The Yellow Raincoat (3)
Boing, boing.
Now this was fun.
I trailed behind the man and the yellow-raincoat anomaly, bored out of my mind. The pair was covering far more ground than I'd expected, and keeping up with Future Sight alone didn't exactly require my full attention.
So, casting about for something to entertain myself with, I'd settled on hopping from puddle to puddle like I was doing now.
Sure, every landing sent up a splash, but with a touch of subtle control I dodged every stray droplet. All good.
"Hm. Just how far are they planning to go, though?"
Ten minutes into the chase with Future Sight, I'd finally spotted them and begun shadowing them carefully. The problem was that they'd now been walking for a good twenty minutes since then!
How deep did they intend to go? We were already pushing into a densely packed residential alley.
This was bad news.
People would definitely be wandering around this neighborhood, or peering out their windows at home. What if one of them looked out and saw me right now?
Not that it mattered much for me. The real concern was the man and the anomaly walking ahead of me.
If that thing lured in someone else too, we'd have a genuine disaster on our hands. That was what worried me.
Look — even my ears and tail had drooped with anxiety!
So all I could do was pray that the anomaly wouldn't call out to anyone else.
How many minutes had passed like that?
Suddenly, the man and the anomaly came to a stop. I ducked behind the nearest utility pole at once and eavesdropped on their conversation.
"Oh, no, I haven't really done anything worth mentioning."
"But still."
"Really. You already went out of your way to walk me home. That's more than enough."
Wow, the acting was genuinely good.
Listening to their exchange, I was stunned by how human the anomaly sounded.
If I'd been an ordinary person instead of what I am, I would absolutely have been fooled. Not that such theatrics would work on anyone already ensnared, but still.
"Ah. Sh-shall I head out now, then? Or…"
The anomaly, mid-conversation with the man, then opened its mouth far beyond anything normal. And then — of course — it began slowly swallowing the man whole!
I looked at the man in a panic. He was smiling away, oblivious to everything! In other words, he didn't even realize he was about to be eaten.
Once the anomaly had swallowed about half of him, it closed its mouth and simply lifted him up. With its hands occupied, I suppose it planned to eat him whole, bird-style.
"Mmm… nothing to be done. Who knows what might be wrong with an ensnared man…"
It could sound like a convenient excuse, but rushing in to save an ensnared man could easily make things far worse. It might not, of course — and I could always check the future — but the future is always full of variables.
The reporter I saved last time was the perfect example. Which means that jumping in carelessly could land me in a situation beyond my ability to fix.
So I waited until the man had been completely devoured.
Before being eaten, in the middle of being eaten, and even now, after being eaten, the man hadn't offered the slightest resistance. In other words, he was thoroughly ensnared.
So far gone that he couldn't even recognize his own death.
Only after the man had vanished down its throat did I step out from behind the utility pole. Then I quietly stared at the yellow-raincoat anomaly.
Whether it hadn't noticed me or was simply ignoring me, it began tidying itself up — putting the rain hat that had slipped off when its jaw unhinged back on its head, shaking off the raindrops clinging to its body.
It fussed over itself for a moment, then suddenly lifted its head toward me. So it had finally noticed me. I gave it a friendly greeting.
"Good day to you."
Silence. I suppose it's dead.
No, wait. That's not it.
I took a step forward to get a real conversation going with the anomaly. The anomaly immediately took two steps back.
"Huh?"
Wondering what on earth was going on, I tilted my head — and it took another step back. So I took another step forward.
And the anomaly took yet another step back.
What is this? What are we doing?
Was it afraid of me?
In that case, wouldn't running away make more sense? Why stand here playing this game with me?
This time I tilted my head the other way, trying to analyze its behavior. But with not a word from it, I had no clue what it was thinking.
Was it gauging my strength? Deciding whether it could fight me or not?
Brow furrowed in deliberation, I ultimately decided to just kill the anomaly. It didn't seem particularly strong in a fight anyway.
So I lunged straight at it. It looked startled — too late. My hand was already aimed at its face, and we were about to make contact.
And then, with roughly two centimeters left between my hand and its face, my instincts suddenly began screaming!
If I didn't stop right now, a horrific monster would emerge!
Hot on that warning's heels, the future forced itself upon me — and I watched my hand, the instant it pierced the anomaly's face, simply vanish.
Shocked, I killed my momentum on the spot!
"Wh-what the hell are you..!"
This was only the third time my instincts and Future Sight had reacted at the same instant! Which is another way of saying this thing was exactly that dangerous.
I was so startled that my whole body had locked up stiff, ears and tail bristling to their full height. Watching me in that state, the anomaly seemed to see its chance — and opened its mouth wide!
