Are You Deaf When You Hear the Season’s Call? (4)

A substance flowed out of and through the mouths of at least a dozen snakes, falling on him. It moved fast. And the result wasn't pretty, because even though those things were snakes, it was more acid than poison.

The result was the scariest thing he had ever seen. Shuji wished he could banish it from his memories forever. This was not real, not even a dream, so his mind could protect him within the limited scope of this mere reproduction of the past.

That person's face, what was left, was shrouded in darkness. He could hear the sounds clearly. He could hear the screams. But not see it, at least. It was as if it was all a drawing in his mind's eye and he had scratched it out until it was blurred, nothing more and nothing less than that, if it was all so

(he remembered the taste of gunpowder)

so easy

(the taste of that first kiss)

and... But it wasn't. It wasn't.

There was a reason he preferred not to remember their names. And, above all, their faces.

Especially their faces.

The screams and chaos around Shuji were nothing compared to the chaos inside him. Many things had happened to him since he had arrived in this other world, mostly bad things, but he felt that this was the true point of no return. Only then did he shed the common sense of the world that had seen him born, no, maybe his sanity began to slip away right then and there.

Everyone running. Like headless chickens.

From nowhere to nowhere.

All roads lead to

(the maw of that thing)

Rome.

"We have to get out of here!"

It was true. It was clearly too much for them, but something propelled him forward instead of the way he had come. Something made Shunji's feet move closer to the creature, instead of the other way around.

With a storm in his heart and a blank mind, he moved toward the group member who was trapped under that slimy substance.

——

For a few moments he came back to reality.

Reality? This was a world of swords and magic. Dragons and dungeons in real life. What was real about it?

"Shuji, what's wrong?"

Luna. She wasn't too real either. A mysterious stranger who had come to save his life (save him?) at the last moment, come on. His life had become a crazy mix of nightmare and fantasy, pushing him to one side and then the other, but even the fantasies were a rope around his neck.

Tightening tighter and tighter and tighter. He was running out of air.

He was getting...

Shuji put a hand to his mouth. Don't throw up, don't throw up, don't throw up, don't throw up. He pleaded with himself, told himself he didn't have to ruin this, even though he already had.

——

In the darkness of the cave, the next thing he did was to set about cutting that goo, while the creature was busy fighting with the others. Or so he had thought.

He sliced through it easily.

Shuji freed him from his bonds, but that was all he could do for the man whose name he had already forgotten. Give him one last second of freedom, of being able to move his arms and legs.

That was all. One last second.

Then a snake appeared out of nowhere, biting deep into his neck. He saw its fangs glistening like rubies with the freshly spilled blood. And he also saw the skin beginning to shed as the thing pulled.

The skin and the flesh.

——

Shuji had tried his best, but it was totally impossible. He couldn't do it anymore. Not a damn second more.

Cutting to the chase, he sprayed the river and the fish with his vomit.

All that had happened so long ago.

Most of the time he didn't even think about it, and thought he was over it. But sometimes it would come back and it was like he was back in that cave. As if he had never left it.

Crawling, with the ax scraping the ground, the rocks.

And the sparks flying high.

Crawling.

A part of him thought...

Why did it have to be today, of all days?

——

He had lost the ax.

At some point, without realizing it, Shuji had lost the ax. He reached out a hand, trying to catch it before the monster could get to him. He didn't dare look back, and didn't want to waste time doing so either, but he could hear the snakes crawling in his direction. He could feel it.

Finally he was able to grab the ax. Grip it firmly.

But the snakes got him, anyway.

And lifted him up. Shuji was suspended ten meters above the ground, face down, blood rushing to his head, wrapped in a tangle of snakes. The situation was getting worse and worse. For all the others too, they were fighting the creature at the same time it was doing this to him.

Fighting and dying. But his was the only life he cared about right now.

It had all happened so fast, after all. He hadn't even had time to process all of this. Two people he had begun to consider friends had died brutally in front of his eyes. And he...

He would be next?

Too fast. What was this?

A nightmare?

If so, he had to wake up. He had to wake up right now. He didn't want to die in a place like this. Far from home. Away from his mom, away from his friends.

Shuji swung the ax as best he could, face down and with nothing under his feet.

Cutting through the tangle of snakes, chopping off their heads, and spilling more black blood. But there were so many snakes. While he killed four, eight others threw themselves on top of him, coiled around the blade of the sword, trying to snatch it from him, after which they would tear him to pieces, perhaps he would suffer the same fate as the boy who had been bitten in the neck in front of his own eyes and....

He did not want to die.

Shuji couldn't die in a place like this. Far from his home.

In the end he was the one who won. Breaking free before they could leave him without a weapon. His only prize was to fall to the ground head first, still within reach of the creature, no matter how relatively distracted it was with the others. With the survivors.

He got up as fast as he could.

His head was spinning. Not too much, but it felt like he was standing on top of a lifeboat, in the middle of the ocean.

Lost.

Lost in the middle of the ocean.

The monster didn't go for him this time.

Instead, it went straight for the leader. Perhaps, in its limited intelligence, it recognized him as the most dangerous of them. However, it turned out to be just another mistake, like having come here and joined this group in the first place.

It passed close to him.

Running the leader over, knocking him to the ground. But it did not persist in its attack. It moved on, disappearing into the darkness.

Running away.

Now? So easily? Part of him thought that immediately, even though two people had died in the fight, that the sacrifice to gain this hollow victory had been that great.

"What the hell? "Someone else said it, but it was what Shuji was thinking. The same thing everyone was thinking, surely.

Or so he thought at the time. Another mistake, indeed.

"We can't go on. Not with that thing in there.

"Of course we can't! It would be madness," Shuji shouted, and thought that was it. A bad day filled with loss and no reward of any kind, but anything was better than being dead.

But it wasn't over.

It had only just begun.

"Guys, don't you understand...?" the leader began, not sounding half as confident as he usually did. Even he was scared. Of course. "We need the money."

"______ and _____ are dead. Dead! Don't you even care about them?" Another whose name and face he had banished from his mind accused that man.

And only then did Shuji realize that he was right. That was where the first thorn of doubt pierced his insides. If only he had listened to his head and not his heart, the massacre could have been avoided.

But Shuji was a highly emotional person, and the leader's presence and charisma didn't help.

He wanted to depend on someone.

And he wasn't in a position to think of himself as an option. So... the inevitable tragedy took another step forward.