The wind blowed, twirling crisp autumn leaves against the cracking pavement. All the students of Ichiyama North Junior High School remained inside for their classes, except for the students of the ninth grade’s third class. Outside, in the harsh wind, the Physical Education class was taking place for them. While some students ran sprints on the outer length of the track, others practised the long jump or high jump. But none of them payed attention to the girl on the rooftop who watched them.
The girl had hair black as night that passed no further than a little ways below her chin and her right eye, the dark red colour of blood, watched them. The other eye was covered, hidden by a white eyepatch that looped around her ears. Short and pale, she watched the students of the ninth grade’s third class while wearing a uniform quite like the normal school uniform: a white button-down, collared shirt, navy blue dress that reached a few inches above her knees with straps embellished with the school’s crest, a red bow almost the colour of her right eye, dark grey socks that reached just above her knees, and black Mary Janes.
Nobody noticed her before, but now a new student was coming and he might do so. Originally from a private school in a large city, he moved to the small town of Ichiyama because his father had gone to Mongolia for a research project. The boy, named Rin, was now staying with his dead mother’s grandparents.
His light brown eyes glanced to the window in the headmaster’s office as Rin Yagami was filling out some forms needed for enrollment. He saw the class outside in their PE clothes doing the various track and field activities.
“Okay, now this is the last thing I need you to sign,” spoke the headmaster in a deep, hoarse voice, “It’s just a form saying that if the Calamity happens this year, we can’t be held responsible, so you can’t put up a lawsuit against us.”
Rin turned his gaze back towards the headmaster and asked, “What Calamity?”
“Well, it usually doesn’t happen, but when it does, terrible things happened. It started twenty-six years ago, and it continued until fifteen years ago. Yet, what happened in those first eleven years greatly affected us, so this is just a precaution.”
“I understand, sir, but you didn’t exactly explain what the Calamity is. You just stated that it might happen and when it last did.”
“Well, Mr. Yagami, if the Calamity does happen this year, and we hope it doesn't, you will know that it is happening and you will know that it is the Calamity,” replied the headmaster, slightly annoyed.
“But if you could tell me some signs of this so that I would know-”
“WE DO NOT GO INTO DETAIL ABOUT THE CALAMITY!”
Rin stopped talking, slightly shocked at the man’s response, waiting till he had re-composed himself. Then, the headmaster spoke again, “Sorry for that reaction, but the Calamity has a higher chance of happening if you know the full details about it. Only a select few students know, but they’ve been at its mercy. Well, their family has. Now, the only thing that I can tell you is this: Don’t mess with things that don’t exist. Now, be on your way, you’ll be starting tomorrow.”
“Goodbye, sir,” Rin sat up out of his chair in front of the headmaster’s desk, gave a slight bow, turned towards the door, and left the office. But he still wondered about the last bit of their conversation, the bit about the so-called Calamity.
Is it a curse? No, he would have used the term “curse” instead of “Calamity”. But it still causes great misfortune. At what cost, though? Did people get injured? Did people die? No, they would have closed the school if that were to happen. Yet, what does it mean by “Don’t mess with things that don’t exist.”
Soon after walking a few blocks from the school to his grandparent’s house, it started to rain. And it was raining hard. The raindrops felt like tiny pebbles and they drenched Rin’s clothes and dark brown hair. He started to walk a little faster, and that soon turned into a run. But before he was even five blocks away from the school, a white flash of lightning streaked the sky with it’s powerful light struck down, directly followed by giant roar of thunder.
Hurriedly, Rin Yagami ran down an alley, hoping to find a public place to take shelter from the thunderstorm that brewed right above Ichiyama. When Rin came out of the alley, he saw a building that looked like some sort of art gallery as there were dolls displayed in the windows and a sign in front with “Feel free to take a look at the art.” scrawled across it.
Having nowhere else to go, Rin sprinted towards the door, almost running straight into it, before quickly going inside.
Inside, he saw an old woman behind a counter with white hair and clouded glasses. Wearing a purple dress, she kept a constant monotone attitude and didn’t even look up to see that Rin had entered.
“Oh, it’s not often that we get viewers as young as you are, so you may stay. For free even. After all, you’re the only one to come here today.”
“Thank you.”
Rin started to walk around the gallery, looking at the dolls. Each one had pale skin, neatly brushed hair, thin lips with little colour, elegant clothes,and faces that gave off sorrow as he looked into their large eyes. And even though those eyes were not real, it seemed as though emotions swam through them.
Off to the side of the gallery was a staircase with one dim light, flickering at the bottom. Hesitantly, Rin walked down to the room below.
The light had cast shadows of dolls against the wall and the few other light bulbs down there gave everything a creepy and ominous feel. The dolls helped add to that feeling as well. Compared to the neat arrangement of them upstairs, it was like a thick forest of the dolls here. And while they were similar to their brethren upstairs with the all of the same features, these ones also seemed in pain and as if they were wanting vengeance for some strange reason.
But upon these dolls that were on shelves or in display cases, there was one that resided in a coffin in the corner. Slightly larger than the rest, it’s hair was black as a raven’s feather and just barely reached the shoulders. Bangs were laid over the forehead, except the completely covered the left eye as well. The right eye, however, was staring directly at Rin (if inanimate objects could stare) and was the dark scarlet colour of blood. It wore a dark blue dress with a ribbon, almost the eye’s colour, around the waist. The coffin itself was made of a dark wood and white roses were used as a cushion for the doll.
Reaching towards it, Rin was about to brush aside the bangs that covered the unseen eye when he heard a voice behind him.
“Hello.”
