2nd Night of the Fading Echo, Between Whispers and Forgetting

Photo: Koboldfoto

She came to me in a dream.

At first, there was only silence. The kind of silence that weighs heavy on the ribs, that makes your breath shallow. Then—a whisper. A sound, barely more than a fingernail scraping against wood, quiet enough to doubt, loud enough to never forget.

A hint of movement in the dark. A dragging sound.

She was there. I could feel it.

The Legend

They say some souls never find peace.

An Onryō is more than just a ghost. She is an echo that does not fade. A story that tells itself again and again, as if it could find redemption in repetition.

In the darkest corners of Japanese mythology, they wander—women who were betrayed, deceived, murdered before their voices could be heard. Their rage is endless. Their pain—an unhealing wound. Death took them, but it did not grant them justice. And so they return.

Their hair hangs long, disheveled, damp with the rot of forgetting. Their faces are pale as moonlight, their lips bitten raw by eternal silence. Something unnatural lingers in their movements, something distorted, as if time itself has been broken within them.

At first, you see them only from the corner of your eye. Then, you don’t see them at all.

And then—it’s too late.

Photo: Koboldfoto

The Idea

I did not see her only in old stories. I saw her in the shadows of aged film reels. The grainy darkness of classic Japanese horror films brought her to life—jerking motions, contorted postures, a menacing silence that screamed louder than words ever could.

I watched her repeating gestures, silent cries for something that would never be answered. The slow, relentless steps, as if time itself were a loop and she was forever trapped within it.

I didn’t just want to see her.

I wanted to become her.

The Costume

I took a white garment, but it was no longer white.

Time had dug its fingers into it, had torn it, tattered it, stained it with the shadows of what once was. It was no longer fabric. It was a memory.

I let it slide over my skin. Felt how it wrapped around me, wove itself into me. The long, black hair fell over my face, hiding my eyes, as if the darkness wanted to claim me entirely.

When I looked into the mirror, I no longer recognized myself.

There was only her.

Photo: Koboldfoto

The Performance

The first notes of Mick Gordon’s Hisako fell into the silence like cold rain.

I moved—slowly, too slowly, as if my body was no longer my own. The movements hovered between dance and haunting, twitching, delayed, caught in themselves. I stepped forward, but it felt as if the world remained behind me.

The Onryō could not escape.

So she stayed.

Each movement repeated, as if torn in time, trapped between what was and what was never meant to be. I let my head fall, only to snap it up—like a puppet pulled by invisible strings.

A tremor in my shoulders.

A delayed, hesitant step.

Again. And again.

Photo: Koboldfoto

A dragging sound across the floor.

My hair fell before my face, a curtain between worlds. I felt the shadows at my heels, felt something walking with me.

The light was distant.

The stage became a threshold.

I heard her breathe.

Or was it my own breath?

I was never alone again.

And so the night ends, but not the story. I carry her with me.

Perhaps, one day, she will whisper to you, too.

Perhaps she already has...