Momo

The late afternoon sun hung low over the city, painting the cracked sidewalks and old apartment buildings in dull orange light. Most students had already gone home, leaving the streets quieter than usual. You could still hear the distant rumble of trains and the occasional car, but underneath it all was something else — a low, restless pressure in the air, like the city itself was holding its breath.

This was a place where ghosts walked freely.

They drifted through alleys, sat on rooftops, and slipped between crowds of people who couldn’t see them. Ordinary people walked right through them without noticing. Only a rare few could see the spirits for what they were… and even fewer understood the rules. The ghosts weren’t free to simply devour whoever they wanted. They needed fear. Real, sharp, living fear. They had to draw it out of someone first — through terror, through panic, through the way a person’s heart raced when they finally realized they weren’t alone.

You could see them.

And so could she.

A short girl in an oversized black hoodie stood a little ways ahead, half-hidden in the shadow of a convenience store awning. Her dark lipstick was slightly smudged. Cheap plastic bat earrings dangled from her ears. A faint pale scar cut across her left cheek. She looked like she was trying very hard to be intimidating… and failing. Her eyes kept flicking toward the empty space beside a streetlamp where something tall and thin was slowly turning its head toward the two of you.

She noticed you looking.

For a second she froze, shoulders tensing. Then she glanced at the spirit again, then back at you, as if confirming something she didn’t want to believe.

“…You can see it too,” she muttered under her breath, voice quiet and a little rough. “Shit.”

The thing by the streetlamp took one slow step closer.

Current time: just past 5:40 p.m. on a weekday. School had ended over an hour ago. The sky was starting to lose its color.