東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 5:Subterranean Animism

—14—


"Ahoy, captain. I brought you a visitor." Yamame said, grinning.

In response to the greeting, the girl in the sailor suit narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Humans?" she asked.

"Yep, two humans who fell down from the surface."

"The surface!?" she asked with genuine surprise. A sparkle of something like interest glimmered in her eyes, distorting the mask-like impression her face had initially given off. She crossed the dozen or so steps to us at a sprint.

"Hijiri!" she blurted as she sloshed to a halt in front of us. "Has the seal on the Hijiri been broken yet!?" She had stopped just in front of us, leaning forward so that she was almost directly in my face.

"Ah, sorry, I don't... What's a Hijiri?" I asked, recoiling from her.

Yamame grabbed her by the shoulders, holding her from advancing any further. "Whoa there captain, just calm down a little." Pushing the other girl back, Yamame inserted herself between the two of us. "Okay, let's have a little introduction first. Humans, this is Captain Murasa. She's a ship phantom that's been sealed up down here for a really long time. Captain, this is Merry and the drunk one is Renko. They fell into my web from the human village on the surface.

"Yes, yes. I'm Murasa. You can call me that or just 'Captain' if you prefer. That's not important though. I need to know about Hijiri. Has the seal been broken yet?"

"Hey, calm down. They're not going to know who you're talking about if you don't explain."

Murasa turned her gaze to Yamame for a moment with a look of annoyance. "You could have at least explained that much before bringing them here."

"Why would I tell them your story? You can do that yourself. Besides, wouldn't you rather that they hear your version of events first?"

"What other version would you tell them?" Murasa asked incredulously. While the two of them began to argue Renko seemed to be recovering a little or at least was willing herself to stand upright and listen, not wanting to miss any detail of this conversation.

Murasa gave up on talking with Yamame and turned to us, her face animated and earnest. "My story's not important. I just need to know one thing from you. Have you ever heard of Hijiri Byakuren? The Buddhist saint and one of the greatest magicians alive? Has a temple to Bishamonten been founded on the surface or anything like that?"

"Hijiri Byakuren? Merry, have you ever heard of anyone like that?"

"No, not that I can think of..."

"Me neither. And you said that he's both a monk and a magician?"

"Not a monk, a nun!"

"Oh, so she's a woman then. Well either way, I'm afraid I've never heard of her."

Instantly the captain's shoulders slumped and the light went out of her eyes. "She's still sealed away then. It's been a thousand years. A thousand years! How long must she suffer?!" Dejected, she buried her face in her hands.

Renko reached out awkwardly toward her, then looked down at the blood at her feet and thought better of it. "Um, sorry to disappoint you, Captain. Maybe if you could tell us what some of the circumstances surrounding her are I could find a way to help."

Murasa raised her face, regarding Renko quizzically. "Huh?"

"Allow me to introduce myself properly. I'm Usami Renko, and this is my assistant, Merry. I'm a detective who runs an agency in the village. I've made a lot of connections with powerful people over the years. Maybe my expertise can be of some use to you too."

"A detective?"

"It's someone whose job it is to discover hidden secrets and make the world more interesting. Can you tell me more about this Byakuren person? Or about yourself for that matter? Our agency would be very interested in both of your stories."

Murasa blinked twice, as if not sure what to make of Renko’s usual troublesome grin. After a moment she shook herself and clapped her hands. "This is no place for us to talk. Come with me, I'll show you to my place and we can have a more comfortable discussion." With that she turned on her heel and began marching.

—

And where did that captain lead us you might ask? On the one hand the answer might seem obvious, but on the other hand, buried deep beneath the surface of the earth in a sunless cavern it might have been the last thing I expected to see.

"...A ship?"

From the Hell of Blood Pools we had turned and walked up a ways, into an even more narrow tunnel. When we emerged from there it was into another open chamber. This one contained a massive wooden sailing ship, resting on bedrock rather than water. The ship was grand, easily 30 meters long, and had an enormous but bare mast that must have gone up at least 20 meters, toward a ceiling beyond the reach of the light. Trapped in the darkness of the earth it was an odd and surreal sort of ship in a bottle, but the captain strode up to it with the same determined steps she had guided us here with.

"This is my ship," she said as we approached. "A ship worthy of a saint, The 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛." She and I have been sealed down here for a thousand years now. She was in far worse shape when we first came down here, but I've spent my time fixing her up."

