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Q-Taro Burgerberg is an oaf of a man. Even as he boasts about his strength, he clings to smarter men like Keiji for guidance. Naturally, he’s also fallen under Miss Sara’s spell. And for some reason, he still holds onto the laptop of a dead man—a laptop he can’t even use—a laptop which distracts him from his drive to win.
Q-Taro barely knew Kai. Well, it must be easy to romanticize a stranger. Idealize them however you please when they’re gone. At the end of his life, Kai entrusted his hopes to them, and Q-Taro sought meaning in that trust. As if honoring Kai’s memory would help him in any real way.
Obviously, it won’t.
Sou grips his scarf and forces a wide grin as he holds out his hand to Kanna. He opens his palm to reveal gold coins. The girl shudders to see him like this.
Sou is through with romanticizing people. He sees them as they truly are.
“Then you say to him, You want to win, don’t you? Here. Take it. One hundred tokens. All yours.”
“Will Q-Taro really give up Kai’s laptop for that?” Kanna asks. She doesn’t budge, even as Sou shoves the glistening coins in her face.
“Yes. He absolutely will,” Sou answers.
“That’s half of everything we have…”
“That’s why he won’t be able to resist.”
“But Kai was an important person to him!” Kanna insists.
Sou rolls his eyes. “But Kai was an important person to him!” He squeaks.
“K-Kanna—Kanna thinks—”
“That’s stupid. The only person important to Q-Taro in this place is himself. Why should he care about anyone else he’s just met?”
Kanna drops her gaze from Sou’s mean eyes. She looks at anywhere else in the room that she shares with him, as though searching for an answer to his question.
Sou swallows. He softens his voice. “Come on, Kanna. I need you to do this for me.”
“Kanna thinks that you could do it better,” she whispers. “Kanna thinks that you would sound more convincing.”
“Q-Taro doesn’t trust me. It’ll feel more like a betrayal if he gives it to me, because I turned the tide against Kai. If he’s just looking at you, he’ll have no emotional distractions, and he’ll be able to focus on what really matters to him: winning.”
“But… Sou, what if you told Q-Taro what you told me? You could say that you’re really good at computers and you want to help everyone escape. And you have a charger! Then—then we could all work together! We could get on Sara’s side again—!”
“I’ll only give you your sister’s phone if you do this one thing for me, Kanna.”
Kanna takes the gold coins without another word. Tears fill her eyes.
It’s not fair and Sou knows it. Everything in their room—from the tokens to the charger to Kanna’s own sister’s cellphone—belongs to Sou. Sou knows that he’s acting like a cruel big brother to this little girl.
But that doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is that he get his hands on that laptop. He spent all those years learning about computers. Surely that knowledge will save him now. All those painful hours wasted with that man will finally mean something…
“Sou?” Kanna breaks his dark reverie.
“Yes, Kanna?” Sou answers gently.
He could almost give the phone to her now. She’s already promised to do his bidding. She’s a good girl who will surely do as she’s told…
“What will happen if Q-Taro wins?” she asks.
Sou chuckles. “He’s only a second-string baseball player, Kanna. Maybe if he were a real pro, it’d be different! You gotta be real special to make it that far in the game… He’s not the real threat here.”
Kanna is a naïve girl, and she is easy to manipulate.
Q-Taro is an oaf of a man, and he will be easy to manipulate.
Sou is the only one thinking outside the box. Sou isn’t playing by the rules of the game. Sou is going to break them. That’s how he’s going to live.
That’s how he and Kanna and every other mediocre soul in this place are going to live.
…
It is the third day of negotiations. Sou and Kanna eat lunch together in the main hall. Tia Safalin cooked delicious soup for them, and Sou is allowing himself to rest and savor it. Every bite tastes like sweet victory; Kanna just figured out the password to open the laptop. That means he is—they are—one step closer to freedom.
Keiji is sitting uncomfortably close by, but Sou won’t let that ruin his mood. It’s not like Keiji can arrest him for eating soup. He isn’t doing anything wrong today.
