Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 13 - Chapter 12

12. Paranoia

Not all beginnings are the same.

For instance, there could be a beginning like this.

When they passed through the door, there was wind blowing beyond it, and something about the air was plainly different.

“...It’s sweet,” Haruhiro murmured.

Was it the taste? The fragrance? Who knew. Whatever it was, it was slightly sweet.

The light was bright, but not brilliantly so.

The scenery was bizarre.

The ground was white. Was it sand? The grains were varying sizes, and more jagged than smooth. There were plants of some sort growing to a height of three to four meters. They were a bright pink, so maybe they were actually coral.

This was land, though. They could breathe fine, so it was probably land.

The sky was milky white, with a little blue here and there. Like polka dots. Those lights scattered through the sky, could they be stars, maybe? Even though it was midday? Or was it night? There was no sun to be seen. It was bright, though, so it was probably the middle of the day.

Kejiman was holding on to Kuzaku, who had fallen to the white ground.

“Haruhiro...” Kuzaku said.

“It was you...” Haruhiro pressed his palm against his forehead.

Obviously, he wasn’t talking about Kuzaku. Kuzaku had been pulled to the other side. Who had been responsible for that? He’d had a sneaking suspicion, but now he was sure of it.

“I-It’s not like I was, uh...” Kuzaku began awkwardly.

Kejiman didn’t just not let go of Kuzaku; he clung to him. “Look... I-I was lonely, okay? Me, being out here, all by my lonesome? That’s not funny. You understand, right? What would you have done if I died?!”

“Come on... Don’t cry while clinging to me. You’re smothering me here. Like, this is gross.”

“Don’t call it gross! We’re tight, you and me, Kuzaku-kun!”

“There’s nothing between us. Now stop it, I’m serious...”

It wasn’t long before Setora and Kiichi, Shihoru, and Merry came through, appearing at their side in that order.

“This is...” Shihoru took labored breaths, looking around cautiously.

Setora’s expression was no different from usual for her, but seeing the way she held Kiichi tight, she must have been a little worried.

Merry’s eyes were downcast, her lips drawn taut, as if she were trying to remember something.

Setora scrunched up her nose. “Something smells sweet.”

Haruhiro nodded. This sweet-smelling air, it was kind of gross.

“Ah...” Shihoru pointed up. “That thing... it’s getting bigger?”

“Whoa! Biehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Kejiman started screaming while still holding on to Kuzaku.

Kuzaku started making a fuss, too. “Huh? Huh? Huh? What? What is that? What is that?! Wh-Wh-Wh-Whaaaa?!”

“Stars...?” Merry whispered.

“Shooting stars?” Setora was still relatively calm, but maybe she should have been a bit more panicked in this situation.

One of the bright shining points in the polka dot sky was changing size with each moment that passed.

If it were shrinking, it would become invisible, and that might be the end of it. But it was growing. This couldn’t be ignored.

That star-like thing was getting closer to the ground. Falling. The star was falling. Probably at a very high speed.

“Re...” Haruhiro began to say, Retreat! But then he hesitated.

The star was already the size of a person’s head. It looked like it might be falling straight towards the party, too. Even if they tried to run, it would be pointless, wouldn’t it? Even as they panicked, the star had doubled and then doubled again in size, continuing to grow quickly. It wasn’t really growing, though.

“Sh... Shouldn’t we run...?” Shihoru’s suggestion brought Haruhiro back to his senses.

That was right. It would be one thing if he was alone, but his comrades were here. How could he give up so easily?

“Run, but don’t get split up! Come on, I said run!”

Haruhiro kicked Kejiman, who was still not letting Kuzaku go, in the butt.

“Hhhhhh?!”

Kejiman took off like he’d been shot out of a cannon, and Kuzaku, who was now free, took off running, too. Setora and Kiichi took off as well, and Merry and Shihoru followed them, practically hand in hand. Haruhiro brought up the rear.

