Doll

“Why do you look so surprised? You should have known I wouldn’t let you go off just like this.”

“Well… it’s… you…why… how…”

“Stop stammering, Kanzaki Ryota. Get a grip!”

I was left speechless. Its head was just peeking out of the backpack, and yet the fear it inspired felt like as if it was overflowing from it. My hands were trembling, my breathing difficult, as though I had just stopped running and was trying to catch it again.

My mind was completely messed up. I couldn’t understand anything. Flashes of memory kept interrupting my thoughts – moments of happiness with Atsuko that brought me joy, her deaths that brought me pain and sadness, Leo’s face that brought me anger, and Hayate’s face that brought me guilt. My body reacted to all of it, feeling those emotions one after another. I was going crazy. Even the doll’s words made no sense anymore. They were just sounds to me.

My brain was releasing everything at once.

I never thought I would have to experience all of this again.

My body couldn’t endure it. That’s why the only way it could calm itself and expel all this pain was to vomit. The taste rotted my mouth. I knew I must have been whiter than snow at that precise moment.

I locked my gaze on the hard tar beneath me. The darkness forced me to squint, but it helped me refocus. Sounds rushed back to me as if my ears had been sealed shut before. Smells followed – though the only one I could truly perceive was my vomit beside me. I coughed. I couldn’t endure the odor much longer.

I covered my nose, stood up with difficulty, picked up the backpack without paying attention to its content, and crossed to the other side of the street. I leaned this time against the hangar’s wall near the destroyed entrance, my nose filled with the scent of burned metal – a smell I appreciated far more than the previous one.

I closed my eyes and began to breathe slowly, one deep breath after another. My heart finally returned to its normal rhythm. My legs were still shaking, but after vomiting that much, it was only normal – my body had grown week.

“I need to eat something… or I’ll throw up my guts next time. Too bad I couldn’t bring anything.”

“I would have found a way to make you pay if you had vomited on my body and stained my dress.”

I had completely forgotten, in that brief moment, that the doll was there. I startled – though not as violently as before, perhaps because fatigue had dulled my reflexes.

“Why are you here?” I asked, managing this time to form a few words without stammering.

“I told you – I’ll be here. You can’t escape me from now on, so you’d better obey and take that backpack with you. Or do you want to relive what happened earlier?”

“It was because of you?”

“Who said that? Don’t twist my words into things I never said, and don’t get full of yourself when you’re not in a position to negotiate with me, Kanzaki Ryota.”

A trace of anger could be felt behind its words. I shouldn’t have pushed further, but one question had been burning at the tip of my tongue ever since I regained my senses.

“Then why do you need me to transport you if you can just appear in front of me like this?”

“There are things you shouldn’t ask, and this is one of them. Your brain couldn’t understand the truth – or rather, it wouldn’t endure it. As a human, your worldview is too narrow to grasp all the ins and outs of every action taken by every being in this world, visible or not.”

“I see… So if I have to obey, what should I do now?”

Several seconds passed without the doll making a sound.

“It’s better to follow it.” I thought. “If I really am as dumb as it says, then a little help won’t hurt. Too bad my curse doesn’t work when I vomit.”

“Why ask when you already know what to do? I just told you to transport me. Moreover, you’re already where you wanted to start. So do as you wish – and don’t bother me unless I ask you to. I can do things you wouldn’t expect.”

Its voice was cold – cold as porcelain, cold as the night wind striking my face.

“It’s true… Hayate’s hangar… I can find clues inside, if not everything has burned… And this doll should keep quiet from now on…”

The clouds blocking the sky began to disperse. Shining stars emerged, giving me resolve – an ounce of dream, an ounce of hope.

“Ah fuck… come on, Ryota. You can do this. It’s all for Atsuko, for your happiness. Finish this quickly and be free of everything. We’ll live far away from here afterward, under a sky just like this one – but where we can see it without fearing death or atrocities.”

I stood up, resolved, even though my weak legs felt like spaghetti. One wrong movement and I would collapse again, humiliating myself once more.

The door was blocked by rubble. I pushed it aside with great difficulty to make my way inside. My hands were coated in ash, and the smell of burning was even stronger inside, forcing me to pull a cloth handkerchief from my backpack and use it as a mask.

I took out my phone and used the flashlight. It didn't offer much light, but it was enough to see where I stepped and avoid smashing my face on shards of glass from the shattered mirror maze, as well as dangling metal bars and electrical wires threatening to fall or electrocute me at any moment. Even if it wouldn’t hurt me, being trapped inside would have been disastrous – no one would come to hear my cries for help.

Without the maze, I could walk straight toward to Hayate’s room at the back. Though everything familiar was gone, my memories reconstructed the place vividly before my eyes.

“Hayate wasn’t dumb. He knew hiding anything inside the maze would have gotten it discovered by the ghosts he feared so much. I… understand him now. Or at least, a little. I don’t know what that thing was. I hope you weren’t involved with something like this, Hayate.”

It seemed nothing had been moved. Everything had burned, but that the firefighters hadn’t disturbed the scene beyond extinguishing the fire. The desk, the shelves filled with books, the furniture – everything had collapsed exactly where it once stood.

I was the first to touch to them. I moved everything. I searched everywhere, desperate for even the slightest clue – but found nothing. Only ashes, burned books, and the remnants of what could once have been important documents.

“Seems like I searched in vain…” I whispered, staring at what would have been the chair I had sat on the last time I came here.

“Learn to open your eyes!” A muffled voice snapped from my backpack. I opened it slightly.

“What did you say?”

“Think about your friend and look properly. I shouldn’t be the one telling you this – and honestly, I'd rather gouge your eyes out so you could grow new ones that actually work.”

“But I searched… Oh…” Realization struck. “You meant something like that. But why help me this much?”

“That’s none of your concern. As you should understand by now, it’s in our mutual interest. Now find what you’re looking for and get out of this hangar – it’ll collapse soon. And let me be clear: I don’t want to be buried here tonight.”

“Me neither… And you’re right. If I were Hayate, I’d hide a clue far better than leaving it in plain sight. He must have done the same as before.”

I walked to the wall behind the remains of the desk and began tapping it. Solid.

Finding nothing on the wall, I tapped the ground. Suddenly, at the foot of the wall, I found a hollow-sounding spot. Maybe there was another way to open it more easily, but I had no time to spare. So, even with my weak legs, I kicked the area – no wider than my foot – again and again. After a few seconds and a few drops of sweat, the ground finally gave way.

I cleared the debris and retrieved the notebook hidden beneath.

I hurried outside as fast as I could, guided by my dim flashlight. Once there, I removed my mask and finally breathed in fresh air.

I opened the notebook and leafed through it. It was filled with sequences of numbers and syllables arranged without any apparent meaning – at least to someone who didn't know any better.

“So you used the old system, Hayate… You knew I’d find it.” I whispered with an awkward laugh.

While I was browsing the notebook, my phone rang at regular intervals. I was receiving messages. Intrigued, I leaned over my screen.

Anger surged again – an emotion that had became far too familiar these past weeks.

“How did he get my contact…?”

From Ben.to: “So you decided to take action, I see.”

From Ben.to: “You’ll regret it.”

From Ben.to: “Soon, you’ll suffer as much as her. You’ll suffer for everything you’ve done to me.”