Koharu Hosokawa turned to the first page of the Ring manuscript.
Normally, the first page of a manga served as its cover, and the quality of that cover was often a good indication of the artist’s overall skill.
As for the cover of Ring…
The image on the unnaturally clean manuscript paper was simple.
Judging by the background, it depicted a small Japanese-style room.
The room was dark, cold, and damp.
In one corner sat a television filled with flickering static.
The background was almost completely black.
In that gloomy room, the television’s snowy screen was the only source of light.
And whenever light appeared in darkness, the human eye naturally followed it.
But the glow spilling from this television wasn’t warm.
It somehow carried a coldness of its own.
It felt like an icy hand sliding slowly down the back of one’s neck, sending a chill straight into the heart.
Goosebumps rose across Koharu’s skin as she studied the cover, but inwardly she nodded in approval.
This is pretty well drawn.
The composition and use of light are carefully handled too.
The artist must be quite skilled.
It seemed the author of Ring really did have some ability.
He wasn’t merely an amateur pretending to know what he was doing.
No wonder he had dared to include that ridiculous warning about heart disease and epilepsy.
Still, if he thought this alone was enough to frighten an editor, he was far too inexperienced.
With that thought in mind, Koharu turned the page and officially began reviewing the story.
September 5, Sunday.
A small panel at the top of the manuscript displayed the date.
Why include a date?
Koharu didn’t quite understand its purpose.
Holding onto that question, she continued reading.
The story began with two girls, Tomoko Asakawa and her friend Tomoko.
Late at night, the two fifteen- or sixteen-year-old high school girls were sprawled together on the bed, fooling around and occasionally exchanging slightly risqué jokes, exactly as girls in the middle of adolescence might.
The relaxed atmosphere, combined with the Ring artist’s remarkably vivid depiction of the characters, brought a faint smile to Koharu’s face.
But that lighthearted mood didn’t last.
The long-haired Tomoko suddenly turned her head, as though she had just remembered something.
“By the way…
have you heard the urban legend going around lately about a videotape?”
“A videotape urban legend?”
Tomoko Asakawa, who had been playfully wrestling around with her friend a moment earlier, suddenly froze.
She knew her friend loved urban legends, and normally she would happily play along whenever the subject came up.
But this time was different.
Her expression darkened almost instantly, and a trace of unease, perhaps even fear appeared on her face.
The contrast between panels was striking.
In the previous panel, Tomoko Asakawa had been laughing brightly.
In the next, her face had turned cold and grim.
The transition was so abrupt that it almost felt as though someone had ripped away her smiling face, skin and all, and replaced it with another.
This artwork…
A chill ran down Koharu’s spine.
The story continued.
“Yeah.
The videotape legend.” Tomoko nodded.
“A high school boy went to Izu with his family for a vacation.
They stayed at an old minshuku.”
The manga showed the inn.
It was an aging wooden building, its walls covered in withered ivy.
As Koharu stared at the page, she suddenly felt as though she herself had become Tomoko Asakawa.
Yes.
The flat images on the page seemed to stretch outward and take on three-dimensional form.
By the time Koharu snapped out of her brief daze, Tomoko seemed to be sitting right in front of her, her face alive with excitement.
Her voice, her expression—everything felt unbelievably real.
So real that Koharu felt she could reach out and touch her.
“The boy wanted to go out and have fun, but there was a TV program he didn’t want to miss,” Tomoko continued excitedly, looking straight at Koharu.
“So before he left, he set the VCR to record it.
But…”
Tomoko spread her hands.
“There wasn’t any television station broadcasting on that channel in Izu, so the tape should have recorded nothing at all.
But when he played it back at home, a woman appeared on the screen.
She raised her hand—”
SMACK!
A sharp sound exploded through Koharu’s mind.
Pale fingers shot upward!
They seemed to thrust straight toward Koharu’s face.
Tomoko’s expression twisted grotesquely.
Her long black hair began to writhe.
Her red lips distorted into an impossibly wide smile.
