Part 10: Falling Apart

Story Five:

Hanakawa was questioned a day after Nabira’s parents noticed their daughter had gone missing. Toma didn’t entirely believe Hanakawa, no matter how much she played victim inside the police’s interrogation room. Yes, Nabira wasn’t any different (being the hothead she was) but something felt off to him about her delivery on the whole situation.

“She hit me on the front of my head with the side of her fist. I don’t know what went over her… All I remember is being left on the floor unconscious. I woke up around the middle of the night and… She was gone.”

They had searched the house thoroughly, but there were no signs of any suspicious

traces of forensic evidence to debunk her claims. The whole room seemed well organized and using deeper methods for detecting shoe marks and body tracing seemed to line up with her story. It all fit in too conveniently. That, added along with the fact that the other five students that were left alive believed her. None of them liked Nabira and saw Hanakawa as innocent, nearly allowing her to get released from the list of suspects. That was until the hidden writing was found hiding behind a painting of this red ball of yarn, revealing that Hanakawa had Nabira sacrificed to an unknown secret society. Unfortunately for the people trying to solve the case, the name of said cult was not disclosed. They couldn’t even get Hanakawa to confess. As a result, she was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Ogato, Tachigo, Shinobuki, Aia, and Kibe had been taking the time to consider their options about the whole ordeal. It led them to analyze the fact that this was a monthly killing spree on behalf of the murderer. It wasn’t stopping anytime soon and the books inside the game could have answers. Either that or Ogato’s claims about the supernatural were just as valid to consider.

Toma was not as willing to play the game because of what happened to Wata when he discovered the names. If Toma’s name was to be found in one of those books, he knew it would risk his life and he wouldn’t get any closer to stopping whoever was behind it. It was apparent that if someone knew their name was being written on it, they would be taking a risk with everyone around them as well.

On the other side of the story, the four students decided to play the game and uncover the mystery behind it themselves. As a result, Tachigo bought Candiere’s Cafe after earning enough to save for it through his weekly allowance.

It was now January 3rd and winter break for them was almost over in four days. The snow had turned to ice and a deep fog covered the entire neighborhood. Tachigo contacted his now new friends over to his house where they would unlock the mystery once and for all.

“Alright guys. This is it. At least five students have died ever since someone picked up the game. I’ll try my best to continue figuring out anything if you guys need to leave early but for right now this is the only way,” he said with a nervous yet gripping tone.

Tachigo inserted the disk and began to play the game using his new controller. Upon startup, his peers directed him around certain places in Tartropolatté at night that seemed suspicious. One of the town’s rural schoolhouses, Niantom Elementary, stood out the most.

Looking inside from the windows, it had hourglass-shaped tables and wallpapers full of pink hearts and purple arrows against a white backdrop; each of them pointing up towards the ceiling.

“What could those hearts and arrows possibly mean? Are they telling us to look into our souls?” asked Aia.

“A little too deep, although not entirely impossible I suppose. They definitely could be pointing us towards something. Maybe a hidden passageway,” Kibe remarked.

While almost everyone tried to pose their own theories, Shinobuki stayed silent, working on one of the pages in her new manga romance series called: Hearts Beyond Horizons. Its synopsis was inspired from the recent events that took place. According to the story, it was summer break and a girl named Izusaki Tanase was searching for her passion in life. This led to a lot of breakdowns to the point of her wanting to give up before meeting a guy named Kishino Ryutane.

At this phase, she was trying to nail the idea of what their relationship would look like. Suddenly, Tachigo approached Shinobuki quietly without her noticing and sat down right next to her. He let Ogato take over to play through the game with the others giving their ideal inputs.

“Hey y—”

Shinobuki got startled from out of her seat, dropping a pencil she was using. It rolled right next to Tachigo’s chair. She didn't expect anyone to care about her like this. Everything was depressing over what the note detailed already. Admittedly, she also had a slight crush on Tachigo, but was uncertain of what to make of that kind of thinking. It all started when he comforted her at the school office. She didn’t know that anyone outside of her family could find interest in how she was feeling. It just never happened like this. The very thought of it flustered her emotions.

When Tachigo picked up the pencil and attempted to hand it to her, she decided to avoid any sort of awkwardness that would make the situation worse than it already felt. Her heart was pounding heavily, worried about making a clumsy decision.

“Y-you can leave it there. N-next to my book on the table…“

As Tachigo followed through on her request, he glanced at a page where this frame detailed the two love interests in her story holding hands with their fingers interlocking.

