---Bzzz bbzzzb--bzzzzzz---
“Sigh...”
I wasn’t sure if the voice was exasperated, or resigned.
“You found out, huh?”
That was the last thing Zonko said before falling silent.
“Zonko! Zonko!” I shook and pounded at the Skysensor, but there was no answer. The only sound from the speakers was static. “H-Haha... This is some kind of joke, right?”
Several days after the terrifying incident at Enmeiji, I’d skipped school and stayed home so I could decode the list I’d found in Sarai’s dad’s study.
The seventy-second name on the list was GAMON YUTA. At almost the same time, the announcer on TV began to read the names of the casualties from the 256 Incident—the 256 bodies pulled up from the water at Inokashira Lake.
The screen was showing the name “Yuta Gamon.”
“What the hell? I’m dead? No, no, no. There’s no way.” I tried to tell myself that it was just somebody who had the same name as I did, but after her last ominous words, Zonko wasn’t talking at all.
“Hey! You can hear me, right?! Zonko! Zonko!” I stared at Zonko’s face, but the anxious breaths from my nostrils spun the strap around so it turned its back to me. “What the hell is going on here?”
If my mom saw me right now, she’d probably think I’d gone insane. I was staring into the antique radio my dad had left me and screaming.
Who was Zonko? After all the talking we’d done, I’d started to think that she wasn’t a bad girl, but now I wasn’t even sure if she was on my side. Thinking back, she’d started talking to me out of nowhere. The first time she talked to me was— That’s right. In Dr. Hashigami’s room at Seimei University. When I was panicking after finding his body, the radio had suddenly come to life and helped me.
“Was she really saving me, though?”
She’d started talking a lot more after that, but she never talked when somebody else was around.
The name “Zonko” wasn’t her real name; it was just the name of the strap I’d attached to the Skysensor. It was of a character named Zonko from an anime called Master Mast Murder.
When I talked to her, it felt like I was talking to the strap, so I’d just taken to calling her that. I didn’t know her real name. From the sound of her voice, she was either my age or a little older.
There was another problem: I had no idea how she was talking to me through the Skysensor.
The Skysensor wasn’t a cellphone. It was a radio. It could only receive transmissions; it wasn’t a two-way thing. But somehow, I was able to talk to Zonko. And no matter where I was, she could give me instructions in real time, as if she were watching me somehow.
Nothing about her made any sense, but given the strange circumstances when we’d first met, I’d accepted her surprisingly easily. I’d had to, actually.
But...
---Bzzzzzt-bbzzzzzt
The only thing coming from the Skysensor now was static.
That’s how she always was. She’d just show up, say something, and then go silent without giving me any answers. She wouldn’t answer any questions I had at all. That was what I hated about her.
“Why aren’t you saying something? Is this one of those shows where they have a mystery and say, ‘We’ll reveal the answer right after these commercials!’?”
Those shows never revealed the answer after the break. You usually had to wait until next week. Stuff like that is really frustrating!
Still feeling stunned, I turned back towards the TV screen. The news was still reporting on the same story.
The 256 casualties from the 256 incident, they said, were gradually being identified. Two hundred had been found. The names of the victims—I didn’t know if that was the right word, since they might have been suicides—were scrolling across the screen in alphabetical order. I read each one in turn, forgetting to breathe. Maybe I’d only imagined hearing my own name.
Twenty names were being displayed on the screen at a time. The announcer would read each one, then the screen went on to the next twenty. The wait was agonizing. I realized my throat was parched. I told myself it was stupid to get this nervous, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.
After a few more sets of names, I found it again.
“Yuta Gamon.”
There was no mistaking it. The name was right there.
“Breaking news! It turns out... I’m definitely dead!”
I found myself standing up and dancing for no reason.
“Wahoo!” I shouted.
I’d seen mistaken broadcasts like this turn into a big deal online a bunch of times, but I never thought it would happen to me. This could be one of the biggest stories of my life. If anything, I wanted to update the blog right away.
Well, that would have meant putting my real name online, though, so no way that was happening!
“Man, talk about an LOL. This may even qualify as an ROFLMAO, it’s so weird.”
One of the victims of the 256 incident had the same name I did. Talk about a strange coincidence. I couldn’t make too big a deal out of it, though. It wouldn’t be fair to the other Yuta Gamon.
“Or maybe I’m the one who’s died... Nah, that’s impossible!”