“Gah!” Rin turned around to face the place where the soft voice had come from, only to find a girl that looked very similar to the doll, except she wore an eyepatch, had shorter hair, and was clothed in Ichiyama North Junior High School’s female uniform.
She calmly spoke again, “Who are you?”
“Um… I’m, uh… Well…”
“Hmm?”
Regaining his composition, Rin bowed towards the girl in respect, “I’m Rin Yagami.”
“Rin Yagami,” she said, tilting her head to the side, “do I know you?”
“I’m don’t think so. I mean, I just moved here and unless you ever went to Aomori. That’s where I used to live before here.”
“Oh. You just look familiar. Unless…” the girl looked around the room at the dolls as if there was something connected to Rin amongst them.
“Uh… I never got your name. Would you mind telling me?”
“Akahana Toboso.”
Man, she’s really not much of a talkative person. But I guess I will be going to school with her. Wait. School’s still happening, I’m just starting tomorrow. Is Akahana skipping school today?
“Uh, just wondering, but do you happen to be skipping school today?”
“So are you.”
“I’m not! I don’t start until tomorrow!”
“Okay.”
The two of them stood in the lower room of the art gallery for some time while the light flickered and the dolls watched them while they shared a slightly awkward silence. Finally, it was broken by Rin.
“Uh...Bye!” he said as he went up the stairs and to the ground level. Looking out at the sky, he noticed that it had stopped thundering and was only raining now. Rin ran out the door quickly, running most of the way back to his grandparent’s house to finally get shelter from the weather once more.
The next day, Rin woke up early, brown hair quite messy, and put on his school uniform after going through the process of untangling himself from the bedsheets. Consisting of a navy blue blazer with the school crest on it, a white button-down shirt underneath, and black dress pants, it looked similar to the female version.
After grabbing some fruit for breakfast and heading out on his walk to the school, he soon came across the alley way that had led to the art gallery. Peering down it, he didn’t see anything at all, but when he averted his eyes back to what was in front of him, he was startled to see Akahana casually walking in front him.
“How’d you get there?!” Rin exclaimed.
“I passed you by when you were looking down the alley.”
“So you live near my house?”
“No, I live near the art gallery.”
“Oh. But then why were you coming from back there?”
The river’s quite nice and there’s a good view of it a few blocks down,” aid Akahana as she continued walking ahead of Rin and he soon lost sight of her once they rounded a corner on their route to school.
Once Rin arrived, he was introduced into his classroom and greeted by his peers, who seemed somewhat nervous, even scared, that he was here. But, he was soon acquainted with the head of the student council and some of the club presidents, especially the president of the art club, who had a strange obsession with impressionist paintings.
Nevertheless, lunch came and the students all filed out into the courtyard near the track. And watching all of the students from the roof of the school was one girl: Akahana. It took Rin about five minutes to notice her, but he did when all the others did not.
Rin went up the stairs that lead to the roof from inside the building and eventually opened the door and saw the strange girl he met in the art gallery full of those dolls.
“Uh... Hi! I just saw you up here and I was kind of wondering why you aren’t eating lunch down there and-”
“I don’t get very hungry.”
“Okay...”
A few moments of awkward silence later and Rin decided to break it, “What class are you in?”
“The ninth grade’s third class.”
“You are?”
“Yes.”
“Then why weren’t you in class today? I mean, you walked here and you’re up here now during lunch which is part of our school day, but why not in class? And you skipped class yesterday to. So, why?”
“I’ll tell you later,” she stated blandly and started to walk down the stairs back to the courtyard and track.
Strangely enough, Rin didn’t follow her. He knew that Akahana probably had a good reason, yet he was still curious about what she was doing.
School went on and once it ended, Rin found himself walking back into the art gallery where he met Akahana yesterday.
The old lady greeted him in the same way as she did yesterday as he set off towards the lower level. The dolls were still the same as they were the day before, but this time there was a new one.
The doll was of a girl, dark brown hair that was slightly wavy and long, brown eyes almost black, pale skin (like all of the others), and a pale green sundress adorned with lace. And for some strange reason, Rin believed that he knew this doll, or the person the doll resembled, or...
The student council president!
That was who the doll was of! But, why? Maybe the dollmaker asked the student council president to be a model for her, or maybe it was just purely coincidental. Sill, Rin knew that this doll was of that girl.
At his realization, he passed by Akahana on the staircase, too deep in his thoughts to stop and converse, yet he heard her say one thing.
“She won’t exist anymore.”
The next day, Rin did not see Akahana like he did yesterday when he was walking to school, and when he arrived, he saw that there was one less desk in the classroom. The missing desk being the student council president’s.
Nobody else payed any attention to this and the ones that did feigned that they weren’t noting the missing desk and person. Rin asked several people what happened to the student council president, but all of them told them that everything was fine and pointed at a boy across the room. Somehow, it was like she didn’t even exist.
Am I going crazy? Maybe I’m just confused, but a few others are kind of acting like this. What’s going on?
Not wanting to sound totally insane, Rin just gave up on asking people about why they forgot who the student council president was.
Another week passed by and Rin Yagami was almost convinced that the student council president he was thinking existed never actually did. Almost convinced. He kept on coming back to what he heard Akahana say the last time he was at the art gallery.
“She won’t exist anymore.”
And Akahana was right, she didn't exist anymore.
But still, more time passed by and Rin had once again found himself in the middle of a thunderstorm, seeking shelter in the art gallery.
“I’m such an idiot! I should have stayed at some club, because now I’m stuck here with all of these freaky dolls! DOLLS THAT LOOK LIKE PEOPLE THAT SUPPOSEDLY DON’T EXIST! YEP! I’M GOING CRAZY!”
“No you’re not.”
“GAH! Who’s there?”
Moving out of the shadows was Akahana Toboso, who was now kind of known to Rin for being that one girl that he could probably base horror movies off of with her freaky appearances and blunt way with words.