Oh, come on!?!
I tried to whip my body around, but a frozen body doesn't listen! And so I ended up swallowed by the yellow-raincoat anomaly after all.
"Uuugh…"
Where am I?
After being devoured by the yellow-raincoat anomaly, I woke to find myself in a strange space — a place shrouded in gray fog on all sides.
The fog hid whatever edges this place might have; only the fog itself, faintly shifting against a floor of unblemished white, told me there was ground here at all.
Or maybe there really is no end to it at all.
"Hmm… what am I supposed to do now?"
Crossing my arms, I started weighing my options. But no brilliant ideas presented themselves. Hardly surprising, with zero information to work from!
"Maybe I should take a look at the future?"
Tail swaying lazily, I gave the future a light peek — and saw myself branching out simultaneously in countless different directions.
"…So there's no answer to be found, is that it?"
Wow. This really is a disaster.
"Haah… so I'm going to be wandering around in here for a long, long time."
I let out a sigh over the future I'd just witnessed. Why, you ask?
It's rare. No, almost unheard of — it's happened exactly twice, this business of the future showing itself in parallel all at once.
I didn't understand what it meant at first, but after experiencing it, I do now. Put simply, it means there is no fixed future here.
Which is to say, I'm going to be lost in this place for quite a while. With luck, I might stumble my way out sooner rather than later — but that's all it is, luck.
"Haah. But what kind of place is this, that even the future refuses to settle down?"
Ordinarily, no matter how many futures branch out, every one of them is a future I can choose. But here, the only futures available were ones I could neither choose nor refuse.
In other words, in this place any given future could be one hundred percent certain to happen, and that very same future could be one hundred percent certain never to happen.
A thoroughly bewildering space.
"Tsk. Fine. Let's get moving."
Sitting on my haunches here wasn't going to change anything.
So I set off straight ahead. Then I stopped as a certain fact came back to me.
"Oh, wait — wasn't there a human who came in around the same time I did?"
Given that I was moving around in here perfectly fine, that man had to be alive too. From what I'd seen, this anomaly was the swallow-whole type.
All right. New objective: find that man.
Goal set, I put one foot in front of the other again.
"Hey, young man! Take this!"
"Y-yes?"
What?
An old lady walking down the street had just handed me money. What on earth was this?
I'd accepted it in a daze, but I couldn't help being baffled — I'd never seen the old woman before in my life!
So I asked her why she was giving me money, and she answered with a kindly smile.
"I'm in a good mood today, that's all! And you look about the same age as my grandson. You reminded me of him, so take it!"
"No, still — out of nowhere, money is—"
"Well then, take care!"
Having handed over the money, the old woman breezed off. I felt absurd, but at least she'd seemed to mean no harm.
"Phew. First, how much is— a, a blank check?!"
Are you kidding me?! A blank check means I can draw out as much as I want!
"Gr-granny!"
I called after her in a hurry, but she'd long since vanished from view. So I agonized over what to do.
"Ugh, whatever. I'll just use it. There's CCTV around here anyway."
In the end, I decided to keep the check. It left me feeling distinctly uneasy, but there was no way to return it now.
I'll just have to spend it wisely.
And with that, I set off for home again. But my good fortune didn't end there.
"Congratulations, you've won!"
"Y-yes?"
"You're the hundredth person to pass by our shop today, so we're giving you a complimentary prize!"
Winning something, just like that.
"Today only, everything is 80% off!"
Something I'd been planning to buy suddenly at a massive discount.
"Whoa!! First prize on the lottery ticket!"
Hitting the jackpot on a ticket I'd bought on a whim!
At this point I had no choice but to admit it. Today was genuinely a happy, lucky day!
Because of that, the smile never left my face, and my steps grew lighter and lighter!
"With this money, I can quit programming for good! That miserable, soul-draining..!"
I'd barely finished rejoicing over finally being able to quit that wretched job when I felt something naggingly off.
"Did I… hate programming this much?"
I turned it over carefully in my mind, but all that came was a dull headache. So I decided not to dwell on it.
"Hahaha! Even the heavens! The heavens are welcoming me!"
Clear skies, a cool breeze, warm sunlight.
It was as if all of it had been prepared just for me!
Raising both arms in triumph, I hurled my umbrella behind me. Then I started skipping along in high spirits.
Today truly was a happy, lucky day!
"Hehehe…"
A floor of white, fog the color of ash.
And sprawled across it, a man who looked utterly content.
Yet clinging to his body were countless tentacles — and those tentacles were busily siphoning something out of him.
"Kikikik."
And beside him, the thing in the yellow raincoat, chuckling in a way that curdled the air.
Then the thing simply melted into nothing.
Off to find its next prey.