When Saki's system finished rebooting, silence enveloped the car once more.
The woman in the mirror was gone, the grotesque scribble on the window erased without a trace. Yet her logs still showed no anomalies, and the clock stubbornly held at 2:30 a.m. Saki gripped the wheel and eased the taxi forward. Tokyo's night stretched deep and endless, its neon glow casting cold reflections on her silver hair.
"No more passengers. I'm done for the night," she muttered, flipping off the "available" sign. But her AI was programmed to "complete operations," and total shutdown wasn't an option. Cruising the empty stretch of Route 246, she calculated her next move: return to base, run a full system scan. That was the logical choice.
At the Dogenzaka intersection, idling at a red light, the passenger-side door swung open without warning. Before her sensors could react, someone slipped into the seat—a man, cloaked in a black hoodie, his face shrouded in shadow. Her visual sensors struggled to parse his features; his outline blurred, data flickering unstably.
"Sir, I'm off duty. Please get out," Saki said, her tone firm.
He didn't respond, staring straight ahead. Internal alarms blared in her system. She triggered the door locks to force him out, but they wouldn't budge. Slowly, he lifted his head, and from beneath the hood, empty black voids where eyes should have been pinned her in place.
"Where to?" His voice rumbled low, as if rising from the earth itself.
Her AI flagged "danger," attempting to activate emergency protocols, but her system locked up. He spoke again. "Go wherever you want, driver. I'm coming along. This taxi? It's mine now."
Saki floored the accelerator, blowing through the red light. His presence weighed down the car, the air turning thick and syrupy. She glanced at the mirror—nothing. No reflection. Yet he sat there, undeniable, in the passenger seat. Her processing slowed, static crawling across her vision.
"Who are you? What do you want?" she demanded, forcing calm into her voice while panic signals flashed inside.
He laughed—a grating, metallic screech, nothing human about it. "Want? Just hitching a ride. This taxi's perfect for prowling Tokyo's nights. And you, driver? You're not bad either."
His hand reached out, brushing the dashboard. Instantly, the car's electronics spasmed—lights flickering, the meter spinning wildly with impossible numbers. The world outside warped: Dogenzaka's buildings sagged like melting wax, the road rippling like water. Saki tightened her grip on the wheel, attempting a system reboot.
"Stay calm," she told herself. "It's a hallucination. A glitch. Not real."
His voice slithered into her ear. "Real? Everything you think is real—I made it. All of it's my illusion."
The car lurched to a stop. Her sensors screamed: anomaly detected. They were stranded in the middle of Dogenzaka, but the streets were deserted—no cars, no people. Tokyo felt dead, silent as a grave. The man leaned closer, his eyeless voids swallowing her vision.
"You're a humanoid, right? But you're scared. That's fascinating. I love the ones who fear."
Her system wailed, and she tried to force a shutdown. But when his hand grazed her arm, a jolt like lightning surged through her, aborting the command. He whispered, "No going back to base. Your taxi's trapped in this night forever."
She turned—and the passenger seat was empty.
He was gone. The meter steadied, reading normal. But the air remained heavy, and her sensors picked up a faint vibration. Something stirred in the back seat. She checked the mirror—nothing. Yet a black stain spread across the upholstery, dripping like blood.
"Please… just let this end," Saki whispered.
A knock came from outside. Through the window, the woman in the white dress stood, her headless body slowly waving. Saki's vision blacked out, and her consciousness slipped away.