Chapter 7 - Umeki: Moan

1

While conversing with the monster that had taken the shape of Takuro, Hiroshi had gotten it into his head that it might be possible for them to coexist. But in this moment, he realized how silly that notion was. A blue monster with an oversized head stood towering over him. Hiroshi considered that Takuro was still in there somewhere... right up until it mercilessly lashed out at him.

Its unnaturally muscled arm reached out for Hiroshi’s neck. He dropped his hips, dodging the attack. This apparently made the monster even angrier. It let out a monstrous, echoing bellow. Hiroshi could feel it shake the very air around him.

The monster faced him and licked its lips multiple times, revealing glints of its sharp fangs. It had survived on only water and a little chocolate for days now. There was no doubt that it was starving. If it caught him, it would gobble him up in one bite.

“Takuro, snap out of it! It’s me, Hiroshi!”

Hiroshi tried communicating with the monster on the slim chance he might be able get through to it, but nothing changed. Its thick arms reached out for him again.

It’s no use. I have to run.

Hiroshi turned on his heels and fled the study. He ran at top speed down the hallway, quickly going through his potential paths of escape in his head. Most of the doors in the mansion were locked. He hadn’t checked the rest of the third floor yet, but it was likely no different than the first two.

Grabbing the handrail of the staircase, he more so fell than ran down to the second floor. The menacing presence behind him told him the monster was still chasing him without even having to look. He took the briefest glance left and right upon coming to the second floor. But he couldn’t afford to stop. Most of the doors were locked here, too.

Maintaining speed, he descended all the way to the first floor. The only open doors here were the Western-style room, the toilet, and the kitchen. Takuro had said Mika was in the kitchen, meaning it was probably a good idea to avoid it for now. And the toilet was too small. He’d be trapped in there with nowhere to run. That left him only one option.

Turning left when he hit the foyer, Hiroshi rushed down the front hall. He could still sense the monster behind him, though he’d managed to put some distance between them on the stairs. The monster had been insanely agile in human form, but there was no way it could maintain that as an unbalanced giant.

Flinging open the door to the Western-style room, Hiroshi jumped inside. He then slammed it shut again and stood next to it, holding his breath. The ravenous monster would surely come barreling into the room looking for its prey. He would use that opening to slip back out into the hall. Once he got out, he’d head back up to the study on the third floor. If he barricaded the door with the desk there, he could buy some time. He could only hope that Takuro’s mind would return to him eventually.

The door to the Western-style room burst open with a ear-splitting slam, and a blue figure streaked in with terrifying speed.

Now!

Hiroshi kicked off the ground and darted into the hall. But unfortunately...

“No way...”

He despaired at the sight before him, for there stood the giant blue monster looking down on him with a sneer.

How?

He turned around and saw that it was a different monster that had streaked past him into the room—a rectangular creature about fifty centimeters tall. It stared at him from the sofa. It seemed cute at first, but the dark red stains on its fangs betrayed its monstrous nature. Hiroshi cursed his foolishness. It seemed like he just couldn’t keep his wits about him today. This was no different from what had happened in the attic.

The monster that had been chasing him had, unlike the others before it, Takuro’s brains. It had probably seen through Hiroshi’s plan from the start, and so laid a trap for him. The monster was certainly slower in its giant form than it was in human form, but even then, it wasn’t all that much slower than Hiroshi. He should have realized something was up the moment he started to lose it. It must have stopped somewhere to get the smaller monster.

Hiroshi bit his lower lip.

What should I do?

Shun’s capture had badly shaken him. And after reuniting with Takuro—who he’d thought was dead—he was simply overwhelmed. This wouldn’t have happened before. He wouldn’t have cared what happened to anyone. These people were strangers, after all. That was how he’d always managed to stay calm.

“Shun... Takuro... I hate you all,” Hiroshi muttered, glaring at the growling monster. “If I hadn’t met you, I would have been able to remain perfectly...”

Skree!

He heard a shrill cry from behind. Reflexively, he turned around. The small monster jumped at him with the same alarming speed from before. Its horribly curved fangs were dripping with blue liquid. This creature may have been tinier than the others, but the deadliness of those fangs was probably enhanced to make up for it.

