5
The intermittent pain and fierce burning completely overwrote his existence.
Every piece that formed his body had been crushed, broken, and smashed, and the pain of it all was seared into his brain, gnawing away on his nerves, tearing at his soul.
Pain ruled his world.
There was just pain. Pain and nothing else. The world was only pain. Until even the thought that the world was only pain was overwritten by more pain.
Unease, confusion, nervousness, sadness, rage, despair, they all meant nothing in the face of pain.
They had no value. No value at all.
Thought, action, deliberation, opinion, hope, memory, they were all equally worthless.
So what was the point of feeling bad about losing something worthless?
There was nothing except pain without end. The world was pain.
And then that unending pain suddenly relinquished its hold of him…
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!”
He awoke with a scream.
He just screamed, forgetting that his throat had been crushed and how he had drowned in the blood that had filled it.
“Ahhhhhhh! Arghhhhhhhh!”
He flailed as he screamed, trying to protect himself from being destroyed by the spiral staircase. He tried to protect his broken right arm and his mushy body when he realized something. His arms and legs—they could move.
They moved, but he lost his balance, and experiencing a falling sensation again, he hit the ground. He writhed around on the gnarled floor.
With a cough, he vomited, clearing his throat. What flowed from his mouth was yellow stomach acid, not blood. The sour, bitter taste and scent coated his mouth, and he started coughing uncontrollably.
“Ugh, guh! Gah! Ghah! Geh!”
Furiously wiping the tears and snot from his face, he weakly banged his forehead against the floor again and again. After repeating that process, breathing raggedly, he noticed it.
The searing pain that had mercilessly smothered his body was gone.
“—Ah.”
And while shuddering at the pain that had suddenly disappeared, he finally noticed another thing.
As he was cowering on the ground, someone was gently rubbing his back.
“Calmed down?”
Spinning around, through the tears still filling his eyes, he saw the face of the person soothing him. Even through that fuzzy haze, she was still clearly a beautiful girl, with silver hair and purple eyes. Seeing her there, brow furrowed in concern for him, he gulped.
Someone had touched his back. Just like then, before the pain had come for him.
—I have to get away. Pain. Pain is coming.
“Suba—”
“Waaaaaaah!!!”
Just as she started to speak, Subaru violently brushed away the hand on his back and fell over.
My back. My back. Someone touched my back. That moment, right before I fell. Someone. Someone touched it. My back. Not my back. Don’t let anyone touch it. Never again. Not that again.
“Eep.”
He could feel the hairs on his back standing on end as he scooted backward. Not even standing up, he tried to distance himself from the girl who had been rubbing his back. Then his body hit something behind him.
Looking behind him, his eyes met something hard.
“ ”
A big black body looked at Subaru with yellow eyes as he cowered on the ground.
The sharp, reptilian glint in those eyes and the row of sharp teeth in its mouth caused Subaru’s terror to explode.
“Subaru! I wonder if you could calm dow—agh!”
“Beatrice!”
The moment his fear took over, Subaru violently shook off the light touch that was clinging to him. Tumbling down after he flung it away, there was a shout and someone rushing over.
Subaru didn’t have the mental capacity to look at what was happening as he burst out of the room, crawling on all fours. Pushing his trembling legs, his shoulder slammed into the wall. The sharp impact and pain threw a red veil over his consciousness.
It was pain. He had to run away from all the pain.
“Hah, hieee, arghhh!”
Staggering, his breath giving out, drooling, he ran down the hall like his life depended on it.
His face was hot, and his heart felt like it would burst. It was almost like his blood was flowing backward through every vein in his body.
Run, just run, before it catches up. Before death catches me.
He could hear death’s footsteps slowly catching up. It was chasing, so he fled in desperation. He ran and ran and ran. Running without thought.
Even though he had suffered so much, endured so much pain, even though he should have died. Even though he should have been dead, death was still chasing him.
Why won’t it end? If I have to suffer like this, then I would be better off—
“Ahhhh…”
It almost felt like drowning.
Even though he was above ground and there was no water anywhere, it felt like he was struggling to reach the water’s surface.
Drowning. Like a drowning person desperately flailing their legs, trying to reach the surface, flailing, flailing, kicking, kicking, kicking…
Finding a stairway, he stepped onto it, getting down onto all fours as he mindlessly crawled upward.
Since Subaru was not really drowning, heading upward was not going to save him. But he was flailing pathetically and badly.
He was desperate. Desperately kicking, and in return for his misguided effort…
“Why the hell did you come here so early in the morning? Hey.”
“ ”
Sensing a terrifyingly large presence, Subaru’s legs stopped.
No, it was not just his legs that stopped. His ragged breathing, the infuriating sound of his heart beating in his ears, his knees trembling in fear and exhaustion, every single one of his biological processes had been completely halted.
A space opened before him, a white world, and a being far too powerful stood in the very center.
What is this? Who is that? What is that thing cloaked in such an inhuman aura?
“—Ah.”
