The Siren Wails (5)

When we came out of the restroom, the corridor had already been wiped clean.

Only minutes ago, when I'd bolted out gagging, it had been a disaster of blood and shattered glass.

Whatever cleans up after this place, it certainly works hard to erase every trace.

And that's why no one ever learns what happens here.

The thought sent a fresh chill down my spine, and I slowed my steps for a moment.

Sol passed by my side, shooting me a glance — the kind that asked why I wasn't hurrying up.

Somehow, that alone put my mind at ease.

But once we came down to the first floor, the tables turned.

This time it was Sol who tensed up, visibly.

I followed her gaze and found a row of storage lockers set into the wall, so I walked ahead and slowed my pace, putting myself between her and the lockers, blocking them from her sight.

Sol stared at me for a long moment, then gave a small snort.

Fine. I'll respect that, you pubescent brat.

Walking alongside Lee Sol, I scanned the shelves for the seventh row, first column — the locker where belongings were exchanged for money.

Finding it was easy.

What it actually looked like, though, took me by surprise.

Storage lockers, bookshelves — nearly every kind of cabinet is widest at the bottom and narrows toward the top, since it's safer and more convenient to store large, heavy things down low.

Common sense, really — but I hadn't thought of it until I saw it with my own eyes.

The locker in question was row one, column one.

The very top slot.

Which made it the smallest one there.

Far too small for a person to fit inside.

Then how on earth had they stuffed someone in there?

I made the mistake of imagining what must have happened in that spot.

But the area around the locker was spotless now, as if nothing had ever occurred at all.

Passing through that icy-cold space, we entered the corridor leading to the Lost and Found Center.

The corridor grew darker the deeper we went.

There was a smell, too — thick and acrid.

Something like old ash.

We kept walking down the pitch-black passage until the Lost and Found Center appeared, swallowed in an even deeper darkness.

But in its center, something faint stood waiting.

By pure instinct, we both understood what it was — the Cloth Doll.

"Mister, make sure you look at this before you go out. Okay?"

Sol stopped and whispered.

It sounded so much like a textbook death flag that I grimaced and laughed, then handed her the small pair of scissors from the emergency kit.

Scissors in hand, Sol headed toward the Lost and Found Center.

Even a kid could handle that, as long as she kept her head.

Sol was a middle schooler, and she could kick an adult's ass when she wanted to. She'd be fine.

I watched her step into the darkness, then turned away.

I would have liked to stay until her escape was confirmed, but I couldn't afford the luxury.

I had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to go catch my train, too — before that siren wailed again.

But the moment I took a few steps, the space behind me brightened.

I spun around in alarm and saw it: a pure white figure.

It had the shape of a little girl, head to toe in unbleached cloth — transparent and pallid, as though carved from candle wax.

Was that the Cloth Doll?

As the doll glowed brighter, I could see Sol prostrated before it.

I watched the strange spectacle, half-hypnotized.

Then Sol suddenly jerked.

What is she doing? She's not supposed to move.

I watched her growing strangeness with mounting dread.

She seemed to be fighting to hold her kneeling position.

But it lasted only a moment.

"Ah…!"

At that one strangled cry, I knew something had gone terribly wrong.

Sol shot to her feet as if engulfed in flames and came sprinting out — and almost in the same instant, an explosion ripped through the room.

KA-BOOM—!

"AAAGH!"

Sol screamed and clung to me, and I grabbed her back.

Fire geysered up inside the Lost and Found Center, lighting its interior brilliantly.

And in that light, the true nature of the darkness surrounding the Cloth Doll was laid bare.

What filled that space was not empty air cut off from light.

It was blackness with substance.

Layer upon layer of grotesquely warped shapes, jet-black, were heaped inside ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the center, tangled into one another.

"What… what is that…?"

The groan escaped me before I knew it.

Then the things began to move.

Tearing apart their own knotted limbs, they clawed desperately toward the exit.

One of them — looking like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a corpse charred by fire — finally managed to stretch an arm out of the pile.

And the flames wavering inside spilled out into the corridor after it, the fire spreading like water tipped from an overturned bowl.

I grabbed Sol's arm and ran.

"What the hell happened?!"

"I—I don't know! I did everything it told me to…!"

Sol shouted, her voice cracking with tears — then her face suddenly drained white.

"My dad. My dad's already dead."

"…What?"

Her confession knocked the wind clean out of me.

The words the rulebook had told us to say when begging the Cloth Doll.

Please send this to my daddy.

Don't tell me — is that thing sending people to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their father's side in heaven?

Then a kid without a dad should never have been allowed to use that method in the first place!

But there was nothing like that in the rulebook.

Something this crucial should have been documented long before now…!

I sprinted on, fury burning in my throat.

But the fire chasing us was faster.

The flames gradually overtook us.

Fortunately, the fire did us no harm.

Instead, everything it touched in the railroad station simply melted away.