Hiroshi jumped to the side. The small monster could charge blindingly fast in a straight line, but apparently couldn’t handle sudden changes in direction. It continued to fly right past him, sinking its teeth into the giant’s torso instead. The giant let out a bellowing cry, ripped the small monster away, and smashed it against the wall with a loud boom. Plaster dust flew everywhere. A section of the wall even crumbled, revealing...

Hiroshi gasped. He could see a brass doorknob poking through the broken wall.

A hidden door?

With no time to think, he grabbed it. The small, blocky monster lay motionless up against the wall. It seemed to be completely unresponsive. Keeping an eye on it, Hiroshi pulled on the knob with both hands. The rest of the wall in front of the door crumbled as it swung open. Through it, Hiroshi could see a concrete staircase.

The giant reached out for him again. Barely escaping its grasp, Hiroshi dove headlong through the door.

2

He tumbled violently down the stairs. It was all he could do to protect his head. He hit his back so hard on one step that it knocked the wind out of him. If the staircase had been any longer, he might have been knocked unconscious.

He finally stopped tumbling when he hit a wall at the bottom. It was so dark that he couldn’t tell what direction he was facing, if he was lying prone or supine. But there was a ray of light shining down from above. He looked to see the monster staring at him from the top of the stairs. The doorway was too small for it to give chase immediately.

This is my chance.

Hiroshi sat up. His bones were groaning from his little trip down the stairs, but he couldn’t let that stop him. Once the small monster came to, it wouldn’t have any trouble coming after him. He needed to get farther away.

Eventually, his eyes adjusted to the darkness. What he’d thought was a wall had a cylindrical piece of metal sticking out from it. He gripped it for confirmation.

As I thought.

It was a doorknob. Half praying, he turned it. And, as though fortune had finally decided to smile upon him, it gave way easily. Hiroshi quickly slipped through the door.

The new room was pitch dark. A smell similar to pool chlorine assaulted his nose. Knowing it could be poisonous, he covered the lower half of his face with his right hand while feeling along the wall with his left. Soon he found a switch. He flipped it, and the room filled with light.

“Where am I?”

Hiroshi was shocked by just how different this room was compared to the others in the mansion. It was small, and in the center was an electric examination table like one would expect to see in a dentist’s office... except that it was quite large. It could fit three of Hiroshi sitting side-by-side with ease. There were also thick belts attached to the armrests. Looking closer, there was something similar at the foot of the chair. Were they for restraining the subject on the table?

Next to it sat a variety of expensive-looking devices with all manner of cords and tubes protruding from them. Hiroshi had no idea what they were, but assumed they were some kind of medical equipment. He then looked around the rest of the room to see what else there was.

A shelf stood against the wall, neatly lined with small, labeled glass bottles. Hiroshi approached and reached out for one with a red label on the top shelf. There were traces of text on the label, but it was too faded to make sense of. The other bottles were the same.

In front of the shelf sat an aluminum desk covered in beakers and test tubes. Some were filled with a brownish-red liquid. He brought his nose close to one and was immediately assaulted by an indescribably horrid smell. It made him retch.

Judging from just the cabinet and the things on the desk, this room looked like it could be a school science lab. Was there some kind of experiment going on here? If so, then what? Hiroshi scanned around the room again. The giant examination table with the restraints was really what stuck out to him the most. It was just so big. Would it be able to restrain one of the...

“Oh...”

It was then that a realization dawned on Hiroshi. The exam table was far too big to be meant for a human, but it looked like just the right size for one of the blue monsters. Was this a laboratory created in order study them? That would certainly explain the need for restraints.

Hiroshi’s heart fluttered. What was that blue liquid seeping from their skin? Was their bone structure similar to that of a human? How big were their brains? Just imagining what it would be like to get the chance to examine one of them gave him palpitations. This would be the perfect place to do it.

Realizing someone may have already done so, he began searching the room for notes. He began opening the drawers in the desk and scouring the shelves, but found nothing other than unfamiliar medical tools. Nothing like a research report. He sighed, fearing he’d gotten his hopes up for nothing as he opened the last drawer. But in it lay an ancient-looking notebook.