Reko and Nao are playing some sort of game with Gin in the far corner. Sou can’t understand the rules from way over here, but he hears their laughter. Kanna looks at them wistfully.
Sou has told Kanna not to speak to Miss Sara but maybe…maybe it would be all right for the girl to make friends with the others… It’s awful to keep a lonely person from making friends…
Then the worst thing in the world happens.
High-pitched beeping fills the air as everyone’s collars light up at the same time.
Red lights from below his chin obscure Sou’s vision while the shrill beeps ring painfully in his ears. The switch from dream to nightmare is so sudden and so strange that he can only think Is this an accident? And then
Gin dies
The boy’s collar severs his head from his body in one neat slice. His blood splatters his friends and they both scream. The best you can say is that he died quickly.
Sou knew mathematically how likely it was that Gin would die in this place, but the sight still breaks him. It’s too much to bear—it’s not real—they can’t kill a child in broad daylight like this—nothing can be worth that—
Then Reko bolts. She runs out the room out of sight.
“REKO! Reko wait!” Nao still sits by Gin’s headless body. She scratches her own neck red, pulling her collar in every direction. “Reko come back! REKO! STAY WITH ME! AAAAHHH!!”
“GIN!!” Kanna cries.
Kanna’s voice yanks Sou back to reality. Don’t think about Gin. Focus on what you can do. You know what to do. Reach under your scarf. Reach under your shirt. Grab the key. Remove the clasp on your necklace. Fit the key in the lock in your collar. Stop your hands from shaking. Breathe. You practiced this last night when Kanna wasn’t watching. Steady. Open the lock. Throw your collar away.
“Sou?!” Kanna gasps.
There’s no time to explain. You wasted it already.
Sou grabs Kanna’s shoulder with one hand and tilts her chin up with the other. Then he moves his key along her collar, searching for her lock. He vaguely hears her babbling.
“Shh, it’s all right, Kanna! I’m going to save you! H-hold still!” Sou forces a smile for her.
Kanna is a good girl. She shuts up and holds perfectly still. It’s Sou’s own hands that are shaking.
“Nnghh—come on! Come on!” Sou growls as he can’t fit his key in Kanna’s collar. The girl shivers and sobs as Sou grows agitated.
The key was never likely to work on someone else, but it’s the only strategy he has!
“Keiji!” Sou looks up desperately. Keiji is standing and trying to saw off his collar with a steak knife. And Keiji is staring at Sou in shock.
Sou can remove his collar—he must look like a villain to Keiji right now…
“Help me!” Sou pleads. He tosses his key to the stronger man. Kanna’s life is at stake—there’s nothing he can do but throw his only hope at his enemy’s feet and pray for a miracle.
If Keiji can free himself with Sou’s key, then maybe he can free Kanna with brute force.
Or—maybe Keiji can free Kanna through some clever means that Sou can’t devise on his own.
Sou knows deep down that Keiji is smarter than him.
Sou isn’t above getting on his knees and begging a stronger person for help.
If only Miss Sara were here…!
Keiji grunts and picks up his key. He struggles to fit it into his collar. He starts coughing blood. His collar must be doing something horrid to the inside of his body. Sou bites his lip and hugs Kanna and covers her ears. He doesn’t want her to hear the incessant beeps and Nao’s screams
BOOM
There’s an explosion behind him and a terrible squelch and Nao suddenly stops screaming. Sou buries Kanna’s face into his chest. He doesn’t want her to look.
But Keiji is looking. Staring over Sou’s head. He got the full view of Nao’s death. Keiji takes a deep breath and meets Sou’s eyes.
“Her head exploded!” Keiji says loud enough for Sou to hear.
Sou blinks back tears. He had figured that out already. There’s no time to dwell on it. He hugs Kanna tighter. Keiji needs to focus on saving them!
Keiji gestures vaguely. “She could explode too…” His voice is hoarse. Then he coughs more blood onto the floor.
Sou doesn’t understand.
Then Keiji turns and runs away with Sou’s key still in his fist, and Sou understands.