“You came alone? You, some small fry, by yourself? One person ain’t gonna do. Person? Small fry? Anyway, one ain’t enough. Come back with that hotty and the babes from yesterday. Hey, you listenin’? I’m talkin’ to you.” Whatever it was, it unleashed a merciless barrage of words at Subaru before he could register what was going on.
Pummeled by that violent tirade, all of Subaru’s vital functions started working again. And he understood.
In his terror and flight, he had stepped foot into a place he absolutely should not be.
—This is a ferocious beast’s lair.
“Hey, don’t ignore me.”
Before he realized it, the figure’s face was close enough to feel his breath.
Long red hair, a black eye patch over his left eye, his kimono hanging sloppily off his right shoulder and a white sarashi around his waist, and for some reason two slender wooden sticks in his hand.
And to Subaru, the tips of those entirely unremarkable blunt sticks appeared to be death.
“Eep.”
“Hey, you aren’t gonna cry, are you? Squealin’ like a little bitch? Get in a fight with your little friends down there or somethin’? Lose an argument and start bawlin’?”
The man’s cheeks warped at the sight of Subaru freezing when someone else noticed his terror.
“What a hopeless guy,” the man said, scratching his head in disbelief. “Dumbass. Don’t get the wrong idea, asshole.”
With a visage like a ferocious shark hungry for blood, the man jabbed Subaru’s chest with the stick.
The tip slipped between his ribs where it tickled the organs that were supposed to be protected by his rib cage with a mocking gentleness, with a sympathetic rawness.
Just that was enough to wrack his body with a pain so terrible he coughed up blood.
“Gh-gaaaaaa?!”
“What are you runnin’ for? And of all the places you could’ve gone, you ran to me? What a joke. I’m not your guardian or your friend or nothing. You chose the people you wanted to mob up with. You wanna die?”
“Gh! Gahh! Argh! Guhhh!”
The man toyed with Subaru’s organs like an artist even while venting his irritation. And that frighteningly precise and deft manipulation betrayed the man’s absurd genius.
—This is someone who should never be crossed.
This was what could be accomplished by a person blessed with a genius for violence. A being created to torture others, the pinnacle of barbarity, an incarnation of violence.
—No, this guy, this place—it’s all too far outside my understanding.
“Get lost, small fry.”
The man losing interest, the next moment the feeling of the stick probing his organs disappeared. And then he wildly kicked Subaru with his long leg, sending him flying backward.
As his feet left the floor, Subaru realized he had missed his footing on the stairs. The stairs.
—Going to go tumbling down again?
“Noooooooooooo!”
Provoked by the trauma of falling down the stairs again, he immediately grabbed the floor.
There was a twisted noise as the fingernails on his right hand that tried to grab the floor tore out. Blood spattered and a new, fresh pain seared into his brain. But even so, he managed to control his fall. That was important.
“Gh, guhhh…”
Enduring the pain of his nails being ripped out, holding his bleeding hand, he made his escape. Though it was too slow to be much of an escape. Leaning his shoulder against the wall, he dragged his legs as he fled the violence.
He wanted to get as far away as fast as possible. Somewhere along the way, he was in the middle of a long, long staircase. Wildly setting his sights on somewhere away from everyone, he had ended up in an absurd place.
—No, when it comes to being an absurd place, this whole world is no different.
“Ow… It hurts, it hurts…”
Why am I in a place like this? Why am I in this world?
Even though he had been broken into pieces, even though he had been destroyed, even though it should have all been over.
Was that searing pain just a dream? Or a hallucination? It would be nice if that were true.
“A dream…”
That was what he’d imagined the mysterious thing that had happened to his body was.
Because seeing scenes he had already seen, interacting with people he had interacted with before, having conversations he remembered already having, events he had already been through, that was something too much for him to handle.
So in order to make sense of what happened, to explain it to himself, he had envisioned it as a prophetic dream.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d seized on it as vaguely being someone else’s problem, like a fire on the far shore. Not knowing that the price for that shallow, impudent interpretation was terrible suffering.
“ ”
All of a sudden, he found himself crouching down.
Sitting on the stairs, he leaned against the wall, staring listlessly at the red blood dripping from his fingers.
Futility, loss, despair, and negativity all swirled in his head.
“Why…?”
Just a few hours ago, he had been carefree and comfortable, living out a bored, normal life.
There was no danger, and nothing to worry about other than his aimless future. No one threatened him. It was just a lukewarm life without anything of note.
—I was in a place where all I had to do was avoid my parents’ eyes.
Is this what I get for doing that? For causing them so much trouble? For always disappointing them? For not being a good son? Is that why I was thrown into this hell where I have to experience excruciating pain but can’t die?
If I was going to suffer this, then I should have been more…
“…I should’ve just said, ‘I’ll be back soon.’”
His was a life filled with regrets, and that was the first one that came to mind.
When he had left the house, his mom had said good-bye.
And I didn’t answer her. Why? …Because I hadn’t washed the mug I left in the sink.
