Chapter 11 - Abaki: Reveal

1

Shun woke, shivering from the piercingly cold wind. Before him sprawled a breathtaking sight. Countless stars sparkled in the sky. He’d never seen such a beautiful nightscape before. Had he gone to the planetarium and fallen asleep inside? He seriously had to wonder for a moment.

But it was so cold.

Shun sneezed and instantly felt pain shoot through his abdomen. His shirt was stained red with blood. Seeing it, he finally remembered what had happened.

Anna, after transforming into the blue-skinned monster, had leaped at him with dirty fangs bared. He’d closed his eyes and said his prayers. He’d felt the monster’s fangs pierce the parka he was wearing. Sharp pain exploded near his hips. And the next thing he knew, he was being lifted into the air. He nearly fainted at the wretched stench that assaulted his nostrils. Something warm and sticky stroked his cheek. He’d instinctively opened his eyes to see what it was and found a bluish mollusk wrapped around his upper body.

It had taken him a moment before he realized he was inside the monster’s mouth. And that mollusk? That was the monster’s tongue. Everything below Shun’s waist seemed to be protruding from its mouth. He attempted to wrestle free, but the tongue’s grip on him was too firm. Suddenly there was a sharp, stabbing pain in his abdomen. The monster had apparently bitten into him. And after that, his vision faded, and he lost consciousness.

Pressing a hand to his abdomen, he slowly got to his feet.

Am I alive? I don’t think this is the afterlife...

What had happened? Shun was confused.

It can’t be...

When a certain possibility crossed his mind, he immediately stiffened.

Am... I actually dead? Is this just the monster that’s taken my form?

He lifted his shirt to check his abdomen. The teeth marks from the monster’s bite were still clearly visible. The wound wasn’t too deep, and the bleeding had already stopped. If a monster had copied his form, it would have healed completely already. The blood wouldn’t be red, either. Shun sighed in relief.

He then looked around the area. Snow covered the ground. Only where he’d been lying was compacted. He was surrounded by dense cypress trees. Through them he could see the light of the city in the distance. The bright, conspicuous orange neon glow seemed so familiar. It had to be the shopping district by the train station. Judging by that, he was probably in the hills behind the schoolhouse.

...How?

He was alive, despite being attacked by a monster. Moreover, he was now outside the Jailhouse. Shun was beyond shocked.

Eventually, his eyes adjusted to the darkness—or perhaps the night was just beginning to wane—and he slowly got a better view of his surroundings. Not more than a few meters away from where Shun had woken up was a cylindrical structure. His breath a white mist in the frigid air, he approached it. The snow was only up to his ankles, but each step he took was a struggle. Only upon reaching his goal did his frozen body finally unthaw.

The structure was a well two meters in diameter. He peered inside, but it was too dark to see anything. He scooped up some snow, patted it into a ball, and tossed it in. It took a few seconds for him to hear the sound of it splatting on the bottom. It seemed to be a long way down.

Wait... An abandoned well in the middle of the forest? An intense sense of déjà vu came over Shun. Had he seen something like this somewhere before? He desperately racked his brain, but couldn’t remember anything. His head just started to hurt. Abandoning the endeavor, he lowered his gaze to the ground. He could hardly believe his own eyes.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me...” The words slipped from his lips.

Giant footprints dotted the snow. From toe to heel, they were about 50 centimeters in length, but distinctly human in shape. Shun couldn’t think of any other creature that had arched feet.

Could it be... the monster?

Holding his breath, he strained his ears and listened, but all he could hear was the sound of the wind. There was no sign of the monster other than the footprints around the well. It looked like it had climbed out of the well, walked around for a bit, then jumped back in.

Shun peered inside the well again. He wondered if the monster might be hiding down there, but he couldn’t see any indication of that. There weren’t even handholds along the well walls for it to climb. It looked like it was impossible to get up or down.

Shun turned away from the well and began heading for the city. There was no telling when the monster might appear again. Careful to be as quiet as possible, he proceeded through the snowy forest. There was so much he didn’t know...

Why didn’t the monster eat me? If those were its tracks, then what is it doing here? Where did it go after leaving me here?

Shun only made it a few meters before he spotted a log cabin. Perhaps there was a clue to solving the mystery inside. He changed course and started walking toward it.

