Published at 31st of August 2019 1:05 am

Volume 1, Part I: Lingering Pain

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When I was little, I played house a lot. I had a pretend family, with a pretend pet, a pretend kitchen, and I would cook pretend food.

But one day, a real blade had accidentally been mixed up in the artificial, pretend ones.

I had never seen a toy that sharp before, and I used it to play, and in the process cut myself deeply between the fingers.

I approached my mother with red soaked palms outstretched, and I remember her scolding me for it, then crying and embracing me, saying “I know it hurts, but we’ll fix it,” over and over again.

It was not her consolation that made me happy, but her embracing me, and so I started to cry as well.

“Don’t worry, Fujino. The pain will go away once the wound heals,” she

said while wrapping a bandage around my hand.

At the time, I didn’t understand what she was trying to say.

Because not even for a moment did I feel any pain.

Lingering Pain

“Well, she certainly has her way of introducing herself,” the professor remarks.

The university science lab has that synthetic smell of chemical disinfec- tants that reminds me more of hospitals. But the laboratory equipment dispels any notion of that quickly. As does the white-coated professor who Miss Tōko sent me to meet today, who now displays a reptilian smile of full white teeth while offering a handshake. I take it.

“So you have an interest in parapsychology, eh?” he asks.

“Not really. I just want to know some minor things about the topic.” “And that’s what you call ‘interest.’” He wrinkles his nose, satisfied at his

show of wit. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. I’d expect nothing less from her associate. I mean, she asks you to hand her business card as an intro- duction. She was always a unique one, and talented. I wish our university had more students of her caliber.”

“Er…yes, I’m sure your student problems are important.” I’m starting to see where Miss Tōko gets her ability to ramble so much from. “But I was asking about—“

“Ah, yes, yes, parapsychology. There are many different phenomena that fall under that label. Our university doesn’t really deal with it, however. I’m sure you can understand when I say it’s treated as quack science by most in my field. There are very few universities here in Japan still giving grants for parapsychology studies. Even so, I’ve heard a few have had some marginal successes, though the actual details don’t really—“

“Yes, professor, I’d imagine those studies are fascinating, but I’m more interested in how people end up having them in the first place.”

“Well, to simplify, you can liken it to a card game. You play card games, don’t you? What card game is the most popular right now?”

I scratch my head, deciding to go along with this man’s logic. “Erm… poker, I guess?”

“Ah yes, poker. I’ve had my own fond memories with that game.” He clears his throat for a moment, then moves on. “Let us say that human brains are all playing a game. Your brain and mine are playing poker. Most everyone else in society is playing poker as well. There are other games, but we can’t play them. Everyone is in consensus that poker is the game we have to play, because that’s how we define being normal. Are you fol- lowing me so far?”

“So you’re saying that everyone plays a boring card game?”

“But see, that’s what makes it better for everyone. Since everyone plays poker, we’re protected by arbitrary, but absolute rules of our own creation, and thus we can live in a peaceful consensus.”

“But if I’m getting you right, you’re saying the other games aside from poker aren’t so clear cut?”

“We can only speculate. Say some other minds are playing a game with rules that have an allowance for plants to communicate, and maybe other minds prefer a game that has rules that say you can move a body other than your own. These are not the same games as poker. They have their own consensus, their own rules. When you play poker, you play by its rules, but those playing by the rules of other games don’t conform. To them, poker doesn’t make a lick of sense.

“So you’re saying that people not ‘playing poker’, so to speak, have some mental abnormalities?”

“Exactly. Consider a person that knew no other game than the game where you could communicate with plants. In the rules of his game, he talks to plants, but he can’t talk to people. People who see him then brand him as crazy and put him in the funhouse. If he really could talk to plants, then that’s a person with paranormal abilities right there: a person that plays a different game, follows different rules, than the game society plays. However, I’d imagine most people with these sorts of abilities are still ca- pable of switching their mindsets, so that they can still live mostly unno- ticed in society.”