I mean, I was watching TV right now. And the 256 incident happened days ago. I’d been alive like normal then. I was doing stuff like going to Café☆Blue Moon and drinking Master Izumin’s nasty tea, or updating Kirikiri Basara. And then after Sarai had chased me, I’d gone to his house and found the encoded list hidden in his ceiling. After that, I’d been there to see what happened to Myu-Pom’s friends. I remembered hearing her scream. It was a scream filled with despair that still echoed in my ears...
“.........Ugh.”
I remembered the scraps of red flesh in the wooden box and put my hand over my mouth. Myu-Pom seemed sure about what that was... but it sure didn’t look human to me. There was so little left that it was impossible to tell what it was. There was no way that could have been a person. And who was that pale boy who’d escaped?
It wasn’t that I couldn’t believe it, it was just... Yeah. It was impossible. The one thing I did remember, though, was the awful smell.
“And since remembering that smell makes me want to throw up, that means I’m alive. Q.E.D.”
Who cares if my name was on TV? Who cares if my name was on Dr. Hashigami’s list? It made a lot more sense to think that somebody with my name had been killed instead of me.
...It did, right? I mean, that explained why the name appeared on both lists.
“............”
I started to feel really cold all of a sudden and began to pace around the room.
“This is all because Zonko won’t tell me anything!”
I decided to start by proving I was alive.
That was easy. I could just pinch my cheek.
“Owww!”
It hurt! That really hurt!
“I’ve proven I’m alive! Q.E.D.! Q.E.D.!” There, that settled that.
No, wait. I needed more. I wanted more proof that I was alive. Maybe it would be better for my mental health if I went somewhere instead of just sitting in my room all day.
“...I’ll go ask Mom.” I walked out of the room on shaking, unsteady legs.
The calendar said it was spring, but the living room was freezing cold. Did somebody leave the air conditioner on? I rubbed my arms to warm myself up, but it didn’t do any good.
“Well, you know what this means, right? If I feel cold, it’s because I’m alive,” I said, to no one in particular, but in my mind I was thinking something else.
Is it cold because I’m dead?
If that was the case, then maybe it didn’t mean I was alive. Maybe I was just trying to run from reality.
...No, no, no. That’s overthinking it.
“Mom,” I called out, but of course, there was nobody in the living room. “...Oh, I guess she’d be out at this hour.”
Mom was always busy at work. She left earlier than I did in the morning, and she didn’t get back until very late. Sometimes I thought she might be a workaholic.
I thought it would be easy to prove I was alive, but I’d already run into a stumbling block.
Grr... What now?
“I know! The phone!” I called my mom’s number on my cellphone. If I could place phone calls, that meant I was alive. Yet another Q.E.D.! But just in case, I wanted to hear my mom’s voice.
“.........”
But the ringing sound was quickly replaced with the voice of an answering machine. She was at work, and she wouldn’t pick up at this hour. There was nothing unusual about that, but...
This was getting frustrating. I wanted something that would give me solid, unassailable proof.
At this point, I’d just have to go outside...
“Okay, I’ll go to Blue Moon!”
Master Izumin and Ryotasu should both be there. Maybe Sarai would be there, too. If I could see them and talk to them, that would prove it!
Proving that you’re alive is surprisingly difficult, I thought to myself as I left the house. I wanted to see somebody’s face so bad that I was willing to drink one of Master Izumin’s “lucky drinks” if I had to.
“Ugh...”
I went outside, my eyes squinting in the spring sunlight. The sun was dazzlingly bright. Somehow, this made me feel so much safer. It was cold in the house, but the sunlight was warm.
After what had happened with Myu-Pom, it felt like the only thing I could do was work on decoding the list, so it had been a long time since I’d left the house. I hadn’t slept that much, either. For that matter, I couldn’t remember eating. Had I just been that dedicated to my work?
“Yup! I’m alive! I am TOTALLY alive!” I raised out my hands in a pose like GLAY would do, but then realized that people might be staring and stopped. “.........”
I started to walk towards Kichijoji Station, but as I walked along by myself, in silence, I couldn’t help but think about what had just happened.
Dr. Hashigami’s list had had 256 names on it, as if he’d predicted the 256 incident.
The names almost entirely matched the released list of victims of the 256 incident.
My name had been on both lists. Why?
Were the people who died in the 256 incident murdered, instead of committing suicide? Had Dr. Hashigami somehow found a list of people who were going to be killed? Was that why some evil organization had killed him?