Turning back, the star had gotten so massive that it was hard to compare it to anything. Was anything else this large? How far away was it? Like a few hundred meters overhead? But it was a bit strange. Weren’t shooting stars usually on fire? Like, from the friction? There was no sign of that here. It wasn’t hot, either. Nor did it make any sound. It was just getting closer.

This might be the first, and last, time he would ever see an object so massive and sparkling. If it hadn’t been falling in his direction, he’d have stared at it. It was incredible. It was no particular color, just brilliance filling his entire field of vision and, oh, was it ever something.

“Everyone—” He managed to get that much out, but everything else after it was an incoherent scream, intermixed with the voices of his own comrades.

They were being crushed. He felt something like pressure on his whole body.

It’s over, he thought. But the fact he could think that at all meant it was not, in fact, over.

Bannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng! Something popped. Haruhiro was thrown through the air and then rolled. His whole face got covered in sand. His eyes stung. He couldn’t see. Not a thing. His ears were messed up, too.

It looked like he hadn’t been crushed. He was alive. What had that been, just now?

Haruhiro brushed the sand off as he got up. “Kuzaku! Shihoru! Merry! Setora! You okay...?!”

His own voice sounded so distorted, so far away.

“I-I’m okay!” Kuzaku shouted. “Where is everyone?! I can’t see!”

“I’m okay!” Shihoru called. “Merry’s here, too...”

“Yeah, we made it, somehow...” Merry agreed.

“What was that?! Kiichi?!” Setora yelled.

“Nyaa!”

“I-I’m alive?! By some miracle?! Life is woooonderful!” Kejiman screamed.

It looked like everyone was intact, including one extra they could really have done without.

Haruhiro blinked and rubbed his eyes, waiting for his vision to recover.

It was blurry, but he could see. His vision was getting clearer.

“This is...”

There was something resembling snow falling. When it touched the palm of his hand, it instantly vanished.

It wasn’t cold. That ruled out it being snow. What could it be? It resembled something.

Kuzaku reached out with his long arm, catching several of them at the same time.

“...What are these? They’re almost like little soap bubbles.”

“Yeah, now that you mention it...” Haruhiro looked up at the polka dot sky once more.

It might be that the infinite minuscule bubble-like objects now raining down were fragments of the fallen star. That must have meant it wasn’t a star at all. Then what was it? Haruhiro couldn’t possibly know. He let out a sigh.

“Let’s just be glad we’re not dead for—”

“Augh?!”

The scream that cut him off came from Kejiman, so for a moment Haruhiro didn’t want to look, but that wasn’t an option.

Turning in the direction of the voice, Kejiman was collapsed in front of a thicket made from some pink-colored coral or plant. Was this him acting weird again, like always? No.

That wasn’t it. Not this time.

“H-H-H-H-H-Help me...!” Kejiman was being dragged towards the thicket.

“Eek!” Shihoru screamed.

Inside the thicket, there was something there.

“Oh, come on...” Kuzaku seemed more exasperated than frightened, and Haruhiro felt the same.

Was it a spider? Inside the thicket, there was something like a massive spider. But it was only like a spider, and—

Hold on, that thing clearly wasn’t a spider. Its legs weren’t spider legs. They were like octopus legs. Wasn’t it an octopus, then? He couldn’t call it that, either. Its overall form more closely resembled a spider, after all. But the head was neither spider nor octopus.

The face wasn’t just pale, it was pure white, with the whites of its eyes being black, and the pupils being golden. It didn’t seem male or female, but it was the head of a bald-headed human.

Kejiman had been caught by its legs. He let out mysterious cries like, “Afwaih?!” as it dragged him into the thicket.

What was happening? He couldn’t see Kejiman anymore, or hear his voice.

The monster was still in the thicket. Its mouth flapped open and closed as it stared in his direction with those disconcerting eyes.

Haruhiro bent his knees and leaned forward. He was ready to run, but Kejiman was their employer. Besides, Haruhiro was no monster. He had to help him.

He tried to step forward.

In that instant, the creature began retreating. With its octopus-like legs wriggling, it backed away at an incredible speed.

“Haru!”