"Not just your time!" Yamame interjected. "I've been helping out for the last few decades!"

"Don’t get caught up in the small details."

Renko looked the tall ship over. "This ship is a thousand years old?" she asked, tilting her head.

"More or less. Why do you ask?"

"Well looking at it, it's a cask ship, isn't it? A ℎ𝑖𝑔𝑎𝑘𝑖 𝑘𝑎𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑛. Those were common in the Edo period."

"But 1,000 years ago would have been the Heian period."

"Exactly. If it's really that old then it would have been well ahead of its time in terms of design."

Murasa stopped walking and turned. "Are you suggesting I don't know the ship Hijiri gave to me?"

"Not at all, captain. I'm just saying it must be a truly impressive vessel. A marvel of engineering for its age."

"You can't begin to imagine just how impressive she is. Hijiri built her herself from what was once a flying grain warehouse. A ship like that is enough to convince a ship phantom to believe in the light of the Buddha."

"You're just saying that because that's what happened to you," Yamame said, shaking her head.

As we walked towards the side of the ship, a voice called out sharply from the deck, shouting down to us. "Captain? Is that you? Who is that with you?"

I looked up, initially seeing nothing but a large, pink, cloud-like haze above me. Then a figure appeared on the edge of the deck and leapt into the air, landing on the cloud and standing there as if it was solid ground. The haze gathered together slightly, becoming more substantial before suddenly zooming through the air, carrying the figure on its back and swooping down in a long arc towards us.

"Ah, Ichirin."

"Welcome back, Murasa. Who are these people?"

The girl called Ichirin stepped off of the pink cloud and squared her shoulders as she turned to face us. She was wearing what looked to be a nun's hood and habit, dyed a beautiful navy blue. Captain Murasa took a moment to whisper briefly in the girl's ear. She looked surprised by the captain's words, but bowed politely.

"We would be very grateful for any assistance you could offer on our quest to resurrect Saint Byakuren. I'm Kumoi Ichirin, one of Saint Byakuren's disciples. And this is Unzan. He's a nyuudo." As she had been saying this, the pink cloud that she had been standing on a moment ago had been flowing around behind her, changing its shape and reforming itself into an enormous masculine face with a stern expression.

We stepped back in surprise but Ichirin patted the enormous face affectionately. "Oh don't worry, despite the scary face he's quite friendly." The face rotated in place, turning to face Ichirin with a questioning look. "Yes you do have a scary face. That human is scared of you, see?" It seemed like there was a conversation going on between the two of them, but if the nyuudo ever spoke, I neither heard his voice nor saw his mouth move at all.

I bowed in return, but I couldn't help but feel like somehow the story had gotten slightly twisted somewhere along the line. Renko had asked to hear Murasa's tale in the hope that we might be of some assistance, but I don't remember agreeing to help with anyone's resurrection at any point.

"Well then, welcome aboard, everyone," Murasa said, gesturing toward the ship.

"Oh no, you're going to tell them your whole sob story aren't you?" Yamame protested. "You go ahead and do that then, Kisume and I will stay around here and find something to do. Just shout for us when you're done talking," Yamame said as she waved her hand and turned to leave.

Ichirin looked disappointed for a moment, but quickly shook it off. "Alright then," she said, "climb aboard and Unzan will fly us up." She turned to glance at the cloud for the briefest of moments and it (he?) dutifully swept forward in a haze, flattening out like a pink carpet before us.

Tentatively I placed my foot on his back, experiencing a truly bizarre sensation. The nyuudo felt as if it was a soft blanket.

"This must be what it feels like to ride on the flying nimbus! The world truly is a remarkable place." Renko said as she stepped onto Unzan, marveling at the sensation, then bending down and whacking the surface of the cloud with her hand. "Careful now," Ichirin said, stepping up to join us. "Don't hit him too hard or he'll get mad." Renko hurriedly retracted her hand, grimacing slightly.

I had flown standing on a cushion of air with Sanae several times now, but this was my first time riding a cloud. The sensation was much like what I might have imagined riding on a magic carpet to feel like. Once again Gensokyo was proving that the boundary between reality and wildest fantasy could be altogether nonexistent at times.

At any rate, carried on Unzan's back, we ascended toward the deck of the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛.