“Which makes the person that only plays the game where you can talk to plants a crazy person, since he lacks the shared subconscious experi- ence and consensus inherent in playing poker, am I right? If he only knows the other game, and can’t switch between the two, then he’s considered mentally damaged.”

“That’s right. Society calls these people serial killers and psychopaths, but I would phrase them more appropriately as ‘living paradoxes’: People who, because they play by irregular rules of reality, make their existence itself a contradiction to reality. People who shouldn’t be able to exist, who can’t exist.” He pauses for a half beat to collect himself, then added. “This is all hypothetical, of course.” As if he needed to say it.

“Of course, professor. Is there any way to correct a living paradox like you said?”

“You’d have to destroy the very rules they play by within their minds. But destroying the brain just equates to killing them, so there’s really no easy way, or really no other way but to kill them. No one can just suddenly alter a state of mind or ability like that. If there was, then that person him-

self would also be playing a different game with different rules. Something like solitaire. I hear that game has some pretty complex rules in it.”

The professor laughs heartily, apparently immensely amused at his own joke. I can’t say I share the sentiment.

“Thanks, professor. You’ve helped loads. I suppose now I know what I’ll do when I encounter psychokinetic people.” I say it only half sarcastically.

“Psychokinesis? Like bending spoons, things like that?”

Oh, brother, here we go again. “Or heck, why not a human arm?” That one was less of a joke.

“If we’re going by spoon bending, then you have nothing to fear. The force required to bend a spoon would take days to distort a human arm. If there was someone who could bend an arm, I suggest a hasty withdrawal.” Now that he mentions it, now’s probably the right time for a hasty with- drawal myself. “I’m sorry to cut this short, professor, but I really need to go. I have to get to Nagano, and I’d like to do it today. Sorry for eating up too

much of your time.”

“Oh, no, it’s quite alright. Any friend of hers is a friend of mine. Come by any time you need to. And send my regards to Aozaki, won’t you?”

Fujino Asagami, still in a state of confusion and disorientation, pulls her- self up in the middle of a darkened room. The silhouettes of people stand- ing and milling about, once so familiar, are now gone. The light isn’t turned on. No, not quite right. There was no light in the first place, and darkness stretches all over the room, with nary a peek or a beam of light seeping in.

She exhales a long sigh, and brushes her long, black hair lightly with trembling fingers. The loose tassel of hair she once hung lazily on her left shoulder is now gone, probably cut off by the man with the knife while he was on top of her. After remembering that, she slowly surveys the room around her.

This is– was –an underground bar. Half a year ago, this bar ran into financial difficulties, and it was abandoned. Not long after, it became just another abandoned establishment blending in the dying city, a haunt for various delinquents and robbers. Much of the effects from its better days still lay forgotten inside. In the corner rests a banged up pipe chair. In the middle of the room, next to Fujino, is a single pool table. Everywhere in the room, convenience store food is scattered in rotting, half-finishedpiles with cockroaches scrabbling all over the remains, and a mountain of gar- bage is stacked haphazardly to one side. In a corner, a bucket is almost filled with urine, a communal container to compensate for the lack of a working toilet. The combined stench of it all is potent, and almost makes Fujino vomit.

With no light and no way to know where you are, this dark, secluded ruin could have been in a skid row of some far off country for all anyone knows. One wouldn’t even think there was a normal city on the other side of the door on the top of the stairwell. The faint smell of the alcohol lamp those men brought here is the only thing that maintains any sense of nor- malcy.

“Umm…” Fujino mumbles. She looks around slowly, as if this scene is completely routine. Her body had gotten up from the pool table, but her mind still has some catching up to do.

She picks up a nearby wrist, flesh showing tears and seemingly twisted off from the arm. Wrapped lovingly and securely around it is a digital wrist- watch, and in glowing green text, it shows the date: July 20, 1998. The time: 8:00pm, not even an hour after what happened.

