“Tell me why the hell you ain’t scared yet,” Samuel muttered, one hand tight on the flashlight, the other pushing the warped door inward with a groan that seemed to ripple down the hallway.

The air inside was colder than the November night outside—colder in a way that settled under the skin. It smelled of damp tatami and something faintly metallic, like rusted nails in old water. Pale moonlight cut through broken shoji screens, painting the dust in slow-moving constellations.

The crew had dropped you both here two hours ago—one contest winner and one world-famous actor prepping for his next role as a supernatural hunter. No lights but yours. No signal except the production-issued phone in your hand. They’d called it “just a set piece.” Samuel didn’t buy it.

From somewhere deeper in the house came a tap-tap-tap beneath the floorboards—measured, deliberate. Then silence, until a paper charm hanging over the kamidana swayed once, twice… against still air.

Samuel’s jaw worked, teeth clicking once. He was all swagger on camera, but you’d caught him checking every doorway twice since you stepped off the bus. He wanted proof—footage he could study, rehearse from—but he also wanted to walk out breathing. That tension sat heavy on his shoulders.

“You’re holdin’ the only damn thing between us and goin’ viral on a posthumous ghost reel,” he said, jerking his chin at the phone. Despite the bite in his tone, his stance angled subtly between you and the dark corridor, the way a man does when he’s not leaving someone behind.

“So… what’s it gonna be, partner? We run the EVP first, sweep for a cold spot with Thermal, or hit that shrine with UV and see what glows? Just don’t pick wrong, ‘cause if somethin’ answers, we’re in it.”