The Gift from the Outer God
"So I really can't leave, can I?"
I had no idea how the power sealed inside the necklace worked, but every space that led outside was sealed shut.
Open the door, and a purple wall stared back. Open a window, and it was the same. The light itself was no different from ordinary sunlight, yet when I held my hand close, an ominous purple hue reflected onto my skin. And yet the wind and the scents of the outside world still filtered in just fine...
"How strange."
This bizarre spectacle of flashing purple light and warm sunlight enveloping the house at once. Though the fact that I had died and come back to life was already questionable enough.
"And there's nothing I can do until Thea returns. That much is clear."
At least back at the hospital I would occasionally be summoned under the pretext of advising on a patient. But after I quit my job, we had truly spent every single moment together—from the moment we woke in the morning until night, and from the night we fell asleep until morning again. Having her, who had never left my side for a single day, gone once more felt a little... cold, somehow.
"Maybe I should look around the house for a while."
She had taken away every option other than waiting quietly in this house. If I wanted to find something to do, I would have to explore the rooms and see whether there was anything I could manage. And while I was at it, I should check out those "countless things" she said she had prepared for me.
I was sure she had taken this necklace out of this... drawer.
Rattle.
But it would not open.
"Hmm?"
Even when I put more force into it, the drawer refused to budge. Feeling puzzled, I leaned down to examine its structure.
...There was no keyhole or anything of the sort.
Just as I was about to find that odd—
Closing the open front door as he entered was a figure with a black hood pulled low. Face completely hidden in shadow, unrecognizable. Tall enough that I had to look slightly upward, and of course he did not feel human. His voice, too—rather than coming from his mouth, it seemed to resonate right beside my ear—was unmistakably—
"An Outer God, I presume."
"Then I shall do so."
His face was invisible, so why did I feel as though he had smiled?
He inclined his head slightly so as not to strike the ceiling, and then his feet...
Not feet, was it?
Unlike me, who stepped with a thud, thud, he glided in. The squelching sounds were unnatural and sent a chill down my spine.
"I know that, but..."
Even though he wore a human shape, his legs were not legs. And even though face and body were covered, the very sensation that I somehow knew what lay beneath twisted my insides.
Click, click, click.
This time a different sound reached me. Each time he closed the distance a little more, a loud footfall that seemed to ring inside my skull. It reminded me of an inquisitor walking across marble floors in hard shoes, but at least I no longer felt something writhing beneath that cloth.
He nodded once, looked around, then stretched a hand toward the table and sofa in the living room.
...No fingers were visible.
"Is my body still not well?"
The black shadow smiled as if faintly mocking me, stared hard, then turned his head and shook with what seemed like amusement.
Sinking into the soft furniture, I felt my head clear a little. At the same time a gentle breeze through the window cooled my temples, and the tangled thoughts inside began to settle, making room. Once I had the composure to accept the being before me, questions rose.
"Did I ever ask what it is you desire?"
He leaned into the sofa as if melting into it and did not look at me directly. As though taking in the scenery, he relaxed and surveyed the surroundings. Just as I was about to feel a little disappointed by that leisurely manner—
He—no, it—smiled and looked straight at me, just once.
With thousands of eyes filled with purple.
Before I knew it I was staring at the floor. Peach slices I had bitten into during an outing lay scattered across it. Nausea rose. The back of my nose burned.
I snatched up the cup that had been set down with a soft tap, poured it down my throat in a rush, then collapsed and clutched my head. It hurt. Gripping a skull that felt ready to split, I had to stare blankly at the ceiling for a long while.
Even though I had not asked him a question, he was answering me. As if everything already lay in the palm of his hand, he hummed in a low tone.
...The purple lights I had seen were glittering.
The words he let slip felt rather important. The claim that the god I had served—and the one Thea had followed—had done something to us was nothing I could simply let pass.
Slowly listing the words while gazing into the distance, he was sneering.
Rather than giving me answers, he merely listed words whose meaning I could not grasp and smiled in satisfaction.
He turned his body with a soft rustle, looked at me, then reached out and took hold of me, lifting me to my feet. The blunt sensation felt through the cloth was nothing like a "hand" at all.
He brushed me off, wiped my mouth with the cloth as well, smiled, and moved his feet once more. This time there was no sound of footsteps. Once again the noise of a snail crawling across the floor filled the room. Yet I stood perfectly fine. My head no longer hurt. Planted firmly on both feet, I could watch his departing back.
Awkwardly accepting that satisfied, grotesque resonance, I kept rubbing my still-stinging lips when he suddenly stopped dead in the entryway. As if he had just realized something shocking.
With those incomprehensible words he let out a long breath, then raised an arm and began thrusting it inside his own body. The writhing sleeve that vanished into the darkness beyond the cloth finally emerged again. Resting upon it was a single bottle.
Filled with purple liquid, small enough to rest in the palm, and at the same time carved with unbelievably delicate craftsmanship. A glass vessel engraved with a pattern like inverted flowers and peaches, holding purple liquid, was pressed into my hand.
His firm grip on my shoulder as he delivered the warning made me flinch hard.
"W-what do you mean by that...?"
Until a moment ago he had seemed an incomprehensible, mighty, and mysterious being. Now he was frantically searching his own breast, terrified of a single fact.
What he pulled out next was a glass bottle filled with orange liquid. This time there was no decoration, no lid; I could not even guess its purpose.
"This is..."
With earnest insistence he pressed the second bottle firmly into my hand, then—
—left those words behind and hastily turned, vanishing beyond the purple barrier.
It should have been a form filled with grotesquery and terror, yet somehow it had become the human-like figure of someone flustered and trembling. Having faced all of that, I could only stand there blankly, small glass bottles clutched in both hands.
"...How confusing."
His name seemed to explain everything I had just experienced. Chaos itself.