The night air was still with anticipation one quiet, autumn night. The air held the faint chill of an approaching winter, yet still carried with it the lingering heat of summer, combining to create a thick fog across the darkened land.

Standing eerie and ancient around the large mansion, a large, overgrown cedar grove surrounded the Albright estate in eerie splendor; swallowing the moonlight like an abyssal void and casting the grounds in a tapestry of shifting, ink-black shadows – the dark splotches moving as if alive, and hungry.

From within this deepest patch of darkness, a hauntingly pale face stared fixedly up at the lone light of the master bedroom, soulless eyes dark and intense as they watched the form of a young male human move about in the large room – the curtains naively left open and giving the entity perfect view of its newest prey.

Tall and impossibly slender, the yokai known as Hachishaku-Sama seemed to warp the very air around it, the atmosphere heavy with something unspoken but undoubtedly evil – tinged with the sense of territorial hunger and eerie presence wafting from the creature. Its bottomless eyes stared intently at the human, its long tongue dripping with drool as it anticipated the first taste of its new prey. It had been so long since it had claimed a new victim, after all, and the former owner of the estate had always known its taste quite well.