“COWARD!” Sou yells.
Of course the policeman is fucking useless! Sou should have known that! He’s so stupid! Now his special key is gone!
So what if the idea of Kanna’s head exploding and driving a hole into Sou’s chest is terrifying? He can’t leave her!
Cops can’t leave children to die! Keiji is worse than useless! Piece of shit!
Then Kanna sobs into Sou’s shirt and Sou remembers to focus again.
It’s obvious now that Keiji wasn’t special enough to help. There’s only one person who can help.
“Let’s go, Kanna,” he says as he stands on wobbly legs. He pulls up Kanna with him.
“Wh-where are we going?” she asks. She clings to his sleeve.
“Miss Sara. We need to find Miss Sara.”
Kanna’s eyes light up. “I saw her during lunch!”
“You did?!”
“I did! Kanna was watching! Agh…” Kanna coughs and sputters. Then she points to the exit with a trembling hand. “She went to the stairs!”
“Good eyes, Kanna! Let’s hurry!”
Kanna trips on her first step. Sou stops her from falling. A few steps further and it’s clear that the girl can barely walk. Something sinister is happening to her. She’s feverish.
Sou wraps both arms around her torso and marches forward. He’s breathing hard too—he gets tired so easily. His muscles ache. But even while carrying this girl, he’s never moved so fast before.
Sou drags Kanna down the hallway. Up the long stairs. There are screams in the distance but Sou tunes them out. It’s a miracle that Kanna has lived this long. Surely the reason she’s lived so long is because it’s still possible to save her. There’s still time. He’ll do anything Miss Sara wants. Anything. A vending machine glows brightly above him. He’s almost there. He will find Miss Sara. She’s just ahead
She’s
She’s
She’s dead.
Miss Sara’s body lies sprawled on the floor in front of the vending machine. Her neck is a bloody mess. Her eyes are still wide open. She died in shock.
“Miss Sara…” Sou breathes. It’s like he climbed a mountain hoping to find a goddess, only to find a human sacrifice on the altar of a soda machine.
And that’s when everything falls into place.
This is all my fault.
He had thoughtlessly given those tokens to Q-Taro, gambling everyone’s lives for that laptop, all because he wanted to believe those computer lessons were good for something. Q-Taro had seemed such a stupid fellow. Sou has known much scarier people. That’s what Sou kept telling himself.
Then Q-Taro played them all like violins.
Well, of course a stupid man like Q-Taro can have a whopping eight percent chance of survival when a loser like Sou Hiyori will pave the road to victory for him. Sou Hiyori practically put up a giant sign in neon lights above the vending machine: HERE’S HOW YOU CAN WIN! TAKE MY MONEY AND RUN!
Meanwhile, Miss Sara came here to stop him. She came here to save them. Sara was twice as strong as Q-Taro and by all rights she should have succeeded. Sara used all her magic on Q-Taro, her charm and her wits and her uncanny luck…!
Sou came here to ask for that magic to save Kanna, but it had already failed. That’s how great Sou’s failure was—he even brought down a miraculous person like Miss Sara.
Lying on the floor with her neck split open, Sara Chidouin doesn’t look special at all. She’s just a dead teenage girl. She’s one of many people that Sou failed to save with his stupid doomed laptop plot.
Sou opens his mouth to speak but he can only manage a hoarse noise.
Miss Sara, I’m sorry…
“Sara! I’m so sorry!” Kanna cries. She frees herself from Sou’s weak grasp and prostrates herself at the dead girl’s side. Kanna’s sobs echo through the room on top of her collar’s relentless beeping. “I’m sorry! It’s Kanna’s fault! Kanna gave those tokens to Q-Taro!”
All the blood leaves Sou’s face. “Kanna, no!”
“Kanna knew it was wrong! Kanna was weak! Kanna killed her sister again—!”
Sou falls to his knees and throws his arms around Kanna as tight as he can, never wanting to let her go again. “No, Kanna, no!! Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that! None of this is your fault!”
