A Dark Descent

“Otaro! Otaro! Wake up!” Kanji shook him violently. Otaro wouldn’t wake up.

Shit…

Kanji’s hands shook incessantly as he picked up the controller again. He walked his character down the new passage, an almost completely dark stairwell. The game played an even lower hum, alongside an off-key and discordant opera voice. It must have been about a minute of holding the controller’s tilted joysticks until he had reached the bottom. An old wooden gate with ring knockers blocked the way.

He pulled the door open. Beyond it was an ocean of red, as far as the horizon, in all directions. In the far distance was a gigantic spiraling tower, like a crushed DNA strip, which extended from the horizon to the cloudy sky. The clouds curved upwards and around the spiraling shape.

He continued walking. A pedestal. Above it floated a hammer.

The music stopped. His character stood in front of the pedestal and he could not move. Text appeared on the screen:

“Greetings, Kanji Okimoto. I see your friend is fast asleep. Good riddance.”

Kanji’s heart almost burst out of his chest, “What, what the fuck?”

“It’s not nice to cuss at a companion, is it?” The text was replaced on the screen.

“Wha—” he can hear me? “What? How?”

“A host is needed, Kanji. It has been too long since this world has seen one. The world begs for one, cries for one. You must bring them to me, and claim the hammer.”

“A host? A host of what?” he said shakily.

“Of what? Of who? The wrong questions. This is where.”

Three more sentences in the game’s language appeared on the screen. Kanji quickly copied them on paper without thinking.

“Yes, copy away, that is where. It will take time, it is well hidden, but a month is your limit. You will provide the host within a month, or you will die.”

“D-die?” His face went pale.

“Cardiovascular sudden combustion. It’s in the terms of our agreement. Run along now, Kanji. Time is of the essence.”

“Agreement? What agreement?” Kanji said yet at the last vowel the in-game character, out of Kanji’s control, grabbed the hammer floating above the pedestal, and slammed the screen. Thump, the screen full of cracks. A second swing. A loud shattering of glass sounded as screen and warm blood flew in all directions, making the living room look like a murder scene.

Kanji hyperventilated, “Kachan?!” Otaro yelled as he finally woke up, he screamed. His mother quickly arrived from her bedroom.

“What’s going on?” she said, but Kanji couldn’t speak. He grabbed his backpack and ran outside without saying a word.

*****

Kanji laid on his bed and stared at the ceiling of his small studio apartment, holding tightly to his Shiba Inu plushie. His desk fan turned slowly, making a low hum, and pushing cold air over him. What the hell was that thing? How did the TV break? And how did blood come out? Am I going insane? But Otaro saw it too, and his mom. Was it a prank? No, that’s extremely unlikely, I spent an inhumane amount of hours figuring it out. It was real, I’m sure of it.

He sat on the edge of his bed, and reached for his notebook. The three untranslated paragraphs written with his red pen stared at him. I wonder what this is all about. I think it’s reasonable to assume there is some unknown force that I have been blind to. Is it Sorcery? Aliens? Ghosts? It’s too early to tell.

The phone rang, the caller ID was Mom. His parents lived in a small coastal town in Hiroshima, renting the apartment for him and granting a small allowance, so he could study at a good school in the city. It was rare that Mom called him in the middle of the day. Kanji picked up the phone reluctantly.

“Hello?”

“Kachan! Are you alright? Mrs. Sasaki called.” Mom said with a concerned voice.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Fine? What happened to you? She said you broke their TV by accident? And there was

blood all over!”

There’s no way I can explain what happened, I’ll have to lie for now.

“Yes, I’m sorry… It was an accident. I slipped and might’ve cut my hand a little, then I panicked and ran. I should’ve stayed, I know, I’m sorry.”

“She said there was a lot of blood! You need to go to the hospital…”

729:49:20

Her voice faded quiet as he stared at his hand. A tattooed clock moved in the middle of his palm.

“W-what?” He started shaking.

729:49:18

“Kachan? Can you hear me? I said you need to go to the hospital!”

729:49:13

“No Mom, really, I’m fine, I have to go, bye.”

729:49:08

“Fine? You’re not f—”
“Okay, I’ll go, I’ll go! I’m sorry, I have to leave immediately!” He ended the call.

729:48:51

*****

Kanji wouldn’t let go of her skirt. He lifted his free palm, and turned it towards her. On it were three numbers separated by a colon. 143:25:46.143:25:45. 143:25:44. 143:25:43.

“Eh? How is it moving? Some kind of glove?” Yuki pinched his palm a few times, her face growing in unease. “How?”

“There’s no glove. It appeared on me then. When the counter ends, I will die, I think.”

Yuki swallowed. “D-die? Why?”

Kanji had summarized his experiences, from the language discrepancies, to the text who knew his name, to the shattering of the TV.

Yuki said a bit quieter now as if losing her confidence, “And what does it have to do with me?”

“Well…” Kanji scrambled back to his feet and set his notes on the table, “In the past three weeks I’ve cracked two of the three riddles. The first one was simple, a mathematics problem, the second took some research and experimentation. They both gave a number with a 7 digit precision, which I think might be longitude and latitude coordinates. But for the third question, I’m completely lost. That’s why I came to you, Hatanaka-san, you’re the smartest person I know! You’ve always understood the gaps in my thinking. Will you help me? Please.”

Yuki, hands still crossed, blushed just slightly and looked sideways, then quickly looked back at him, and then stared at his work. “I… I can try, I guess.”

“Okay! Thank you! So,” He quickly turned the pages to his notes on the last problem. “It’s a sort of astrophysics problem, It’s way beyond anything I can do. I’ve emailed several astrophysics professors asking about it, but they all returned the same kind of response. ‘Nice joke, that question makes no sense, stop wasting my time, the question is an insult to astrophysics and mathematics’ and so on. I’ve translated the question to be roughly as…”

“Wait, translated? From the game’s language?”

“Yes. I don’t know what it is or where it came from.”

“Hmm. Go on. What’s the riddle?”

Kanji read, following his finger along the drippy red ink translation:

“Izanagi blue. Blue takes world. Red takes Izanami. Blue takes the mass of HLX-1, GRO-J1655-40, OJ 287. Red integrates the TOV for 3C 58 from 0 to 10 kilometers. Blue crafts spear. Next move for red?”

Yuki brings the notes closer to her eyes and rubs her chin. “Izanami and Izanagi, alongside black hole names? And TOV? That’s a differential equation for... This question really doesn’t make any sense. Where do they go, your coordinates?”

“A suburban house on Awaji Island.”

“Awaji? Huh. That’s where Izanagi’s temple is. It does sound somewhat promising. We should go there.”

“W-we? Are you coming?”

“Yes. This riddle makes no sense, maybe something there will help us solve it, or maybe you don’t even need it at all.”

“That’s… are you sure? It could be dangerous.”

“More a reason to not let you go alone. I’ll bring something for protection.”

“For protection?”

“Don’t worry ab—”

Three heavy knocks slammed against the door.