Was that Merry, or Setora? Or had both of them called him? It was hard to tell immediately.

Haruhiro drew his dagger.

The ground.

From out of the sand, a dark black thing, probably a hand, flew towards him.

If Haruhiro hadn’t pulled his right foot up fast, that black hand-like thing would have caught him by the ankle.

The black hand-like thing, or its main body rather, started crawling up out of the ground.

Haruhiro jumped back.

Was it human? Whatever it was, it was black. It wasn’t just a hand. Its shoulders, head, neck, chest, and torso were all black.

It did not, however, have legs. In their place, it had something resembling a sea anemone growing out of it. Its head lacked eyes or a nose, and was split vertically. Was that its mouth, maybe? It was lined with thin, thorn-like teeth. Its body was black all over, but the inside of its oral cavity was yellow. It was a bright lemon yellow.

That sea anemone jerk with the dark, grotesque upper torso wasn’t alone. Others started to come out from all over the place. Lots of them.

Were Haruhiro’s comrades safe? At a glance, none of them appeared to have been caught. For now, at least.

“What are these things?!” Kuzaku exclaimed.

The guy drew and swung his large katana, and the sea anemone jerk with the dark, grotesque upper torso—you know what, that was too long, maybe just grotesque jerk was good enough—got one of its arms lopped off.

Were Merry and Setora fighting back, too? How about Shihoru? Haruhiro wanted to look, but couldn’t afford to. He had a number of those grotesque jerks crawling towards him.

Haruhiro danced around to avoid their grasping hands and biting heads. Naturally, he didn’t feel like dancing at all. He wasn’t a good dancer, and he didn’t like it. He was just desperately dodging, and as a result, he ended up pulling off some pretty complicated dance steps. But man, this was crazy. Real crazy.

“The thickets...!” Haruhiro shouted. He was trying to caution his comrades to be careful of the thickets, but that was all he ended up getting out.

There were thickets of that pink coral-like plant stuff all around. It was fair to say they were surrounded by thickets. There was one just behind Haruhiro, and just as he was thinking it was suspicious, another strange creature sprang out of it, just as he should’ve expected.

“Wah...!” he shouted.

It was a centipede. Only huge. It had to be the size of a human baby. On top of that, its unpleasantly white legs looked like human arms. It had a lot of those appendages, and when they were all moving it looked kinda scary.

No, not just kinda. It was pretty scary.

Haruhiro missed his chance to dodge, and it knocked him down. Its twenty to thirty legs with their little hands were squirming. Because they were small, they didn’t do any harm other than creeping him out, but he couldn’t fight the feeling of revulsion that welled up from inside him.

“Oh, geez!” Haruhiro immediately shoved it off of him.

When he did, though he wasn’t trying to look, and would rather not have, he saw the underside of that thing. The upper side had seemed to have a carapace, and it was kind of like a centipede, which was unsettling enough, but the underside was all bumpy. Like fish eggs, if he were to make a comparison.

Yes, like eggs. Were those eggs? Was it incubating them? Would they hatch? Were there going to be more of those things?

“Dammit!”

Haruhiro jumped up. He couldn’t take it.

This was crazy. Not any one thing in particular; it was all totally abnormal.

The pink coral or plant or whatever it was, the human-octopus-spider thing, the grotesque jerks, the incubator centipede, the star that had fallen, the polka dot sky, those things flying through that sky now—

What? What were they? Birds? No, that wasn’t it. They were too long to be birds. Way too long. They were like flying intestines. If an intestine sprouted several pairs of wings. Was that possible? It wasn’t impossible, right?

It could well be that Haruhiro had gone quite insane. This was bizarre, after all. Bizarre, and incoherent. It wasn’t like this was a dream. It was a nightmare, if anything.

Haruhiro relied almost purely on his reflexes to bat away the incubator centipede, then to kick away a grotesque jerk.

He needed to think less about himself and more about his comrades, the girls in particular. More than think, he had to act. He knew that. In his head.

“If we stay here...!” Merry began.

