海边民宿的二楼（一）

Japan has a very large anonymous forum, and among the most widely circulated long posts there is one called "Vacation Part-Time Job." The poster first gave everyone a heads-up: this post is terrifyingly long, and there isn't much significant content, so only those who are dead bored should read it. After the warning, he began to speak.

The incident happened in his third year of college. Summer vacation was approaching, and five classmates planned to go to the seaside to play. Someone suggested they just go work part-time, so they could both play and earn money. The five of them had no other arrangements and agreed immediately. Later, two of them had to attend a training camp for a seminar and couldn't go, so it became three people working part-time, while the other two were tourists who would move into the hotel where they worked after a while.

The three of them searched online separately. There were many hotels hiring summer workers, and many even wrote "friends are welcome to come together." They chose one very close to the sea; that area was famous for being easy to pick up girls, a point they naturally didn't overlook. The application went smoothly. In the middle, they proposed letting two friends stay for two days, and the landlady said, "Then you'll have to do more work," and the matter was settled. A few days before departure, the three of them first went to a bathhouse, then gathered at one person's apartment. They washed until their faces were glowing, looked at each other's faces, and seriously discussed what to do after successfully picking up girls.

On the day of departure, he was both nervous and expectant.

When they arrived, it was a two-story guesthouse, not small. In one word, it was like a grandmother's house in the countryside. The sign said hotel, but it was actually more like a guesthouse. They shouted at the door, and a young girl came out from inside, smiling to welcome them. He immediately felt energized. On the first floor inside, there were four guest rooms, one large dining hall, and two rooms where employees lived, totaling seven rooms. The girl led them to the hall and served them barley tea. Her name was Misaki, a child who grew up nearby. Coming in with her was the landlady Makiko, dressed casually, with a particularly loud laugh, a refreshing person. He said if she were a bit younger, he would definitely fall for her. And there was the boss. Six people in total, supporting this guesthouse.

After the introductions, the landlady said: The bathroom and toilet are at the end of the corridor to the right, one on each side; you three stay at the end of the left corridor; put your luggage down first, and I'll tell you about the work.

Among the three, one whom he called A suddenly asked: "Wasn't it said there are four guest rooms? What about the second floor?" The landlady answered with a smile: "The second floor isn't being used right now." They thought it was probably because the peak season hadn't arrived yet and didn't take it to heart. When the peak season comes, it will surely open, right.

After putting down their luggage, looking out the window, the sea was right there, and everyone relaxed at once. The part-time work was of course tiring, but being able to spend a summer in such a place, he felt it was worth it, not to mention he was still looking forward to a summer romance. And so they started working. There was a pile of miscellaneous chores, but the boss and the others were all good people, and he didn't feel any hardship. His impression was that, when it comes to working, it ultimately depends on the people.

A week passed. One evening, the three of them were chatting in the room, and somehow the topic turned to the second floor.

"Will the second floor open when peak season arrives?"

"Probably not," said another. "Don't the landlady and them live upstairs?"

He and A both exclaimed, "Huh? Really?" The third person, let's call him B, said: "I don't know, but has the landlady been carrying meals upstairs lately?"

B was responsible for sweeping the area in front of the entrance every evening, so he often ran into the landlady. He said the landlady put the food on a tray, carried it, and hurriedly walked toward the stairs leading to the second floor.

After hearing this, the other two just said "mm" and moved on. At the time, no one felt anything was wrong.

A few days later, he was mopping the corridor when he saw the landlady quietly come out of a guest room. The landlady never cleaned rooms normally; that was Misaki's job. He initially thought he was mistaken, and felt a knot in his heart all day. By night, he couldn't hold it in and told his two friends. A said: "I've seen it too." B said: "Me too." He asked, why didn't you say so earlier? The two said they thought she probably had something to do, and besides, suspecting each other would be too awkward.

