Back in high school, I once saw a strange woman peering in at me through the window.

If I had to describe her, she was somewhat pale, somewhat goggle-eyed, and her eyebrows thinned out toward the ends—or something like that.

I say that because my memory has gotten hazy, and I can't quite recall the exact features of her face anymore.

The first time I saw her was late one night while I was staying up doing homework. Once I finished wrapping things up, I stretched, and my eyes happened to drift toward the window, where I caught sight of the woman. She had her creepy face poked in, pressing her forehead right against the corner of the pane, so naturally I shrieked at the absurdity of it and went tumbling off my chair. Fortunately, my parents were asleep and didn't wake up, but I froze, staring back at her for a while until I realized she wasn't making a move and concluded she meant no harm.

Once I knew she wasn't hostile, curiosity took over about who—or what—she actually was. I crept up to the window, trying to peek from a distance to see if she had a torso, but she smoothly pulled back into the shadows and completely vanished.

Since she disappeared into thin air before I could check for a body, I determined right then and there that she was a ghost.

I had no idea why she had appeared before me, but I remember feeling an eerie rush of excitement, getting totally hyped that I’d had a genuine supernatural experience.

The next day, when I told my friends at school about it,

"Sounds fake as hell."

"Be sure to snap a pic next time, yeah?"

They threw out one dismissive comment after another, barely even hiding their disbelief, which made me a little annoyed.

Still, even if I wanted to take a picture, there was no guarantee she'd show up again, and besides, would a ghost even show up on camera? Thoughts like that raced through my head, leaving me unable to talk back.

During class that day, as I was staring blankly out the window, the same woman poked her face out from a corner of the glass, staring right at me—even though it was broad daylight. The moment I noticed her, I stealthily pulled out my phone so the teacher wouldn't see, but the instant I switched to camera mode, she vanished.

"Just now, a woman was peeking in through the window from outside."

"Yeah, yeah, right."

During lunch break, I cornered a friend and told him about what just happened, but he dismissively waved his hand at me. We happened to be standing at a stairwell landing at the time, and right after he brushed me off, I lost my balance and misstepped down the stairs.

The moment my footing suddenly gave way beneath me, I caught sight of that same woman peeking out from around the corner at the bottom of the stairs.

I instinctively dug my heels in and managed to avoid tumbling down the flight, but when I looked back up, she had already disappeared.

My friend apologized profusely while supporting my body, panicking with things like, "Sorry! Are you okay?" but I was far more consumed by the woman's presence than my near-fall.

A few days later, a strange thing happened. On my way back from stopping by a convenience store, walking down a route I'd taken for years, I was waiting at a crosswalk when I saw that woman's face poking out from behind the shadow of a telephone pole on the opposite side of the street. Her pale skin, which stood out clearly whether morning or night, was just as conspicuous in the middle of the day. The light changed and pedestrians began crossing the street here and there, but I stood there dead still, gripping my plastic shopping bag, unable to take my eyes off her.

Then, a loud, screeching noise of brakes rang out, and a pedestrian crossing the street was struck by a car. That said, the car wasn't going very fast, so even though the person was knocked less than a yard away, they got right back up on their own, rubbing the bruised spot.

Snapping back to reality because of the accident, my attention shifted away from the woman. I immediately shot a glance toward the telephone pole, but she was already gone.

This incident led me to form a single hypothesis. Could that woman be coming to warn me about accidents happening in my vicinity?

From then on, whenever something happened, I actively looked for her.

For instance, when I spotted her while riding my bike to school and came to a stop, a truck sped past right in front of my nose a split second later. Another time, while walking with a friend, I spotted her and grabbed my friend's sleeve to point her out, right as a potted plant crashed down from above—if I hadn't held my friend back, it would have hit him dead-on, and he thanked me profusely.

As these little coincidences piled up, my friends teased me about having crazy good luck, but I knew I was avoiding danger without a single scratch all thanks to that woman. Before I knew it, I started calling her "Peekaboo-san" out of a sense of fond familiarity. She was my great benefactor who always popped up out of nowhere to warn me of danger.

Still, her pale face and goggle eyes were terrifying, so I really wished she'd do something about that. Just the other day, I got the shock of my life when I saw her face during a cooking class. I opened a cabinet, and there she was, right in front of my face, making me jump backward in sheer terror. In doing so, I nearly backed right into a classmate holding a kitchen knife, which gave me a heart attack, but right after I managed to dodge it, a magnitude 4 earthquake struck, causing the knick-knacks in the classroom to rattle. Knives left on the cooking counters tumbled to the floor, landing right near me. Peekaboo-san had likely appeared to warn me about the impending earthquake, but her terrifying face almost caused a secondary disaster—a thought that made me chuckle dryly in hindsight.

Then, one day during my senior year of high school, I got my driver's license over summer break and went for a drive with two of my friends.

Driving along a nearby mountain road late at night, fueled by youthful recklessness, I was pushing the speed limit quite a bit.

"Man, having wheels makes life so much easier."

"Hey, I'm not just your chauffeur!"

