It's all my fault

“Hikari, the monster –?”

“I took care of it,” she said, dragging him towards the stairs.

“How?” He pulled back against her grip and pressed his toes against the tiles, tripping over them but managing to stay upright.

Tomo's blood had already started to dry on his skin and he bit back a wave of sickness. There was no point in looking for a sink. Not with the elevator that close.

“Let's just say it wasn't a fan of fire,” she replied, pausing on the top step only long enough to pull a face at him. “And whoever lives in that place has a weird obsession with candles and pictures of big drunk people.”

She was too focused on their immediate escape to go into detail about her own. Or maybe she just wanted to forget the whole ordeal. Either way, she didn't know about the fourth monster he had glimpsed on the stairs and it seemed like she hadn't noticed it anything off about the place. The memory of its presence alone tempted him to surrender to the nausea. It could also have had something to do with the sweet yet sour tang of Tomo's remains lingering in his nostrils.

“Wait.” He covered his mouth and closed his eyes.

“Why?” she asked. “We should go before something else appears.”

“It's just – Tomo just –” He clenched his teeth and wondered if there was any point in looking for a toilet now either.

“Tomo?” She stopped tugging at his hand but didn't let go of it. “What about him?”

“He said the monsters aren't real.” Yota's fingers tightened around hers.

“Why?” she asked again, glancing at the next floor over her shoulder impatiently. “Didn't he see them?”

“He did,” he told her, pointing at the apartment behind him. “And that monster killed him.”

The tears he had been trying to hold back spilled across his voice and, when he opened his eyes, Hikari's attention was on the aforementioned monster.

“We should go then.” She took a step down to the fourth floor. “Before it gets us too.”

“But –” He fell silent as she placed a knowing hand against his left cheek.

“There's nothing we can do for Tomo right now,” she reminded him gently. “Not until we save ourselves, okay?”

He nodded and convinced himself that the chill behind her eyes was merely a by-product of the stress they had both been under today.

“Let's get out of here,” she said, her smile strained. “And save whoever we can on the way, okay?”

“Okay,” he mumbled, following her down the stairs even as a fog drifted over his thoughts.

She was right. Nothing he did would bring Tomo back to life or change the way he had been treated during their last moments together.

Tomo had been right too. He had been quick to believe the monsters could shape-shift into humans and ready to suspect his neighbour of being one of them, simply because he noticed they had some human characteristics individually.

Why had he let it come to this?

Why hadn't he found out more before he judged the situation?

Was it all his fault?

The lights in the building activated with a barely perceptible him. He couldn't tell whether it was due to an automatic electrical setting or whether it was a sign that Mr Haraguchi had somehow managed to stay alive. Their footsteps echoed down the corridor. The walls started to breath in time with him again and something dark flitted across the edge of his vision. Hikari squeezed his hand before he could force himself to look at whatever it was.

“I don't think there's anyone else here either,” she said. “Hopefully that's a good thing. We'll just go straight do-”

She stopped walking and Yota froze behind her half a second later. The back of his neck prickled and the small light of hope in his chest was blown out completely by the sight of the damaged elevator. The remains of its doors displayed evidence that they had been forced inwards by something huge, powerful, and awfully familiar to them both. Its thick cables were mostly intact but none of its lights were working and the compartment was missing as well.

“Did it break the lift on purpose?” muttered Hikari, releasing him to peer down into the dark elevator shaft. “Oh wait, it looks like it's stuck just under the third floor.”

The prickling sensation spread from Yota's nape down his back, along his arms, and all the way to his feet. He twisted around to face the corridor as the lights that ran along its length started to flicker repetitively. His heart pulsed in time with walls that stabilised only for as long as he stared at them. Somehow the silence was louder than Hikari's voice.

But not loud enough to distract him from the dog.

The title hound from hell wouldn't have done it justice. It stood next to the stairway, head lowered, fangs decorating the floor with drops of blood as if it had mauled everyone else in the building. A possible he didn't want to consider, even though it made the most sense. Perhaps it had killed everyone else that tried to escape too.

“I guess we'll have to take the stairs after all,” said Hikari, pressing the now useless button. “It might take us a bit longer but at least we can still –”

“H-Hikari,” he whispered, taking a step back without breaking eye contact with the creature.

Despite the way it seemed to absorb sound itself, she still heard his low voice and moved quickly to stand in front of him, even though they were both equally unarmed. Her Eagle was gone and he couldn't remember exactly when or where he had lost the fire extinguisher. The new monster crept closer, unblinking, and his own eyelids stiffened in response to it.

