2: Master

It was when I moved out of a remote countryside and entered a midium-scale urban university. There was an extraordinary person in a circle I casually joined. Since I often had sleep paralysis caused by the stress from university entrance examinations, my interest in occultism was growing up more and more.

One day, when I was telling a spooky story to my friend, a guy who had entered this university earlier than I did, joined us curiously, saying, "You... You're interesting." He was a graduate student had been majoring Buddhist art.

We got along with each other soon and he even took me for a night drive the day. He suggested to have a midnight snack and took me to a family restaurant located so far from the town. It was GUST in the suburb area.

"Why here?"
" 'They' would appear. This place's my fave."
Gosh... Even being in a family restaurant got me nervous since it was the first time for this total country guy. And he just said they would appear?

"I'm gonna motion. You look down. You could see only its feet."

Being said that, who could really enjoy the food? As I ate, I suddenly had a ringing in my ears... My hand stopped and beads of cold sweat stood out on my forehead.

"Now. Look down."

I looked down quickly. Pale white feet passed by the table in the right side of my eyesight while I didn't... couldn't move for a while. Sudden sense of being patted on my shoulder made me come to myself.

"Did you see it?"

A famous horror film "The Ring" hadn't been released yet at the time but on another day, I noticed that the feet were exactly like the ones what Takayama saw in the city in the film.

As I nod, he said.  "That was the source of the ghost rumor about this GUST, says there're extra feet of waiters. I can see whole though. You are lucky 'cause you can't see the face, you know." He's weird. "Finish your snack quickly. The waiters hate me."

Though I had relatively seen more ghosts than general  people did, he had much greater sixth sense. I was certain of that.

After that, he took me to  a mountain path to the airport to see mysterious smog or his favorite temples, then in the early morning, he finally released me. Since the day, I started calling him "Master".

It continued until his incomprehensible disappear.