As my friends and I were fooling around inside the car, the "Devil's Curve" came into view along the straightaway. It had a dramatic name, but it was a well-known accident hot spot where countless cars had crashed; luckily, no one had died there yet, but even the people I met at the driving camp warned me to be extremely careful around it.

I decided I really ought to slow down and eased off the gas. When I lowered my gaze just a fraction toward my feet, my eyes caught an object in the corner of my vision that had no business being there, making me do a double take.

"Whoa!"

At my sharp gasp, all my friends turned toward me at once.

"What's wrong?"

To be honest, their voices barely registered. That was because down by the driver's seat floorboards, Peekaboo-san was looking up at me, hugging my knees. Her pale face, glowing in the pitch-black interior like a nightlight, sat right over the accelerator, blocking it.

"Hey, shouldn't you slow down?"

The friend in the back seat spoke up, but whether because Peekaboo-san was pinning my leg down, I couldn't put any strength into it at all.

"...Hey, are you listening? Hey!"

The friend in the passenger seat raised his voice, sounding a bit panicked. I knew all about the Devil's Curve myself, so I desperately twisted my lower body, trying to shake Peekaboo-san's hands off, but she didn't budge an inch. Trapped in a state like sleep paralysis where I couldn't resist, panic started to set in.

"I can't move my leg!"

"Huh!?"

I wanted my friends to pull Peekaboo-san off me, but trying to explain the situation right now would only make them think I'd lost my mind, and it would probably backfire. For now, I just told them my leg was dead and asked them to either hit the brake for me or pull my foot off the gas.

"Dude, what kind of strength are you using? Can you really not move it?"

My friends tried to haul my leg up from the back seat to pry it off, but they began to panic when it truly wouldn't budge. The friend in the passenger seat extended his leg to try to stomp on the brake, but he was terrified to find his foot blocked by empty air, unable to reach. From my perspective, though, I had a front-row seat to the surreal sight of my friend repeatedly kicking Peekaboo-san, and despite the dire situation, I let out a dry laugh.

While all this was happening, we slammed right into the curve.

Just as I tried to rip my foot off the gas to stomp on the brake, Peekaboo-san seemed to flash a smile at me before vanishing, releasing me from the paralysis, and I instantly slammed my foot onto the brake pedal.

I could feel the car leaning and the tires grinding down as if I were feeling it with my bare hands, the heavy pressure of centrifugal force and vibrations reverberating deep in my gut.

Sparks flew from the friction heat as we scraped against the guardrail, destroying a headlight as the car dragged along the rail, gradually losing momentum until it finally came to a stop, leaving massive brake marks along the outer lane.

Thinking I was a goner for sure, I dropped my forehead onto the steering wheel and let out a long, heavy sigh. My friends in the car were sitting there dazed like empty husks, but since no one seemed injured, I realized just how incredible seatbelts were.

Shaking off that stiff-lower-back feeling you get after sitting for too long, I followed my friends and climbed out through the passenger side.

Then I walked around to the driver's side where we had scraped the barrier, peered over the guardrail, and caught my breath.

"That was way too close."

A friend gasped as he peered over the guardrail into the steep, heavily wooded drop-off below.

However, my breath caught in my throat for a completely different reason. There, behind the shadow of one of the mountain trees, Peekaboo-san was peering back up at us. Even though she was dozens of yards away, I could clearly see the massive, beaming smile on her face.

Looking at that sneering face, realization finally struck me. Peekaboo-san was no guardian angel who came to warn me of dangerous accidents. She was a grim reaper, leading me straight to my death.

Just like she was standing there laughing right now, she was causing those accidents just to watch my reactions and mock me.

She was definitely some kind of evil spirit that toyed with living humans until she killed them. I realized I had been targeted from the very day I first found Peekaboo-san in my bedroom.

Then, I noticed Peekaboo-san's mouth move for the first time as she smirked, and I focused on what she was trying to say.

"Let's play again soon."

Leaving behind those words, Peekaboo-san vanished from the spot. Like fog clearing away, she dissolved into thin air.

Yet, the moment she vanished, her complexion looked so healthy and radiant that, despite myself, I found myself mesmerized, staring blankly at the spot where she had been.

After that, we called the police to report the accident and handled the aftermath. I apologized to my friends so profusely I practically bowed my head to the ground, but they just shook their heads a few times to clear their memories, saying things like, "I feel like I saw something weird..." or "Nah, must be imagining things."

I haven't seen Peekaboo-san since that day.

I can't even remember Peekaboo-san's face anymore. The accidents that used to happen so frequently stopped completely, a peaceful routine returned, and I graduated high school without anything else changing.

Now, as the new school year begins, I’ve started living on my own in the suburbs. Starting a new life in a new place, surrounded by new friends—I can't wait to enjoy this fresh chapter of my life.

There's just one thing weighing on my mind: Peekaboo-san, who hadn't shown up since that night, has recently started slipping back into the corner of my vision.

Will accidents start happening around me again, or has she come to drag me to the afterlife for real this time? When I finally remember the face of Peekaboo-san that I had almost forgotten, will something change? Either way, knowing there is nothing I can do, I simply brace myself and open the front door.

Here begins my new life with Peekaboo-san.