her the most necessary work-related matters. It was just what she had asked for. Hearing the news and details of the commence her divorce procedures, Rollan, too, agreed that some space from everything would actually be good for her.