The Only Ones Here

"Hey. Do you see this?"

I pointed at the mannequin sitting identically behind me on my left.

The mannequin, copying me, pointed at its own left rear as well.

『Mmnh?』

"Hey. Look over here when you answer."

I grabbed the shoulder of B, who was lying turned away from me.

Unsettlingly enough, it felt exactly like an ordinary human's shoulder.

"I said, do you see this or not."

『I can't see it, you lunatic. What, are you seeing things now? Pick one. Just one. It's only you and me in this house. If there's anyone else besides us…… you know what that would mean. That's the scariest thing there is.』

"What about Father?"

The word slipped out before I could stop it.

Not Dad. Father.

Like a habit carved into the tip of my tongue.

『……It's been a while since I've seen you forget even Father.』

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

B pushed herself up and sat upright.

『Was it that bad yesterday? Well. You did look like hell.』

"What happened yesterday?"

『If you don't know, then leave it unknown.』

"Why? Tell me."

『Why should I? If you don't like it, dig up everything you've never told me all this time. That'd be fair, wouldn't it.』

I shut my mouth.

There was no way to tell someone what I didn't know myself.

『See. You won't tell me either.』

"……So where is Father, then?"

B stared at me in silence for a while before opening her mouth.

『Sleeping. Having himself another good long one.』

"In the master bedroom?"

『Yeah.』

"Do you know what time it is?"

I asked, recalling the article.

According to that article, the sequence of events went like this:

Father C bound and murdered → the witnesses, A and B, murdered → arson (around 3:10 a.m.)

There were clear signs that C had been tortured, so if I allowed a generous margin of time for all that…

Then the culprit must have already been inside the house some thirty or forty minutes before the fire started.

『Right now? Hmm…… Half past two? Around there, I'd say.』

"Ha."

Right now — which was exactly the time the culprit would have broken in.

Should I stop the family from dying? Or should I make them wake up?

Which one did the Labyrinth want from me?

"Let's get out of here."

Either way, we had to leave this basement.

『Why.』

"Father is going to die."

『Not "I'm going to kill Father"?』

By the moonlight leaking through the tiny window, I felt my way toward the door.

Locked.

It looked like the kind that locks the handle from the outside with a key.

The lights were dead too — flipping the switch did nothing.

"Someone is going to kill Father. And us, too."

『Oh, reeeally? Well, I hope so, then.』

"I'm not joking."

『Do I look like I'm joking?』

B's sentences, showing no shred of will to get out of here, seeped into the shadows.

Ah. No way.

'Edit' and 'Publish'.

Of those two buttons, I had pressed 'Publish.' Because it had to be 'Published.'

But editing was, by definition, the process of revising an article's contents before it went to print — and if that applied to this Labyrinth as well…

Then choosing 'Publish' without ever choosing 'Edit' meant…

I was the one who had to make the family's deaths happen.

Exactly as that temporarily saved article read.

So that it could be published correctly.

It was a rule worthy of the Labyrinth, through and through.

How many people could walk straight down the road toward a death they knew was coming for them?

'Of the family, the teenage children, A and B, were found in the living room with stab wounds near their necks.'

Then I would take B out of here. No matter what.

Because the two of us had to be stabbed to death in the living room.

『So today we all die together? Stabbed by some random robber? You read an article that said that?』

B trailed after me, spectating as I turned the basement inside out in the name of, supposedly, making a lockpick.

『Didn't know you were having such a happy dream. Should've just let you sleep.』

B's laughter, rendered into sentences, brushed past my throat like a hand squeezing it.

『Still, watching you fumble around and blurt things out like this brings back old memories. It's fun.』

There seemed to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be neither trust in me nor any willingness to cooperate.

『And yet……』

Saying that, she pulled a single drawer out of the steel cabinet I'd been picking apart and carried it off.

『Don't do it so often, though. Hold out a little longer for me.』

I thought it was magic.

When B stood the drawer upright, stomped on its inner face with her foot, and snapped the front panel clean off—

Clatter. A thin strip of metal fell out.

『I can't do it alone.』

My sister said, picking up the strip of metal.

『Just like you can't, alone.』

Was it a smiling face? Or a sad one?

Somehow I couldn't see that face at all, and I caught myself thinking it was a shame.

"But that piece. Was it originally in the drawer?"

B deftly bent the tip of the strip into a makeshift lockpick.

