Chapter 5 - Nageki: Grief

1

Shun stood underneath the cypress tree. A northward wind blew, rattling the branches. Similarly, Shun’s heart was also quite rattled. He was behind the school. Before him were two of his classmates, their backs flat against the wall of the school building.

The girl stared at him, her round eyes growing even wider. Shun recalled that her name was Satsuki. And the boy standing before her—his arms outspread like was shielding her—was Kazuya. It seemed to be all they could manage just to stay upright on their quivering legs.

“What’s going on?” Shun asked.

Why were they so scared? The moment he moved his right foot to take a step toward them, Satsuki let out an involuntary gasp.

“Please... no...” Kazuya begged. Tears and snot were streaming down his face. “Don’t kill us... please...”

He was begging just like Shun used to in vain attempts to get Takuro to stop bullying him.

“I’ll do anything you want... so just stop... Please, Shun...” Kazuya whimpered.

Shun couldn’t help laughing.

“What are you talking about? I haven’t done anything.”

“Then... what’s that you’re holding in your hand?”

“Huh?”

Shun looked down. He was clutching a large, messy clump of hair. From it hung human heads.

“Wh-Whoa!”

He panicked and released his grip, but the hair was so tangled around his fingers that it made no difference. He frantically shook his arm, tearing the skin from the scalps of both severed heads and sending them crashing into the roots of the cypress tree. They rolled along the ground from there, one finally coming to rest face-first toward Shun. It was Hiroshi’s head. His eyes were wide open and falling out of their sockets.

Shun opened his mouth to scream, but no sound escaped his throat. He could hardly breathe. His heart was beating erratically.

“Hiroshi...? But why...?”

That was all he could eke out.

“I-Isn’t it obvious? You killed him, didn’t you?!” Kazuya said, his tone hardening.

“Me? What’re you—”

Shun tried to laugh again but couldn’t. For at that moment, the other head bumped into his foot. His own face was looking up at him with empty eyes.

Me? Then... who am I?

“You are me.”

The answer came in a deep voice from within himself. It felt like it was echoing from the very core of his brain.

His muscles throbbed with every beat of his heart. Blue fluid started to seep from his pores. His upper arms began expanding rapidly as they bubbled and popped like boiling water. They doubled and then tripled in size in no time at all. His face was hot. It was like he was on fire. He reflexively put a hand to his face and felt an unfamiliar mass of muscle.

Help!

He tried to scream, but all that came out of his mouth was a monkey-like screech. His arms were horribly twisted—inhumanly so. But it wasn’t just his arms. His legs too were absurdly large, almost like he was wearing a muscle suit.

Unable to withstand the sudden increase in his size, Shun’s clothes split apart. He watched as his point of view shot upward, and he could feel the cold of the snow clumped on the tree branches around his head. The birds resting their wings nearby took flight in shock.

Shun was now taller than the cypress tree, but he continued to grow. He saw his reflection in the school windows. His giant face was monstrously disfigured. His enormous, bulging eyeballs took up almost half of it. His left eye was so enlarged that it looked like it would fall out of his head at any moment.

His repulsiveness made his breath catch. The monster reflected in the windows moved just as he did. Fearfully, he touched his cheek. The monster did the same.

He wailed a throat-splitting cry, but the only sound it made was a low, echoing growl.

And then he woke up.

Shun was lying face-down on the ground. Propping up his torso, he looked around. There was a set of stairs carpeted in bright red. From the ceiling hung a glittering, extravagant chandelier. A long hallway extended to his left and right, lined with windows that were nailed shut. This had to be the Jailhouse entrance hall.

“Hn... ngh...”

Shun heard a familiar voice near his feet. He looked to see Hiroshi collapsed nearby, his face strained.

“You okay, Hiroshi?”

He quickly jumped up and ran to his friend’s side. To see him so clearly in pain worried Shun all the more, considering how expressionless Hiroshi normally was. Shun gently shook his shoulders until he came to.