Black “ink” seeped from her dark eyes.
“YOU WILL DIE IN ONE WEEK!”
BOOM!
An indescribable terror erupted inside Koharu’s chest.
She tumbled awkwardly out of her office chair.
At the same time, Tomoko’s figure slowly receded, drawn backward into the manga until she vanished completely.
“Haa…”
Koharu’s facial muscles had gone stiff.
Cold sweat covered her face.
She stared incredulously at the manuscript clutched in her hands.
The page showed Tomoko Asakawa frozen in shock after being frightened by her friend.
Isn’t this sense of immersion a little too strong?
The fear felt as though it were squeezing her heart from all sides.
And yet…
She wanted to keep reading.
The more frightened she became, the stronger the urge to turn the page.
It was almost addictive.
She was scared.
But she wanted more.
Koharu’s fingers trembled as she continued.
Tomoko looked delighted by how badly she had frightened Tomoko Asakawa.
After all, what storyteller wouldn’t be pleased when the person listening to their ghost story genuinely got scared?
“Afterward, the boy received a phone call.
The person on the other end said only one thing: ‘You saw it.’ One week later, the boy died.”
Tomoko finished the urban legend with a satisfied expression, clearly pleased with her friend’s reaction.
But soon, she noticed something was wrong.
While she was still struggling to hold back her laughter, Tomoko Asakawa’s complexion grew worse and worse.
Only then did something occur to her.
She stared at Tomoko Asakawa for several seconds before asking uncertainly, “Tomoko…
if I remember correctly, didn’t you go to Izu last week with Ito-kun and the others?”
Outside, the darkness of night seemed to press against the house, like an omen of something terrible approaching.
Tomoko climbed down from the chair and sat on the carpet beside her friend.
“That night, Ito-kun found a strange videotape.
All of us watched it.”
At first, Tomoko Asakawa seemed to be trying to tell the story with an easy smile.
But by the time she reached the end of the sentence, that smile had disappeared.
Her eyes lowered toward the table as though she had fallen into the memory.
“All I remember is that the moment the tape ended, the phone rang.
There was nobody on the other end.”
The smile vanished from Tomoko’s face as well.
She sat there blankly for a moment before murmuring, “That’s…
really scary.”
Nothing more followed.
“Everyone else has heard the story too.
We’re all scared.” Tomoko Asakawa turned toward her friend, no trace of a smile remaining.
“Today makes exactly one week.”
The instant Koharu read those words, the sense of safety she had unconsciously gained from believing there was still a full week left vanished.
A shadow seemed to crawl up her back, and goosebumps covered her entire body.
It felt as though something that should never be looked at was hiding somewhere in the darkness, silently watching her.
Tomoko in the story was stunned as well.
She studied her friend’s expression, her gaze rising and falling uncertainly.
After a long moment, she finally forced out an awkward smile.
“You’re just trying to scare me, aren’t you, Tomoko?”
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Not a single sound could be heard in the room.
It was as though even the air itself had frozen.
Then, in the next instant—
Tomoko Asakawa’s gloomy expression suddenly vanished, replaced by a dazzling smile.
She punched her friend lightly on the shoulder.
“How did you figure it out?”
Tomoko, who had been wearing such a grave expression moments earlier, stared at her in disbelief.
After several seconds, she slapped Tomoko Asakawa’s shoulder in exasperated amusement.
“Unbelievable!
You little—”
The two girls immediately began laughing and fooling around again.
Of course.
Tomoko Asakawa had only been joking.
The suffocating fear disappeared as though it had never existed.
Even the room seemed a little brighter.
Koharu, whose face had been tense only moments earlier, finally released the breath she had been holding.
That really scared me!
For a moment, she had genuinely been afraid that a phone call would come telling her she had seven days left to live.
Koharu turned to the next page.
The composition was extremely simple.
Yet the instant she saw it, the heart that had only just relaxed tightened all over again.
Ring…
Ring…
Ring…
The telephone
was ringing.