“Guh…”
I didn’t wash the mug. I had some hot chocolate, but it was too much hassle to wash off the brown film on the mug. If I answered her, if a conversation had started from that, she might have told me to wash the mug. So I didn’t respond. Because I just didn’t want to wash a mug. Because of that, I ignored my mom.
I couldn’t say anything. I left the house without saying anything, went to the convenience store, used money I hadn’t even earned myself, and then I woke up in this place. I ended up here without saying anything to my mom, to my dad, without washing my mug. I didn’t wash a single mug, I didn’t respond to my kind mom, and because of that, I’m dying in a place like this.
I caused all that trouble, couldn’t repay anything they did for me, couldn’t even wash a single mug, and now I’m going to die.
“…I’m going to die…”
Die. Every living being dies someday, but this is where I die. I’m going to be turned into a dirty, bloody pulp and die, surrounded by people I don’t know, without my dad or my mom.
“ ”
As he realized that, he felt death approaching. Watching him slumped over there from down the stairs. Laughing at him. He could see its mouth smiling, mocking him.
He recognized the face of death. Thinking of the people he had seen in this place so far from his parents, he quickly realized it. It was a trivial question. Death was wearing none other than his own face, smirking back at him.
“Don’t laugh.”
He glared at death; his eyes filled with a pitch-black hatred.
“Don’t laugh. Don’t you dare laugh. Don’t you fucking laugh at me!”
Flying into a rage at the death that refused to stop smirking at him, Subaru stood up. Leaning against the wall, he approached death. Approached the death that refused to stop laughing.
“Don’t you laugh at me. I’m going to die. But not because of you. I’m not gonna be killed by you…ngh.”
For the first time, there was a disturbance in death’s smirk.
It looked like annoyance at him for not doing as it wanted, not becoming its puppet. Getting a thrill out of that reaction, Subaru pushed on, his face still twisted in rage.
“I’m not going to be killed by you. I will die. I will definitely die! I will die! I did die! I died already! I died and came back here, but you aren’t—”
—Going to kill me.
Just as he was about to say that…
“ ”
His lips stopped moving how he wanted them to. And his eyes staring at death couldn’t move. He felt himself lose all control of his own body.
He couldn’t even ask why. All he could do was hope for some change.
I can’t move. No, it’s not my body that can’t move. The world itself has stopped.
Death in front of him had stopped, too, face still warped in rage.
There was just one thing that moved in the frozen world.
“—I love you.”
As best as he could tell, it was a woman in black.
A woman with slender limbs and wreathed in darkness. Her entire body was pure black.
Is she just darkness manifest? Or is she wearing black? I can’t tell. Does it even matter?
It was an all-black woman. It seemed like she was also wearing a black outfit and a black veil that hid her face completely.
“—I love you.”
But the woman shared an unimaginably powerful emotion with him.
How much emotion would have to be boiled down and concentrated to even get close to the words she whispered?
There was a certain quality to it. A quantity, a time, a weight, a value, a concept.
I don’t know how many people there are in the world who’ve said “I love you,” but if you combined every time it has ever been said into one, it would turn into her “I love you.”
And the woman extended her dark arm toward him.
Her slender fingertips reached through his chest, his skin, his flesh, his bones, until finally it was touching his beating heart.
“ ”
His heart had felt its presence countless times in the past few minutes—couple dozen minutes? He had lost all track of time—but he never thought it so powerfully as he did in that moment.
He had never thought that being was annoying.
Because…
“—I love you.”
Her dark fingers caressed his heart with the same passion as she whispered her love.
At the same time, the shock that pierced him completely dominated his body that was so terrified of pain. His body shattered by the fall, his soul scorched by the unyielding heat, the guilt he felt toward his mother that wore at his heart—those were nothing compared to the pain he felt now.
If he could scream, then he would have.
If he could have shouted until his throat gave out, he might have been able to do something about the pain. If he could have focused on anything other than the pain, he might have been able to escape it.
But he couldn’t. He was forced to simply face the pain.
“—I love you.”
Her love wouldn’t release his heart.
It was almost as if she wouldn’t allow him to pay attention to anything other than her, like an unquenchable greed.
—As if her jealousy toward everything made him unable to turn away.
“—Hah.”
The release was sudden.
“ ”
Exhaling, he collapsed on the spot.
Tears trickled down his face, and he wet his pants. A warm dampness spread from his crotch and trickled down the stairs.
The frozen death pointed at that pathetic, shameful act and cackled.
When he saw that laughing figure, he realized he had been duped.
It had planned it all, knowing if it pretended to show weakness, Subaru would leap at it, rousing a slumbering tiger that should never have been disturbed.
“Just…”
The rest of his thought did not make it into words.
He clutched his head. Blood was still trickling from his wounded fingers. The tears, the urine, everything felt like a punishment for his own weakness, his own foolishness.
…Kill me already.
Those words were not spoken.
Even if I was killed, can I really be killed?
He just kept crying like a foolish child, soaking in urine and despair, until the sound of footsteps and worried voices reached him from the stairs.
The ruined remnants of what was once a person kept crying. Just kept crying.
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