Imamimi Notanobu - XI

The first thing I realise when I wake up is how much my body hurts. About four times as painful as an intense five-hour workout, maybe. Made all the worse by the loose feeling in my wings, the subtle twitch of broken, uncontrollable chitin. The second thing I realise is that I’m somewhere dark and quiet. A room. With a single, LED light flickering above.

I’ve been taken somewhere. And chances are, Yuura is with me. I hope she's alright. If she were hurt in any capacity… I'm not sure I'd be able to live with myself.

I struggle in place for a moment, only to feel the chafe of rope on skin.

But of course. I’m tied up. That is the natural course of action when attempting to restrain someone, though I must say, it’s a lot less exciting when it isn’t a cute girl responsible.

In an attempt to find a way out, I shift in place and feel the weight of the objects in my jacket. My lighter’s missing. And so is Jīnjī’s bird pendant.

“Hey,” an uncomfortably close voice opens from behind, with enough familiarity that I recognise it as Zhang. “You’re finally awake.”

“Wanna speak eye to eye?” I ask.

“Sure.”

He steps inside my field of view.

“Hi, Zhang-chan.”

“Hi, pretty boy.”

“Wanna let me go?”

“Not really.”

“Makes sense. Any plans for the afternoon?”

He pushes up a pair of imaginary glasses, despite having an actual pair just next to them. “The derivation of pertinent intellection from your physical being.”

“Lots of complex words. They wouldn’t happen to mean, ‘gonna torture someone for information’, right?”

“They do.”

“Zhang-chan, you naughty boy, what did I tell you about torture?”

“That it was inefficient and often forced out false confessions. Something like that?”

“Uh huh.”

“Right,” he agrees. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I did explain it to them. So, instead of torturing you for information, they’ll just do it for fun.”

“Thanks, Zhang-chan. I’m glad you took my lesson to heart. Though, in all seriousness, if you must torture someone, at least start with me. I’m prettier when I cry. That ought to tickle something down there.”

He chuckles, plays with his slick black hair, and remains relatively silent for some time, occasionally letting out a few syllables that sound like the abrupt start and end to incoherent words.

“I didn’t tell the others about your Chinese friend. If you’re lucky, she’ll be showing up sometime.”

“Mad Dog?”

He doesn’t answer. He just turns on his heel and exits the room, leaving me in the dim-lit darkness.

Mad Dog is coming. But how? Unless she planted some tracker on us (which I’m almost sure she doesn’t have the capacity for), how would she find us?

Unless.

Unless…

Zhang told her?

I have no idea what he’s playing at. What he’s trying to get out of all this. If his plan was to capture us, then why would he have told Mad Dog to come rescue us? Because he wants to get her, too?

But that doesn’t make sense.

Because if he wanted to capture her too, he would’ve just told his companions she wasn’t a homeless person.

Confusion worms its way into my head. My thoughts cut off, and realign in weird, jagged completion. A flood of incomprehension and weirdness.

Zhang’s helping us. Zhang’s helping us? Zhangalingazhang? Zhang you very much?

Then: emptiness. The receding wave before the flood of ideas.

Settling into something more pleasant, like a ray of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Hope. Labouring against the strain of despair, and manifesting itself in what I can only assume to be an act of delusion.