“Wha—?!” Hearing Kousuke as he let out a weird sound, I wondered what was going on and opened my eyes.
The double doors that led to the surface, in which a fire was wildly raging: looking up at them, it looked like a panel cut out of some manga.
Finally, the lightbulbs lost their energy, and the control room became dim. Only the fire raging outside seemed awfully bright.
The mostly beautiful scene of fire was suddenly obstructed, and our surroundings were enclosed in darkness. It was dark enough that I couldn’t see at all.
Something was looking in at us: at Kousuke and I, who were fighting desperately to stay alive.
Past the square-cut door, someone was lying down on the surface, and looking down on us, resting her chin in her palm.
“TV girl.” Quietly, her name spilled out of my mouth.
Right over there was that incomprehensible existence that I’d met right after arriving in this place, in the same merry-go-round that was above us. It seemed like a little girl, but her head was a TV; she had way too many arms, and, somehow, she wore the same high school uniform that we did.
Currently, she’s looking down at us like she’s seen something rare and curious. There’s a huge fire raging about all around her, but she doesn’t seem to care at all.
The TV girl’s black screen displayed that same strange sideways emoji. It was laughing, even in this situation.
“W-what is that thing...? You called her... ‘TV girl?’” Kousuke was understandably daunted, but I didn’t have the answer to his question. ‘A strange lifeform that I saw earlier’ doesn’t mean anything, after all.
“No, I’m just calling her that. It looks like she isn’t human... B-but why is she here?”
“Hmm, so she’s kind of like the smartbug? They show up occasionally, monsters like this— ones that aren’t like normal animals. This is the first one I’ve seen in the shape of a human, though.” Kousuke muttered something under his breath before remembering the situation we were in and climbing the ladder once more.
Right now, we need to put making it out of here alive before anything else, but the TV girl is camped out on the only exit out of this control room. I don’t think she’ll attack us— she doesn’t seem to have that much interest in us— but she is physically in the way. While she’s still there, we can’t get out.
At the very least, I tried calling out to her. “Excuse me! Can you please move?!”
“Does that thing understand words?” Kousuke asked something very appropriate. The TV girl is still unresponsive— words probably don’t work on her— but there’s nothing else I can do.
It probably wasn’t the TV girl following my words, but... As if she simply didn’t like that we were getting closer to her, she moved back slightly as we approached. Taking advantage of that small gap, Kousuke started climbing the ladder with me still under his arm.
He’s pretty dextrous, because I’m just dead weight here. But I can’t say, “Don’t treat me like a child. I’ll climb the ladder myself,” after I let myself be carried all this time. Plus, even if I did so I’d only get in Kousuke’s way, too. It’s pretty pleasant being carried, I thought, and we leapt onto the surface in the blink of an eye.
Our surroundings were awash with fire. The headless horses were almost completely burnt up, looking like pitch-black monsters that had donned a cloak of flame. The surrounding fires made it so hot that the water in my eyes evaporated in a moment, making it hard to see. I coughed, and gasped for air.
“Umm—” For a moment, it seemed as if Kousuke didn’t know which way to run. The hot, burning wind mercilessly evaporated the water which soaked our clothes and the towels on our heads, taking away our lifelines, and every second, death came closer.
If we just hurry up and break out of the fire wherever, though, everything should be fine, but the situation just isn’t that simple. We can’t see the ground too well... If we were to trip on something, there’s no way we would be able to recover. There’s no choice but to carefully pick out the route with the highest chance of success.
“Oh...?” With a surprised look, Kousuke looked off in a direction. I followed his gaze.
At the end of it, the TV girl was leisurely walking around. Even though she, herself, was a very mysterious being, her actions were ones that I was very used to seeing— those of a normal girl.
Girls of my age, when we group up, tend to party and get noisy like we’re setting off fireworks. But when we’re alone, we tend to walk briskly without a word, like we’ve got too much time on our hands. We would always be quickly moving— from a dark and quiet, or boring, place, to places which were always lively.
“Oh, it’s her. Hey~! Where are you going?!” Kousuke called out to her, but the TV girl ignored him and kept walking with haste, without even looking back. It’s not like she was trying to lead us somewhere... It might just be a coincidence, but the fire seemed to be afraid of the TV girl, as it seemed to be trying to keep its distance, but only around her.
So, our safest route was wherever she was walking. Kousuke must have reached the same conclusion, because he haughtily said, “It’ll be bad if you breathe in too much smoke, so keep your mouth shut.” Right after, he dashed over in her direction. His strides were very long, and he quickly overtook the TV girl.
The girl herself didn’t mind us, and kept walking at her own pace. She was about my height, so compared to the fairly tall Kousuke, she seemed quite weak. She was a small girl. From Kousuke’s point of view, I probably seem this small, too.
Her screen was no longer displaying that sideways emoji. Instead, on the TV girl’s black screen, my own face was reflected like a mirror. Surprised, I opened my eyes wide enough to be circles. I felt an unusual sense of discomfort, like I was staring down my doppelganger, but that was only for an instant.
Kousuke made a beeline out of the fire without caring about the TV girl, just as she didn’t seem to care about us. He probably plans to keep running at this speed until we’ve reached somewhere safe, I thought. Carrying me like precious cargo, he looked just a little bit like the heroes he so admired as we escaped from that catastrophe.
Meanwhile, I had my eyes glued to the TV girl. She caressed her own face— or screen, which had turned black, with her fingertips. Static ran across the screen, and it put on a wide, open pair of eyes that looked very much like a living being’s.
Our eyes met. No, I thought, maybe those are only my eyes reflected on her screen?
Quickly, there was a lot of distance put between us, and I lost sight of her among the smoke and flames.