Video Tape (5)
Uncle moved first. He roughly snatched the lever from Shim Nan-seul's hand and twisted his body toward the control panel. Shim Nan-seul was coughing intermittently with her head bowed. Rikako, blood trickling between the fingers pressed to her chest, barely lifted her chin to point at the panel.
"Left... second one."
Her voice was cracked.
"Then... below."
Uncle didn't answer. Instead, he quietly set the green syringe down beside Rikako and stood before the panel. His fingers moved.
Click.
A short mechanical sound rang out. The light vibration that had been buoying the entire lab weakened, sinking into a deeper, heavier rumble. The streams of light flowing along the glass tubes dimmed one by one.
Ganet, who had staggered to his feet by then, steadied himself. The hand rubbing his nape as if his head ached fell away, and his gaze shot straight to the glass tube at the front.
"You can save them, right?"
Uncle didn't answer. Instead, he pressed the second switch Rikako had indicated.
-Psssh.
The nearest glass tube hissed open like a deflating tire. White steam billowed out.
Ganet lunged forward first.
"Ruby—"
Ganet's call cut off unfinished. What slumped out from the tube was unmistakably a child's body. Or could you even call that a child anymore?
A mouth torn from the jaw down, eyes shoved into one socket, an arm bent in a direction it never should have. The only proof that this had once been one of our kids was a single piece of clothing from the orphanage days.
Ganet's feet froze in place.
-Kyaaak!
The thing that had been the child moved first. Its twisted-joint arm shot toward Ganet.
But this time, Uncle was faster.
-Slash!
A line of boiling red grazed it briefly, and the arm severed clean at the shoulder. The opposite leg followed. It tumbled to the corner of the floor.
He didn't kill it. The moment I saw it, I knew. Uncle hadn't let go of his lingering hope either. Just in case. Just maybe. There might still be a way to reverse it.
But as the second tube opened, then the third, then the fourth, that thought began to blur.
Everything that poured out was children. And none of them were children anymore.
Some crawled on all fours. Some had half their face hardened like glass. Others had mouths split open like flower petals studded with jagged teeth.
But the clothes and accessories they wore were all too familiar. Hairpins. Bracelets. Shirts clumsily knitted by hand. All things from the orphanage, worn or cherished there.
Uncle's red gaze swept over them once each. And the hand gripping the gladius moved.
Arms fell. Legs were severed. Bodies that tried to climb Uncle were smashed into the floor.
But he never sliced a throat. Uncle held back from crossing that line to the end.
And Ganet watched it all. Without taking a single step.
"Uncle."
Ganet's voice cracked.
"Uncle, that's..."
Uncle swung the gladius and cut him off curtly.
"Step back."
Ganet didn't retreat. Another tube shuddered violently and opened.
"Kirik, hee hee hee hee hee."
This time, a grotesque laugh leaked from inside first. A thick, light cackle pouring from the throat of a Sinner whose torso was half-wrapped in crystal, crawling twisted across the floor.
Ganet's face went pale. Uncle's hand moved again, severing only the arm and leg with precision. Meanwhile, the lab floor was shrinking. Crawling things, twisted things, severed limbs, blood.
I watched it all, back pressed to the wall. My right foot wouldn't move, of course, and sensation had half died in my left arm. But my eyes wouldn't close. If I shut them now, they might never open again.
That's when it happened.
"...Kuh—"
One of the researchers sprawled on the lab floor twitched. I'd thought he was just knocked out. His bloodied hand groped the floor and seized a metal handle hidden beneath the control panel.
Uncle's gaze whipped around, and he hurled the gladius at the researcher.
"Don't."
But it was too late.
-Clunk.
The sound of a lock releasing echoed from inside the lab.
-Thud.
One wall lurched as a whole. And slowly, so very slowly, it opened.
-Kiririk—
What emerged from within... was a gaze. No, more precisely, a box-like object. A steel box body with a keyhole punched in the front center. A single eye peering out from inside, watching us.
-Drudge.
The bottom split open to reveal fleshy innards, sides unfolding into saw-blade arms, and four spear-tipped legs extending below. The Phantasm I'd glimpsed on the faded cover of that future booklet... Schadenfreude.
-Beep— Beep— Beep—!
The mechanical tone changed. A warning chime unlike the low vibrations leaking from the tubes, foreboding something sinister.
The eye in the keyhole slowly rolled, scanning everyone in the lab, finally stopping on one of the crawling Sinners. A saw-arm shot from its body—
-Greeee—!
—and in an instant, turned the Sinner scraping its freshly severed limbs across the floor into minced meat. Chunks of flesh and bone sprayed everywhere.
Ganet stared blankly at the flying gore. Uncle, retrieving his gladius as he fell back, barked sharply.
"Ganet, move!"
But Ganet didn't budge. He just stared at the carnage on the floor. Severed arms. Torn clothes. A hairpin identifying whose it was. And the Sinner's body just shredded under the saw.
Ganet's lips moved faintly.
"......I."
Schadenfreude kicked off with its legs, pivoting. The gaze in the keyhole turned to Ganet this time.
Uncle shouted again.
"Get out of the way!"
But Ganet never did. His gaze stayed fixed on the floor somewhere.
"......even this time."
His voice was so low it was almost a whisper.
"I could only watch again, Uncle."
The next instant—
-Krunch-crunch-crack!
Ganet's body split in half. A line of blood-soaked flesh sliced across the lab's center. Ganet's blood poured over the Sinners' corpses all at once.
"......Hngh."
I couldn't make a sound. Uncle's hand arrived late, his boiling red line severing one of Schadenfreude's saw-arms, but it was already over. Ganet's bisected body collapsed to the floor.
"A........."
The lab fell silent.
The surroundings were surely filled with noise, but to me, it was truly quiet. Truly still. The warning chime from the tubes, the dripping blood, even my own breathing—all felt distant.
In my vision, only Ganet remained. The body that had been alive moments ago. The mouth that had spoken moments ago. The legs that had run, led the way, pushed me forward moments ago.
Now just trash. Scattered across the floor.