There are places that aren’t supposed to exist, and Kiyotaki Tunnel is one of them. A cursed passage near Kyoto, infamous for swallowing travelers, twisting reality, and leaving anyone who enters either missing or completely unrecognizable. Locals claim it shifts length, bends space, and whispers names you’ve never told anyone. Naturally, Morizumi decided we should investigate.

We arrived at dusk. The entrance was unassuming: cracked concrete, overgrown vines, a faint chill rolling out despite the warm summer air. A warning sign leaned precariously, rusted and faded. I wanted to turn around. Morizumi didn’t.

“Once you step inside,” he said calmly, “the tunnel doesn’t want you to leave. But it fears me.”

I swallowed nervously. The air inside was thick, damp, and smelled of mold and iron. Shadows pooled along the walls, stretching longer than they should, writhing as if alive. The tunnel seemed deeper than its physical entrance suggested.

Halfway in, I realized something was wrong: our footsteps echoed—but not normally. They came slightly after we made them, like the sound had its own delay. The walls shifted subtly when we weren’t looking. And the further we went, the whispers began.

“Shigure… Shigure… Morizumi…”

I froze. The tunnel knew my name.

Morizumi stopped and held up a hand. “Do not speak. Do not panic. Keep walking as if nothing is happening.”

Then the floor shifted beneath me. The tunnel seemed to extend endlessly, dark and twisting. I caught glimpses of figures in the shadows—travelers who had entered years ago, pale and distorted, forever wandering. Their eyes locked on us, but they did not speak.

And then the walls moved. Brick and concrete seemed to bend, stretching the ceiling impossibly high while the ground dropped below us. I stumbled, heart hammering.

Morizumi didn’t hesitate. He raised a small charm, chanting softly, the runes glowing faintly in the darkness. The shadows recoiled, and the whispers distorted into garbled noise.

“Po… po… po…”—no, that was someone else, a different spirit. The tunnel seemed alive, a predator that could smell fear.

Suddenly, a figure lunged from the darkness—an apparition of a traveler twisted by the tunnel, dragging itself along impossibly long limbs. I screamed. Morizumi’s hand shot out. A line of shimmering light extended from his palm, hitting the figure. It froze mid-lunge, then collapsed silently into dust.

“Keep moving,” Morizumi said, calm as ever. “It can only hold the ones it can scare. Fear strengthens the trap. You, however, do not fear it.”

We moved carefully, following his aura like a lifeline. The tunnel twisted and stretched, but Morizumi’s presence seemed to flatten the impossible geometry, carving a path straight through the nightmare. Finally, we saw the faint light of the exit.

I sprinted forward, stumbling onto the grass outside. The tunnel behind us shivered like it was breathing, then recoiled, shrinking back into the forest like a wound that healed instantly.

Morizumi stepped out behind me, expression calm, brushing dust from his coat. “It will wait,” he said. “For those foolish enough to enter. But it will never hold me.”

I turned back to the entrance. The black maw of the Kiyotaki Tunnel seemed to pulse faintly in the moonlight, as if alive, as if aware we had escaped. And I realized that some places do not forgive curiosity.