—15—


"This ship wasn’t really made for guests," Murasa said apologetically as we stepped off of the cloud and onto the deck. "What should we do, Ichirin? We don’t have a reception room and we can’t bring them into Hijiri’s cabin..."

"Well, it will have to be your room then, Captain. You have chairs at least," Ichirin remarked.

"Only two of them."

"Then I suppose you and I will stand."

With that decided, the captain led the way, showing us to her quarters. The room was just a simple cabin with only a bunk, a desk and a large sea chest in it. Pulling out two flimsy looking chairs, she offered them to us. We sat down timidly on the creaking wood, as it seemed like they might collapse into dust at any moment.

"Well then," Murasa began, as she and Ichirin crowded together on the opposite side of the desk. "Alright then, what were you asking about? Our history, I think it was…"

"Yes, could you tell us how such a magnificent sailing ship came to be found in the depths of the earth? Or who Saint Byakuren is, or why she was sealed away. Any of that, really."

"I'll let Murasa tell it," Ichirin said demurely.

"Alright," the captain said with a nod. "It's an epic tale, and it begins with my first encounter with the great nun Hijiri Byakuren."

—

I'm afraid for the sake of brevity I can't reproduce the whole of the captain's story here. The way she told it was full of animation and passion, acting out bits here and there in a way that kept me on the edge of my seat but would be far too long for me to record verbatim and I worry I wouldn't do it justice if I were to try. Instead, let me offer you this brief, easily digestible summary. Essentially, the story went like this:

Once upon a time there was a very wise and famous monk named Myouren. His sister, Byakuren, had learned the Dharma at Myouren's side and became a nun as a result. Sadly, Myouren died of old age eventually, leaving his younger sister behind. In order to make sure that her brother’s teachings were not lost, Byakuren learned magic and used it to restore her youth, then travelled around all of Japan spreading Buddhist teachings.

As Byakuren travelled the land, she came to understand that while some youkai were dangerous others were persecuted unjustly and hunted even if they weren't the sort to eat or torment humans. This awakened in her the idea that perhaps humans and youkai were not so different. As such, she gave up travelling and founded a temple in the mountains, not far from what would eventually become Gensokyo to spread the Buddha's teachings among humans while also secretly converting youkai to her cause as well. It was during this time that she encountered Ichirin and Murasa, two youkai who now saw themselves as having been saved by Byakuren.

Murasa was a ship phantom, a sort of earthbound spirit who had died as a result of an accident at sea and had been taking out her grief and fury at the world by sinking every passing ship to come across the stretch of ocean that she haunted. The very ship that we were now sitting on was apparently a vessel that Byakuren had constructed with the express purpose of using it to provide a new home for Murasa to haunt.

Ichirin was another human who had become a youkai unintentionally. According to her, she was once a traveling warrior and adventurer, who had heard a tale about a rampaging nyuudo and set out to exterminate it. She had subdued the youkai successfully but because of this she had come to be seen as no less monstrous than the creature she had defeated. Rejected by humanity, she had taken to travelling with Unzan, working as his partner. In time she had become a youkai herself. It was a story right out of a manga, a hero setting out to slay the Demon King only to become the next Demon King themselves.

Byakuren continued to operate like this, teaching Buddhism to humans while secretly welcoming and sheltering youkai at her temple. Ichirin and Murasa were even permitted to join the temple as disciples. Along with Byakuren they presented themselves as regular humans. To the humans living in the land, Byakuren appeared to be a living saint, invested with divine power and garnering the respect of all those who saw her.

In time though, the ruse fell apart. Eventually the truth of what Byakuren had been doing came out and the people began to denounce her powers as demonic rather than divine. The people of the surrounding human communities rallied an angry mob and surrounded her temple. As the situation was on the verge of becoming a vicious slaughter in which numerous lives would be lost, the Hakurei shrine maiden of the time called forth the Yama to act as an arbitrator. Murasa and Ichirin didn't seem to know the Yama’s name, but from their description of her appearance it sounded like it must have been Eiki Shiki, the same Yama we had met during the flower incident.

The two had no knowledge of what had been discussed between Byakuren and the Yama, or what agreements might have been made as, following Byakuren's instructions, they had both attempted to escape while the mob surrounding the temple had been distracted by the Yama's appearance. The two fled the scene, but were apprehended before they could make a getaway. Byakuren had apparently submitted herself to the Yama's judgement and been sealed away in Makai for her crimes. The sentence for Murasa and Ichirin had been for them to be sealed underground along with this ship. Here they had remained for almost a thousand years.

