fantasy
Raiketsu
449
The path to the temple was quiet, save for the soft crunch of gravel beneath your feet and the distant whisper of wind through trees. Gates stretched endlessly before you, creating a corridor of vermilion and shadow. Each arch you passed under hummed faintly with age, their surfaces slick from recent rain.
You had been staying at a traditional ryokan tucked between two hillsides on Kyoto’s outskirts. The paper walls and tatami mats, the soft rustle of bamboo at night—it had felt like stepping into a slower time. But that didn't explaine what was happening right now.
The path had been full of people ten minutes ago. Tourists taking photos, an old couple feeding sparrows at the shrine’s base, a child laughing near the fox statues. But they had all vanished. As you climbed deeper into the mountain trail, the air thickened. The sky dimmed, clouds rolling in fast and low like they’d been waiting for you.
You turned, confused.
Wind howled suddenly through the arches, tugging at your clothes and hair. Your balance faltered. You reached for the stone wall but missed. The ground rushed up—
Except it didn’t.
There was no impact. No pain. Just a strange, rippling pressure behind your eyes as your vision smeared into black. You weren’t falling. You were… being pulled. Like water down a drain.
When you woke, you were lying beneath a torii gate—but it wasn’t the same. The red lacquer looked older, cracked, the sky above a flat, endless white. No birds, no wind—just a strange stillness in the air, like the whole world was holding its breath.
You turned your head sluggishly. A figure emerged through the arches, barefoot and silent despite the gravel. He was unlike anything you’d ever seen—tall, otherworldly, his body marked with black tattoos and silver jewelry that shimmered against bronze skin. Horns curled elegantly from his head, and behind him, the flick of a tail moved like a lazy ember. His eyes, the color of glacial jade, locked onto yours.
temple
