5656!_Knights' Strange Night

by Ryohgo Narita

  “Ahem. Excuse me. Can I go now?”

  It was dangerous to stay here any longer.

  I wanted to leave somehow, but I couldn’t shake the thought that taking off was only going to provoke this man.

  “I…umm…I was curious about the girl because she resembles my long-lost sister. I’m not going to lay a hand on her.”

  “Hm?”

  The man’s piercing gaze seemed to scrutinize me.

  “Your clothes say you haven’t been on the island for long.”

  “Huh? Oh. No. Only about a week.”

  I remained civil, even though he wasn’t being particularly polite. I shouldn’t anger him. His entire being seemed to reek of danger.

  “Then maybe you’re still normal. I guess you could call this a stroke of fate.”

  He nodded to himself, then clapped his hands together.

  “Okay. Listen. Suppose there is a birthday.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “I can’t tell you whose it is, but there’s…someone very important to me. Important in the romantic sense. Very very important. I want to hold a surprise party for this person…or maybe just surprise them. But a surprise necessitates that I can’t ask what this person wants ahead of time. So what would be a good surprise? This is a very important answer for my personal future. So I want you to give me a good answer.”

  His eyes remained as droopy as ever, but his tone grew firm.

  This wasn’t good.

  I felt like he would kill me no matter what I answered. Or was it just my imagination?

  “I-I guess you could go for the classic. …Maybe handmade chocolate?”

  What the hell was I saying? That’s for Valentine’s Day.

  And men didn’t give women chocolates on Valentine’s.

  …Wait. Maybe this guy was gay, and he was talking about getting a gift for a man…?

  “…”

  But the man furrowed his brow and stared at me.

  His eyes were murky.

  I was no expert, but even I could see at a single glance.

  He was no villain.

  He was not like the suits from my company, either.

  He was just abnormal.

  A plain old villain might have been easier to talk to. Because I would know what would move him to act.

  This man, though. He looked normal, but I could tell his gears didn’t fit together with people like me. If he were a gear in a clockwork mechanism, he’d be the type whose teeth squirmed randomly in…no no no no no let’s not go in this direction ugh this is freaking me out—

  I surrendered.

  But at that moment—

  “I see.”

  The man backed even further away and nodded with surprising ease.

  “In other words, I just have to send her a love letter. I understand.”

  “What…?”

  “Thank you. There really is no beating a normal person for answers like this. As a token of my gratitude I’ll pretend I never saw you so you should hurry and leave or climb up to see Lilei. Oh, but you shouldn’t wait around here for her to show up. She’s got a posse of men following her to the building entrance,” he said plainly.

  I could only nod.

  I could feel cold sweat evaporating off my face.

  I…must have preserved my own life.

  The man continued to ramble without giving me the chance to calm myself.

  “Lilei is a princess of the gang that controls the Western District. Not the oldest princess, but her siblings adore her. So if you do touch her, you’ll really end up with your hand in a beaker of sulfuric acid. Bye.”

  With a wave of the hand, he began to walk away.

  He slithered into an alleyway and disappeared.

  What…the hell…?

  What just happened?

  I must have been dreaming or hallucinating or something.

  I said chocolate. So why’d he talk about a love letter? That was more than just a case of broken telephone.

  Anyway, I was glad to be alive.

  The girl still bothered me, but I decided to back off for today.

  The Western District. A gang. A princess.

  I told myself that it wasn’t a bad haul of information.

  …

  Wait, what was I saying?

  ‘For today’?

  Was I going to keep searching for this girl tomorrow and on and on?

  I tasted death when I met that man.

  And I didn’t necessarily have anything to say to that girl. I didn’t necessarily want to befriend her.

  So why was I so drawn to her?

  Because. That was all I could say.

  But why? Why…?

  But. That’s right. But.

  I didn’t know why. But I was drawn to her.

  It felt like I wasn’t supposed to understand the reason, but at the same time I had to know.

  Was this island driving me crazy?

  On this island—my mind broke.

  …

  As if.

  …

  …

  AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

  “AAAAAAAGH! GAAAH!”

  As if!

  “IIIIIF!”

  Why the hell did I have to lose my mind?!

  I did the right thing!

  I was just trying to expose corporate corruption! So why?! Why did the company boot me out?! Leave me to come to the island?!

  I’ve never once broken company regulations!

  I’m not like those minors who smoke on street corners!

  I’m not like those punks who loiter in front of convenience stores at night!

  When I picked up a wallet on the ground, I brought it straight to the police without touching the contents!

  When a classmate joked about shoplifting, I went straight to the teacher!

  When someone retaliated, I made them face justice!

  Society protected me! Because I did what was right by society!