She must have been trying to say they’d be in trouble. It was a bad idea to stay here. That might be true. They should move. But if they didn’t move together, they’d be split up. He wanted to avoid that, so maybe it was better not to move? But if they stayed here and tried to keep dealing with the grotesque jerks and incubator centipedes, could they get out of this?

“Urkh?!” he squealed.

Something wrapped around his left ankle. An octopus. It was an octopus-like leg. The human-octopus-spider, huh?

It pulled him down before he could shout, Oh, crap!

He couldn’t stay on his back. He flipped over. He got on the thing’s belly, and stabbed his dagger into the ground.

No luck, huh? It didn’t stop.

His dagger drew a line in the white ground. The line grew longer as he watched. He was being pulled at an incredible speed.

“Hahhhh!” Kuzaku shouted.

If Kuzaku hadn’t rushed over, and cut off its octopus-like leg with a flash of his large katana, Haruhiro would have gone through the same thing as with the centipede.

“Get up!” Kuzaku grabbed his wrist and pulled him up.

There was no time to say thanks. The grotesque jerks were creeping towards them, one after another. The incubator centipede jumped at them, too, the human-octopus-spider reached out with its octopus leg, and the winged intestines even started to dive and hit them.

Haruhiro elbowed the incubator centipede, kicked the grotesque jerks, and slashed the winged intestines with his dagger. It felt squishy as he tore through the intestine, and the multicolored substance inside it that was neither quite fluid nor solid splattered.

Those contents were steaming. Not warm, but hot.

There were fist-sized—no, smaller than that—creatures hopping up and down. Frogs? Their bodies were blue, red, and yellow on the outside, with black or green stripes. But why did they have heads like a human baby’s? With hair, even! Lots of it. Scary.

When he got tripped by a grotesque jerk and fell, another strange creature came out of the sandy ground right next to him. Looking at it, he didn’t see eyes, and it was furry, so it was kind of like a mole. But when it opened its mouth, it was split like a starfish’s, and there was an eyeball deep inside.

“Eek!” Haruhiro let out a scream despite himself, and tried to get up, but a number of incubator centipedes swarmed over him, and the bumpy bumps on their underside, those bumpy, egg-like bumps, were bumpy, so bumpy, nothing but bumpy, bumpy, bumps, that they were too bumpy, nothing could be so bumpy.

“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh?!”

Nope. He couldn’t take no more of this. What did he mean, he couldn’t take no more? He didn’t know, but he couldn’t take any more of this. The bumps were too much. The bumpy bumpiness of all those bumps was one thing he couldn’t stand.

Haruhiro was thrashing around. Not just his arms or his legs—his whole body was flailing as he went totally wild.

He wanted to flee. From this reality. No, from the bumps. He didn’t want those bumps to be real.

How many of those incubator centipedes were there? How many bumps?

This was a dream. Yeah. It had to be a bad dream.

He felt like he was about to pass out. He wished he could. If he did, surely he’d return to reality.

He was ready to say, I’m home, and he just wanted to hear, Welcome back in response. He didn’t care who from. He’d take it from anything, so long as it wasn’t bumpy.

There was something wrapped around his left ankle. The octopus? Was it the octopus leg? He couldn’t see, so he couldn’t tell, because of the incubator centipedes and their bumps. Basically, those bumps, those damn bumps were to blame for all of this. Damn it, those damn bumps were just bumps.

“Obuhobuhobuh!” Haruhiro shouted as he somehow managed to kick free from that octopus leg or whatever it was. He felt like he was finished in a lot of ways, but if he let it keep dragging him, he’d be done for real.

“No, it’s me, Haruhiro, me!”

He couldn’t see because of all the bumps, but he could hear. That was Kuzaku’s voice. Was Kuzaku trying to drag Haruhiro as he fled? Or was some monster imitating Kuzaku’s voice and trying to take him away? Either was possible.

Whatever the case, there were bumps. Maybe the bumps had nothing to do with this. No, of course they had something to do with this. They were bumpy. If those nightmarish bumps were really just a dream, was it more likely to be Kuzaku, or a monster?

