When I opened my eyes the next morning, I groaned loudly. My alarm was ringing right by my ear and I slammed my hand down on it to stop it.

     Monday morning… I observed my surroundings. I had had that sane awful dream again, but this time it had been different, this time the dream had become more gruesome and this time whatever had hurt that woman had spoken to me. Asking about legs and if I’ve seen them. I could feel myself slowly falling back to sleep until I heard Chiyoko bang on the door a moment later.

     “Time to get up, Edith or you’ll be late for school!” sang Chiyoko from the other side of the door. With a sigh, I hurried to dress myself in the school uniform I had picked up when I had first gotten into Kyoko.

      I moved slowly down the building's emergency stairwell. I don't think I could face Chiyoko and her regular customers after what happened the other day. The stairwell seemed to have become darker and more ominous as with each step I took. My memory went back to what I had seen the other day, to the red-faced man, who had been there one moment but gone the next and I was frightened.

     What if he’s still around? He could be lurking through the stairs! My thoughts scared me enough to make me sprint the rest of the way down. I reached the ground floor in record time, I slammed right into the door.

        What? Why won’t the door open? I thought, as I pushed the door as hard as I could. The door seemed to be glued shut and I struggled to pry it open. I felt something cold run down my back and I froze. My heart leapt to my throat when I heard the tell-tale sound of footsteps on concrete stairs. It sounded like whoever was on the stairs was coming closer and closer to me. I desperately tried to shove open the door with all my strength, but it didn’t seem to budge at all.

       "Why won’t you open?" I cried desperately to myself and I leaned my whole body against the door, in hopes to open it.

      “Excuse me. Do you mind opening the door?” asked a female voice. I sighed, in relief at the sound of the woman’s voice.

     “I’m sorry, but I think the door is stuck.” I told her, I pushed on the door to prove that the door was indeed stuck.

      “Here let me try.” Said the woman, scooting me over to try for herself. I watched her jiggle the door handle before shoving it open as if it was nothing.

      “There you go, the doors open.” The woman said and she smiled at me, and awkwardly I smiled back at her. She was a pretty woman, with shoulder length black hair and dark brown eyes, but in a blink of an eye her face completely disappeared. My heart sunk to my feet in fright, the woman before me had no face! But as fast as her face disappeared, it reappeared again. She still had a smile on her face and it grew when she saw the fear on my face.

     “See you later.” And she gave me a little wave before leaving me in the stairwell. I let the door close, my heart was jumping out of my throat.

      What was that? Was that real? My mind screamed with questions as I tried to reason with myself. Of course, it wasn’t real! Don’t be silly! I reasoned with myself, I straightened out my uniform and I cautiously pushed open the stairwell door. Peering outside, I checked for the weird woman, when I didn’t see her, I speed walked my way to the door.

     “Have a good day at school, Edith!” called Chiyoko from the door of the restaurant.

      I waved back to her.

     I walked silently down the unfamiliar streets of Kyoto in silence. I had no idea what I had just seen in the stairwell, but it couldn’t be real. The stairs were lit pretty bad. It could have been just a trick of the light and nothing more than that. The more I thought to myself about it the more I started to calm down. I just chalked up what I saw to being a trick of the light and I felt my heart slow down to a reasonable pace.

      The hustle and bustle of Kyoto woke me up from my trance. It really was a beautiful city, with its huge buildings and pretty cherry trees. I gazed at the city around me with amazement, I felt so tiny amongst all the buildings. My head was swimming with wonder when I pumped into someone.

     “Oh sorry!” I said quickly.

     “Keep moving! Don’t stop!” the person I had pumped into the was cop who, hadn’t even realized I had pumped into him. He was too busy directing people away from what lay behind him. People were stopping to look at what he was trying to hide. Behind the strip of yellow tape was a gruesome sight, blood was splashed all over the brick pavement and my eyes were met with a lifeless woman, cleaved from the waist down. Investigators walked around her top-half, looking for any indication for who – or what, had done something so heinous.

     “Hey!” the police officer grabbed my shoulders and shoved me away from the scene. “keep moving!” I moved away quickly from the scene.

      I let myself get swept away by the crowd. Something about it seemed too familiar to me, but I shoved the thought to the back of my mind. I walked away from the crime scene.