Kanna sniffles. “I-I killed her… I killed my sister… Kanna wanted to atone…”
“Your sister loved you!” Sou brushes the girl’s sticky hair out of her face and wipes her tears. He forces the brightest smile for her. “She loved you! Oh, she loved you so much, Kanna!” Sou kisses her forehead.
It’s like kissing a burning stove. She’s terribly feverish and shivering all over. Sou holds her closer. If he can just keep her warm…
Quiet.
Too quiet.
The beeping has stopped.
“Kanna?” Sou whispers. He won’t let her go. He needs to warm her up. “Kanna, please say something.”
Quiet.
“Please…Kanna…” He cries into her hair.
Sou’s failure is too much to bear. He imagines himself banging on the vending machine and screaming for Q-Taro to come back. If Kanna were still alive, he would do it. But there isn’t much point anymore.
A hideous growl breaks the quiet. Sou peeks over Kanna’s head and sees a strange figure at the bottom of the stairs. The figure isn’t human. It’s the three-headed monster from the Arm-Wrestling Attraction. Sou had only passed that attraction by begging for help. He’s not any match for that thing on his own.
The monster lumbers up the stairs. Ah…so they sent an executioner for the candidate who escaped his collar.
He really should run. But he doesn’t want this monster to touch Kanna and Sara’s bodies. It’s the last thing he can do for both girls…
Then the wall beside the entrance bursts open, like a secret door loudly revealing itself. Sou can’t have a moment of peace.
CRASH
BANG
“HIYA!!”
A human voice yells and the shrill beeps return. When the dust settles, a rockstar kicks her way out of a newly made hole in the wall with her platform boots. Then she struts to the foot of the staircase.
Reko Yabusame is filthy, and the lights on her collar indicate that she’s in danger, but she’s wearing a triumphant grin. As though she’s been trying to escape the room behind that wall for a long time.
Her smiles fades as she takes stock of the situation in front of her: two dead girls, one pathetic living man, and one three-headed monster coming to kill him.
Reko picks up a piece of rubble and throws it at the monster, hitting it square on the necks. “HEY! DICKHEADS! WHY DON’T YOU PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE?”
That grabs the monster’s attention. It slowly turns around to face her and snarls.
Reko snarls right back and runs up the stairs, readying her arm for a punch. As soon as she reaches the beast, it pushes her down and she falls on her back. It’s not like Reko is even that much bigger than Sou!
But Reko jumps up and pounces on the creature’s back before it can take another step. She throws her arms around its necks and bites its shoulder.
Sou can’t believe what he’s seeing. Is this the same Reko who abandoned her friends? Now returned to save him, of all people, the worthless loner?
“Sou!” Reko calls out.
Sou snaps to attention.
“Get outta here, kid!” she orders. Then she smiles at him. She’s clinging to a monster who’s trying to murder her, but she’s smiling at him.
Why?
“Run!!” she yells again.
With that, Sou finally, finally sets Kanna down and stands up. He staggers down the stairs.
There’s nowhere to go, but a kind person is cheering him on regardless. Sou swallows and wishes that he knew Reko better. He wishes he knew everyone here better.
“Ah—Sou! If you see Alice, tell him I—GAHH!” Reko punches the monster’s back repeatedly while it tries to knock her off.
Reko’s unfinished command flips a switch in Sou’s brain and he instantly feels urgent again.
“I will!” Sou promises. Then he takes off running. He passes Reko and the monster without looking back.
BOOM
Behind him, he hears another explosion and a terrible squelch… Reko’s collar should have killed that monster too.
Sou returns to the lobby to find the place swarming with monsters. All the creatures from the Attractions have spilled out into the main rooms. There are giants with flaming swords, bugs as big as Sou’s head, eerie floating masks, and other horrible assortments of body parts crawling on the floor. A bloody mouth snaps at Sou’s feet but he keeps running.
His aching feet fly like never before. He has a mission. Where is Alice’s room? None of the monsters can deter him from his mission, his final present…!
Sou stops in the middle of the Ruined Corridor. Alice Yabusame lies dead at his feet.