“Where are we?” Hiroshi asked, looking up at Shun with glassy eyes.

“The entrance hall. We were both here when I woke up. What’s going on? I remember we were talking to Anna in the study on the third floor...”

“The area seems to have changed slightly from earlier.”

Pushing up his glasses which had slid down his nose, Hiroshi slowly stood up.

“Huh?”

Shun followed Hiroshi’s gaze. He was right, of course. The mansion once more radiated the same sinister, creepy aura it had on their previous visits. The chandelier was brightly lit, and the hall was neatly decorated with expensive-looking furnishings. The wallpaper at the back of the entrance hall was ripped in one place, revealing a small door. The police tape that had been everywhere was now nowhere to be seen.

“What’s going on here?”

Something cold ran down Shun’s spine. Warning lights were flashing in his head.

“This place is dangerous. Let’s go outside.”

“Unfortunately, I believe it’s a little too late for that,” Hiroshi replied immediately.

The busted front door was somehow back in its original state. Hiroshi turned the knob, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Not only are there metal panels on the windows, they’re also nailed shut. It would seem we’re trapped in here again.”

Shun recalled Naoki’s words from before he blacked out.

“The game begins.”

“It can’t be... can it?”

He sank weakly to the ground.

2

Hiroshi left the entrance hall and began walking the halls without a word. He stopped at the closest door and tried the knob.

“It won’t open. It must be locked,” he said before moving on to the next. “Same here. How strange. Earlier, they all opened normally.”

Shun’s thoughts began to wander.

Could it be...?

The game installed on the tablet had most likely stopped working in Hiroshi’s dramatic escape from the Jailhouse. That’s why the mansion no longer had the same sinister aura it used to. Or, at least, it hadn’t until Naoki installed the alpha version of the game onto it. If, as a result of that, the Jailhouse and the game were linked once more, then...

Shun passed by Hiroshi, who was still going down the line checking doors, and headed straight for the end of the hall. He tried the brass knob, and just as he’d thought, the door opened easily.

“I see,” observed Hiroshi. “It would seem everything is as it was before, then. Inside the unlocked room should be the dining hall, where we will find a useful piece of broken plate that fell from the shelf—”

He stopped midsentence when he peered over Shun’s shoulder.

“...Oh, what is this?” he asked, his eyebrow arched.

What lay beyond the door wasn’t the dining room. There was no long, Western-style table, no cabinet of expensive-looking china, and no door to the kitchen. There was only a two-person sofa, a modest table, and a mid-sized LCD TV.

“This place sure has changed. Previously, the Jailhouse was furnished with a sense of European refinement, but this... This is more like a plainly decorated motel,” Hiroshi said, disappointed.

“I knew it...” Shun muttered.

“What do you mean?”

“The room layout and available items were completely different in the first version of the game I created versus the one I officially released online later. It’s got the same gameplay premise, but the map and everything else is basically new now.”

Apparently installing the alpha version on the tablet was enough to transform the entire mansion accordingly.

“In that case, won’t escaping be a simple affair? I assume you remember the contents of the game, despite how long ago you first created it.”

“Yeah, that won’t be an issue.”

“Then let us escape before we run into the blue monster. I should like to retrieve the tablet before we go, but considering the circumstances, safety and escape need to be our top priorities.”

Shun nodded. Hiroshi was right. If they ran into the monster, they’d have no chance of beating it. Powerless humans, by design, had no choice but to run from it. Hiroshi had had far more encounters with the monsters of the mansion than anyone at this point, so he knew that best of all.

“What should we do first?” he asked.

“Follow me. We need to grab the study key from the bathroom,” Shun responded.

He quickly left the room, heading straight down the hall. Passing by the front door, he headed into the opposite wing of the mansion. He stopped at a particular door and opened it.

“H-Huh?”

Shun couldn’t believe his eyes. It wasn’t a bathroom, but a toilet... right where it should have been in the newest version of the game.

“How...”