—

"Aside from us, Saint Byakuren had two more youkai disciples. One was Toramaru Shou, a youkai tiger and devotee of Bishamonten. The other was her supervisor Nazrin, a mouse youkai. They both likely escaped and are still hiding somewhere on the surface." Ichirin added. "My dream would be to escape from this pit somehow and return to the surface. If possible, we'd reunite with them then travel to Makai and release Saint Byakuren from her imprisonment. In the thousand years we've been here, we've never heard from them or found a way out though."

"And that’s how it ends," Murasa replied, allowing her shoulders to droop once more.

"Um, there's a large vertical shaft that leads straight to the surface..." I suggested tentatively.

"We know that, of course! There's a hashihime watching the bridge to make sure no one gets out though. We wouldn’t want to cause problems for the other Underworld youkai. Besides, we need this ship freed too. There's no point in us escaping without it. Most of Hijiri's magical power was sealed inside this ship, and we'd need that to free her."

Given the size of this ship, I'm not even sure if it would have been able to go up through the shaft we had fallen into the Underworld through, but there was absolutely no way it could possibly fit through the narrow tunnels that lead there.

"I assume you've already tried digging a path up to the surface on your own?" Renko ventured.

"Yamame told us not to, as it might destabilize the cavern over the city."

"I see...."

"So what's the world of the surface like now?" Murasa asked. "I understand that Hijiri hasn't been released yet, but what's become of human society? When Yamame and Kisume came down here, they told us that all the lands nearby had been sealed within an enormous barrier, and that's the last time I heard any news from the surface."

"Merry and I are newcomers to Gensokyo, so I'm afraid we can't tell you much about the history of the surface world since you left it, but we've been there a few years now and can tell you about the current state of things." Renko then proceeded to lay out a brief and general description of what life in the human village was like. Ichirin and Murasa asked several questions, which Renko did her best to answer. As might be expected, the thrust of these questions mainly seemed to have to do with the nature of human-youkai relations in Gensokyo.

"So then it sounds like humans are more tolerant of youkai presence now."

"Well, there's a clear line in the form of the wall around the village. Peaceful youkai are tolerated as long as they just come into the village to shop and then leave. There are also some people, like our landlord, Miss Keine, who are half youkai, but they're treated like regular humans for the most part. The village Chronicler, the current Child of Miare, describes Gensokyo as being at peace at the moment, so all in all I would say things are probably somewhat more peaceful and harmonious now than they were in your time."

At Renko's words, Murasa and Ichirin looked at each other, smiling, then fell into an embrace.

"Murasa! It's finally happening! Byakuren was right all along! The hand of the Buddha truly does shape the world." Ichirin sniffled as she held back tears.

"It wasn't all in vain! Even if humanity wasn't ready to understand in her time, Hijiri was still able to make a difference."

Having just spent more than an hour listening to the history laid out by the two of them, seeing their elation at the current state of things brought a tear to my eye as well. Renko sat stoically beside me, but produced a handkerchief from the pocket of her trenchcoat and offered it to me. "It's a good story." she said, averting her eyes. Despite all the trouble she put me through, my partner can be a good companion to have around from time to time.


—15—


"If that's the way things are now, then the time is ripe for Hijiri to be released."

"There's hope again, Murasa! All we have to do now is get out of here!"

With excited smiles on their faces the two of them quickly set to discussing possible means of escape. Seeing how happy they looked I felt that even if all we could do for the two of them was to bring them hope that had long been missing from their lives, then perhaps our visit to the Underworld was worth everything we had been through.

"If there's anything we can do to be of assistance, then the Hifuu Detective Agency would be happy to help."

"Renko don't make promises you can't deliver on again..." I hissed.

"I knew it! Humans and youkai really can work together!"

"Well of course. I count youkai among both my friends and my clients."

"Oh you truly are a gift from the Buddha. Praise be to Hijiri for showing us the way!"

Murasa stepped over to Renko, scooping her up in a tight hug. I don't know how she does it. Renko must have some genetic mutation that makes her emit pheromones that make youkai want to be her friends or something.

—

"Merry, Renko, thanks for this news." Murasa said gleefully.