“Your sister loved you!” Sou cries. “She loved you!”
He’s too late. He’s too late. He’s too late.
Too late.
A weepy voice crackles over the intercom. “Sou Hiyori, stop right there! You have no place to turn! So please stop running awaaayyyy!”
“Yeah!” An angry voice joins her. “Your puny legs can’t save your ass now. My monster dolls are gonna rip you limb from limb.”
“Ranger, sit down! Talking to him like that is not going to make him stay put.”
“Haha, are you really stupid enough to think he’ll do what you want if you say please?”
“Please stop running, Sou Hiyori!”
There’s no use talking to Alice. Sou keeps running.
“Nooooo! That’s not what I saaiiid!” Tia Safalin whines.
“Calm down, stupid bitch. He’s got nowhere to go,” Rio Ranger says.
“This is taking too long. I’m turning on the security guns.”
“Hey! But I wanted to watch the dolls eat him!”
Sou dodges a mutant bat that flies over his head. Something grabs his foot but he kicks it off. He’s wheezing but he won’t stop running. This place is a bizarre nightmare and you can run as fast as you want in nightmares.
“Security guns! Target Sou Hiyori!” Safalin orders.
Sou shuts his eyes.
“Security guns, turn off!” A different voice speaks. High and timid.
Sou is shocked. Isn’t that…his own voice?
“Turn off all security! Monsters go away!” The timid Sou keeps speaking.
“Why are you on my monitors?!” Rio Ranger growls. “I’m the Floor Master who masters this floor! Everyone stop taking over my job! I wanted to kill the gloomy bastard with my doll friends!”
“I represent a higher-ranking Floor Master,” the timid Sou argues. “And he wants to kill this particular participant with his own hands. He said that you’ve already taken a long time, and—and you obviously don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Fucking arrogant bastard! Why I oughtta—!”
“Ranger, sit down. This equipment is expensive,” Safalin orders. “And as for you—your Master is slated to die too. Just like all the other participants who lost. Time’s up. So, shoo! Shoo!!”
“I won’t leave your computers. I’m already hacking your system from the inside. My virus is spreading,” the timid Sou squeaks. “You’ll…you’ll have to kill me instead.”
Hearing his own voice defend him makes Sou feel lightheaded. But he’s quick-thinking enough to realize that the villains arguing amongst themselves is his chance. His feet carry him to the nook where he and Kanna found the laptop charger.
There’s the sound of smashing and crashing over the intercom.
“You asked for it!” Ranger yells.
Sou’s own voice screams in the background. It sounds excruciatingly realistic.
“RANGER STOP!” Safalin commands. Her voice is the last thing Sou hears before the sound of glass breaking, and finally radio silence.
Sou crawls into the secret nook. There’s a little hole in the broken wall, barely big enough for a small person to squeeze inside. The last time he was here, both he and Kanna were too afraid to go in. It’s already so cramped, and the dirty tunnel walls narrow as he pushes himself forward.
There’s no light ahead of him. He can’t see anything. He cuts his hand on a rock and bites back a sob. He pushes through the pain and grabs another handhold.
The air is stale. The walls are closing in, hugging him too tight, ripping his jacket, scraping his skin. He couldn’t turn back if he wanted to. It hurts but he keeps going.
It’s a long tunnel. Longer than he dared hope. Surely it leads somewhere. Even if it’s tilted down instead of up and the blood is rushing to his head…
He’s starting to see details again. The shape of the walls. The fingers on his hands. And it’s easier to breathe now.
Sou finally pulls himself into a large, dimly lit room on the other end of the tunnel. There’s no monsters here, no guns, no Floor Masters, no dead bodies, nothing. Sou gasps and lets himself cry at last. He made it. He lies on the floor in the middle of his new room.
He should have been brave enough to do this when Kanna was alive.
…
Sou lies there for hours, not wanting to move. Sheer exhaustion pins him to the spot.
…
Hunger wakes him eventually. Sou has had many hungry days before. He knows he can last a while. But, still, he should move.