There was supposed to be a tub full of blue water that would drain to reveal a key when the plug was pulled. At least, that’s how he’d programmed it. But now the all-important bathroom was missing.

“It would seem the normal route is unusable,” Hiroshi said from beside Shun.

“Just what is going on here...?” Shun asked in awe.

“Perhaps because the alpha version was installed overtop of the latest version without uninstalling it first, somehow the data from both versions became mixed?”

“No way...”

Shun held his head. This was the worst possible development. Now they didn’t know how to escape. Maybe there wasn’t even a way to escape at all.

“It’s quite all right.”

Hiroshi reassuringly pat Shun on the shoulder. Shun looked up at him, but when he did, Hiroshi burst into laughter.

“Just look at your face!”

It really must have been something to make Hiroshi of all people laugh like that. How pathetic. Shun quickly rubbed his face.

“You once called me a genius for clearing your game so quickly. Now, let me say this: Shun, you’re also a genius for creating such a fascinating game.” Hiroshi continued with a smile plastered on his face, “Which means that we have two geniuses here. Does a game exist that we cannot possibly clear? Have confidence and let us challenge this one together.”

Hiroshi’s words and smile gave Shun the strength he needed to summon his courage just as his spirit was about to break. Hiroshi was right. Freshly resolved, Shun balled his hand into a fist.

Surely the two of us together can escape even this mess.

3

The first step to clearing the game would be to understand the layout of the mansion. Shun and Hiroshi decided to investigate each room one by one, starting with the first floor. The mansion stretched from east to west, with separate halls on the north and south sides. There was no change in the basic shape or scale of the building, it seemed.

Most of the rooms were locked, preventing them from entering. In the end, the only ones they could access on the first floor were the room with the TV, the toilet, and the dining room that had been moved to the north hall in this version of the Jailhouse. They investigated each of them, searching from top to bottom. They left no stone unturned, but they didn’t have anything to show for it when it was all said and done.

The hidden door in the entrance hall had no knob, meaning they couldn’t do anything with it for now. If that element remained from the newest version of the game, they’d be able to open it by retrieving the doorknob from the attic. But there was no telling what lay beyond it after that. There was no annex in the alpha version of the game, after all.

After thoroughly investigating the first floor, the boys ascended the stairs toward the next level.

“Hey, Hiroshi,” Shun called to his friend climbing the steps in front of him. “Why is Naoki doing this?”

“Naoki? You mean our former classmate, Oobashi Naoki? He died last year,” Hiroshi replied calmly.

It seemed he still didn’t entirely believe that Naoki was involved in all of this from beyond the grave.

“Anna told me something once. She said that Naoki has the power to control people’s dreams. That’s how he lured Takuro and Takeshi to the Jailhouse.”

“That’s a more credible theory than ghosts. It has been scientifically proven that outside stimuli can affect one’s dreams.”

There, they reached the second floor. The two boys began checking doors anew as they continued talking about Naoki.

“Naoki was bullied by Takuro, right? I heard it was actually Takuro’s fault he was hit by that truck... That must be why he brought them here—to enact his vengeance.”

Most of the doors were locked, just like on the first floor. And expectedly, the rooms that were open didn’t yield any clues.

“You said Takuro and the others were killed by the monsters, meaning Naoki got his revenge, right? So why is this still continuing?”

“I am not conceding the existence of ghosts, but if everything is as you say and all of this has been the machinations of a vengeful Naoki, then I expect I’m on his list of targets, as well.”

“No... That can’t be,” Shun quickly argued. “You didn’t bully him, right? There’s no reason for him to hate you.”

“I’m not good at reading the inner workings of others’ hearts. I cannot deny the possibility that I may have hurt him without realizing it.”

“No, that just can’t be.”

Shun couldn’t believe it. Naoki was just like him. They’d both been bullied by Takuro, living through hell. The only reason Shun had managed to hang in there was because he had Hiroshi.

“After we parted ways at the cemetery today, I returned home and investigated that email you spoke of,” Hiroshi said, suddenly stopping in the hall.

