My Iyashikei Game

The words on the board numbed Han Fei’s skull because that mirrored exactly what he was feeling at that moment. Something had been looking at him since he entered this house. He could feel the thing’s gaze on him but he could not tell where it came from.

Other than the eerie proclamation, more things were written further down the board. To get to the bottom of the truth, Han Fei held the fruit knife and crawled deeper into the space under the bed. Compared to the overall neatness and order of the house, it was a different world under the bed. Blood stains smeared the wooden board. Someone scratched out the last moments of their life with nails.

“The eye has returned. The moment I close the light, it will be staring at me. Damn, what the hell is it?!”

“I can’t escape, no matter where I hide, the eye will always be looking at me!”

“Am I mad? I am mad! It has shown up at the bottom of the cup and between the freezer compartments. Why would it stare so vengefully at me? What have I ever done to it?”

“There is more than one eye! There is more than one! There are eyes everywhere inside this house!”

“I’ll open my eyes to more eyes. Whenever I wake up, that is the first thing I’ll see! It hides in the gap between the closet, behind the bookshelf, even between the bed frame!”

“They are everywhere!”

“Ha ha ha ha! Finally, I know how to make them disappear!”

“Why? Why? Why? Why even after I lose my eyes, I can still see them? Is it because they are now inside my eye holes?”

Initially the handwriting was pretty legible but it soon turned extremely untidy. That was a perfect representation of the writer’s deteriorating state of mind. After they gouged their own eyes out, the unsettling records stopped. Instead, they were replaced by bloody and random scratch marks. By then, the person probably had completely lost their mind.

‘The room looks so normal on the surface but who would have thought such a horrifying detail will be left under the bed…’ The eyes inside the house were like a ghost but also a curse. Even blinding oneself would not spare one from their constant scrutiny. Replacing the pillow, Han Fei plopped his head down on it. He wanted his experience to be as authentic as possible so he could enter the poor victim’s state of mind more easily. This was something he’d do when he was reading for a new role. Curiously, compared to the spacious room, it felt safer under the bed.

‘I wonder where the eye that drove the house owner mad would appear next?’ Han Fei held the knife in one hand and purposely left his other empty so he could reach out to touch the eyeball. The house was silent as a tomb. Han Fei did not spot any eyeball but he could feel its stare on him. Han Fei looked around him. Since he had memorized the location of all the furniture, he’d be able to tell immediately if something had moved.

‘Wait, that’s new!’ Han Fei, who was hidden under the bed, noticed there was an additional doll on the corridor. ‘Are all the dolls ghosts? Or the ghost is hiding among the dolls? What should I do now? Cut all the dolls up?’ Everything was a mystery. The previous house-owner left not much useful information behind. They did leave behind plenty of nightmare fuel though. While Han Fei was thinking, the doll on the corridor toppled over without warning. It landed on its side and its two eyes stared right at Han Fei under the bed.

In that moment, Han Fei’s back chilled with fear. He turned around subconsciously and saw a blood red eye looking at him from the gap in the bed frame. Compelled by extreme fear, Han Fei’s hand that held the knife lashed at it. But just as he moved his arm, the eye disappeared like it was never there to begin with. Taking a deep breath, Han Fei turned back around and the doll on the corridor had disappeared as well.

‘I do not appreciate this game of hide and seek.’ Han Fei knew one of the dolls had exited the bedroom but now it had vanished. ‘It won’t be under the bed with me, would it?’

The more he thought about it, the more unsettled he felt. Han Fei flipped the board over and scurried out. There was nowhere safe inside this house. Like the previous owner claimed, the eye would be following him no matter where he hid. Therefore, the only way forward was to find more clues to solve this puzzle.

From the words on the bed board, Han Fei understood that the previous owner was not murdered by the ghost but instead they were slowly tormented until they wasted away. ‘The ghost inside Room 1084 possesses heavy resentment, these are the scariest ones. But this is, questionably, good news for me.’

If the ghost preferred slow torture, then it meant that Han Fei would have more time to seek his escape. If it was an aggressive ghost, then Han Fei would have no choice but to log off to preserve his own life. ‘I mustn’t panic.’ Han Fei tried to clear his mind of the eyeball and the dolls.

He focused on clue-searching. He decided to start inside the bedroom. He walked towards the bookshelf. Among the books, Han Fei spotted a sketch pad. He pulled it out and opened it. It contained plenty of childish doodles. Most of the drawings surrounded the theme of family. Sentences written in both Chinese characters and pinyin adorned the drawings.

“We moved into a new home! This place is bigger than our old home, there is a piano and many dolls.”

“Daddy is my daddy, mommy is my mommy, they are not other people’s daddy and mommy!”

“This is now my home. Daddy, mommy and the dolls are all mine!”

“Why does she like to take things from me? She lost her own daddy and mommy so she wants to take my daddy and mommy.”

“I have figured out a way to get her out of the house. She can’t see so she won’t find her way home!”

“How did she get home? I hate her so much! I hate everything about her! I hope she’ll disappear forever!”

“He he, she is a blind girl. As long as I keep quiet, she won’t know it was me who killed her.”

The paintings were incredibly colorful but the sentences that accompanied them were spine-chilling.

‘There was once a little girl who stayed here and she killed another girl with a sight problem?’ Pieces of the stories were falling into place. Han Fei continued his search. He found two certificates at the bottom drawer of the study table. There was a death certificate and an asset inheritance certificate. The death certificate belonged to the parents of a girl by the name of Ying Yue. Ying Yue was young when her parents died. Since she suffered from a congenital eye problem, she could not take care of herself. Therefore, she was taken in by her father’s younger sister.

The asset inheritance certificate detailed that in the event of her parent’s passing, Ying Yue would inherit Room 1084. However, Ying Yue was still too young when her parents died so it had no force of law.

‘I think I get it now. Ying Yue was the girl with the eye problem. This house should belong to her. But after her parents died in an accident, her aunt’s family moved in here to take care of her.’