Chapter 3 - Scream

There is no sun in this place. No shadow that stretches, no glow that fades. Just a grey permanence that clings to everything like mold.

I tried, at first, to count the days. Scratched vertical lines on the wall near the corner where the light flickers inconsistently — five slashes per row, careful, precise. But soon, even my scratches began to lie to me. One day the flap opened twice. Another day it didn’t open at all. Meals arrived in metal trays, the food lukewarm, always the same: dry rice, a piece of meat I couldn’t name, and water in a plastic cup.

I chewed it without thought. The hunger was deeper than my body — it nested in my mind.

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My name is Rei Kirishima.

I used to say that like it meant something. Detective First-Class, Tokyo Metropolitan. Father. Husband. A man with honor in his work and joy in his home. A man who thought he understood monsters.

What a joke.

---

At first, I talked to keep my mind intact.

“Suspect is roughly 5’10”, athletic build. Hesitated before attacking the wife. Gloved hands — surgical. Chemical cloth — possibly chloroform, but carried a bitter odor. Three intruders. Entry was forced, possibly by lockpick or master key. Their formation — practiced.”

I repeated it daily, aloud, then in whispers. I paced the 12x12 room like it was a crime scene, piecing it together over and over again. Trying to fix the ending.

But the ending was always the same.

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“Aiko turned seven today.”

I said it to the corner of the room, as if it were listening.

“She wore the red ribbon Yukari made. We had strawberry shortcake. I bought balloons.”

I remember how her cheeks puffed when she blew out the candles. How Yukari laughed when I accidentally knocked over the juice.

I cling to that moment like a drowning man clutching a corpse.

---

Sometime — a day, a week, a year later — the TV turned on.

It began with a soft static hum. Then flicker. Lines of black and white shimmered into something almost human.

And then… a video.

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I don’t know what I saw first. Yukari? Aiko?

No. It was me. Standing in our living room, holding a knife.

She was screaming — Yukari — holding Aiko behind her. My face… it wasn’t mine. The eyes were hollow, mouth half-open like a dead man still speaking.

Then blood.

Then silence.

---

I stood. My knees buckled. I remember the sound of the metal tray as I picked it up, the vibration of steel against my palm.

I threw it with everything I had.

The screen cracked. It didn’t shatter. Just cracked — a jagged lightning bolt down its center. The footage paused mid-scream.

Then: static.

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I didn’t sleep that night.

I scratched the words “Not Real” on the wall, over and over. Ten, twenty, maybe fifty times. My fingers bled. I didn’t care.

---

“Interview with Subject Rei Kirishima,” I muttered the next day, as I sat cross-legged on the cold floor.

Q: “Do you know why you're here?”

A: “No.”

Q: “Did you kill your wife and daughter?”

A: “No.”

Q: “Then why did you see yourself doing it?”

A: “It was manipulated footage.”

Q: “Or repressed memory?”

A: “No.”

Q: “Then what are you running from?”

I stopped. My mouth stayed open, waiting for an answer.

It never came.

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The silence here is unnatural. It’s not just the absence of sound — it’s the presence of something else. Like the room is listening. Like the air is breathing.

Sometimes, when I sleep, I hear my own voice whispering things I never said.

“It’s done.”

“You failed them.”

“You always knew it would end this way.”

---

I remember a case — seven years ago? Ten?

A man named Kazuto Ichihara. Killed his family. Claimed he didn’t do it. That a copy of him committed the murders. He cried in the interrogation room, begged me to believe him. Said he saw it all in a dream before it happened.

I looked him in the eye and said, “That copy is still you.”

I sent him to death row.

Now I wonder if he ever woke up in a room like this.

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The pendant.

I saw it again. In the reflection of the TV — just before it went dark.

Red. Teardrop shape. Same as the one that fell from the masked man’s pocket the night they came.

It dangled in the corner of the screen, just above Yukari’s bloodied hand.

Why show it to me again?

A message? A clue? Or just punishment?

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Q: “What do you think the pendant means?”

A: “It’s a symbol. Possibly connected to the organization behind this. Maybe religious, maybe psychological.”

Q: “You noticed it the night they took you. Why?”

A: “Because I always notice the small things. That’s what made me a good detective.”

Q: “Then why didn’t you notice you were being followed?”

A: “...I did.”

Q: “And?”

A: “I thought it was nothing.”

---

I miss the sound of my daughter’s laugh.

More than the sun. More than sleep.

Just… that laugh.

It used to echo down the hall when she ran to hug me after work. Yukari would scold her gently. “Let Papa sit down first, Aiko.”

But I never minded.

Now, when I try to recall her voice, it comes out distorted. Like a broken cassette.

I fear I will forget.

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There’s a rot growing in me.

Somewhere between my ribs, behind my lungs. A thought that smells like iron and burns like whiskey.

What if I did do it?

What if the footage wasn’t fake?

What if the reason no one has come… is because there’s no one left to come?

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Time slips like blood through fingers.

I count scratches. I talk to the walls. I dream in static.

But still — I am Rei Kirishima.

I will find the truth.

Or what’s left of it.

Even if it’s me.

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