Shiki

Megumi hates living in the small village of Sotoba. She dreams of graduating from high school and moving to the city. Only two things hold her interest in the village, the giant European Mansion that was recently built atop a hillside and the boy Yuuki Natsuno. The owners of the mansion, the Kirishiki's, arrive under the cover of darkness. Megumi marches up their mansion with fantasies of being adopted. Hours later Megumi has failed to return home with the sun set the villagers begin searching the woods for her. They find her lying on the ground pale and weak. The town doctor suspects she is suffering from anemia and the next day she passes away.

Megumi is dead and a burial is held for her. Doctor Ozaki is shocked at her sudden death and requests permission to perform an autopsy to determine the exact cause of her death but Megumi's father refuses. Later two more villagers die suddenly. Growing concerned about so many deaths happen in a short space of time Ozaki contacts the head monk Seishin. Together they discover that ten people have died in the month of August alone. Ozaki fears that the village is in the clutches of an epidemic.

Dr. Ozaki is convinced that Nao Yasumori has contracted the same illness that killed Megumi and several other in the village. He conducts numerous tests, all of which return conflicting results that do not match any known disease. Nao dies just like the others from an unknown cause. Meanwhile Natsuno wearily continues his daily life with his best friend Mutou Tooru. The words of his frenemy Murasako Masao, "Megumi might hate you so much she'll come back to visit you!", leave Natsuno shaken. A terrifying thought that the feeling that someone is still watching him just like Megumi did could be real. The monk Seishin is visited by a young girl named Sunako and tells him she really enjoyed his novels.