A sign hung on the front door for the local forest protection agency, but the cabin was in a state of disrepair. It looked as though it hadn’t been used for some time. Giving the tilted door a push, Shun stepped inside.

Cobwebs covered everything. The further Shun went, the more of them he collected. He was nearly wrapped in them. He almost felt like he was walking through a giant piece of cotton candy. It didn’t help that the place was also deplorably dusty.

Coughing, Shun continued forward. The floorboards creaked underneath him with every step. If he wasn’t careful, one wrong move might send him straight through the old floor.

It appeared that the decrepit building had been used as a storehouse long ago. Chainsaws, saws, and other forestry tools lined the shelves. But considering the size of the one-room building, which was really more like a shed, Shun made his way through it in no time.

“What...?” he gasped as he stopped in his tracks.

There was a strange statue in the last corner of the storehouse. It was a sculpture of a giant eyeball about a meter in diameter. From its sides protruded reptilian limbs, and on its back were bat-like wings. Calling it an eyeball monster made it sound comical, but it did certainly draw the gaze. There was just something about it... Shun stared at it, transfixed. In fact, he stood there long enough ensnared by the strange aura of the giant eyeball statue that he didn’t notice the monster approaching from behind.

A roar echoed through the air, shaking the tiny building. Clouds of dust rose here and there. Surprised, Shun turned around to see the monster crash into the ground not a meter from where he was standing. It seemed to have fallen through the ancient floorboards. If it weren’t for that stroke of luck, Shun was sure he would be dead right now.

Lying on the ground, the monster flailed its arms. Shun had once heard Hiroshi say that the monsters were so unbalanced that it wasn’t easy for them to get up once they had fallen. So if he had a few seconds now, this was his chance to run. And Shun didn’t hesitate. He slipped past the monster and dashed out of the door.

“Hey, wait!” a deep voice called from behind him. “Didn’t they teach you at your old school to help people in need, new kid?”

Shun froze and turned back, peering into the building. The monster, finally managing to lift its massive head, scratched its temple with a guilty look on its face. It was something he’d seen Takeshi do plenty of times before.

2

Shun could only stand there in awe. Confronted with the unbelievable, his brain had simply shut down.

“...Is that you, Takeshi?” he finally managed to squeak.

“Yeah. You’re pretty sharp, huh?” the monster replied, sitting cross-legged and scratching the underside of its nose.

Shun did a double take. He was undoubtedly looking at a monster, but it certainly wasn’t behaving like one. There was no ferocity to it.

“You’re something else, you know that?” the monster said.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“No normal person would have believed that I was Takeshi.”

“Oh... Well, Hiroshi explained a lot to me.”

“Hiroshi? Ah, gotcha. He’s alive, then? Good, good...”

The monster smiled happily. Shun had never seen that look on one of their faces before.

“That aside, what’re you doing here, new kid?”

“That’s what I’d like to know. But what are you doing here, Takeshi? I thought you’d gotten caught up in the explosion...”

“Yeah, that was pretty crazy. But I was the one who set the whole thing off, you know? Haha!”

The monster stuck its tongue out playfully. It was emotional and expressive... just like Takeshi.

“So... you were able to escape, then?”

“I’ve always been good at running away, if nothing else,” the monster said with a bit of pride. “I had planned on dying alongside those other Jailhouse monsters, but in the end I got scared. I frantically looked for a way out at the last minute and spotted a hole in the ceiling. So I jumped as high as I could, hoping it would save me... Turns out these guys are pretty agile in spite of how big they are. Anyway, that’s how I managed to escape the annex.”

“If you were okay, why didn’t you contact us? Everyone was super worried.”

“Don’t be stupid. I could never go home looking like this. Sure, I can transform into a human, but I still can’t control it that well. There’s no telling when I’d revert to my monster form. If my mom saw me like that, she’d have a heart attack.”

A slightly wistful expression surfaced on the monster’s face as it recalled its family.

“But even looking like that, you seem to be in control.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t at first. The monster had complete control, and I was kinda just sleeping, but the brainiac gave me the chance I needed.”

“Brainiac...? You mean Hiroshi?”