In an instant, the pristine station interior became a burning ruin. The gleaming glass ceiling collapsed entirely, exposing a hideous skeleton of steel.

And beyond it — beyond a hazy curtain of mist or cloud — something was there.

Something vast, and merely vast.

Something so immense it defied all measure.

It existed like a mountain that had never once been conquered.

Like a god.

My legs stopped on their own.

The will to flee simply drained away.

So did the will to live, scraped rapidly down to nothing.

"What are you doing, Mister!"

At the sharp tug on my arm, I snapped awake and lowered my head.

Sol was pulling at me with a desperate face.

When I finally came to my senses and looked back, the corridor behind us was disgorging black shapes.

Screech— skreeeech—!

Crawling along the floor, scaling the walls, running on a single leg or on crushed shoulders — they came swarming.

I ran again with Sol toward the platform entrance.

The moment we set foot on the stairs down to the platform, the siren screamed.

WEEEEEOOOO—!

Perhaps because the ceiling had caved in, the roar pressed down on me heavier than ever.

Every cell in my body prickled; my brain boiled as if about to evaporate.

And through the suffocating pressure, I understood.

The thing sounding this siren — it was the thing in that sky.

As we thrashed helplessly, the siren cut off.

The child and I stared at each other with uneasy eyes.

It shouldn't be time yet.

But we had no chance even to wonder why the siren had come early.

SPLASH—!

A sound of liquid came from a shop beside the stairs.

I turned — blood was spilling across the floor.

…So someone had been hiding in there.

Made sense. Anyone holding a ticket had to pass through here to board the train.

I ran down the stairs with a feeling I couldn't put into words.

The black shapes had already flooded the entire waiting hall and were surging toward us.

There were far too many. Hundreds — no, thousands, probably.

We ran until our lungs burned, all the way down to the platform.

And then, the moment I saw where the train was, my breath caught again.

A hand was sprawled beside the train.

A colossal hand, one that made the railway look like a toy track.

At this point, I half suspected the rulebook was savoring my misfortune.

The Severed Stationmaster had the shape of an ordinary hand — except the forearm was neatly severed, and it was so enormous I could hardly bear to look at it directly.

But we couldn't stop.

The black shapes were right on our heels.

So we just kept running — even though we both knew.

There was only one ticket.

When we finally reached the train on the rails, I turned to look at Sol.

She was already looking at me.

She was winded to the top of her throat from matching my pace — and even so, her eyes stayed fixed on me.

Those young eyes, steeped in despair, trembled helplessly.

The black shapes reached the space just behind us.

There was no room left to hesitate.

Driven by instinct, I flung Sol off.

And she let go of me more easily than I'd expected — as if she'd known I would do this.

So I snatched her arm back.

And threw her into the train.

"Ah…!"

Shoved forward so suddenly, Sol lost her balance and fell, catching herself on the train floor before whipping her head around toward me.

"Pay it back later."

I couldn't quite manage a smile, but I said it to her anyway.

"To anyone. Doesn't have to be me."

Sol stared at me, dazed — then spotted the ticket lying at her feet and cried out in shock.

"Mister!"

That was the last thing I heard before the black shapes devoured me.

Everything went dark.

One moment I was burning hot; the next, a pressure unlike anything I had ever known was crushing me whole.

What followed after that was—

Back when I was still running, I had thought about it the whole way.

What I would do once I reached the train.

One thing was certain: whatever I chose, it would be my choice.

The ticket was mine. Lee Sol was not my family, not anything of mine — just a perfect stranger I'd met today, knowing nothing of her but her name.

And I had already helped her as much as anyone reasonably could.

No one could blame me for letting go here.

The choice was entirely mine to make, and I made it freely: between escaping and leaving a kid behind in hell and getting the kid out first, I picked the one I could stomach.

Not that the former was a bad choice.

I wouldn't dream of blaming anyone who chose it. If they lived long and well by doing so, that was their blessing to enjoy.

And if someone wanted to curse the latter option as hypocrisy, self-indulgence, or pointless meddling — fair enough.

If I'd had a family of my own, I probably wouldn't have chosen it either.

Besides, I was no hero or anything of the sort.

But every person carries their own story.

Mine included.

I'm simply the kind of person who does this.

I stood before two lousy options,

picked the one I disliked less,

and died for it.

That's all there was to it.

So I'd appreciate it if everyone would stop gawking and just let me rest — except this state I was in didn't seem to fit words like repose or eternal rest at all.

Why is death so damn noisy, I wondered, and heaved a long sigh.

"Hoooh…"

…Wait.

I was dead — how was I breathing? The moment the thought crossed my mind, my eyes opened.

What swam fuzzily into view was not some beautiful afterlife, but a white ceiling.

Then an unfamiliar voice reached me.

"Rescued party number twelve — consciousness restored."

Apparently, I was still alive.