There’s something uniquely awful about abandoned schools at night. The smell of chalk dust that never fades, the echo of children’s laughter where there shouldn’t be any, the way the halls always feel just a bit too long.

The call came from the local ward office in Aomori—an old elementary school set for demolition kept getting… interrupted. Workers swore they heard giggling in the bathrooms. One man came out pale as paper, claiming a girl’s voice from the last stall had asked, “Do you want to play?”

He didn’t come back the next day.

Naturally, Morizumi accepted the case without hesitation. “An echo from a story,” he said. “Sometimes they forget they were ever a story.”

We arrived near midnight. The school sat on a hill, moonlight pooling in its broken windows. The front gate creaked open before we even touched it. Not ominous at all.

Inside, everything was frozen in time: desks neatly aligned, chalk still half-scrawled on the blackboard, as if class had just been dismissed—ten years ago. The air had that sharp, metallic stillness that precedes hauntings, the kind that tastes like electricity.

The bathrooms were on the third floor.

As we climbed the stairs, a faint giggle echoed down the hall. It wasn’t playful. It was knowing.

When we reached the girls’ bathroom, every stall door was shut. The air was cold enough to fog our breath.

Morizumi turned to me. “Record from outside. Don’t open your eyes if you hear knocking.”

“Why?”

“Because she’ll be standing behind you.”

I did not like that answer.

He stepped inside. The door creaked shut behind him. For a moment, silence—then, softly, three knocks.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Are you there, Hanako-san?” Morizumi’s voice, calm, even.

My stomach dropped. It was high, sweet, but hollow—like wind blowing through a flute made of bone.

Morizumi said something quietly in response, too low for my mic to catch. The next sound was metal scraping tile. Then laughter—higher this time, frantic, echoing through the stalls.

I forced myself to peek through the crack in the door.

The mirrors were fogged from the inside. A small shadow moved behind them, a child’s shape—but it didn’t move like a child. Too smooth. Too deliberate.

The stall doors began opening one by one, slamming against the walls in rhythm with the laughter.

Then, suddenly—silence.

Morizumi stepped out a minute later, his coat dusted with what looked like gray ash. He didn’t say a word for a long time.

Finally, I asked, “Was it really her?”

He nodded slightly. “Once. A girl who died hiding during an air raid. The legend remembered her, but not her name. I gave it back.”

“And the voice?”

“She’s gone quiet now. The story will move on.”

When we left, I turned to look at the school one last time. In the third-floor window, I saw a small hand pressed to the glass—then it faded, like steam on a mirror.

Later, when I played back the recording, I heard one last thing. Just before the file cut out, a whisper.

“Thank you for playing.”