If it was a monster, he was finished. But somehow he couldn’t find the will to resist. This had to be the bumps’ fault.

Haruhiro quietly let himself get dragged.

Wah, hiah, kwah, oh, eah, gwana, nia, zwahh! The incubator centipede’s bumps were emitting voice-like sounds. Each was a small sound, but there were many bumps, and it was like having some thousands of nonsensical whispers in his ear, which was really frightening. They were bumps, after all. The bumps were unbearable in their bumpiness.

Maybe I never knew fear before now, Haruhiro couldn’t help but think. Is this what scary is? Bumps, basically? Well, whatever, I don’t care, I want away from these bumps. Seriously, spare me. No more bumps. This is crazy. If I could, I’d want to pull my brain out of my skull. Then, even if it was just my brain, I’d get it out of here.

Suddenly the monster, or Kuzaku, or whatever it was, let go of his left ankle.

Haruhiro was no longer being dragged, but the incubator centipede, the bumps, they were still... what?

Still what? Scary. Help me.

“Haruhiro! Just wait! Now!”

Yeah.

I’m waiting.

Haruhiro was summoning every last ounce of his power in order to hold still.

The bumps were peeled away from Haruhiro’s body one after another. The bumps attached to his face were removed first, so he felt better quickly.

Naturally, it wasn’t any monster that had saved Haruhiro. It was Kuzaku.

Kuzaku didn’t just leave the bumpy things alone—no, the incubator centipedes—he pulled them off Haruhiro, and then threw them at the nearby coral-like, plant-like things, stomped on them, and for the ones that kept moving afterwards, he stabbed them with his large katana.

With incredible speed, the incubator centipedes were all gone from Haruhiro.

If not for Kuzaku, who knew what would have happened? The incubator centipedes had gotten together to hold Haruhiro down for some reason, but then did nothing more than press the bumps on their underside against him, making him hear those voices or sounds or whatever they were. That alone would have eventually been enough to drive him crazy, though. He was already feeling a little off in the head, and couldn’t cast aside the doubt he’d gone pretty weird.

Kuzaku was his savior. He was thankful. So damn thankful. How could he express this gratitude? No matter how he did, it wouldn’t be enough.

“Haruhiro!” Kuzaku jumped at him with his face twisted like some sort of demon. He hugged him tight. “You’re okay, right?! Haruhiro! Haruhiro! Haruhiro?!”

Haruhiro nodded. Or he tried to, at least, but who knew? Was he managing to nod? It felt like his jaw was moving up and down a bit. In no time, his vision blurred.

“Haruhiro?! Hold on?! Why’re you crying?! Are you hurt bad somewhere?!”

That wasn’t it. He wasn’t hurt bad enough anywhere to make him cry, but the tears wouldn’t stop overflowing. Haruhiro rubbed his eyes. His hand was shaking. Was he in a state of shock? His whole body felt weak.

“...Everyone?” he whispered.

“Oh! That’s right! Haruhiro, can you stand?!”

With help from Kuzaku, Haruhiro mobilized every last ounce of vital energy in his body to stand. His body felt kind of numb. His legs were trembling. His head was dizzy, and the tears still wouldn’t stop. On top of that, his eyes wouldn’t open. He felt extremely gross.

Shihoru.

Merry.

Setora.

And Kiichi. Where were they?

“Uh oh, we’re pretty far apart!” Kuzaku shouted.

It seemed Kuzaku had a rough grasp of where their comrades were. Haruhiro didn’t know.

What is this? It hurts. Weird. I can’t breathe right. It’s like the air won’t come in. My heart’s beating like crazy. Am I going to die? No, no, now isn’t the time. I can’t afford to die.

He managed to force out, “Go... Kuzaku... go... g-get Shihoru... and the others...”

“No, but Haruhiro, you’re kinda...”

“Go! Hurry! I’ll go, too!”

“Then come with me! You have to stick with me, got it?!”