This strange space between the Death Game’s walls is cramped and filled with rubble. Even the fact that there’s enough light to see means that there’s drafts in the walls. For such a high-tech facility, it’s shocking how much of this site has been left to ruin. How long has this structure existed? Do any of the kidnappers care that it’s falling apart?
Beyond his initial “room” is a narrow hall, only a little wider than Sou’s body. It’s easy enough to squeeze through. The hall connects to other halls—it looks like Sou has a maze ahead of him to explore. And there are more hidden rooms between rooms… It reminds him of videogames he used to play. This would be fun if it were a videogame.
His stomach growls to remind him it’s not. Sou picks up the pace. If this were a game, there would definitely be food to find, because even difficult games are winnable.
But you were never any good at winning games on your own, his shadow taunts him. Sou ignores it.
…Until the crushing loneliness of this place makes his hunt feel hopeless. Then he can’t tune out his shadow’s insults anymore. The price of having no enemies down here seems to be no food. His shadow tells him he will never find any.
His heart can’t take anymore, so he returns to his first room to sleep again. It’s not like he even deserves to eat…
Sou has gone to bed hungry before, but he has never gone to bed with the blood of ten people on his hands.
Kazumi Mishima.
Joe Tazuna.
Kai Satou.
Gin Ibushi.
Nao Egokoro.
Keiji Shinogi.
Reko Yabusame.
Alice Yabusame.
Sara Chidouin.
Kanna Kizuchi.
One for each finger.
Sou curls into a ball and somehow falls asleep anyway.
…
Sou has always had a delicate constitution. He’s already coughing like how Kanna was coughing.
But his physical frailty is matched by a strong mental will. Somehow, he forces himself to get up in the morning and begin the search again.
He gets lucky. There’s a dead rat in the room next over.
You can’t be picky down here.
It takes a long time—maybe an entire day, it’s hard to tell without clocks or windows—but Sou manages to make a campfire with sheer friction, using wood and tatters from the ruined walls. The fire’s warmth is comforting. The rat’s smell is less so.
It’s not as good as the soup he was eating with Kanna. But it will do. Maybe Mister Rat has a family somewhere, and Sou can gobble up the rest of them too.
…
Sou lives in the Death Game’s walls now. It’s dark and quiet and lonely but doable. There’s a broken pipe that leaks water he can drink. On the fourth day, he finds a furnace room filled with trash. It feels far too dangerous to linger, but he grabs himself a blanket. The simple comfort gives him more will to live. The furnace’s firelight shows him that the blanket is green, and it reminds him of his friend.
On the fifth day, he spies a bright crack in the wall he can peek through. There’s a well-lit room on the other side, with a long table, and flowers in a vase. Two men sit at the table and speak in low voices. Sou recognizes one of the men as the tall receptionist doll from the prize room. The other man is even taller and wears a fedora. Sou can’t see his face, but his heart races in terror just to catch a glimpse of this intimidating person.
Sou can’t make out their words, but he sees their plates: they’re eating curry, roast beef, and miso soup. The heavenly smell wafts through the crack in the wall and roots Sou there against his better judgment. If only he were braver, he would take that food for himself…!
…
In the furnace room, somebody threw away a can of beans. There’s almost half the can left! It’s a good day.
…
He finds nothing useful the next day. His stomach groans and twists and keeps him awake all night.
…
There’s some mold growing on the walls. It’s edible enough. But Sou feels dizzy afterwards. He crashes on the floor of his room.
…
The next day, Sou wakes up to find a bottle of drinkable medicine next to his face. How did this get here? Is he hallucinating? He’s never hallucinated before, no matter how hungry he was. The bottle feels heavy in his hands. He can take a sip. The liquid sloshes around his tongue. It feels so real.
Is someone spying on him? Is he in danger?
Is it a friend?
…
Sou can scrape lines with a stick to mark the passage of time. He’s been living on his own in the walls for two weeks now.
With the weight of ten bodies on his shoulders, Sou isn’t completely sure why he’s bothering.
