Malice. (5)
Uh... should I make for a Shelter?
No—of course I should. The alarm was going off. Running for a Shelter was the obvious move.
I clicked my tongue under my breath and tugged the child's hand.
"Let's head for a Shelter for now."
"O-okay...!"
Where was the nearest one around here, anyway?
Since things had already gone this far, I decided I might as well duck into a Shelter and gorge myself on human despair while I was at it. A good way to reset a palate that had gotten thoroughly weird from all that ice cream.
Huh.
Just as I was about to step out of the mart, something strange caught my eye.
While every other customer was bolting for the exits, a handful of people were instead pushing deeper into the building.
Was the Shelter too far away, so they were trying to hide in here instead?
Hiding in a place like this wouldn't keep them safe from monsters.
Beasts that hunted by sensing despair weren't going to lose track of a human just because that human held their breath and tucked themselves into a corner. People in this world knew that—knew it well enough that they drilled for the alarm, trained to run for a Shelter the moment it sounded. And yet these ones were heading inside?
Suspicious enough that I turned my steps away from the exit and started following the ones disappearing into the building.
"U-Unnie... where are we going?"
"I think I've found somewhere safer."
I looked at the door labeled Emergency Stairs, and the corner of my mouth curled up.
It wasn't an exit to the outside, and the building didn't even have a basement—so why put emergency stairs on the first floor at all?
Must be a private bolt-hole for the important people.
The rich had always fretted more about their own skins than anyone else's. And once a Shelter had been breached by monsters even once, ordinary Shelters stopped being any kind of guarantee. Better to take the child into the kind of Shelter the higher-ups used than to drag her all the way to a public one.
Clack. Clack—
"Unnie, I think the door's locked..."
"Ah... looks like you pull it, not push."
Screeeeee—clunk—
See? Opened just fine.
The lock was completely wrecked and dangling loose, but open was open. Problem solved!
"Unnie, I'm scared..."
"Shh. It's all right. This is still better than getting eaten by a monster."
The stairs that wound down into the dark must have unnerved her; the child was trembling hard enough to rattle.
Mmm. A child's despair really did taste good.
If a kid like this ever became a magical girl and served me despair properly... that would be wonderful.
"Here. I'm right beside you, so try to relax."
"O-okay..."
The way she clung to a monster's words and tried so hard to calm herself was genuinely adorable.
What if I suddenly asked, Do I still look like the unnie you know? and twisted my neck ninety degrees? She'd probably faint on the spot from pure shock.
Click—click—click—
...These stairs go on longer than I expected.
Just how desperately safe did someone want to be, to bury a Shelter this deep?
Or, thinking about it, maybe this was what a standard Shelter was supposed to look like.
Knock-knock—
"Hellooo~ Is anyone in there~?"
At the bottom of the spiraling stairs waited nothing but a small iron door. The "Authorized Personnel Only" placard and the hazardous-materials sticker stuck to it were a little odd, but having come this far, turning back felt silly. So I knocked first.
Open up, door. If you don't, I'm coming in the hard way.
"...Unnie, maybe this one is pull too."
"Hmm. Feels like push this time."
Screee...
This door was a bit sturdier.
When I gave it a casual shove, it screamed but still refused to break, and I found myself a little impressed. A door this solid... even a Shelter's fifth-floor bunker door hadn't felt quite this tough.
Grrrrrind—
"Pardon the intrusion."
If you want to live, living together is so much better, don't you think?
Curious what kind of faces the humans inside would make, I stepped in without delay.
Just how nice was this Shelter, that only a select few were allowed in?
"...There's no one here?"
But inside, I couldn't find so much as a scrap of a human presence. Only inscrutable machinery and long corridors stretching away into the dark.
And more than that—this feeling.
A strange, familiar, déjà-vu sensation pricked along my skin.
"Unnie, this place is weird..."
"It is. Doesn't seem like a Shelter, for one thing..."
For a Shelter, it was cluttered with all kinds of junk—and the things draped under heavy cloths only made the atmosphere more sinister.
Had we walked into somewhere we weren't supposed to be?
Do not approach the containment tubes.