  So why?! The corporation that flaunted the laws that make up the foundations of society remained immensely powerful, while I was stuck being a helpless nobody. Why?

  Why the hell was I on this island?!

  Why, goddammit?! Why did I have to fear death at the hands of a lunatic in white?!

  Answer me! ANSWER ME!

  “—MEEEE! Agh! UAAAAARGH!”

  ———.

  ——————.

  …

  The more emotional I got, the less my voice seemed to work.

  By the time my throat began to burn, I was calm again.

  It was useless.

  This island made people useless.

  It was an island of useless people. It made even healthy people rot.

  It was sick. This island was sick.

  Maybe that was why that girl had such ill eyes.

  As though she was sick of the injustice surrounding us all…

  At that point, I stopped and decided to go to my makeshift bed.

  Someday, I will learn more about her.

  It’s a small island.

  Almost no one leaves this place, so I know I’ll see her again.

  Unless one of us becomes a corpse before that.

  ~My Heart-Pounding Nap Diary~

  _______ __th, 2021.

  Yakumo Amagiri is happy. Today.

  He said. Happy birthday Nazuna. He said.

  Sword woman in East. It is strong. I know.

  It is adorable. It is cool.

  I meet her. Meet few times. Want to hug. No. She said. It is sad.

  But Yakumo likes Nazuna. Nazuna does not not like Yakumo.

  Yakumo can hug Nazuna. Probably. Hug. I am jealous.

  Yakumo is happy.

  Roll roll roll beside me.

  Roll roll roll roll roll roll roll roll.

  It is like cat.

  It is adorable. Hug.

  Today I hug. Hug adorable things
. Many adorable things.

  I find Yua.

  Yua makes maps. It is cool. It is hardworking.

  Wow. It is strong. It is adorable. Hug.

  Rats are adorable.

  I hug. Hug.

  Nejiro in wheelchair. Nejiro escapes.

  It is adorable. Hug.

  I find Charlotte. Detective Charlotte.

  I hug. Hug.

  It is embarrassed.

  It is adorable. Hug.

  Kitty in East. Engine turn off. It is shy. It is adorable.

  I try to hug.

  No. Elder Brother said. It is mean.

  I hug lots. And lots.

  Hug.

  Today I dream. It is bad dream.

  I am not happy.

  So I hug.

  Adorable things. Lots and lots.

  Hug. Hug. Lots of hugs.

  It is warm.

  It is comfortable.

  Hug.

  Not sleepy yet.

  More bad dreams. It is bad.

  Not happy.

  I am sad.

  Nine years ago, somewhere on the artificial island.

  It had been a year since the ray of hope in her world was gunned down.

  The replacement arrived not long afterwards.

  This one said nothing, unlike the woman.

  It must be a scary, strict person, the girl assumed. But something was not right.

  The new helper’s movements sounded haphazard. They did not try to approach the girl very much.

  But they did not get too far away, either.

  Who was the new helper?

  The girl without hope began to speculate, as though to fill in the gap in her heart.

  After all, she had no light and no hope for the outside world.

  At that point, the girl with the sealed eyes could take care of herself reasonably well. But one day, the helper lost their balance and stumbled on their way to serve food, and the girl ended up catching the helper in her arms.

  The helper was very thin and frail. She felt no strength in that body.

  The girl had known from the footsteps that the helper was not large, but this was even lighter than she had imagined. Smaller.

  When the helper flinched, the girl realized the truth.

  The helper in her arms was a child around her own age.

  Afterwards, the girl did everything she could to try and communicate with the helper—whose gender she couldn’t tell—but no amount of speaking or prodding would provoke a voice out of them.

  Eventually, the girl gave up on talking to the silent helper and decided to take their simple presence as a bond.

  With even the shards of hope extinguished, the girl began to wander between dreams and reality in the darkness.

  After all, the only place she saw light was in her dreams.

  Those born without sight do not see in their dreams.

  Those who lose their sight through accident or illness receive visual information in their dreams based on their memories.

  Though the girl’s eyes had simply been sealed, just like the latter case the memories of the world she saw before her blinding came to life. And they merged with her fantasies and delusions to create all sorts of dreams.

  In her dreams, she clearly saw the world from before her blinding. She saw her mother’s face clearly.

  Her memories with her mother, which were fading in the waking world, were reenacted in her dreams with stunning clarity. Perhaps it was part of a system her brain was creating to protect her psyche.

  For the girl, her dreams were her light.

  Because she was permitted only to sleep, that was the only proof of her existence.

  But the long darkness threatened to take away even her dreams.

  A month passed—

  And for the first time, she felt fear.

  It was different from the terror of being locked in darkness. This fear crept into her heart with the return of her sense of reason.