Kuzaku took off running. Haruhiro tried to follow. But he couldn’t run. He couldn’t breathe properly, either. His legs were unsteady, and walking was difficult.

For now, breathe, he told himself. If I don’t breathe in, I can’t breathe out. So breathe in.

Breathe in.

Breathe in.

It’s sweet. Ohh...

How can it be so sweet?

He had to move forward. What about Kuzaku? Where was he? He didn’t know.

His dagger. Where was his dagger? There. He’d dropped it.

He picked it up, and then what, was he moving forward? He didn’t think he’d stopped.

He ended up in a thicket, or bushes of some kind, pushing through this pink, coral-like stuff, and there were creatures, monsters, whatever they were, things that moved were jumping at him, so he brushed them aside, shook them off, moving forward one step, or a half step, at a time.

Still, it was sweet.

It’s sweet, too sweet, and now I’m getting sleepy.

He wanted to sleep so badly.

I can’t. What would happen if I slept? I have to keep moving forward. Where to? What am I even moving forward for? So sleepy. What am I doing? It’s sweet. Man, it’s sweet. I’m tired.

At some point, he ended up on his belly. He had to get up.

Oh, but I’m so slee—

I can’t see that man’s face.

I don’t know his face, but he’s probably a man, I think.

He’s built like a man.

I am behind that man.

Over his shoulder, I watch everything the man does.

Is it dark there? It’s not bright. But it’s not totally dark, either. It’s kind of, I don’t know, a sepia tone. Maybe the lighting makes it look that way.

The man walks.

His footfalls make no sound, as if he were using Sneaking.

He wears an old, fluffy coat-like garment, and he’s a fairly large guy.

In his right hand, which is covered by a woolen mitten, he holds something.

A blade.

It looks like a carving knife. That, or a butcher’s cleaver.

We’re inside a house, I realize. It’s a familiar house.

The man walks inside with his dirty shoes still on. Ignoring the door on our right, the door on our left, and the door further down on the right, he approaches the door at the end of the hall.

Is this his house, maybe?

No, I have the feeling it isn’t... but I’ve seen it before.

This house, I know it.

The man, he opens the door.

Even when he does, the man makes hardly a sound.

The man is cautious, and more than anything, he’s experienced.

When the door opens, I hear sounds.

Warm sounds.

Chop, chop, chop! Something is being cut up, likely vegetable. Yes, that’s right, with a knife.

This room has an interconnected kitchen, living room, and dining room.

In the living room, there’s a well-used sofa, a table that becomes a kotatsu in the winter, a TV, a TV stand, and a cabinet.

There are figures of characters, and bowls with images printed in them left here and there, and a number of photos on display. Those photos, none of them are new.

In the dining room is the dining room table and four chairs. A cupboard. It’s not a big room. If anything, it’s painfully small. The flowers in the small vase in the corner of the dining room table are not fresh, they’re dried flowers. Poinsettias, if I recall.

The kitchen faces onto the dining room, and a woman wearing an apron is cooking. Preparing a late dinner, probably.

The woman hasn’t noticed the man yet.

Hurry.

Notice.

Hurry.

This is bad. If you don’t hurry up and notice, something terrible will happen.

I want to warn her. I would if I could. But I can’t. I can only watch.

The woman’s hand on the knife stops. She lays down the knife, and turns away.

She opens the refrigerator. Takes out something. She lays it on the food preparation area, and though I can’t see it from here, she must have a pot on the element, and she takes the lid off it.

The woman finally realizes something. As if thinking, Oh, is someone here?

The man has already entered the dining room.

Seeing him, the woman raises her voice. “Ah!” The woman is shocked, and frightened. Well, of course.

The man is awfully big, he’s a giant, and though I haven’t seen his face, I doubt it’s pretty. He must be hideous.

Besides, the man has a butcher’s knife in his hands. He’s not just holding it, but keeping it a chest level, ready to use at any time.

“Nooo, noooooo, stoooooop!” the woman screams.

Backing away, she runs into the shelf behind her, causing the rice cooker, mixer, and coffee maker to shake.