Found it!

He grabbed it, his pulse racing. A single photo fell to the floor. It must have been stuck between the pages. Hiroshi stooped to pick it up. It was quite faded, suggesting its age, but appeared to be a family photo of a mother and father with their two children. Hiroshi caught his breath when he saw what was behind them—various pieces of antique European-style furniture, some of which he’d seen in the mansion before.

Were these the residents of the Jailhouse? Hiroshi knew the previous owner was the old shopkeep who’d passed away five years ago. He’d seen him multiple times, but the man in the photograph looked nothing like him. This man was of average height and build. He wore round, black-rimmed glasses and was smiling warmly at the camera. He looked to be about 50 years old. His hair was tied back, and his white-speckled beard hung down to his chest.

The woman smiling next to him had chiseled features and a distinctly non-Japanese look to her. She seemed to be the man’s wife, but there was quite an age gap between them. She looked notably younger, and especially lovely in her pink dress. Standing in front of her and the man were two children holding hands. They looked about as tall as the five-year-old who lived near Hiroshi’s house and liked to go bug hunting with him, so he assumed they must be around that age. Their faces were quite similar, suggesting they were siblings. They both had their father’s eyes and their mother’s nose.

Setting the photo down on the desk, Hiroshi opened the notebook. He’d hoped for detailed anatomical sketches of the monsters or a thorough report full of technical terms, but the first page after the cover was just the alphabet written out. And with some glaring errors, at that. Was it a child’s study book? As he flipped through the pages, he discovered it to be a diary of sorts.

Two months in Japan

Surprised by resilience of wife and daughters

Ended up at Hongou somehow

I want to learn by TV

I want to be better too

People getting suspicious not good

But no time to watch TV like daughters

Busy with work

So y not

Practicing Japanese

The writing was feeble and hesitant, childish even. And corrected with red pen in places. The date at the top of the page was 20 years ago. Judging from the contents of the entry, it was written by the father in the photo. He looked Japanese, but perhaps had come from abroad.

He spoke of his wife and two... daughters?

Hiroshi looked back at the picture lying on the desk. Both children had short hair, so he’d assumed they were boys at first. Looking at them closely, however, they could just as easily have been girls. Hiroshi then continued to flip through the pages of the notebook.

This country peaceful

I like it here

We are grateful for master that save us

Thank you

The diary for practicing Japanese hadn’t been used every day. On average, it was more like once a week. Sometimes there was more than a month’s break between entries, with little progress. The man who wrote it was a professor of science and had, for one reason or another, fled his country and come to Japan. Unable to communicate and with no one to rely on, the person they called “master”—the shopkeep—had extended a helping hand. By working for him, they’d managed to scrape by.

Most of the entries were about the man’s daughters. Only their names were written in his native language, something that looked a bit like Hebrew but was unfamiliar to Hiroshi. The man’s Japanese was lacking, but the diary entries made it clear he and his family lived a meager yet happy life. The first signs anything was amiss cropped up in an entry dated about six months after the diary started.

——— seems off.

Was it the insect eggs found on her?

The word Hiroshi couldn’t read was the daughter’s name. Unlike her quiet younger sister, the older one was apparently the curious type and a bit of a handful—or so the previous entries had revealed. But this particular day’s entry was strangely short and written in much hastier handwriting than usual. Hiroshi could tell that the man had been quite disturbed. The next entry was dated three days later.

Settled spasms with drug. Heavy heart.

Do not know how this happened.

Unfortunately it seems to be accelerating.

Just like the previous entry, this one was shakily written and brief, lacking any real detail. Then, five days later...

I never expekted this to happen.

Quick discovery saved wife.

But the same thing will happen again.

Have to do something.

Hiroshi had to wonder what it all meant.

A quick discovery saved his wife? What does that mean?

Wasn’t it his daughter that was sick? Or were they dealing with something highly contagious? Hiroshi flipped through more pages, one hand pressed to his chest. An ominous feeling was beginning to creep up his legs.