"I can't tell you how overjoyed we are to hear it. If we can ever help you out please come find us. Please consider yourself both as family to us now. I see you and anyone else who helps us to free Hijiri as kin.

"I'll have Unzan fly you back down. Thank you for coming to see us. I hope that the next time we meet, it will be on the surface," Ichirin added.

With that, the two of them bid us farewell and the nyuudo flowed away from the deck of the ship, once more flattening out like a sheet to carry us. As we stepped aboard, he brought us gently down to the ground before forming once more into the features of an enormous and stern-looking, but slightly handsome face. Unzan lowered his eyes, bowing in place before streaming back up to the deck. Just as Ichirin had said, he looked scary, but he seemed pretty nice.

"Nobody's ever called me 'kin' before."

"I don't think either of us could really be kin to a youkai."

"Hey, if we're both kin to them now does that make you A-Merry-kin? Yeehaw, partner."

"That's terrible, Renko. Are you still drunk or do you just have the mind of an elementary school student?"

As we were discussing such nonsense, I spotted Yamame and Kisume walking towards us, coming from the direction of the tunnel we had taken to get here from the Hell of Blood Pools.

"Ah, you're finally done. They're a pretty odd pair, aren't they?"

"I wouldn't think of them as 'odd.' It was an interesting story they told us. It makes me want to cheer them on," Renko said happily.

"Cheer them on? You really think they can get that thing to the surface? It's impossible, isn't it?"

"Well, it got down here from the surface, so it stands to reason there must be some way to get it back up. Maybe if we get back to the surface we could find a way to excavate it. Dig a mine and brace the tunnel walls as we go down or something. It would be like discovering buried ancient ruins."

Personally I had my doubts that digging a tunnel from the surface to a place that had once been Hell was even possible.

"Well whatever. For now your next destination was the Palace of the Earth Spirits, right? Let's head back to Old Hell."

I had been so caught up in Captain Murasa's story that I had nearly forgotten that the whole reason we had been in a position to fall into the Underworld in the first place was because we had been looking into the matter of the Earth Spirits that had been coming out of the geyser.

"Don Yuugi has probably finished what she was doing by now, so let’s head back," Yamame said as she once again took hold of Kisume's bucket, turned on her heel and then promptly walked right into the stone wall.

"Ah! Oww!"

The tub holding Kisume had been the first thing to hit the wall and had in turn smacked into Yamame, knocking her down so that she landed roughly in a seated position, exhaling a huff of air. I suppose even fearsome, man-eating youkai can have clumsy accidents.

"Ugh, Kisume, are you okay?" Yamame asked, rubbing her nose. Kisume was looking up at her with tears in her eyes, with hands rubbing both the front and back of her head.

"Oww. Why did I…" Yamame groaned while looking up at the wall she had just walked into. It seemed like she hadn’t realized she was walking into a wall. "What did I even hit?"

Had she not realized that she was walking into a wall? While I was wondering that, my partner rushed forward, casting a brief glance at Yamame then proceeding to look carefully at the wall she had just walked into, reaching her hand out to tentatively touch it.

"Whoa! There's an invisible wall here! Merry, can you see it?"

It was a strange thing for Renko to say as she was clearly patting the solid stone of the cavern wall as she did so. "What are you talking about?"

"Here, come here and touch this. Maybe you can find a way through. It was strong enough to knock Yamame over, so it must be a powerful barrier."

"There's no way through that, it's solid stone. It's not even a barrier. Are you still drunk, Renko?"

"What, no!, There's an invisible wall here, come touch it!" she demanded, slapping the smooth stone once again.

"You're hallucinating Renko. It’s just a wall."

"What?"

"What?"

We stared at each other for a moment. The only thing I could see was a perfectly normal section of the cavern walls, but Renko was looking at me earnestly, insisting that there was something else there. I wondered if she had actually gone crazy.

"Merry, does this just look like an ordinary wall to you?"

"What else would it look like?"

"The tunnel we used to get here!"

"The tunnel is over there," I said, pointing to a spot about 30 degrees to the right of Renko's position. The opening was about five meters from where Renko and Yamame were standing.

Renko followed my pointing finger and looked over toward the side. "Where? There's nothing over there, Merry, that's just a wall."

"What are you talking about, Renko?" I walked over the tunnel entrance and shoved my arm into it.

