The Anemics

Kanji’s eyes opened. A sound of sawing flesh echoed.

He tried moving his arms, but he couldn’t. A metallic cuff pressed around his wrists. He looked around, the room had medical and laboratorial equipment piled on desks and peeking from drawers.

Is this the laboratory?

An array of TV screens attached to the furthest wall showed strange black and white patterns, like a heatmap. He hadn’t seen those in the game.

In front of him stood a man, wearing a gray Kariginu, and a gas mask covering his entire head, tightened by black straps. He was leaning forward, sawing something which Kanji could not see.

A thick metallic smell entered Kanji’s nose, making him gag.

The man stopped sawing and turned towards Kanji. “Ah, you’re awake.” The man’s voice echoed through the gas mask in a foreign accent. “Almost done.”

He started grunting and sawing, “You… Stubborn thing…” His voice cracked with anger, the saw got louder “Komm ab… du verdammter scheisskerl… Come off!”

Smack.

He sighed, straightened, and triumphantly lifted a detached arm full of tattoos. He put it inside a container, which made a clacking sound of ice on contact. He turned heavily towards Kanji. Blood dripped down on the floor from the table.

“So… you kids were trying to play hide and seek with Marcus here, in my house. Why?”

Kanji spoke quietly with a hoarse voice: “Looking… for the hammer…”

“Hammer?”

“Inside a video game, I found a secret room through decoding a language, and it told me to go here, or I’ll die.”

“You broke into my house because you decoded a language in a game?” The man laughed. “Are you mentally ill? Are you having a schizophrenic episode?”

“N-no…” Kanji turned his palm to him, “The timer on my hand, it’s real.”

The man examined Kanji’s hand, the leather gloves pushing against his skin. For that moment Kanji himself doubted the clock was still there. His own story sounded so absurd to him he might as well have been imagining it all. But the examination did not relent, the man pulled and twisted his hand with medical precision. He sighed, and backed away.

“So that’s how it brings them in now.”

The man moved to pick up a card from a nearby desk. A sound of dragging plastic. He pulled it overly close to his masked eye, “O-kimoto Kanji. Kanji? Like the characters?”

It wasn’t, but Kanji nodded anyway.

“And you said you decoded a secret language to get here?” he scoffed, “The irony is a bit on the nose. Hmph. So tell me, Kanji Okimoto. What do you make of the thing that summoned you?”

Kanji gulped. “It… it seems to be possessing some kind of unnatural power. I don’t really understand it, but I think it might be sorcery.”

“Not a terrible guess. And what do you think it wants?”

“I don’t know… It said it wants a host. And for someone to possess the hammer.”

“Naturally. And why do you think it brought you here, to Awaji?”

“Because… it’s here? The thing?”

“It is here, but it is also there, and it is wherever it pleases. But it brought you here. What’s here?”

“I don’t understand. What is that thing, how could it be anywhere?”

The man crouched in front of Kanji, “That thing is no more than a terrible joke, It’s what happens when the Zeitgeist advances to this point. To Japan’s point. It could be anywhere simply because it is already everywhere. Now I’ll ask again, and answer properly this time. Why Awaji?”

Kanji’s mind raced. He never considered an ‘ascension of Japanese spirit,’ yet the idea felt so obvious, so intuitive, like he himself had already come up with it a hundred times.

“It’s where the Shinto Mythos allegedly took place. Maybe it's a Shinto Kami?” Kanji said.

The man laughed again, clearly entertained by the exchange, “You’re close. But also terribly far, so let me educate you on the obvious. The Japanese nation has always been culturally developed, and yet simultaneously, so spiritually anemic.” He started cleaning the blood on his saw with a handkerchief, “It is fertile ground for it, so it dug itself in. Like a tapeworm. The internalized Shinto principles, and by that I mean internalized by the Zeitgeist, are the epitome of that anemia… The movement from Contamination to Purification implies a direction, a poetic, yet ultimately sedative one. That implicit order… is why the Japanese will never evolve their values! You damn camels will keep hoisting and hoisting on your backs, until your entire society breaks. And through the wound, it digs itself in place. Understand?”

Kanji swallowed, and his face went pale. His mind struggled, he understood nothing, and also understood everything so clearly.

“But… moving towards purification is a spiritual choice, is it not? That’s not anemic.” He said.

“Perhaps, in a perfect world. But I ask, who is it that decides what’s pure?”

Kanji could not answer.

“Daddy?” A child’s voice echoed from up the stairs.