“Oh, nice. You like to draw romance manga? Your artwork looks really great.”

No response could be found from Shinobuki. She was all frozen up over this encounter with Tachigo who began to state his concerns.

“That said, you seem to always sit alone by yourself. I mean, that’s not to say I don’t mind what you’re doing. Thing is though, this game is messing with our lives. It would be great if you joined in to help us.”

Shinobuki stared down at her cold hands, squeezing them out of deep anxiety. It was then that she had closed her eyes with small tears dropping on top of them. In an instant, Tachigo touched Shinobuki’s soft fingers, gently wrapping them around his.

“Nozuki-chan, you are just as important as everyone else here. I don’t want to see you die.”

Those words. It started tingling through every nerve in her body; tickling her mind with too many possibilities. Could she be more than this? Doubt filled in the blanks of her question. These alternatives didn’t really resonate too well right now.

The positive compliment to the value of her life passed when Aia interrupted their entire conversation with a problematic rant after seeing something uncanny that spiked her adrenaline to the point of excessive breathing.

“Toma was right… I should have known we were being double-crossed! Why are the distributors acting like nothing is happening? Do the developers of SourSplash Games hate us? What have we done to them? You know what? I can’t. I can’t do this. I can’t stay here and do nothing.”

Tachigo couldn’t figure out why she was packing up her belongings and trying to leave.

“W-what’s going on?” inquired Shinobuki nervously.

“See for yourself,” said Aia.

The two came around to look at the television screen. What they saw left them in total horror.

The students had found a way to enter the abandoned library through some sort of secret passageway (as Kibe had guessed). Aia was also right about what the place would soon show them. By using a ladder from another building that was next to Niantom Elementary, they could jump from there to the schoolhouse’s rooftop. A boarded-up doorway located in the center of it had the words “Labyrinth Library” etched into every wood plank blocking the entrance. From the opposite side, they could break the foundations to uncover a dark mysterious liquid portal. The player was allowed to step through, which led to the library’s maze. After making it through, Ogato found a special book on the table called “Tales Of The Time Keeper”.

The large slightly flat book looked ancient. Inside, there was only one illustration out of the blank 105 pages. That page showed a mosaic image of this luminous eldritch horror with one large circular ethereal eye and other three lengthier ones that revolved around itself. It had rainbow-colored irises surrounding its dark pupils which were staring directly into the very essence of everything around itself.

Shinobuki, Tachigo, and Ogato watched as Aia started walking outside. Kibe attempted to warn her about walking by themselves as she started to head out. Unfortunately, Aia didn’t want to delve deeper into something that felt cursed just by looking at it. Disappearing into the distance, she had now been walking away for twenty minutes before she started to overthink the situation. The streets were deserted on the way home for her. That was until she started to see a cloudy blue glow of dragonfly wings and two bright cerulean eyes fading in and out of view.

“No. This can’t be happening. Not today. I can’t be losing it to this. Calm down. It’s not real. Snap out of it,” panicked Aia who was talking to herself as she closed her eyes.

She began to hear a strange faint voice chanting her name as it continued to follow her. The fog grew stronger to the point where she couldn’t even see where the ground was. It was like she was walking nowhere.

“Hello?! Anyone there?!”

The shouts for help made it more apparent that she was somewhere where no one she knew could do anything to prevent whatever was going on. She walked faster.

And faster.

And faster.

The sound of heavy buzzing noises felt like a swarm of locusts were flying around her. It made Aia run so fast that she accidentally stepped one foot into an open manhole that led to the sewers. Without a second to react, she began to fall as her brain got knocked out during the process. Being banged against the tight space left her unable to stop the descent into darkness.

In the last moments of having fallen, her eyes opened to the sight of facing upwards at giant pixelated gumdrop trees. She was unable to move her body at first since she couldn’t properly register what was happening. She felt extremely weak and lightheaded. As fate would have it, her memories of being Aia were depleted.

As if it never happened.

Looking at her body, it was covered with mystical purple armor. Walking around next to a strawberry tea pond that caught her eye, she stared at a reflection of herself with extreme interest. The front bangs of her hair had one blue glowing word written on it.

Barara.

Whatever was going on didn’t strike her as odd before she strolled towards the sweet-filled landscape of Tartropolatté.

Back in the sewers, a construction company was working underground at another manhole. That was until one of the workers pointed out what could have been mistaken for a stream of debris.

Instead, it was Aia’s dead body.