Master Series: Episode 4 "Disappearance"

*reminder - "I" in this story is not me, Saya! I'm thinking to write more stories about Master but I could get bored or depressed by your criticisms, so I'll write how it all ended first, that is about Master's disappearance. During my third year at university Master was working as the university librarian. At the time he was often nervous, and would do things like pointing at an empty space and scream: "I see a woman over there!" I didn't feel or see anything but then I wasn't gifted like master, so I got freaked out too imagining what might have been there. It was not until the autumn of the same year that I began to suspect there was something not quite right about him. We hardly ever saw each other then, but one day we met in the university canteen by chance and sat at the same table. Master then out of blue said, "the table behind us - how many people are there?" It was nine in the evening and the canteen was almost empty. There was nobody at the table behind us. "Do you see anything?" When I asked he said, "you see them, don't you? How many?" and started trembling. There was no ear ringing or chills that usually accompanied such experiences. A thought entered my head then that maybe he was imagining things... "Don't worry. There is nobody." I said, and he answered, "yes, yes. Of course," looking really relieved. I was now convinced. There was no ghost. If there was a ghost, it lived in Master's mind only. The word "madness" flashed in my head, and I was overwhlemed by a sudden urge to weep. We had done the hundred-stories and went to countless number of haunted places together. We had committed some unholy acts and even tried calling up the dead. It would surprise no one if we were already possessed. But the reason for my master's madness had nothing to do with these. Three days after the encounter in the canteen my master disappeared. He left a letter saying no one should look for him, and I felt bound by his words.

It seemed Master came from a troubled family. The university made a contact with someone who claimed to be Master's aunt, and she came to clean up his apartment room. She was such a horrible bitch that she shoved me out of the room as soon as she saw me, even though it was after I told her I was her nephew's best friend. She could at least have asked how he was like before he disappeared. That was the end of it all. But I have my opinions about the matter. When I first entered the university I heard rumours going around about him. "He has killed before," was what some people whispered jokingly behind his back. But I think it was no joke. There was something Master always said whenever he got drunk: "where you should bury the body - that is all that matters." We had an unspoken rule that when my master said this sort of joke we shouldn't go too deeply into the subject. But whenever he said these "jokes" his eyes would always shine darkly and it scared me to look at them. And it makes me shudder to think of the times when I visited haunted places with Master in his car. Especially when we went to a particular hill ( the one with the famous "house of massacre") and while there he said the following words: "A large number of unidentified people act in the middle of the night. And strange rumours. If the reason is not grudge, you can not identify one single person. " When I heard these words I couldn't understand what the heck he was talking about but now I think he was looking for somewhere to bury it as we toured around haunted places. What scares me most is imagining that he could have been hiding it in the car boot while I sat on the passenger seat next to him... Lookin back, there are so many things about him that remain mysterious to me. All I know is even a person as gifted as he was couldn't overcome the darkness that eats us from within. I guess ever since that "noodle incident" he slowly succumbed to madness. There are words by Master which are etched deeply in my memory. He said them when he took me to a more "serious" haunted place for the first time and I was shaking like a leaf from fear: "What makes you afraid of this darkness? Close your eyes; there lies the deepest darkness that exists in the world."