Contract (1)
By the time I reached the school gate with those thoughts in mind, I could tell another Altered Common Sense entity had been unleashed.
Grraaaaaah!
A mass of flesh crawling out from beyond the school entrance, looking like it was made of sewer sludge. It resembled a human body forcibly bloated by slapping on layers of filthy fat and grime.
"The janitor..."
That must be the janitor who erases students who break the school rules. Its belly, as it crawled on all fours, was swollen to the bursting point. How many people had it swallowed whole?
Prick!
"Ugh!?"
Suddenly, my nape stung. Was it some kind of bug? I swatted at it like one would a mosquito and felt something there. Pinching it between my fingers and bringing it to my face, I saw its bizarre form: a plump fly-like body with a human face attached.
Kiiiiiieeeeeek!!
The moment our eyes met, it twisted every muscle in its face and let out a scream that could tear the air apart.
"Fuck, shit!"
I hurled the repulsive thing—its wings mangled, body writhing—to the ground and stomped it flat. With a squelch, it burst. Vile fluids oozed between my foot and the pavement.
Touching my nape, I felt the skin swelling up instantly, like a blister forming.
"This fucking... shit..."
Until now, waking on August 1st and dying three times already, I'd thought my life was hell. But real hell was something else.
Far off in the sky, some massive winged thing soared. Nearby in the air, hundreds or thousands of those human-faced bugs swarmed. The janitor rampaged through the school, and flayed sewer rats prowled the streets. A sight even nightmares struggled to conjure.
Overwhelmed by a crushing sense of unreality, I bolted into the school grounds. Standing around wouldn't help—I'd just get gnawed by the face-bugs or devoured by the rats.
Grroooar! The janitor lunged for me, but after swallowing dozens of people, it was too sluggish. I shoved open the new building's door and raced up to the second floor.
Su-hee... she's the homeroom teacher for Class 1-2, right? If she's in her classroom or the staff room, great.
"Su-hee! Teacher Kim Su-hee!!"
Calling her name as I dashed down the hall, I heard a cough from somewhere.
'Staff room.'
Slide!
"S-Su-hee!"
Kim Su-hee lay on the floor, vomiting blood. Protruding from her gut was something long and spear-like, whittled from human bone with bits of flesh clinging to it. What monster left that mark...?
"Cough... urk..."
Her eyes were already glazing over. Her face pale as death, skin ghostly white. Stroking her cheek, the flesh was shockingly cold.
"Cough... Wh-who... are you...?"
At this point in time, we weren't connected. No need to confuse her in her final moments—I just wanted her to pass peacefully. She was the one link I had to anything normal.
"I'm... I'm a student from the class next door, Teacher."
"Ah... O-oh, cough cough! Y-you... gotta run... quick..."
Her body shuddered violently—massive blood loss causing hypothermia, maybe. I stroked her cooling cheeks and hair with both hands.
"It's okay... It's okay, Teacher. I'll stay with you."
"Y-yeah... Th-thanks..."
Drip.
She couldn't even cough up blood anymore. Coughing required the diaphragm and surrounding muscles, but she had no strength left to squeeze it out.
"C-Co... Coco... needs food... M-Mom... feed Coco... for me......"
...Must be the name of the dog she raised. Hallucinations in her dying moments. Her emptying eyes reflected not me, but something else.
"Huuuh......"
She slipped away like that, eyes still open, empty and meaningless.
"Damn... damn it."
I closed her eyes and stood. My legs had no strength left as I trudged up to the rooftop.
Creeeak— Fifth floor. High enough to die from a head-first drop. The sky was shrouded in dark crimson.
"Fuck..."
I'm scared. Terrified. But what awaited me in this utterly broken world scared me more.
Shwoooooosh!
Fall.
Crunch—
My fourth death was swift and merciless.
......
Chu♡ Mwah♡ Mwah♡
"Oppa, get up already.... Huh...?"
Trickle...
Tears flowed the moment I opened my eyes. The skull-cracking crunch against concrete. The sensation of murder. Kang Jia's snapped neck. Kang Jia's cooling body. Her corpse devoured by cockroaches. And now, that same girl was kissing me.
"Hic..."
My head throbbed. The frayed edges of my whittled-down sanity stung.
"O-O-Oppa, crying? Why, what's wrong? Bad dream?"
Identical. Exactly like Kang Jia's reaction in the previous loop when she saw my tears. The girl whose neck I'd broken with my own hands now wrapped me in her renewed warmth.