He’s used to living alone. But for a few happy days, he was living with a friend again. A young girl who held his hand, encouraged him to keep going when he was tired, and offered him genuine smiles, which he never deserved.
She was too young to be his peer. But he felt needed around her. He had a purpose.
What is Sou Hiyori’s purpose now?
…
Sou finds a precious gift each morning now when he wakes up. A packet of ramen. A bottle of fresh water. A lighter. A spoon. A full can of beans.
Is someone down here with him? Another survivor? Sou wishes dearly to meet them.
If this stranger wished him harm…surely they would have harmed him by now?
Some days, Sou returns to the crack in the wall to spy on his kidnappers. He recognizes Sue Miley and Tia Safalin in that room too, although they look different now, wearing long white lab coats instead of ballgowns and large hats.
It’s hard to hear them, but a few times he hears his name, Sou Hiyori, muttered in frustrated voices. Sou has to grin to hear how much trouble he’s causing them.
But they always eat such lovely, large plates of food, which drive him mad.
…
One morning, Sou wakes up to the most wonderful smell. He opens his eyes to see a porcelain bowl brimming to the top with steaming miso soup.
It’s such an overwhelming present that Sou immediately starts crying. His fellow survivor is so brave! And so kind!
Sou picks up his spoon with a trembling hand and eats the nicest meal he’s ever had in three years.
“Where are you?” Sou asks his empty room. “Please, show yourself! I want to know you.”
Nobody answers. But Sou smiles for the rest of the day.
…
Sou tries staying up late to catch his benefactor in the act, but he never sees them. His mysterious friend is very quiet and very sneaky. Of course, Sou is also tired and weak. He can’t help drifting to sleep.
One night, in a half-sleeping state, he feels a hand stroke his cheek. But when Sou opens his eyes, nobody is there. Just a can of beans.
Feeling desperate, Sou writes in the dirt on the floor:
PLEASE LET ME HELP YOU TOO. WE CAN BE FRIENDS?
…
Sou is fast asleep when fingers snap in front of his face. He jolts awake, breathing hard.
“Hello?” Sou squints in the dark. He stands up and turns on his lighter. “Who’s there?”
Somebody snaps again, just out of sight. Sou waves around his lighter. Where are they?
“Show yourself!” Sou musters all his authority into his voice.
Someone snaps near his feet. Sou shines his light downwards—
He’s so shocked he nearly drops his lighter. He shrieks and quickly covers his mouth. He can’t have any of the Floor Masters find him here, but this is… This is…!
“Sitting” in front of Sou’s feet is a human hand. The hand isn’t connected to any arm or body—it is simply a wrist with a palm and five fingers. The hand spins on its wrist and snaps its fingers again.
“Oh—ohh…” Sou wobbles on his feet. He feels faint. His guest is just like those strange monster dolls from the Attractions. Has it come to kill him?
The hand bends its knuckles and leaps off the floor onto Sou’s leg. It crawls up Sou’s pants like a giant spider. Sou swats and misses. The hand climbs over Sou’s stomach, which tickles, making him shudder and almost laugh.
The hand expertly climbs up the scarf and perches on Sou’s shoulder. Sou holds his breath, waiting to be strangled. But the hand extends its fingers and caresses Sou’s cheek.
It’s a sweet gesture that has kept Sou company for these past few nights, and Sou is suddenly gripped with shame.
So what if the bodiless hand looks creepy? It can’t help that. Sou shouldn’t be so shallow to judge his friend’s appearance like this, after all his friend has done for him…
“I’m sorry, my friend,” Sou apologizes. “Thank you for all your help. I would probably be dead without you.”
The hand twirls on its pointer finger triumphantly. Then it pinches Sou’s cheek playfully and hops off his shoulder, back onto the floor.
Sou winces and rubs his face, but he’s smiling now.
The hand rolls onto its back and beckons its fingers in a “Come hither” motion. Then it rolls over again and crabwalks out the room, unbelievably fast. But it stops in the doorway and waits.
Sou holds up his lighter to his eye-level and follows the hand out of his makeshift bedroom. His heart is racing.
