We scream as the room is being flipped about by our supposed Yuko. But I know it’s not Yuko. Yuko will never say that she doesn’t miss us.

We huddle in front of the board trembling. “I told you!” I shout as if a storm is happening. My parents run down the stairs and stand in the doorway to witness the paranormal activity. My parents stare at the board and looks at us shocked.

“Yuko!” Minami starts crying. “Please stop!”

“It’s not Yuko!” I scream. Minami’s plead won’t work on whoever-whatever is messing up the room.

“The board said yes!” Minami says. Her eyes are closed, too afraid to open them.

“We can’t see anything!” I tell her. “How do we know!”

Chiyuu, Tomo, and Minami start crying. They start calling themselves stupid. I want to comfort them but I can’t. This isn’t the time.

The cushions on the couch start coming off. The pictures on the walls fall off. The lamp behind the couch falls and lands right next to us. We scream even louder as the lights in the room start flickering. We close our eyes so we don’t witness the pandemonium.

“We have got to get out of here!” Tomo says but we’re too terrified to even open our eyes let alone get up and leave the room.

The chaos still ensues. I reluctantly open my eyes and look at the doorway, my parents are gone and I shudder even more.

“I didn’t believe you.” Minami tries to shout but it came out as a terrified whisper. If we weren’t huddled so close together, I wouldn’t have heard her. “I didn’t believe you when you said it was scary.”

Hugging her to comfort her seems pointless when everything is being ripped up. If I hug her, she would assume it’s because I’m scared, not because I wanted to make her feel better.

I open my eyes slightly and the room that was once neat; a room that once held a celebration is in shambles. The destruction is still going on. Everything is flying all over the place. We scream so much that it seems like we’ve screamed enough to lose our voice for an entire year. When something else flies off the shelf, we scream again and with clarity too.

I blame myself for not rejecting the offer this time.

You can tell how lazy I am getting with their voices.