"Sob... Oppa... don't cry... it hurts my heart..."
I didn't even know what was what anymore. Did dying strengthen the links to past loops? Memories surfaced without a smartphone medium now. The cockroaches and parents appearing right after killing Kang Jia. All the rampaging Altered Common Sense. I hadn't realized until the third death, but the final one pointed to one truth.
She'd been protecting me all along. Or perhaps, as a territorial beast nesting around me, she'd kept other predators at bay.
But at the same time, she was still the psycho who'd dismembered my limbs. What the hell should I do? Kang Jia and me... what even was our relationship?
I just clung to her and wept endlessly.
"Wahhh... Oppa... why... huh? Sad? Why sad?"
As emotions settled, thoughts cleared.
"I'm fine. Just... a bad dream."
This world tainted by Altered Common Sense wasn't her creation. She was just another resident. And she'd been suppressing the local horrors to protect what was hers—me.
I couldn't kill Kang Jia. The moment I did, every horror would swarm out.
But I still had to escape her. Trying to flee would make her kill me.
How to break this absurd contradiction?
Then, nestled in my arms, Kang Jia spoke up.
"Oppa, you know I really love you, right?"
Her heart. That obsessive love she harbored for me. Even without this bizarre world, it was utterly abnormal.
"...Yeah. I know it down to my bones."
"Eh...? Pfft... what~ is that~?"
She giggled, rubbing her face against my chest.
Past me was too busy grasping the situation, just running away. Can't say those choices were wrong—I didn't know death wasn't permanent back then.
But now? Different. I realized I held the strongest weapon against her from the start.
"Jia, oppa's gonna step out for a bit."
"H-Huh? Why? Suddenly?"
"Yeah. Wait here. I'll come back and give you a kiss."
"Gasp!? R-Really!?"
Kang Jia's behavior was just like a separation-anxious pet dog. Promise a clear reward, and she listens. The problem? When she can't suppress her emotions, those fangs rip my limbs off.
Right now, I was searching for a way to muzzle those fangs.
"Yeah, really. So be good and wait."
"Mhm! I'll stay right here!"
If she had a tail, it'd be wagging like mad. I opened the door and headed straight downstairs.
In the kitchen, the parents were gnawing on flesh chunks.
Chomp— chomp— Heads buried in plates, mechanically working their jaws.
Fucking bastards. Dying four times must've killed my fear. I strode into the kitchen.
The trigger for their destructive hunger? 'Smell.' Info only someone who's died and respawned after experiencing it would know.
Holding my breath, I ignored them and grabbed a kitchen knife.
Bang—
"Ah! Oppa came..."
Kang Jia's eyes flicked to the knife in my hand.
"...Why'd you bring a knife...?"
Creeak... click.
I locked the door and pressed the blade to my own throat.
Kang Jia's Altered Common Sense was her 'voice.' Specifically, the words she uttered. And I could resist her commands in that split second.
"Kang Jia."
She flinched!
"O-Oppa? M-My... name... how...?"
Enough with the power struggles.
"I know you're the girl who's stalked me for seven years. And you're not my real little sister."
Her eyes bulged with bloodshot rage, trembling.
Because I denied our 'brother-sister' bond with my own mouth? ...So what? What can you do?
"G-Give me the kni—!"
Her lips parted. I cut her off first.
"Shut up! Don't even dream of ordering me. It doesn't work anymore. Dare utter one command, and I'll slit my throat right here."
Contradictory bullshit. If her commands truly didn't work, no need to bluff with my life.
But could a girl as obsessed with me as Kang Jia spot that?
"O-Okay, okay oppa, I-I won't, p-please... put the knife down...?"
Of course not. Her dismembering me wasn't to kill, but to keep me with her forever.
Now her object of affection threatened to throw his life away pointlessly. She'd go insane.
"Oppa... sob... p-please... don't..."
She crawled off the bed toward me.
"Stop. Come closer, and I really will."
Poke. A prick of pain, blood trickling.
Thud!
"Hiiik! A-Aaaah! Okay! Okay, don't! Don't do it!! P-Please! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
On her knees like her life depended on it, hands clasped in desperate begging. Fine with chopping limbs, but not death, huh.
Heh heh heh. No matter how I sliced it... I'd gotten tangled with a real psycho bitch.
And I desperately needed her help.
"Kang Jia. No, Jia."
"Y-Yes, oppa! Yes!"
"Let's make a contract."