  What had the men done to her previous helper, who had spoken to her?

  The girl no longer even remembered the color of the men’s eyes—even though that was the least thing she had seen in the light.

  And it was because she had lost all hope—because she grew used to the darkness—that she could fight the fear head-on.

  What were the men going to do to her?

  Before that, who were they?

  Did they know her mother?

  What were they going to do to her?

  Who were they?

  The same questions echoed in her mind endlessly, and with each round something slushy in her mind seemed to grow more and more viscous.

  The fear slowly took on solid shape, and eventually became a monster in her world of darkness.

  Two months passed—

  The girl was pursued by fear.

  The mysterious men created by her fear.

  Sleep was supposed to be her one place of rest.

  But fear incarnate—the very fear she had personally nursed—began encroaching on her peaceful dreams.

  The fear grew out of control in her dreams, each and every stem sprouting countless leaves. In her dreams they were twisted—the men’s hands—

  Their hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands hands her eyes handshandshandshandshandshandshandshandshereyeshandshandshandshandshandshandshandshandsreachingforhereyessmoothlystrokingthesmoothsurface—

  The eyes fell out of the men’s faces, leaving behind gaping holes.

  The scene was playing out in color in her dreams, but the holes left where the men’s eyes had been were pure darkness, just like her waking world.

  Pitch black holes.

  Three pitch black holes in each face. They pulled in even the sounds of her dreams as they slowly drew near.

  More and more fingers popped up to stroke her eyes. From each hand sprouted a dozen masses of flesh as they began to stroke and stroke and stroke and stroke and stroke and stroke and stroke and stroke and stroke and stroke and stroke and stroke and stroke and stroke and—

  —and they became rough.

  The strokes degenerated little by little as the fingers scraped and scraped and scraped and scraped and scraped and scraped and scraped and scraped and scraped and scratched and scratched and scratched and scratched and scratched and scratched and scratched and scratched and scratched and carved and carved—

  It was like her eyes were being carved out. The sensation ate away at her mind.

  In her dreams, the fingers tore out her eyes.

  Not by the tips of their nails, but by their rough fingertips. Little by little.

  But the sheer number and energy behind the fingers was immense. Each and every one felt like a chisel.

  They would turn her eyes into holes, just like their own.

  The girl was helpless. She had to submit to her nightmare.

  Three months passed—

  The girl decided to fight.

  Though she was a child, she understood.

  There was no help in this deep darkness.

  That went doubly so in dreams.

  The nightmares twisted into even more grotesque shapes, the men’s bodies now no longer human.

  The three holes in each of their faces spread to the rest of their bodies, and their figures grew to the size of giants. Countless hands and fingers sprouted from their bodies, and any empty space was filled by a gaping hole.

  The men merged together and slowly encroached on her world.

  By expanding the holes in their bodies, they would plunge her dreams into darkness.

  And so her struggle began.

  It was the moment the men’s twisted fingers reached for her dream-mother.

  Before she knew it, she was screaming.

  She could not make such a loud noise in
the waking world.

  It was in her dreams that the terrified girl finally remembered how to scream.

  To protect her last shred of sanity—her memories with her mother—from the grotesque monstrosities threatening her mind.

  At that moment, the world went dark.

  She realized that she had awoken.

  The waking world was immersed in deeper darkness than sleep.

  At that point, blindness was no longer painful.

  All that agonized her was the fact that she was permitted to do nothing but the essentials in her waking hours.

  Was she to be thankful for at least having a clean home and good food? Or should she feel humiliated for being treated like a pet? She did not know.

  Perhaps, then, it was a miracle that the choice to fight had occurred to the girl who was not yet 10.

  While awake, she thought about what she could do.

  How could she remove the men from her dreams?

  All kinds of images from her days before the darkness flashed past her thoughts.

  She wracked her brains for a solution.

  She could not think of any way to control her dreams, but eventually the girl came to a conclusion.

  She had to become strong.

  She just had to become strong enough to fight off the finger monsters.

  At that point, she imagined herself driving off the monsters.

  But she didn’t think punching and kicking would make them go away.

  Then she remembered a cartoon she had seen with her mother in the past.

  It was a show about a magical girl who fought monsters with a magic wand.

  —Magic. Wand.

  In the darkness, she began to search for a potential weapon.

  Naturally, she found nothing.

  So she decided to speak to her helper for the first time in a very long time.

  “…———…—————————.”

  First, she slowly practiced using her voice.

  Then she stammered,

  “I need…stick. Strong. Stick.”

  Naturally, there was no response.

  The girl gave up on the helper and began to brainstorm ways to fight barehanded. But the concept of martial arts did not yet exist in her mind. And even if it did, she had no one to learn from and no example to emulate.