“You mean the one sent to all of our classmates?”

“Yes. I tried various methods to see if I could extract the sender’s information from the mail header and managed to discover the email host. And from what I remember of the emails shared during the cultural festival, there was only one person in our class who used this particular host.”

“Who was it?”

“Naoki.”

Shun was struck dumb upon hearing what Hiroshi was suggesting.

“Of course, I doubt Naoki himself sent the email. It must have been his mother or someone similar.”

“Why would they do that?”

“The email said, ‘Know the graveness of the sin you have committed and regret it.’ I was unable to recognize the pain Naoki was in. Surely that is a sin unto itself.”

“No...”

“I believe his thirst for vengeance will not be slaked merely by the deaths of Takuro and his gang. What if his hate grew to extend to his classmates who didn’t lift a finger to help him?”

Despite prefacing all this by saying that he believed Naoki’s mother to be the culprit, it certainly sounded like Hiroshi really thought Naoki was the sender. He was probably struggling with his own thoughts, trying to reconcile the existence of a ghost in the equation.

“What if his hate grew to extend to his classmates who didn’t lift a finger to help him?”

Hiroshi’s words echoed in Shun’s head. It was there that he fell silent, unable to argue.

“What is the matter? Was my conjecture too off-the-wall?”

Just the opposite...

Shun, having been through what Naoki had, found himself flabbergasted at just how relatable what Hiroshi was saying sounded.

“I was like that, too...” Shun whispered in response. “Sometimes I got mad at everyone for not realizing how much I was suffering. So... I understand. That’s why Naoki...”

“If nothing else, that explains why you didn’t receive the email. You weren’t part of the class while Naoki was being bullied.”

“Then do you think Naoki’s planning on doing this to everyone who was?”

“Most likely.”

“We have to stop him. Somehow, we gotta convince him—”

Suddenly, something covered Shun’s mouth. He couldn’t see anything, but there was unmistakably a hand clamped over his lips.

Hiroshi, help!

Shun wanted to scream, but all that came out was muffled sound. The door behind him then suddenly opened. Something yanked on his back, dragging him into the doorway. An invisible power then sent Shun flying. He slammed his back into the wall hard enough that it knocked the wind out of him for a second.

“Shun!”

Hiroshi ran over after him, but just as he reached the room, the door slammed shut as if to forbid him entry.

Click.

The distinct sound of a locking mechanism engaging echoed in the room.

“What happened? Shun! Open up! Shun!” Hiroshi shouted as he banged on the outside of the door.

Standing up, Shun tried to approach the door, but a sofa suddenly slid in front of him to block the way. It was like it had a mind of its own. A blue magic marker on the sofa then floated into the air. It moved over to the wall and then began scrawling.

Welcome to the new Jailhouse.

Shun’s eyes went wide as he watched the marker move on its own.

Don’t worry. I’m not out to hurt you. Hee hee hee.

He could swear he actually heard the sound of giggling coming from somewhere.

When your friend is dead, I’ll let you go.

“Is that you, Naoki?” he asked the wall.

You know about me? Aw, you’re making me blush.

“Just stop this,” Shun said, addressing the unseen figure.

Shut up. Don’t talk to me.

The writing became much more erratic than before.

You don’t know the first thing about me.

“I do, though. I was bullied by Takuro just like you were.”

But you weren’t killed.

Shun was at a loss for words.

I’ve met the same fate as you.

Shun wanted to tell him that he’d also been killed at Takuro’s hands and had become a ghost, but there was no way Naoki would believe him. No one besides Shun remembered it.

“Naoki, doing this won’t save you. It’ll just make the pain worse.”

Shut up!

A lamp in the corner of the room toppled over and crashed loudly to the floor.

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

The chaotic text smeared the wall blue.

Everyone’s gonna die!

With those final words, the marker fell to the floor.

“Naoki?” Shun called out.

But there was no response. The room was totally silent.