Soon, my eyes adjust, distinguishing the two forms of darkness. Finding it dull, I close my eyes, pushing out the outside world, like spitting out chewed gum.
My sense of touch sharpens, compensating for my blinded vision. The cold floor. The emptiness of the air. It stings.
... Memories automatically flood in.
I was born into a very ordinary family. Our house was in the countryside, with a vast, unnecessarily large plot of land. My drunken father often brought home his equally drunken friend to stay the night, but there was always plenty of room. Our two-story house even had a basement. Our family of five lived there. My elder brother, two years my senior, had been dyeing his hair blond since he was a child. Despite his flashy appearance, he was a bookworm, spending most of his time in his room, filled with books. He never talked about anything other than the contents of his books at the dining table. My younger sister, four years my junior, had a different mother. She was always the irritant in our family because of her frequent tantrums. Taking care of her mostly fell to me, and her gratitude often manifested as physical violence. She never once smiled at me. I had two mothers. The first passed away three years after giving birth to me. I don't remember the reason, but I vaguely recall her lying face down, her limbs twisted in unnatural angles. Two years after that, a pregnant woman came to live in our house. They were married without a ceremony, and she gave birth to my sister three months later. My brother, feeling increasingly isolated, never spoke a word to my sister or her mother. One day, just before the summer break, he jumped from the gymnasium ceiling during the closing ceremony and committed suicide. Only my father and I attended his funeral. After that, my sister and her mother began to live freely in our home. By the time my sister turned five, she was often coming home covered in mud, dirt, and bruises. She developed a cruel hobby of killing animals she found in the mountains. One day, she never returned home. A memorial service was held, attended only by me and her mother. Eventually, only my father, her mother, and I remained in the house. Eight years later, I was the only one left. "But it's a lie."
It's my usual fabrication. This entire narrative is fiction. It has no relation to any reality, that much is clear. Please, don't take it too seriously.
"... But it's a lie."
Telling a lie to correct another lie doesn't feel good.
But there are truths that can't be fabricated.
Even if someone distorts the facts and cherishes a fabricated truth,
From their perspective, it's just a big lie.
For example, between her and me.
"I hate myself,"
I mimicked in a creepy tone. It genuinely sounds eerie.
"Isn't that right, Misono Mayu?"
After all, the thing she despises is herself.
Misono Mayu is a murderer.
She resolved a past kidnapping incident by turning it into a murder case, with her as the culprit.
Her first victims were her own parents.
Why did the kidnapper commit such a crime? Well, the reason he embarked on such a deranged act of kidnapping might be incomprehensible to anyone but him. However, there's one thing I understood about him.
The look of utmost enjoyment on a human's face is, in a word, grotesque.
If one is confined for almost a year, they might run through every kind of game that presupposes harming another person. Maybe he got bored. Ironically, the kidnapper and Mayu's parents were close friends. Perhaps the kidnapper thought that torturing Mayu's emotionally deadened state further with her parents would be the perfect stimulus.
He invited her loving parents to his home, took them hostage, and then forced Mayu to kill them. If she didn't, he threatened to kill both Mayu and me. Mayu, her emotions reawakened, naturally cried and resisted. The kidnapper was greatly excited by her expected reaction.
But whether he grew tired of it in just ten seconds, he violently kicked Mayu's swollen face and then, as a final act, slashed her thigh with a meat cleaver. The screams of her parents resonated more with me than Mayu's own.
The reawakened emotions reminded Mayu of the pain, and she believed that obeying the kidnapper's orders was the only way to protect herself. At some point, my eyes were covered, out of the kidnapper's wife's conscience. "Don't look," she said. But the covering was imperfect, and I caught glimpses through the gaps between fingers. My lips and teeth quivered so much they were rendered useless.
As the kidnapper yelled out body parts in a depraved voice, there would be a brief pause followed by screams and a dull sound. And then the unimaginably horrific usage of the knife. I couldn't tear my eyes away or even afford to blink. The fear was so overwhelming that I felt like screaming myself. But fearing that making any noise would get me killed as well, I bit my lower lip hard, drawing blood, and covered my ears. Still, the sounds only dimmed, they weren't entirely blocked. I was also terrified by the taste of blood from my lip.
And then, multiple screams followed by a familiar, grotesque, deep voice filled the air, and then suddenly, silence.
When all the noise stopped and my eyes were uncovered, what lay before me were the kidnapper and his accomplices, Mayu's parents who were unrecognizable, and a hunched over Mayu, dripping with liquid from both her body and the knife, a total of five figures.
Despite witnessing the scene with my own eyes and ears, my mind stubbornly refused to understand it.
Mayu had brought the incident to an end, through the act of murder. Mayu doesn't remember that.
She even pointed a blade at me.
"...Why didn't I die?"
I survived by cheating. I was protected, saved.
By the kidnapper's wife.
The person who sacrificed herself for me.
The person who hurt me for her sake.
And the person who pretended for her own sake.
"They all... all of them died."
Right before my eyes.
Spewing something— blood, tears, their souls.
Yet, I am still alive.
Joyously alive.
Continuously being kept alive.
Attacked by others' malice, shielded by another human, cursed, yet continuing to live.
Living a life without any value.
I always try to play the fool.
Mocking conversations, ridiculing philosophy.
Making it seem as if I understand more about reality than others, looking down on the world from a higher perspective.
Trying so hard to give that impression.
Suggesting that I have everything under control.
I've always lived this way.
Ever since I felt a mortal fear of people.
"...I'm scared."
I'm afraid of people.
Having delved too deep into the dark parts, I've come to fear my own kind.
Of course, I hate what I fear.
So, I hate people, and since I'm a person, I include myself in that. But living that way is not sustainable.
If I truly hated myself, the only choice would be suicide.
So, what to do?
It would be good to love people... but I think I'd die before that happened.
Thus, the only option is to freeze the emotion of hatred.
It's best to let emotions sleep forever.
Not feeling bad about getting hurt, and not hesitating to hurt others.
Being both a saint and a dangerous entity.
It would have been okay if the normal people around me didn't recognize me as a human.
It would have been better if they thought I was different.
That's what I aimed to become.
Holding my shoulder. A shoulder that has forgotten how to shiver, it seems to have given up its role as a part of a living being.
"...Ah, I want to become a recluse."
Hugging my knees and leaning back, I roll on the hard floor like a Daruma doll.
Which seems happier: enduring nausea from drinking too much or waiting? Won't someone enlighten me philosophically?
Putting on freshly washed shoes and taking the two of them outside after a bath.
The outside was colder than expected. The two, facing the long-awaited outside, spread their astonishment across their faces, and stood frozen at the entrance.