Test subjects may become agitated.
...Test subjects?
A placard stuck to the front of one of the big cloths. The ominous words written on it made me tilt my head.
Something about this smelled. And it was a very familiar smell.
Fwoosh—
"U-Unnie...!"
"This is..."
A monster? No—a human?
...A mon-man?
Something half human and half beast floated inside a massive containment tube.
Blub-blub-blub...
"Eek—i-it moved...!"
"It didn't move. And relax. I'm right here, aren't I?"
"O-okay..."
I soothed the child and took a step closer to the tube.
I felt like I'd seen this somewhere before—or was that just my imagination? The kind of thing I'd seen so often I'd almost forgotten it.
I hummed under my breath and edged a little nearer—and then:
Oh. Its eyes opened.
"...!!!!"
I let out a small sound of admiration as the creature locked its wide eyes on me. The other party, for its part, did not look like it was in any mood for admiration; it only rolled its eyes this way and that, face packed full of confusion. The look of something that had no idea why it was locked up in a place like this.
Hmm—
"How did you end up trapped in here?"
"..."
I could feel the despair. Overwhelming despair.
It couldn't compare to a magical girl's, but it was more than enough to serve as kindling for a Despair Circuit.
To wake up and find your body fused with a monster's—what would that feel like? Terrifying. Horrifying, without a doubt.
"U-uwaaaah..."
"It's all right. It's okay. Shh... I'm here."
"...!! ...! ...!!"
In the end the child broke down at the sight of that awful form, and I scooped her up and patted her back in slow circles.
Ahh, honestly. If she cried like that, I was going to lose control of the corners of my mouth.
I convulsed a little trying to force my smile down, and the creature in the tube started working its mouth at me in frantic little gulps.
I can't understand a word, but it looks desperately urgent.
Blub-blub-blub-blub—
Its pupils were half-blown, too. Exactly the reaction a human would have if some unidentifiable monster appeared in front of them.
Looking like that, who exactly was it so startled by?
"Do you want to get out of there?"
"...! ...!!"
"I can't hear a thing you're saying. All right then—just nod. I'll get you out."
Eyes full of fear and expectation, mixed together.
Hope alone would have been revolting enough to make me sick—but the despair that bloomed in the cracks of that faint hope was nothing short of beautiful.
A delicacy. An absolute delicacy. Don't tell me there were more of these things buried underground?
Slurp—
Ugh, just imagining it makes my mouth water...
I set my hand on top of the tube as the creature nodded with grim resolve.
Why did it want out so badly? Because it was trapped? Or because it had something to do outside?
People will treat it like a monster for sure. Is it really all right with that?
I probably shouldn't say this, but even to me—someone already a little removed from ordinary human sensibility—the creature in front of me was, to put it plainly, repulsive. The kind of face that would make you gag on sight if it showed up at the dinner table. Things that were neither one thing nor the other always inspired nothing but disgust.
Crack—
"This was your choice. So handle what comes of it yourself."
Shaaaatter—!!!
The tube shattered, and the creature spilled out onto the floor.
It was a lot like the feeling I'd had when I pulled Tamako out of her tube—except none of that same emotion came with it this time. Looking at this one, I was starting to think appearance really did matter after all. If the despair had been delicious enough to make me forget how it looked, maybe... but otherwise, I couldn't see any reason to help it any further.
"Ghk—ghaah... kkh..."
It was making agonized sounds, as if even breathing hurt.
Have some despair before it gets any worse. Go on. Despair.
I was a little curious what a half-human, half-monster ate to stay alive, but half of it was a beast, so it probably fed on despair. Of course, to eat any, it would have to get outside first.
Escape clinging to the hope that it survived—only to be treated like a monster the moment people see what it's become...
...Just imagining it was a feast.
For a second I was tempted to follow the creature out, but I managed to rein the craving in with the thought that this was only the beginning. Deeper down, there would surely be things far worse than this one.
And those would absolutely—
—absolutely turn out to be delicacies I couldn't even imagine.
So for now, I would go deeper.
I swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth and started walking further into the underground.
This place felt like a banquet hall prepared just for me.