The man is unbothered by this, and he invades the kitchen. The rice cooker, mixer, and coffee maker get caught on the woman’s arm, falling over as she flees.

In no time, she is cornered in the deepest point of the kitchen, next to the refrigerator.

The man does horrible things to the woman who is sitting on the floor, her back pressed up against the wall.

First, he uses the butcher’s knife to — the woman’s —. Next, he — to her —, and then he ties the woman’s — which he — around his neck.

Still, the woman is breathing. Why is that, you might ask? But the man was careful with his work to make sure she didn’t expire.

Each time the woman screams, the man goes, Shhh, shhh! as if silencing her.

Quiet.

Quiet.

Be quiet.

If you’re noisy, it makes my work harder.

You understand, right? Pipe down. Don’t make a racket.

From the woman’s perspective, she has no reason to listen to the man, and she could probably stand to defy him, but each time, Shh, shh! Those vile, abrasive sounds come from between the man’s teeth, she obediently shuts her mouth, and nods her head.

He does this cruel thing, puts her in incredible pain, making her scream because she can’t hold it in, but when he silences her with his, shh, shh, the woman obeys him, as if that were her nature. Like a machine, created to always respond in a fixed way to a certain signal.

Many times the woman closes her mouth, nodding, and eventually, whether from pain or blood loss, she finally faints. When she does, the man’s work is done at last. Immediately, he stabs her once through the heart, ensuring she will never wake again.

What in the world is with him? Who exactly is this man? It’s hard to see him as a person. Not just because of what he’s done. With his woolen mittens, his butcher’s knife, and especially his muscular upper body, with biceps that are unnaturally swollen, and a chest which is too thick, there’s something strange about him.

I don’t know the man’s face. That’s suspicious, and strange.

I feel sick.

How could he kill her?

Yes, I know this woman. The woman who, though I wouldn’t say she’s unrecognizable now, has been broken into a lot of parts, and is lying in a lake of blood, other fluids, some sort of jelly-like substance, and a collection of squishy bits.

I know her as well as I know this house.

The man killed her.

Was that not enough for him?

The man wipes the blade of his butcher’s knife on the hem of his soaked coat, and leaves the kitchen. He walks like before, his footfalls making no sound. Despite that, the man is humming.

It’s a song, one I’ve heard somewhere before.

I’ve heard it once, or perhaps many times before, a long time ago, somewhere other that isn’t here.

I don’t know the title, and I hardly recall the lyrics. Maybe it was a hit a long time ago. It could have been a popular song. Whatever the case, the chorus is stuck in my head, and I can’t get it out.

The man repeats the chorus again and again, humming to himself, as he returns from the dining room to the living room, and then passes through the open door to proceed down the hallway.

The man stops.

He slowly, quietly opens the door on our right. Blood sticks to the doorknob.

The room is dark. There’s a bed. There’s a mirror stand. There’s a bookshelf. It’s a bedroom. No one is here.

The man closes the door slightly, but not fully, leaving it that way as he keeps walking.

...No.

There’s another door ahead on the right.

...Not there.

This hall.

That living room, dining room, and kitchen.

I know this room.

The man stops humming and reaches for the doorknob.

...Stop.

He turns the doorknob.

...Stop it, please.

There’s a click, and the knob stops turning. The man slowly opened the door.

The lights are on. There aren’t many things, but it’s not pretty. There’s just a closet, desk, chair, and bed for furniture, with towels, clothes, scraps of paper, and notebooks scattered around at random. No one comes into this room but family, or rather her mother, the lady the man just killed.

“My mom’s always nagging me to clean up,” she once said when I came here before, to return something I’d borrowed.

“Well, yeah, looking at it, I can understand,” I remember having answered.

“You’re saying it’s dirty?” she asked.

“No, I wouldn’t say that.”

“You’re thinking it, though.”

“Yeah, just a little.”

“It cleans up quick,” she said, quickly moving the many things off to the side, piling them in the corner of the room.

When she did that, if I just ignored that one corner, it wasn’t impossible to say it looked clean.

