A Smile in the Dark
Having made an excuse to his friends, he slipped away alone on the walk home from school.
In the distance, Suye was waiting for him.
"Didn't you say you had a shoot?"
"It got canceled."
Aside from his father, Suye was the only person Minel could truly open up to. After meeting her, he had even stopped taking the psychiatric medication he had been on since childhood.
They started walking together. As usual, Minel talked a great deal about his father. Suye listened with a look of quiet wonder, then spoke up all of a sudden.
"Honestly, these days something like that only shows up in fantasy novels."
"What does?"
"A father worth respecting."
Suye wore a curious little smile. Minel smiled the same way and answered,
"You're a girlfriend worth respecting, too."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Thump thump thump.
Thump thump thump.
At the sound of knocking, Minel opened his eyes. Suye had appeared in his dream, and he had overslept because of it.
Hina, already standing by the door, spoke quietly.
"It's Sky. He must have gotten nervous."
While they slept, furniture had been stacked against the door so it could not be opened from outside. Minel rose and cleared it away, and a moment later Sky shoved the door open and came in. He let out a long, heavy breath.
"Aigoo. Why won't you two get up? I thought something had happened to both of you."
Minel stretched lightly, working the stiffness from his body, and once more sorted through the decision he had turned over in his mind all night.
"Guide us only as far as the way to the 2nd Floor."
Sky answered with a note of disappointment.
"Only that far? I know the paths on the 2nd Floor well. I can help there, too."
"No. That's as far as it goes."
"W-why? Weren't we party-ing together?"
Sky asked again, face full of incomprehension. Minel decided to answer him honestly.
"I don't trust you."
Hina had been vetted. Sky had not. Dragging around a man who lied as a matter of course carried far too much risk. No matter how useful a non-combat skill that made food from water might be, credibility came first.
Sky cried out with a look of pure despair.
"That's so cold! We even got through a life-or-death—"
"Why did you come down to the 1st Floor, Sky?"
Sky opened his mouth, then shut it again at the unspoken command not to lie. A sharp light seemed to cut from Minel's eyes, as if it could pierce every falsehood. Sky worked his lips for a moment, then spoke reluctantly.
"That is… hard to talk about."
"Then a party is hard, too."
"…"
"I kept my end of the deal. Your turn, Sky. Guide us."
Sky hesitated, looking from Minel to Hina and back. Then he spoke quietly.
"There's an entrance to the 2nd Floor at the place that man said he saw me. I'll take you that far."
So the man hadn't been lying after all. Even so, his thrashing at the end must have come from everything he himself had done—an inability to trust others because of his own sins.
The three of them set out at once. The destination was a full day's hard walking away. There was no conversation. Minel was taciturn by nature; Hina said not a word to anyone she did not trust; and even Sky kept his mouth shut. The same held during their brief rests along the way. Sky ate bread and drank water at his leisure while Minel simply watched him in silence.
How much time passed, they could not have said. Just as sleep was beginning to press in again, they arrived.
"What's that?"
"An emergency exit…"
Above a wide-open steel door, a green fluorescent sign of a human figure descending stairs flickered steadily. Beyond the door, emergency stairs climbing upward were visible. Sky stood well back and pointed at them.
"Go up those stairs. You'll reach the 2nd Floor."
That simple? There might be a trick. He would have to check with the Backrooms Almanac.
"Got it, Sky."
"…"
Sky said nothing and avoided Minel's gaze. Hina stepped in front of him and bowed politely.
"Take care."
"…"
Sky avoided even her eyes, turned without a word, and started back the way they had come. Once he was out of sight, Hina spoke softly.
"He seems seriously sulking about not being allowed into the party, doesn't he?"
"Yeah."
"Even so—we saved his life, and he wouldn't even take a goodbye. A little much."
Better this way, really. Bringing along someone so easily swayed by emotion would only have caused trouble sooner or later.
The two of them walked slowly toward the emergency stairs. Before stepping onto them, Minel took out the Backrooms Almanac.
The emergency exit is a passage to the next floor.
For those who are qualified, it becomes a path to the upper levels. For those who are not, it becomes a terrible trap.
To obtain the qualification, one must witness as much Mystery as possible.