“Seriously, you freak people out like that.”

“You’re not going crazy.”

“Uh…”

“Those people existed.”

“What do you mean by that, are they dead now?”

She shook her head, “They just don’t exist now.”

“I am still very confused at this. Does this have to do with the Calamity?”

Suddenly, everything seemed to get darker and more eerie. If possible, the dolls seemed to focus on what Akahana was about to say, “The non-existence of our student council president is the calamity.”

“Wait, what?” Rin responded

Not answering his question, Akahana headed to the very back of the room near the doll in the coffin of white roses and spacing out the syllables said, “Good bye, Rin Ya-ga-mi.”

No sooner than when she had said that had Rin noticed a certain doll who looked like the president of the art club.

The next day was like the first day of the student council president’s disappearance, except now with the head of the art club. Rin didn’t ask any questions, but he saw that only the few others that had also noticed the previous disappearance.

Now that I think about it, thought Rin, didn’t it seem like the head of the art club was one of those people that seemed kind of off those weeks ago? If he’s gone, then what about the others? Will they be gone?

And Rin was indeed right. By the time Christmas had passed and school had resumed, two more people were gone. Both of them in his class. Was this to be the Calamity that was spoken of by the headmaster and mentioned by Akahana?

Upon that, he decided to visit the art gallery again, as he only saw her occasionally and he could never get her to say anything about the Calamity at these times.

Looking into the window of the gallery, he saw two new dolls, both looking like the two classmates that were now gone. Four students non-existent to the other people in the school, four dolls resembling the missing. And then he came to a realization.

Going down the stairs to where more dolls resided, he saw Akahan.

“Is this the Calamity?” Rin questioned, “Do those who disappear get turned into dolls? And do the others forget them? Are those who are destined to have this fate remember the missing? Am I to be non-existent?”

“They were the dolls.”

“Wait. What?”

“The four gone. The headmaster is one of them. You are to be the fifth. But more remain.”

“WHAT? What do you mean by that?”

“You shall be the fifth to join us.”

“Us? Are you the one making this Calamity happen?”

“No. I was the victim of fifteen years before. The doll maker has made me the one to see the new dolls. You are one of them.”

“I AM NOT GOING TO BECOME SOME DOLL! I AM A HUMAN BEING! I EXIST!”

“Not for much longer though. Your human existence ends now.” And with that, Akahana removed her eyepatch revealing an emerald green eye and she reached out to put a hand on Rin’s forehead. She closed her eyes and then a white flash of light erupted.

When the bright light faded, both people were gone, but now a new doll had been added to the collection. Light brown eyes, dark brown hair, school uniform like outfit. Rin.