At that time, there was still nearly a month before the part-time job ended, and the other two friends would be coming next week. The three of them discussed whether to just pretend they hadn't seen anything. Someone suggested: Why not follow the landlady? It was immediately rejected. In such a small hotel, how could you follow? You'd definitely be caught on the spot. The final conclusion was: if there was nothing wrong, everyone would just go on happily; but after all, they were three young men and had a bit of an adventurous spirit. Whoever saw something suspicious would report it. That night, they all slept honestly.

The next evening, B called the other two over, acting mysterious.

"About the landlady going to the second floor, this time I saw it through to the end. Before, I only saw her walk into the stairs. This time I waited there, and she came down in about five minutes."

"What about the food on the plate?"

"Empty."

The landlady ate with them, eating the same food as them, not because she was hungry. B said: "That plate of food was for the person upstairs. There's someone living on the second floor." But none of them had ever seen that person, nor heard anyone mention them. Someone said, maybe it's a patient. B said, eating a whole plate of food in five minutes doesn't sound like a patient, does it? "Do you think it's suspicious or not?" B was a bit smug, the other two were a bit annoyed, but they all felt it was a bit creepy.

Here it needs to be explained: the stairs leading to the second floor are not inside the house. Go out from the entrance, walk along the outer wall, turn a corner, there is a door on the wall, and only inside that door are the stairs. You can't go up from anywhere inside the house.

On the third day, the three of them finished their work early and squatted at the entrance. After a while, the landlady came out carrying a tray, walked toward the corner of the wall, her shadow turned, and disappeared. About five minutes later, she came back, the plate on the tray was empty, she didn't notice them, and went straight into the house.

"Let's go take a look," he said.

The three of them walked to that door, and A muttered, "Won't it be locked?" The door wasn't locked. He grabbed the handle and turned it, and the door opened a few centimeters easily. B, standing on the left, could just see inside through the gap. He immediately wrinkled his face and pinched his nose.

"Why does it smell so bad?"

He and A didn't smell anything. A said, don't scare people. B said seriously: "Really, you can't smell it? Open the door a bit more and you'll know." He made up his mind and pulled the door open in one go. A gust of warm air surged out from inside, and dust flew up.

B said it smelled like rotting kitchen waste. A said you must be imagining it.

He noticed something else: the stairs inside were very narrow, only enough for one person to walk, with no lights, and no visible switch. The light from outside barely reached the corner of the stairs, and beyond the turn was another stretch.

"If we go up, we have to go one by one," A said.

B said: "You want to go, go yourself, I'm not going." A also said he couldn't.

"Then I'll go," he said.

Later, he himself felt this made no sense. His explanation was: if I don't figure this out, I won't be able to sleep at night. If I can't sleep, I might sneak over alone in the middle of the night, which is more dangerous. Then he added: "This is exactly the kind of thing a doomed person in a movie would say, so I'm making it clear now." A and B would cover him from below, which was better than him coming alone in the middle of the night. The three of them agreed: if something happens, don't leave him behind, tell him immediately; if nothing happens, don't suddenly shout or yell, because he might not be able to keep his life.

He walked up alone. Inside, lit by the light from outside, it looked dim, and he carefully stepped up one stair at a time. After just a few steps, there began to be soft “pa, pa” sounds under his feet. He looked back: A and B were standing below watching him, giving thumbs up, meaning it was fine. He nodded slightly, thinking, it’s normal for an old house’s floorboards to creak.

Going further up, the light from the doorway hardly reached anymore. Curiosity and fear—the tightly wound tension—began to waver, and he almost wanted to turn around and run downstairs immediately. He squinted ahead, and at the door at the end of the stairs, there seemed to be something standing. “Seemed to be,” he said, and this kind of “seemed to be,” “maybe” thought, just chose this moment to perk up. His heartbeat grew louder and louder. Under his feet, he felt he had stepped on something, soft or hard, he couldn’t tell.

His whole back turned cold. That thing didn’t move. The surroundings were so dark nothing could be seen.

#Paranormal #连载 #海边民宿的二楼