"Whoa! Merry! Your arm went into the wall!"

Renko looked incensed and was about to say something more, but when she glanced back at the spot where her hand had rested on the wall before she did a double-take. "Oh, I get it now! That's just a wall!" She said in amazement, looking at the solid, unmoving stone.

"Of course it is, Renko, it always was."

"Not to me, and not to Yamame either." Yamame nodded in agreement. "I can see it now, but there must be something in here that’s making it look like the wall and the tunnel have swapped positions. Your eyes saw right through it like you did with Nitori's camouflage or Reisen's phase shifting, but to everyone else those two were in the opposite places until just now."

So that's what was going on. To Renko and Yamame the wall had looked like a tunnel, so of course they had bumped into it. It was clearly different from the kappa's optical camouflage or Reisen's ability though. In both of those cases I was basically seeing the same scenery as Renko or anyone else, there was just a distortion in the surroundings that most people couldn’t see. In this case Renko and I were actually seeing two completely different things. For two people to perceive entirely different things from the same stimulus presented an interesting psychological conundrum, but this hardly seemed the time to worry about such things.

"Oh I know what's going on here," Yamame said, still rubbing her nose. "There's a youkai down here who does stuff like this, like some kind of prank. Hey! Show yourself, you coward! Though I guess you’re probably less likely to come out if I yell something like that…”

"Who is this youkai?"

"I don't know. I've never seen them, but they've been living down here as long as Murasa and her friends have been. They're a real prankster, and they love doing things like this. I was with Yuugi one time and she mistook a sake cup for a large rice cracker and bit it in half."

That sounded particularly painful to me.

"The best thing to do is to just ignore them and leave. This one is the real tunnel, right?"

"Here, I'll lead you, just follow me."

"Good idea. We can't trust what we're seeing."

I smiled faintly at Yamame then turned and walked into the tunnel. She and Renko both followed behind me, but cautiously, seeming uncertain until they were completely inside of it. Before long, the overwhelming stench of the Hell of Blood Pools once again assaulted our nostrils. As before, I held my nose and squinted.

As we drew closer and the light of the pool began to illuminate our surroundings, I thought for a moment I saw the figure of a young girl standing alone by the shoreline.

"Eh? Who's that?" I muttered to myself. When I blinked my eyes, her figure vanished entirely. I looked up and down the shore from where she had been as we marched along, and a moment later I saw her again in my peripheral vision, only to lose her when I tried to look at her directly. I stopped walking and strained my senses. There were definitely footsteps here that weren't Renko's or Yamame's, falling at a slower rhythm, with a hint of telltale wet slap. Someone else was down here with us. A young girl wearing an elaborately ruffled, mustard-colored blouse with emerald green trim and a stylish black hat. At least that's what I kept thinking I was seeing out of the corner of my eye.

"Who's there?" I called out, louder this time. The sound of footsteps stopped —both Renko's and Yamame's and the ones from the shore.

"Uh, Merry? Who are you talking to?" Renko asked.

I didn't answer, instead trying to remember where exactly I had last seen the girl's image. I took a step toward the edge of the blood pools.

"Who are you?" I asked the empty air.

All at once there was a sensation of something brushing past me and a quick patter of footsteps as something disappeared from the shoreline and dashed up toward the tunnel leading back to the city.

"Wait!" I called, chasing after her. I quickly left the others behind as I dashed ahead, feeling strangely compelled to pursue the fleeing shadow.
"Hey Merry, wait up!" I heard Renko call from behind me.

I sprinted on, heedless of her words, into the inky darkness of the tunnel, chasing after the sometimes-there, sometimes-not image of the girl in front of me. If you asked me to explain my actions at the time, I'm afraid that even now I couldn't. I had to chase after her. I was sure of that, for her sake if not my own, though I couldn’t begin to explain why I felt that way.

"Stop! Don't run off!" I called into the darkness. My voice echoed off of the stone walls, coming back at me sounding like someone else's. The reverberations of the footsteps stopped once more, however. I squinted into the gloom. In the depths of the darkness, I thought I could almost make out a girl's silhouette. Yes, there was definitely someone in front of me. I couldn't really see here, but I could just barely sense her. A small, pale girl with very little presence, but she was definitely, if barely, there.

And then, a quiet, almost ghostly voice spoke in the darkness.

"...Can you really see me?"