[The feeling's pretty mutual- Ryuji has to stop himself from brimming widely into a more natural smile and one that's not contrived to be rowdy and haunting. Or haunted. Hard to tell when you're telling a ghost story.]

Mary was crying... she was so terrified, like she knew somethin' was after her. Now, y'know, this image had been goin' around a few circles before it showed up on the bulletin board she frequented. Most people kinda thought it was just some dumb prank. You know, you get an e-mail and just hit the delete button automatically 'cause it's junk.

[To accentuate that, he pretends he's typing on a keyboard and hits the delete key.]

But this picture... this picture is dark. It's a dog, smiling, human ass teeth, and in the background, there's a blurry ghost image of a hand, just calling you to look deeper into it. That's probably what made Mary go mad, y'know? She looked deeply into the picture and it... it looked back at her.

The reporter wound up leavin' after Mary seemed to calm down, just a little bit. She never opened the door or anything, so it was impossible to know. Maybe she just went 'n cried herself to sleep.

It's just an image, right? Who the hell thinks any of that crap is real.

[Ryuji's been holding the suspense of the story out as long as he could, but it feels like it's coming to a crux, so he slows down, and very intentionally lowers his voice, as if to call everyone around the fire to listen to him very closely.]

Until she got an e-mail from Mary a year later.