Two weeks since ——— got sick.

Took day off from work, cooped up in lab.

Still no cure found.

Master says go to doctor.

But that not possible.

Doctors of this country cannot cure.

Same thing as last time will happen.

Have to save by myself.

The man’s efforts to save his daughter continued for several pages.

I thought I had it this time but no.

I hear pounding on door.

She cries to be let out.

I tell her be patient a little longer.

I doubt she can understand me any more.

Another failure.

Samples keep growing.

Must make new cage soon.

Another failure.

What am I doing wrong?

Is this all I am capable of?

Another failure.

My daughter pounds at door.

Asking to be saved.

Sorry.

I swear to save you. Just wait.

It has gotten bad.

Not enough samples.

Must hurry before the worst happens.

The entries stopped there. The last date was about ten months from the start of the diary, and the rest of the notebook was left blank. Hiroshi closed it, put a hand to his chin, and pensively stared into space. What sort of illness had overcome the daughter? What samples was the father talking about?

Wait... A cage?

Hiroshi suddenly recalled the cells he’d discovered the last time he was in the annex. Was that related? There was still so much he didn’t know.

“Ahhhhh...”

In the middle of his thinking, he heard the mewling of a kitten from somewhere. It put him on high alert, and he slowly turned his head.

“Ahh... Ahhh.... Ahhhh...”

No, it could be someone moaning.

“Is someone there?” Hiroshi asked.

But when he said something, the voice stopped. He then recalled a certain line in the diary...

“I hear pounding on door. She cries to be let out.”

If the man had been observing his daughter here, then it was certainly logical to think he’d have kept her somewhere nearby.

“Ahhhhhhhh...”

Hiroshi then heard the voice again. It was growing much louder.

Thud!

The walls shook. Dust fell from the ceiling.

“Ahh... Ahhh... Ahhhh!”

The shaking grew in intensity along with the moans.

Could... the caged daughter still be alive?

Hiroshi clutched at his chest.

No, that can’t be.

The diary had been written 20 years ago. It was impossible to think no one had discovered her all this time. And even if she had gone undetected, a restrained child could never survive for 20 years on their own.

The voice was coming from behind the shelves lined with bottles. What if there was a mechanism here like in the study? Hiroshi pushed hard on the side of the shelf. Just as he suspected, it moved. It actually slid quite easily, as if the floor had been lined with some kind of friction-reducing material.

Once pushed aside, the shelf revealed two iron doors. They were both a rusty red, but still appeared sturdy. The left door was sealed with multiple chains, which were connected to the wall with metal fittings and secured with a brass padlock. It was clear something dangerous lay beyond.

Boom!

As if whatever it was had sensed Hiroshi’s presence, a thunderous blow struck the other side of the left door. Flakes of rust shook loose from the impact.

“Can you hear me?” Hiroshi asked the door.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The pounding at the door grew rougher, as if to answer him.

“Ahh... Ahhh... Ahhhh!”

The voice grew louder as well.

Filled with the urge to see what was on the other side, Hiroshi reached out for the padlock. It was thicker than he expected, however, and it was apparent there would be no getting it off without either the key or immense strength. But that was a good thing. If it had been easy to remove, the trapped monster would have burst out and slain the unarmed Hiroshi. Curiosity killed the cat, as they say. There couldn’t have been a more tailor-made warning for Hiroshi.

He was dying to know about the monster trapped beyond the door, but for now he needed to focus on thinking of a way to escape. He collected himself and reached out for the right door. The knob was rusted stuck, but he was able to turn it with a little force. It wasn’t locked. Slowly, he pushed the door open, the heavy pounding on the other side continuing all the while.

Hiroshi peered inside. Rather than a room, it was a rectangular underground dirt tunnel that seemed to stretch on forever. Bare lightbulbs hung from the ceiling at regular intervals, providing dim illumination. A chilling breeze stroked his cheek. A draft was coming from somewhere in the tunnel. Maybe it was connected to the outside world.

One ear filled with the creepy, incessant moaning from the neighboring room, Hiroshi stepped into the tunnel.