『No. Back in elementary school, maybe. You snuck it in there yourself.』

"Me?"

『You were right in the middle of your rebellious phase back then. Snapped chopsticks clean in half and wedged them into that window gap.』

B, easing the lockpick into the door handle, jerked her chin toward the semi-basement window at the back of the room.

『So you crawled out that way, got caught red-handed by my little minion, and spent the whole week being loved half to death by Father. And you forgot even that, huh? Anyway — Father tore this room apart top to bottom, and somehow that was the one thing he never found. And after that, well.』

Click.

With a long, unpleasant whine, the basement door swung open.

『After that, we couldn't even think about leaving.』

……Hold on.

The moment I stepped out of the basement, following behind B.

A faint sense of wrongness struck me, and I slowly turned my head to the left.

This mannequin.

Hadn't the speed at which it copied me gotten a little faster than before?

『What are you doing. Seeing things again?』

It was not my imagination.

The mannequin's mirroring had grown slightly quicker.

At first, anyone could see it was copying my movements a full beat behind.

Now the gap was only about half a beat — like a video out of sync.

What happens if it gets even faster than this?

What if the mannequin starts moving simultaneously with me?

"……No. It's nothing."

I climbed the stairs after B.

I walked carefully, wary of making noise, but B strolled along as if noise were none of her concern.

She apparently didn't believe a word of the story that an intruder was going to kill us all.

『Doesn't feel like anyone's come in, though?』

B's sentences rippled as if suppressing laughter.

As if she wanted to tease me.

And true to her words, the first floor was vast, dark, and utterly silent.

A detached house as ordinary as any you'd see in a drama — if ordinary was what it was.

To think there was a basement like that beneath it.

To think there were young children inside it.

『You said you were going to the master bedroom? If you're that worried, grab a kitchen knife or something.』

Without waiting for my answer, B strode into the kitchen and really did come back with a kitchen knife.

"I don't really need it. I'm not going to the bedroom either."

My goal was for Father to die in the master bedroom exactly as the article said, and then for us to be murdered in the living room.

『Not going? A robber is going to kill Father, and then us, and you're not going?』

The tone was one of genuine amusement.

『You have to go. If you want to see ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who dares to kill our ▓▓▓, don't you? You'll be needing this, then. This.』

"Hm."

Would it work if the scenario went: witness the culprit in the master bedroom, flee to the living room, get caught?

"Fine."

『Right. So now—』

Shh. B held a finger to her lips and gestured.

I watched her footsteps creep toward the second-floor stairs.

Steps that wouldn't tolerate even the tiniest noise from the floorboards — clandestine to the point of being professional.

One step. And another.

The higher we climbed, the more I felt something like it — something close to her — surging and flowing beneath my skin.

『Carry it.』

With that silently drifting sentence, the kitchen knife settled into my hand, closing snugly into my grip.

As if it were mine.

B picked the lock of the master bedroom with the makeshift lockpick from the basement.

The door swung open, and—

I could see Father sprawled across the wide bed, head lolling off the edge, a horrifically shattered tangle of sentences.

Far from being bound, he was scratching lazily at his shin, sleeping the picture of contentment.

『Definitely.』

B, standing at the bedside before I'd even noticed her move, gave a nod.

『He wouldn't know if someone killed him. Right?』

That moment.

A truth cold enough to make my whole body flinch came clear to me.

No one would be entering the master bedroom where Father lay……

Except us.

Only we.

Only the three of us.

Were here.

The one who would kill us was ourselves, and no one else.

I gripped the kitchen knife handle tight.

I couldn't tell who the exact culprit was.

But apparently someone had bound Father and killed him — and then we had stabbed each other's throats.

I advanced one step at a time from the bedroom threshold toward the bed.

Slowly……

Just as B opened the nightstand drawer—

『The fishing line is probably, right abou—』

『See. Told you. It was "I'm going to kill Father."』

B's voice woke me.

When I raised my head, I realized, all at once, that there was something behind me.

『What. Is Father's ghost hanging off your back?』

My white mannequin.

Now so close that simply twisting my head to the left could no longer show me all of it.

It was standing exactly, precisely right behind my back.

And it was no longer copying me.

It was moving in perfect unison with me now.

Like twins. Simultaneously.

Just as I felt relief that nothing else had changed,

a chilling anxiety came trickling down along my veins.

If this didn't stop here……

If it began to move before I did — ahead of me.

What would happen then?