The hand leads him down the cramped hallway. It skitters past the bright crack in the wall. It takes him through the furnace trash room. It goes farther than Sou dared explore on his own. Sou has to squeeze through tight spots in the rubble to keep up with his little friend.
In a new long hallway, Sou’s foot collides with something soft. He looks down and yelps to see Q-Taro’s head.
…It’s only a doll head. It’s not real. The real Q-Taro is safe and sound, somewhere far away from here.
Sou shines his lighter over the path ahead to see it is littered with broken doll body parts. A muscular arm. A tiny foot. A ball and chain connected to a larger foot. A bucket.
Did Sou’s strange friend spring forth from this creepy gallery? As he stares at the doll parts, he keeps expecting them to wake up and attack him, to seek vengeance for what he did to their human counterparts…
The familiar hand crawls back to him and raps its knuckles on Sou’s shoe. Sou realizes that he has been holding his breath and lets it out.
Calm down. Your friend is the only living doll here.
Sou continues following the hand down the hall, wondering what he’ll find at the end of their hike. He’s already breathless from walking so far, but too excited to ask for rest. Thinking about it rationally, it feels increasingly likely that the hand is only a messenger. His fellow survivor must be extremely clever to program a robot hand to do their bidding. Maybe they can teach Sou how to do it too. That sounds like a much more fun use of his time then scraping for food every day.
Finally, the hand pulls aside a tarp to reveal a hole in the floor. There’s a rope tied to the edge of the hole which drops into it. It’s pitch-black down there. Sou can’t see the bottom.
The hand beckons with its fingers before grabbing the rope and sliding down.
Sou touches the rope—
Then he freezes in place as a wave of foreboding rushes over him.
As Sou peers deep down into that unknowable darkness, he realizes that he’s about to learn his benefactor’s secrets.
It’s easy to romanticize a stranger. But they won’t be strangers after this.
They will no longer be your mysterious missing sibling who loves you from afar, but could never tell you.
They will be a real, flawed person who has made great overtures to curry your favor.
Someone wary of showing their true face.
Someone who only reached out to you after weeks of starving…
Sou shuts his eyes and takes deep breaths. He hates himself for thinking these things. He wants to trust his friend more than anything else in the world.
Sou remembers how afraid he was of Miss Sara, who was capable of killing them all. When the chips were down, she tried to save them.
Sou grips the rope tight with both hands and climbs down.
Down.
Down.
Down.
…
Sou’s feet touch the bottom. He pulls his lighter out of his pocket at last to shine a dim light in this place. He sees the hand skittering ahead.
“Hello?” Sou asks.
The hand jumps onto a stranger’s dress shoe. It climbs up a black pantleg, and a black suit jacket. It crawls down a black sleeve, before finally attaching itself to an empty wrist. Then the stranger uses their hand to flick a switch on the wall, and lights flood the room. They can finally see each other.
Sou gasps and covers his mouth to stop himself from screaming.
NO. NO. NO NO NO NO NO NONO NO NO NONONONONONO
“Hello there, Shin! You made it! Haha, well done!”
“Y-you…”
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
“It’s been far too long, hasn’t it?”
“It’s not possible…”
Even as Sou says that, he doesn’t believe it. No matter how nonsensical this situation is, it’s like he always knew, deep down, that this was the only right answer.
There is no mystery sibling who loves you.
There has only ever been Sou Hiyori.
Hiyori looks different now. There are bags under his eyes, and his hair is in tangles. His business suit is filthy under the light. Instead of an impeccably tidy office, they stand in the middle of a messy bunker.
But he has the same gleeful smile, and the same large, hungry eyes. He stares at Sou like he never wants to take his eyes off of him again.
Sou shuts his eyes and sways on his feet, feeling dizzy. He traveled so far to meet his friend…
He feels his benefactor embrace him and Sou leans onto him, so, so tired.
“Welcome back home, Shin.”
...
Artwork by Fridge, here on Twitter and YouTube.
I was so moved by this beautiful illustration. Thank you!