DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS? ft. Matikanefukukitaru

Do you believe in ghosts?" How I hated that question. Whenever someone asked me, I would reply with the coldest, most realistic answer possible: "No, I don't." It was simply impossible for them to exist. After all, I was a student of quantum physics and mathematics; there was no equation or theorem capable of proving the existence of ghosts or entities outside of our reality. Therefore, they did not exist, and paranormal events could easily be explained by science. Every time someone told me a ghost story, I found flaws in their account that proved it false. Whenever I watched purported footage, I immediately recognized the montages made to fool the foolish. I was not one of them; I could never convince myself that something like that was real... but right now, I am no longer sure of my answer. ​It all started one afternoon when the faculty of science assigned me a scientific article on physics and mysticism. "Seriously?" I muttered when I saw the assignment. The faculty wanted an article explaining scientifically how clairvoyants managed to see the future and make predictions. To me, it was nothing more than coincidences of events with higher than average probabilities of occurring, a mere trick to fool the ignorant and profit from it. I set out to work and headed to the assigned location: Tracen Academy. There studied an Uma Musume who was supposedly the most accurate psychic of all, with every single prediction coming true. "Rubbish," I thought. ​I approached her booth, and there she was. Chaotic, energetic, even irritating. She shouted about everything, and her voice drilled right into my ears. Her name was... Mati... Fuke... a confusing name I still struggle to fully understand. I wrote it down for the article so anyone reading and pronouncing it correctly would know: her name was "Matikanefukukitaru," but I simply called her Fuku-san. ​To be honest, it wasn't the first time I had heard of her. I had previously seen news about her and her races, though none of them were positive articles. Titles like "When is she going to retire?", "Just leave, Fukukitaru, you'll never win a race", "She doesn't act like an Uma Musume", "We don't want to see you, Fukukitaru" headlines like that. It was obvious no one liked her, yet she kept running and doing her usual routines anyway. She bore an immense amount of pressure, but she simply ignored it. ​She had no idea I was there as a writer for a scientific article. I acted like a clueless tourist falling for every single one of her silly gimmicks. Every time she made a prediction, she rubbed her "magic ball" which supposedly gave her the answers. She "read" my palm and even used cards to "see the future." The verdict was clear: she was just another run of the mill charlatan. Her magic ball had an internal projection giving the illusion of a glowing aura, illuminated by a purple light hidden beneath it. Her future prediction was vague and utterly bland: "You'll have bad luck if you keep going like this." Bad luck? With my career? Yeah, right. Not only did she fail to read my palm to discover I was a disguised reporter, but she didn't get a single thing about my personality right. ​When the session ended, I revealed my identity, threw her fraudulent practices right in her face, and even told her that my upcoming article would destroy her booth. She was devastated. She sobbed, saying that this was all she had left, that her life was already hard enough because of what she carried every single day, and now she was going to lose what she was passionate about? "It's not fair!" she screamed at me repeatedly. Once I gathered my notes, I turned to leave. But before I walked away, she spoke to me for the last time. She asked me that question that always annoyed me, the question I hated so much, thrown at me now just to spite me: "Do you believe in ghosts?" I stopped for a second, making a face of disgust, and without turning around, muttered, "No," and walked away. Later, I published my article, won the faculty contest, and had it published in a renowned magazine. ​What happened next left me speechless, It was something I couldn't believe, and it even made me feel a pang of guilt. Out of all the newspaper articles about Fuku-san, this one made the biggest waves: "Matikanefukukitaru, the Uma Musume who acted as Tracen Academy's psychic, has taken her own life." It felt as though the article I published was the final straw that broke her, driving her to commit such an act. But hey, it was her fault, right? She let all of that get to her. I brushed it aside, kept reading, and moved on with my life... I wish I could say things went back to normal, but... ​Suddenly and inexplicably, the furniture in my house began to shift. Strange noises echoed from the kitchen, and appliances like the microwave or television turned themselves on. At first, I wrote it down as simple wind disturbances or minor electrical short circuits that flipped values from 0 to 1 inside the electronics, but things grew progressively worse with each passing day. Shadows in the hallways, the sound of footsteps, and even messages left in bizarre ways. One day while taking a shower, I could have sworn someone was watching me from behind the shower curtain. I whipped it open, but no one was there. In its place, a message was scrawled across the foggy mirror: "Do you believe in ghosts?" A sick joke, I told myself, though I had no idea who was behind it or why. ​I felt chills constantly. People around me felt unwell, as if I carried a toxic, negative aura that made anyone near me sick and drove them away. I tried to push through and live normally, but everything went from bad to worse. Soon, I began suffering from sleep paralysis at night—that inexplicable phenomenon where you wake up paralyzed, unable to move a single muscle. And right in front of me stood the indescribable figure of an entity pinning me down, chanting the same phrase over and over: "Do you believe in ghosts?" ​The worst part came when it invaded a sanctuary that drove me to the edge of madness: my dreams. ​Every time I closed my eyes, I suffered nightmares filled with monsters and malicious entities representing my deepest fears, projecting hallucinations of everything I dreaded most. But that was when I saw her: Fuku-san. In every single dream, she was there, haunting me... Was she the one causing all of this? Did my article kill her, and now a curse from her restless spirit had fallen upon me? I refused to believe it; it was impossible. Yet in every dream, she would lean in and ask me that question: "Do you believe in ghosts?" while I screamed desperately in denial. ​Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore. I looked for help everywhere, temples, churches, even my colleagues at the faculty. But they all rejected me: "Aren't you the writer of that article that mocked everything mystical? And now you expect us to believe you and help you?" That was what everyone told me. No one wanted to help. I no longer wanted to stay in my apartment, but no matter where I went, she would be there. I didn't want to sleep either; if I closed my eyes, I would see those horrifying projections, and if I kept them open, I would spot her shadow in my room or catch her face peering through my window. ​I don't know what to do anymore. I want to put an end to all of this, but I'm terrified of sharing the same fate as that Uma Musume who lost everything. I am writing this from the very last fragment of my sanity, hoping that at least someone will believe me... and help me finally answer the question: "Do you believe in ghosts?"