All at once, Fujino is assailed by sudden, blinding pain in her abdomen, and she lets slip a strained grunt. She staggers from the ache, and barely

stops herself from falling face first to the floor by supporting herself with her hands. As soon as her palms touch the floor, she hears a soft splash. Remembering that it had been raining today, she realizes that the whole room is flooded with water…and something else.

She takes a moment’s glance at her abdomen, and sees the distinct spatter of dried blood—right in the place where those men stabbed her.

The man who stabbed Fujino was a familiar face to anyone in this part of town. He seemed to be the ringleader of a crew that consisted of high school dropouts and various drifters of similar minds and motivations. They did what they felt: stick-ups, assault, robbery, arson, drugs, you name it. They plied their trade in the forgotten maze of backlanes between the buildings of the commercial district, where no neon glow or curious glance could ever reach. They emerged from these alleys to the harsh lights of the peopled avenues for only short intervals, to catch their victims through coercion or force and had their twisted entertainment for the night. It is on one such normal night that this crew and Fujino crossed paths.

It was a perfect setup. A student of Reien Girl’s Academy, and quite good looking, Fujino became a prime target for the men. Perhaps fearing pub- lic vilification, Fujino never told anyone of how she was victimized. This fact eventually reached the ears of the men, however, after which what- ever hesitance they might have had about being found out disappeared. They raped her again and again, bringing her to this underground bar after school. Tonight was supposed to be another routine night, like always, but their leader apparently got tired of just doing Fujino.

He brought out a knife, probably to bring something a little new to the table. He’d felt offended by what Fujino did: how she just lived her days as if they hadn’t done anything to her at all, as if what they did to her didn’t humiliate her. He felt he needed more proof of Fujino’s humiliation and his dominance. And he needed just that little bit of violence, that little ounce of extra pain for that, hence the knife.

But Fujino didn’t even react, her face a blank expression, even when he had a knife ready to dig deep in her face. This made him truly incensed. He pushed her down to the table, and got to work.

Casting her eyes downward, Fujino looks at her blood-soaked clothes and thinks: I can’t go out looking like this.

Her own spilt blood is concentrated only on her abdomen, but she’s soaked in their blood from head to toe. How stupid of me to get dirtied like this. Her foot hits one of their scattered limbs on the floor, and it gives a

little shake in response. She considers her options.

If she waits one more hour, the number of pedestrians will start to dwin- dle. And the fact that it’s raining only helps. It’s summer, so it’s not too

cold. She’ll just let the rain wash some of the blood of her, and go to a park

and clean herself up there.

After coming to this conclusion, she calms down. Walking away from

the dark pool of water and blood, she takes a seat at the pool table, taking

a count of the scattered limbs to find out how many corpses are lying on the floor.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Four. Four. Four? No matter how many times I count, it only comes down to four! A mix of astonishment and terror. One is missing.

“So, one of them managed to escape,” Fujino murmurs to herself. She

lets slip a small sigh.

If so, I’ll be caught by the police. If he’d already run to a station, I’ll be arrested for sure. But could he really tell the police? How would he be able to explain what just happened? Would he tell them how they kidnapped and violated me, and told me to shut up? He’d need a cover story. And none of them were ever smart enough for that.

She lights the alcohol lamp on the billiard table to get a better view. Its flickering orange glow illuminates the entire room, making the shadows

twirl and dance. The story of violence in the room is quite visible now: six-

teen arms, sixteen legs, four torsos, four heads, and wet blood spatters in every direction. Fujino is unfazed by the brutality of the scene before her. No time to think on that. After all, the count was missing one, which meant she still had something to do.

Do I have to take revenge?

Her body trembles as if to reinforce her lack of conviction. No more killing, she tries to tell herself, as earnestly as she possibly can. But she remembers what they did to her, and what they could do to her if she doesn’t permanently shut the mouth of the one who escaped. Her body trembles again, not in anger, but in something else. Delight? A relishing of what is to come? And, for the moment at least, what doubt lingers in her mind vanishes.

On Fujino’s blood tinted reflection on the floor, a little smile plays across her face.

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