“Yup. I heard him shouting from far away. It woke me up. That’s when I saw him surrounded by a horde of monsters. He was gonna die right there. But the urge to save him overcame me, and I was suddenly able to control my body.”

Takeshi’s tale was too vague to be truly intelligible, but what Shun took away from it was that as long as the right key was used, Anna and the others could regain control of their bodies, as well. Hope kindled in Shun’s chest.

“Can you revert to your original form at will, too?”

“Yeah. Just give me a second.” The monster closed its eyes and put a finger to its brow. “If I focus right here...”

Crinkling its brow, it let out a low growl. Shun watched in disbelief as the monster shrank, its skin going from blue to a more normal flesh tone. All he could do was gawk. This was nothing like seeing a chameleon change its color or a puffer fish expand its body. Just what sort of chemical changes were those cells undergoing? Hiroshi would have loved to observe this phenomenon. In less than ten seconds, the monster was back to looking just like Takeshi. His outfit was even the same as what he’d been wearing three days ago.

“Aw, now I’m shorter than you. I actually kind of like being the monster. It’s way stronger and cooler, you know? I could even send Takuro flying with one hand in that body.”

Takeshi spoke in a joking tone, the same as ever. Shun had once found it grating, but now it was a relief to hear.

“Have you been here this whole time?” Shun asked, taking a seat next to him.

“Yeah. The fire cut off my way back to the Jailhouse, and I wasn’t brave enough to go home, so I parked it here in this cabin and have been chilling ever since.”

“Really? You aren’t freezing?”

“Nah. In fact, for a monster, this is great weather.”

“What about food?”

“Got that covered, too. Whenever I get hungry, I just pop into town and grab a human to eat.”

Shun was stunned into horrified silence. Seeing that, Takeshi burst into laughter.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Don’t take me seriously. I haven’t eaten anything since the fire. I feel fine, though. At first I was starving and thirsty, but those were apparently just sensations left over from my days as a human. They faded after a while. I guess that’s just how the monsters are made.”

“Huh? Really?” Shun cocked his head quizzically. “But all the monsters we’ve met so far have attacked humans on sight.”

“Oh, yeah, about that...” Takeshi, who had been so talkative all this time, suddenly fell silent.

“What is it?”

“The monsters aren’t hunting people for food.” The corners of his mouth twisting regretfully, he continued, “They just hate humans.”

3

An untold number of victims had fallen prey to the monsters. Shun had always assumed that was because they were eating people to survive, but thinking about it rationally, that didn’t make sense. If the monsters actually required human flesh to sustain themselves, the body count should have been much, much higher.

“What do you mean, they hate humans?” Shun asked.

“The first monster born in the Jailhouse despised humans,” Takeshi replied, scratching the underside of his nose.

“The first monster? So there was only one in the beginning?”

“Yeah. But it’s not like they can reproduce, you know. The others are all clones of the first, so we all have Monster Alpha’s memories.”

“Clones? Do the monsters replicate by cell division?”

Shun recalled seeing one like that before.

“There are some like that, but most don’t. They were made by human hands.”

“...What?”

“They took Monster Alpha’s DNA and literally cloned it. The one that ate me was one of those clones.”

Shun’s jaw hit the floor. This was something that had never occurred to him.

“Some of them underwent sudden mutation after being exposed to radiation during cell division, though. That’s why there are so many different types.”

“H-Hold on a second...”

It was all too much to process in the moment.

“What did you mean when you said the monsters were made by human hands? Who would do that?”

“He wanted to cure his daughter,” Takeshi said solemnly. “Monster Alpha was the daughter of a scientist who lived in the mansion. One day, she suddenly grew huge and her skin turned blue. Basically, she became the monster we know. The scientist was hellbent on saving her, and he created multiple clones to that end.”

Did he think he needed to replace every inch of her skin in order to restore its original color? Shun could understand the theory, but it was just far too fantastical. It was like something straight out of a science fiction novel.

“But unfortunately, the monster’s cells could only create monster clones. Try as the scientist might to manipulate its genes, he only ended up creating more monsters. In the end, he couldn’t save his daughter.”

“...”

“He locked his failed creations in the basement. If they were as frail as humans, they probably would have died off quickly. But they’re as tough as cockroaches and have survived years of living hell.”