So the stairs up to the 2nd Floor are genuine, at least. But it requires a qualification.
Had Sky not known? Or had he known and simply chosen not to say?
When Minel shared the passage, Hina asked,
"Mystery? What is Mystery? It seems connected to the qualification."
He knew nothing beyond what the veteran had said—and that had been about Wildness.
"Sky might know."
"Should we go catch him even now?"
Hina said it casually, but Minel was a little startled. That she would volunteer so readily to drag someone back was unexpected, and he almost wanted to ask how she intended to open that someone's mouth once she had him. He did not bother. The Backrooms was a place where even someone you had just parted with could be nearly impossible to find again.
"It's fine."
"I wish we had a person-tracking skill or something."
Hina seemed to be joking, but such a skill almost certainly existed among the rest. Just how many kinds of skills were there in the Backrooms?
Here, even powerful physical stats trained up at the Arcade were no guarantee of survival. Good items and strong skills were essential as well.
"Could Mystery mean skills? Even if you write everything else off, skills are basically superpowers. You could call that Mystery, too."
"Maybe."
He had never once seen the word Mystery in any explanation in the Backrooms Almanac. The veteran's advice to go look at as many mysterious things as possible was still the best hint he had. Before they stepped onto the emergency stairs, they needed to think this through a little more carefully.
Minel tried to call up everything he had experienced so far and every line he had read in the Almanac—
And in that instant, his vision began to blur, as if a black fog had rolled in.
"This is…?"
"It's a danger zone!"
They had not entered a danger zone since the day they first arrived in the Backrooms. The memory of that day was still vivid. Hina had told him before: in a situation like this, the usual recourse was to get into a closed room, shut the door tight, keep the darkness from seeping in, and pray the monsters passed by.
A Hound or two they could handle easily enough. But in a danger zone thick with fog, the creatures tended to move in packs.
"We need somewhere to hide."
Hina's mind was already racing. She always mapped the surrounding layout against the chance of something like this.
"There's a good spot that way. Follow me."
She turned sharply and set a quick pace; Minel fell in right behind her. Within a few steps a narrow corridor came into view—so tight that two people could barely walk abreast. At its end stood a half-open room.
A janitor's closet. Cleaning tools of every kind lined the inside; the space itself could not have been much more than a hundred and fifty square feet. Perfect for putting Hina at his back and keeping her safe.
They slipped inside and shut the door.
Thud—!
The moment it closed, black fog billowed up over the floor, then sank and slid away. In that brief span the darkness grew impossibly dense, as if black dust were floating in the air. Minel and Hina pressed carefully against the door. When Minel put his ear to it, a roar like a gale began to build on the other side.
Whoooosh—!
Whoooosh—!
The sound from outside grew more and more ominous. And then—
Thud…
Clank…
Something started battering the door in earnest. Minel and Hina's eyes met. This was not a simple check. Whatever it was knew there were people inside and was trying to force its way in.
"What do we do?"
"We fight."
Minel held the door tight, then eased it open just a crack. Through the gap, something long and thin like a nose kept wriggling and pushing its way in. And then—
Bang!
The door burst open and a monster shoved its body through. Its entire form was covered in black fur as if scorched, a shape halfway between a dog and a wolf. Saliva hung in strings from its gaping jaws; its four legs were lean and sharp as rebar. The form was not unfamiliar.
A human seized by Wildness and transformed.
A Hound.
Hina caught her breath. Minel slammed the door to pin the creature and keep it from forcing further in. Quietly he drew Noise and aimed at its head.
"Shall we hunt?"
He muttered, and pulled the trigger.
Bang—!
Light erupted from the muzzle like a burst of flame. The Hound's head snapped back.
"Grrrr…!"
But true to its nature as a monster, the wound mended lightly with darkness. Minel drew Silence without hurry. A cold aura spread through the room; frost gathered along the blade, and snowflakes scattered across the floor.
Shing!
He flicked Silence in a short arc and cut through the Hound's nape. The moment the blade passed, the creature's body split in two and crashed to the ground.
Minel moved to shut the door at once—but farther down the corridor, several more Hounds locked eyes with him.
"Quite a few…"
"How many?"
"…A lot."