“Not another one,” she muttered but the edge to her voice wasn't as keen as it could have been.

Like him, she must have realised they couldn't get past such a dangerous creature without weapons. The lift that was supposed to take them to safety had failed them. After all this time, the inevitable ending he had tried to escape the day he ran out into the golden afternoon and left his mum to die in his stead had finally caught up with him.

He was going to die a horrible death, just like her.

At the hands of a monster, just as she had.

Only this was worse, because he had brought Hikari into it too and now she would share a fate she didn't deserve. If he hadn't run past her back then, if he hadn't followed her into the shop and met her family, she never would have ended up with him in this situation now. It was possible that neither of them would have. His life could have ended that day and all of them would have been spared the suffering they had endured in between then and now.

It was his fault that things had turned out this bad.

He knew it. The monster knew it. Hikari probably knew it too and the realisation struck him in the chest hard enough to dislodge a guilt-ridden sob. One of many that had clogged his chest up for years. The monster stared deeply into his eyes as he tried to muffle the sound with a hand and waited for him to break.

“Don't look at it!” hissed Hikari.

But his fear had already outpaced her concern and the sight of the monstrous dog locked his entire body in place. It crept towards them, as huge as a horse with smoke drifting from his dark fur in acrid tendrils. Menacing enough to make all of the other monsters they had encountered so far seem like house spiders preceding a tarantula in comparison.

It didn't bare its teeth nor did it growl. The only sound Yota could hear past his own shallow breathing was the metallic clink of its claws on the stone floor. The hellish scarlet glow of its unblinking eyes seemed to vaporise the liquid in his blood vessels.

“Damn it,” said Hikari as she looked back at him. “You're going to have to drop down first, okay?”

“No.” His tremulous whisper felt even smaller with the gaping elevator shaft behind him.

“You can do it.” She kept an eye on the approaching beast, reaching back to place an encouraging hand on his shoulder. “Just hang down as low as you can before you let go, okay? It's not that far.”

“I can't.” He shivered non stop but couldn't bring himself to look away from the creature already silently tearing his survival instincts to shreds. “I can't move.”

“You can.” Her eyes flitted back towards it. “I'll be right behind you.”

“No.” He couldn't even shake his head.

There was no way they would both escape the monster. It would take Hikari out the second he turned his back on her and then it would drag him back down the corridor. He knew he wouldn't even have the strength to scream as it ripped him apart, body and soul. It was pointless. They were both going to die in the worst possible way and no amount of fighting back would stop it from happening.

“I promise I will.” Her fingers trailed down to his upper arm as if she were about to shake him. “Just go.”

“You won't.” His eyes filled with hopeless tears. They trickled down his face, ice-cold instead of warm. “I know you won't.”

“Yota?” She twisted to face him, worry in her gaze even as desperation tightened her expression.

The demon-like dog sped up, loping silently towards them and growing larger by the second. He dropped to his knees as its shadows engulfed his senses, unable to resist the overpowering presence that pressed against his ears like a distant yet piercing howl.

“I can't,” he whispered, clutching his head with both hands, his pale grey eyes wide and unsteady. “I can't do this any more.”

And, at that point in time, he wasn't sure which one of them he was talking to.

Hikari, the monster … or himself.

“Yota.” She sighed as if he had force-fed her despair.

As if she was disappointed in his continuous weakness. He didn't know if the monster was about to attack her. He couldn't bear to watch it happen. Not after everything else he had had to witness in his limited but heavy life.

“I'm sorry,” he sobbed, squeezing his eyes shut. “I'm so sorry, Hikari.”

“Why?” Her voice was closer than before. “Why're you sorry?”

“Because it's all my fault,” he confessed, dragging his hands down through his hair to conceal the shameful mess of his expression.

“What is?” she murmured.

“Everything.” The words quivered as they left his lips. “Everything that happened to you, to me, to my mum. All of it. I know it's all my fault.”

She didn't say anything. He wanted to make sure she was still there but dread locked his neck in place. The dog was out of sight but its presence continued to crush him from all sides. He had no desire to find out any thing else about it now. Knowing wouldn't change anything that was about to happen to them.

“You're right,” said Hikari.

Yota's breathing faltered.

“What?” He opened his eyes.

The floor had disappeared beyond the pale cage of his fingers.

 “You're right,” she said again, her tone hollow. “It is your fault.”