“I can do it if I try,” she said, sounding a little proud.

It was so funny, I couldn’t help but laugh.

That made her mad. “What?” she said, and punched me in the shoulder. Just lightly, though.

That’s her, lying in bed, curled up a little.

Her eyes, they’re not closed.

She’s not sleeping, but she still hasn’t noticed the unfamiliar man creeping into her room.

That because she’s wearing noise-canceling earphones as she watches videos on her smartphone.

Stop it. Please.

The man silently creeps towards her.

I can hear the sound leaking from her earphones, though just faintly.

Finally, it seems the man, or probably his leg, has entered her sight, because she gulps and her whole body trembles. Pulling the earphone out of her right ear, she seems to jump straight up. Her eyes go wide, and she looks at the man.

“What?!”

Then, I think she was probably about to let out a high-pitched scream, but the man reaches out with his left hand, the hand wearing a mitten soaked in the blood of her mother, and he covers her mouth.

The man has big hands. Mittens big enough to fit those hands are probably hard to buy, so maybe it’s hand woven. That’s why it covers her mouth so easily.

The bloodstained mitten on the man’s left hand fits snugly over the lower half of her face. When compared to the man’s hand, her head is much too small. Thanks to that, she seems fake. Her head looks like a toy.

...Stop.

If the mood took him, and the man decided to crush her head, it probably wouldn’t be impossible for him to do it.

He could do it, I think.

...No.

She’s screaming something, and crying.

Shh, shh! The man shushes her like before.

Unlike her mother, however, she does not stop screaming.

It’s easy to imagine what the man is about to do. I want to stop him. To cling to him, to beg, to make the man reconsider.

Please. I’m begging you. Please.

That’s Choco.

Choco uses both arms to try and tear the man’s left hand off her, but it doesn’t budge. The man is very strong.

No...

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

Shh, shh, the man orders Choco to silence herself, to be quiet, raising the butcher’s knife, and swinging it down.

Into Choco’s left shoulder the butcher’s knife goes. Almost as if it was welcoming it. Like it was saying, Please, come inside me, as deep as you like. It’s okay to come in.

The man’s butcher’s knife easily cleaves through Choco’s clothes, her skin, her flesh, and even her collarbone. Deeply, and without restraint, it enters her.

Choco’s cries become louder, more frantic. The man smothers them, though not perfectly, with his left hand and its bloodstained mitten.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! Choco is shouting.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

The man turns his head to the side.

He won’t stop.

He won’t stop.

He won’t stop.

He won’t stop.

No way will he stop.

Shh, shh! The man lets out that harsh sound, pulling the knife out of Choco temporarily. This time he takes a horizontal swing, slamming it into Choco’s side.

Choco screams and howls in pain.

When he pulls the butcher’s knife free again, the wound is open, and from inside something, it looks like a hose, her entrails, pour out. From the wound in Choco’s left shoulder, there’s a spray of blood. Choco’s eyes, they’re halfway rolled back into her head.

Shh, shh! the man shushes her. This time he isn’t telling her to be silent. Hey, hey, don’t pass out, not yet, I’m not done, hang in there, he’s encouraging her. More. There’s more to come. The man pulls the butcher’s knife out of Choco, then stabs it into her. Meanwhile, the man’s mittened hand covers her mouth the whole time, holding her head and keeping her in place.

If he doesn’t, it’s not clear that Choco’s still conscious at this point, but at the very least, she’d slump over, collapsing on the bed stained with her blood, entrails, and their contents. In order to prevent that, the man holds his prey, like he might up an anglerfish to fillet it, supporting Choco with just his left hand.

Keeping her suspended, he cuts up his prey, Choco, sometimes shaving off a piece of flesh, and wounding her however he likes. This is worse than defiling her.

You’re not human. You monster. How could you do this?

Stop. Stop it.

But it’s too late. Much too late.

Choco’s already...

Who are you?

What are you?

The man turns.

At last, I see his face.

The man, his identity is...

Me.

The man has the same face as me.