“That’s why... they hate humans?”

“Yup. They were created, deemed failures, and abandoned. None of it was our fault. We aren’t things. We’re alive, just like you humans!”

Takeshi’s body expanded instantly in his excitement. His head burst through the ceiling.

“Shit, my house!”

Takeshi started to shrink back down, but punched a hole through the wall in his flailing panic. The building shook. The whole thing would collapse in a matter of seconds if he kept this up. Shun dashed away, avoiding falling debris from above.

Hitting the snow outside, Shun tripped and fell. He then heard a thunderous roar from behind him. He covered his head and curled up defensively. The ear-splitting noise soon ceased, and an uncomfortable silence took its place.

Shun lifted his head and looked back. Where the cabin had just been, there was now only a mountain of rubble. A pile of lumber and other debris bubbled up and burst, revealing the monster. Shun breathed a sigh of relief to see Takeshi was safe. But he was holding something... It was the eyeball statue that had been sitting in the corner. It must have been important to him, because he had it cradled to his chest like a mother would her baby.

“Good, it’s unharmed...”

The monster placed the sculpture gently down in the snow, looking relieved.

“What is that?” Shun asked.

“God.”

“I’m sorry?”

“In the Jailhouse, there was this chapel-looking place. This was in there. The monsters all called it God. It’s probably a memory from Monster Alpha. When I look at it, I feel at ease. So when I escaped the annex, I grabbed it and took it with me.”

The strange creature, wings outspread in the pure white snow, looked terrifying yet also somehow divine. Shun wracked his brain, but couldn’t remember anything like it ever featuring in one of his games. In other words, this wasn’t something that had appeared because of their connection to the Jailhouse—it was something that had been in the Jailhouse all along.

“...Oh!”

Shun suddenly realized the cause of his déjà vu at the well earlier.

“Hey, Takeshi, did you know there was an old well over there?”

“A well? I’ve explored this place pretty thoroughly, but I haven’t seen anything like that.”

Shun’s eyes opened wide. His hunch was right on the money. In the alpha version of his game, he’d included an old well in the middle of the forest as an escape route. It was connected to the mansion via an underground path. And it had likely appeared when Naoki installed the older version of the game on the tablet.

“Let’s go save everyone!” Shun proclaimed.

“Huh?” The monster looked at him blankly.

“We can get to the Jailhouse from the well. That’s where everyone else is.”

“Everyone else? Who are you talking about?”

“You know exactly who I’m talking about!” Shun snapped in frustration. “Hiroshi. Anna. Takuro and Mika, too, most likely.”

“Huh? They’re all alive?”

“Yeah, so let’s go get them right now!” Shun declared as he took off in the opposite direction of the well.

“Yo, new kid! That’s not the way, is it?”

“If this is anything like my game, there should be a rope ladder hidden over here.”

Rolling up his sleeves, Shin began digging at the roots of a great cypress tree. The well was deep, but they could get down safely with a rope ladder. Shun was digging as earnestly as he could to get to it, but he suddenly felt himself floating in the air. The monster had grabbed him by the collar. It was grinning.

“Move. Leave the heavy lifting to me.”

The monster set Shun down on the snow, squatted down, and began digging. The frozen dirt was like sand in its powerful hands. Surely they’d have the rope ladder in no time.

Shun glanced back at the statue the monsters worshiped, then looked around the area. Fresh tracks were everywhere, and the monster’s were easily five times the size of his. But that wasn’t all...

Monster Takeshi’s footprints were flatfooted. His monster form didn’t reflect any of Takeshi’s physical traits, but this seemed very characteristic of him. The tracks by the well, however, were distinctly arched. There was no way it had been him. It must have been Anna.

But the tracks only went as far as the well. Perhaps she had returned to the Jailhouse after leaving Shun here. He had no idea why she would have brought him here in the first place, but talking to Takeshi had revealed one possibility. Maybe Anna too was able to control herself in monster form. Maybe she’d only attacked Shun to fool Naoki, and used it as a diversion to escape. And maybe bringing him all the way out to the mountains was to show him that the well was connected to the Jailhouse. Or was that too hopeful to believe?

“Hey, I found it!”

The monster raised its right arm victoriously, the rope ladder in its hand.