They were just... waiting for someone to remember.
— Ellie
A forgotten place... a flickering light... and the quietest voice in the ruins.
(Discovered near the window seat of Hikari no Koya)
It was quiet. Too quiet for a place that once held laughter. The wooden sign still hung—crooked, barely hanging on a rusted hinge. “Hikari no Koya” The letters were faded, but still there. Still… waiting. I pushed the door open. It creaked like a sigh. Dust curled in the air like ghosts waking from sleep. I didn’t come here for treasure. Or fame. I came because no one else would. They said this inn was cursed. That everyone vanished without a trace. That if you stayed too long, you’d hear voices whisper in the halls. I only heard silence. And silence, to me, was louder than any ghost. I walked past broken chairs, cold hearths, cracked walls. A cup still sat on one table. Like someone meant to come back. In the far room, under one of the collapsed bunks, I found it. A floorboard — loose. Shifted just enough to be suspicious. I pried it open. A soft cloth bundle. A journal. Its cover was worn, its pages yellowed, but the handwriting inside was delicate. Emotional. Almost too human to be fiction. Amehana, it said. And then, beneath it, another name. Faint. Fira. I sat on the floor. I began to read. I don’t know how long I stayed there. But by the time I looked up, the sun was gone. The dust had settled again. The inn was watching. I wasn’t afraid. Because in every word… I could still feel them. The girls. Their warmth. Their sorrow. Their strength. They weren’t gone. Not really. They were just… waiting for someone to remember. — Ellie
The journal didn’t tell me everything. It whispered. Just enough to keep me searching. I stayed the night — couldn’t help it. The room with the least broken bed still had blankets folded at the foot, as if waiting. I lit one candle. Left it by the window. That’s when I saw it. A ribbon. Blue. Faded, fraying at the edges. Tied around the wooden beam where the curtains used to hang. I don’t know why, but I reached out and touched it. It was warm. Or maybe that was just me imagining things. But in that second, I saw a flash in my mind — a girl, her long hair fluttering, tying that ribbon with a smile. She wasn’t smiling with her mouth, but with her whole soul. Was that Amehana? Fira? Or someone else? I held the ribbon and sat at the window seat. The view overlooked the forest. Overgrown now. Twisting through fog. The journal was open in my lap. Amehana’s writing was messy in some places, clean in others — as if certain memories trembled more than the rest. She wrote about warmth, fear, laughter, longing. And then, a line that stayed with me: > “One day, someone will find this place again… and if they do, I hope they sit by this window and know we lived.” I did. I knew. Their stories weren’t just pages — they were etched into this room. Into every creak of the floorboards. Into that ribbon fluttering against the wind. I don’t know why this place called to me. But I think… it didn’t want to be forgotten. — Ellie