Sounding disheartened, Rumi said, “If this is as fast as we can go, won’t he catch us any moment now? He said he’s going to kill us. What are we going to do?”
“Don’t talk like that, Rumi-chan. He’s stuck going slow, just like us. You can’t give up. We’ll just keep looking for a way out of here.”
They continued slowly into the unknown darkness.
For the first time, Mima appreciated just how unsettling the dark could be. There was nothing pleasant about the thought of that skinless monster pursuing them through the hazardous piles of boards and glass and scattered debris that had slowed them to a crawl. Yet still, she found the courage to press on, ever forward.
Several times, they heard a bump or clatter behind them. Each noise nearly sent their hearts leaping from their chests, but none of them seemed to come from their hunter.
Rumi let out a small yelp of surprise. Her hand had been following the wall, but it suddenly opened into empty space. She moved her hand around and determined it was some kind of doorway. The door had been left open.
Rumi sidled next to the frame and reached her arm around to feel along the inside wall. It wasn’t long until her fingers found a light switch.
“I’m turning on the light,” she said and did just that. The room lit up.
It was a locker room with large lockers lining the walls.
“Rumi-chan!” Mima hissed. She took the woman by the arm and pulled her inside the room. “You shouldn’t have turned on the lights. Now he’ll know where we are.”
Hope drained from Rumi’s face. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m going to lead him right to us. I’m sorry, Mima-san. I’m so sorry. Oh, what have I done…”
Mima held up a palm to cut her off. She spoke calmly. “Blaming yourself won’t get us anywhere. We’re going to hide in these lockers. We’ll lock them from the inside.”
The idol picked a nearby locker at random and got inside.
Though flustered, Rumi chose a locker for herself and latched it from the within. The two women stilled themselves and quieted their breathing.
The inside of Mima’s locker was dark and smelled strongly of rust and mildew. A few ventilation slits let in slashes of light and offered a full view of the locker room.
Both women watched nervously through the openings.
As they had feared, the man came in not long after.
Again, Mima was horror-stricken by the man’s ghastly appearance, red flesh exposed on face and body. Hunched over, shoulders rocking, with his crimson visage thrust forward, he seemed more demon than man. As he advanced into the room, step by ponderous step, he casually tapped the flat of his blade against his cheek. He appeared to be enjoying the sensation of the metal against his open flesh.
As if to himself, the man said, “This is where they decided to hide?” His voice leaked out from his nose and took on an unnatural quality. “They must be in these lockers. How dumb can you get? Of all the places they could have gone, they picked a room with nowhere to hide. Well, I guess I’ll just check the lockers one by one.”
He put his hand to the locker closest to the door. He grasped the handle and rattled it, while Mima watched through the air holes in her locker.
The man muttered, “It won’t open,” and began kicking at the compartment.
Then he put his knife up to a ventilation slit and pushed the blade inside.
Mima winced in imagined pain. Was he going to stick that knife into every locker?
The openings were precisely at eye level. Mima pictured his knife coming into her locker, body shivering.
Now he thrust the knife into the second locker.
The man grumbled, “Not in this one, either.”
It seemed he intended to perform that grim test on every locker in the room.
Mima had hidden herself in the sixth one from the door. The math was as simple as it was inescapable: four more and the knife would come for her.
More than anything, she wanted to scream, but she desperately fought down the urge. Her legs began to shake. Rumi’s locker was at a diagonal opposite hers. Inside that locker, Rumi likely faced the same maddening terror.
“Not in this one, either,” the man said, his voice sounding irritated, now.
He stood in front of the fourth locker and tried the handle. The door swung open with no resistance. The man clicked his tongue. “And not in this one.”
His hand was on the handle of the fifth locker. He yanked the door open.
He groaned. “Not in here.”
He turned his goggling eyes toward Mima, and their gaze met through the gaps in the locker door.
With heavy, inhuman breaths, he approached.
Mima held both hands tightly around the inside workings of the handle to keep it from moving. As before, the man rattled the handle. Mima held on with all her might, and somehow, somehow she managed to keep the door closed.
The man said, “I know you’re in there. Stop resisting and open that door.” As he kept furiously pulling at the handle, his voice raised to a shout. “Open it! Open it now!”
Mima held the handle closed, her life in her grasp. The metal dug into her fingers until they bruised and swelled. But Mima held her grip.
The man gave up. He released the handle, and then drove the tip of the knife through the ventilation holes.
Reflexively, Mima pressed herself into the back corner. The sharp edge of the blade rushed past her eyes and then back out again.
“I know you’re in there,” the man said. “If you don’t open that door right now, I’ll cut your face with this knife. You have nowhere to go, and I’m not leaving until you come out.”
Mima knew he was right. If she didn’t do something to change the situation, that knife was cutting into her one way or the other. She had to do something—but what?
Before Mima could finish the thought, the knife came through the center slat, and then again, and again. The blade scraped against the metal door with a terrible screech.
Mima made herself as small as she could, but there was only so much she could do.
Again and again, the knife’s tip passed perilously close to her forehead. Once, the blade even brushed her bangs.
The stress and fear had pushed Mima’s mind to the limit. Her nerves were an overinflated balloon, ready to burst at a single pinprick. If that knife pushed through those slits one more time, it could very well be the pin to end it all—to end her.
I’m trapped in this tiny locker, she thought. I have nowhere to run. Even if I had a way out, I hardly have the will to take it.
A desperate thought crossed her mind. If her fate was to be anointed by that killer’s knife while trapped in that locker, she’d rather open the door and face him. She’d rather put up a fight than silently await an inevitable death.
Having found her resolve, she began to turn the handle.
Just then, a crashing sound broke the silence. The man jumped in surprise before turning to the source of the disturbance. Mima looked the same direction.
The door of one locker, diagonally across, was standing open. Rumi stood within it, her eyes so wide they showed white all around.
She couldn’t handle it any longer, Mima thought. She couldn’t stay waiting in the darkness.
For a moment, Rumi’s sudden appearance had startled the man into stunned stillness, but he quickly recovered and came swinging the knife at Rumi.
Rumi’s wide eyes popped open even wider. She shrieked and flapped her arms like a chicken and fled from the locker room.
The man laughed through his lipless mouth and ran right after her.