“Ah, she’s back already. My condolences, as your girlfriend is surely dead. It seems it has failed again, so I don’t see a reason for killing you, I am not a fan of murder after all. So sit comfortably, until that little timer of yours runs out.”

Kanji’s body shook. What am I going to do? Is Yuki really dead? Oh fuck…

“Daaaddy?”

“A moment, darling!” The man yelled behind his shoulder.

“B-But… who are you?” Kanji began his desperate attempt in defusing the situation, “And why are you stopping me?”

“Oh, let me introduce myself. I am known as Dr. Sollenberg. I am simply a man seeking to understand the magical, nothing more. It just so happens this place is the most fascinating that I have yet to find on the planet. And for stopping you… I simply want to see what it will do next.”

“Then… wouldn’t it be better to let me go to it? Wouldn’t you see much more that way?”

“Kanji, I said I am curious, not suicidal. I understand for you those are one and the same, but for me, they are not.”

“What will happen if I go?”

“Daddy.” The girl’s voice echoed from behind Sollenberg.

“Oh, darling, you’re here!” He turned to greet her and opened his arms.

“Darling?”

A tall caterpillar-like neck rose above Sollenberg, four arms surrounded him, sharp like knives.

Sounds of slicing flesh filled the air and blood flew indiscriminately. Dr. Sollenberg gurgled as he fell on his back, a pool of blood forming around his body. Above stood the little girl, in her malformed extension. Kanji stared at the monstrous creature in both awe and reverence. Maybe a monster could be a savior, after all.

She stared at the body for about a minute, as if deciding if to regret her decision or to rejoice in it. Decided, she smiled to herself from ear to ear. She walked back up the stairs, and with a young, distorted voice, started singing:

Kagome, Kagome…
The bird in the cage,
When will you come out?
In the evening of the dawn,
The crane and turtle slipped,
Who is behind you now?

*****

The girl’s footsteps disappeared in the distance. Yuki peeked and entered the room.

“Yuki!”

She walked around the corpse. “She’s really done a number on him,” she said and looked at Kanji, still with her soot smeared face, “are you okay?”

“You came back.” Kanji said.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Nevermind. We got lucky, that guy was much stronger in real life.”

Kanji looked at his palm, 48:25:02.

Perhaps not really that very strong.

“I think I figured it out. The answer to the last riddle.” Kanji said.

“Oh?”

“I’ll show you when we get there.” Kanji cleared his throat before speaking the line that started it all once again. His chest filled with forgotten dread.

“GOD SAVE US ALL.”

The chains unbuckled off his wrists, and the stone wall slid sideways, exposing the stairwell.

“A hell of a passcode.” Yuki said.

Kanji stood up. The waving white screens screeched loudly, and a radar monitor on the right beeped incessantly.

“Let’s go.” He said.

*****

They walked down the stairwell, it was dark yet darker the lower they went.

A plateau. A door. Kanji pushed it open, revealing bright red light. An endless red sea, just like in the game; the ocean floor yielded slightly, which gave the sensation of walking on water; It was the same cloudy sky, and the double helix towered in the distance.

“What is this place?” Yuki said.

“I don’t know.” Kanji said. He raised his hand to touch red dustbits flowing in a current above him. Warm. Slightly humid.

A long beep was heard from Kanji’s hand. The text was red.

48:00:00, 47:00:00, 46:00:00, 45:00:00

“Shit! We need to go!” Kanji said. They both hurried towards the hammer, which floated above the pedestal ahead.

A simple brick hammer. “Stay back!” Kanji said as he approached. 22:00:00.

A voice appeared from the void. “Greetings, Kanji Okimoto. I see you have survived the journey. Have you perhaps forgotten something?” 15:00:00

“I haven’t. I have the answer to the last riddle, right here with me.” 10:00:00

“Oh? And the answer?” The voice echoed.

Kanji snatched the hammer from the pedestal, lifting it in the air, ecstasy running through his veins.

“Red takes hammer!”

00:00:00

The voice’s laugh rolled. “Very well, Okimoto Kanji. Our contract is complete. You have delivered such a fine host, better than I ever expected. Then, it shall commence.”

Silence but the humming of red wind.

What’s going on? Is something supposed to happen now?

He stared at the hammer, it was a normal hammer for all he could see. He turned back to Yuki. She was on the floor, clutching at her neck, choking.
“Yuki?!” He ran towards her, falling to his knees.
She looked at him with terrified eyes.