The gale beyond the door had already become the sound of beasts' feet. The monsters charged as one; Minel slammed the door shut in a hurry.
Thud, slap, rattle.
KRA-BOOM—!!
The door shook with a tremendous impact and the force threw Minel backward. In that instant a Hound forced its body through the opened gap. On its heels, as if spilling out of the shadows themselves, more Hounds poured in.
Hina felt her breath catch. However easily Minel had dealt with Hounds so far, those had been single stragglers. The ones in sight alone already numbered more than six.
By then Minel was already on his feet, set in his stance. Noise filled his hand first, and a violent series of reports tore through the room.
Bang—! Bang—! Bang—!
Bang—! Bang—! Bang—!
Muzzle flash lit the closet in brief, blinding bursts. The lead Hound collapsed without a head. Six rounds from the overwhelmingly powerful Noise—and still it only shuddered and began regenerating its skull.
"Hina. I don't need covering fire. Just watch my blind spots and call out any attacks coming in. If even that's too hard—use the barrier!"
"Ah. Yes!"
Minel raised Silence and stepped forward. The rest of them did not stop either; they came on in a rush. Packed into the narrow corridor, the Hounds' attacks were impossible to track cleanly.
"Left!"
The instant Hina's warning broke, Minel twisted and fired Noise without looking.
Bang—!
The charging Hound's jaw shattered and it smashed into the wall; he drove Silence into its mouth at once. In that same moment another leapt from the right.
Thuk—!
Sharp claws were about to rip open Minel's arm when a translucent barrier snapped into place over his body. Without it, a deep gash would have opened and blood would have been pouring. Relieved for a heartbeat, Minel stepped back and thrust Silence forward. A frost-edged aura flooded the narrow hall; the blade gleamed pale even in the dark.
As that Hound lunged again—
Shhhk—!
A single cold line cut the air and severed the monster's life.
Behind them, still more Hounds were trying to force their way inside. It looked as if they had already passed ten without difficulty.
This is hopeless as it stands.
Minel decided at once. Better to let them in. The only way was to fight in the slightly wider room and cut them down one by one as they entered.
"Hina—corner against the left wall!"
"Got it!"
Hina grabbed what looked like a wooden cleaning pole and moved to the back. Minel swept Silence in a full arc, sheared the door clean off its hinges, and kicked the slab aside. Immediately the Hounds began packing into the room.
Minel swung Silence in a half-circle centered on the doorframe.
Charrrrr—!
With a spray of frost like driven snow, two Hounds lost their heads at once. But another, slipping between them, raked its claws toward Minel's waist in a wide slash. He fired Noise at the hand.
Bang—!
At point-blank range the round obliterated not only the claws but the entire forelimb. Blood and fur spattered the wall; Hina swallowed a small sound.
"Above you!"
Over the crush of three Hounds, another was thrashing to get inside. Sticky blood ran from its mouth; its eyes split wide with madness. Minel did not think—he pulled the trigger at its head.
Bang—!
The skull punched clean through, and before the darkness could fill it again Silence stabbed the same place.
For a moment the room sank into a held-breath silence. Four half-dead Hounds were so thoroughly jammed in the opening that they formed a kind of barricade. From behind came endless beast-sounds and thudding impacts, but the four were wedged so solidly that nothing shifted.
After a while the Hounds farther back finally gave up on Minel and Hina and turned away.
Hina approached him carefully.
"Is it over…?"
"For now, it doesn't look like they can get in."
But Minel's face did not ease. Through the gaps between the Hounds, black fog was still seeping steadily inside. That darkness was what kept the Hounds from fully dying—what kept their bodies from dissolving. Even so, he could not shake an ominous feeling.
Then it happened.
The fluorescent light that had been illuminating the room began to flicker rapidly. At first the white light stuttered like a strobe; then, little by little, it started to turn red. A thick, murky crimson like blood. The light spilling from the fixture now created the illusion of blood dripping, drop by drop, from the ceiling.
And then—
Tsk… tsk-tsk…
A low, wet sound of a tongue clicking somewhere in the dark.
"…"
"…"
It was the sound a human mouth makes when licking something. And with it, from the dense darkness that filled the room, something white suddenly revealed itself.
It was a smile.