It seemed so easy.
Go to Musashino Police Station and ask where the bodies from the Inokashira Lake incident were being kept. That was all I had to do.
“A member of my family was on the list of victims. I want to identify them. Please tell me where they are.”
That was all I had to say. I couldn’t think of a reason why they’d refuse.
But...
When I went to Musashino Station, nobody I talked to would answer me.
Nobody heard me. They ignored me like I wasn’t even there. All I ended up doing was reinforcing the theory that I was dead.
Even in this state, there were probably other ways to get information. I could use the phone, it seemed, so I could pretend to be a family member and call the station. Or maybe I could use my dad’s connections in the media to find out, if I had to.
But I felt like if I didn’t put it off until tomorrow, I wasn’t going to last. I was more tired than I thought I was. I started to think about whether it was due to psychological exhaustion or because I was dead, and I stopped.
There was no point in thought experiments like those.
In the end, by the time I got back home, I was exhausted. When I got inside, my mom was sitting in the living room on the first floor. She was sitting in the middle of the room with the lights off.
She looked like she’d aged even more over the last few days. It hurt to see her like that. I wanted to talk to her, but I already knew she couldn’t hear me.
I fled up to the second floor. My father’s study was a mess, with the notes I’d written and my father’s books scattered all over the floor. I’d locked myself in the room and worked on decoding the list. I knew I had to clean it up, but right now I didn’t feel like it.
I looked up at the ceiling again. The countless dots there were a list of the 256 names. But at this point, there was no point to the list... maybe. I didn’t want to admit it, but the more time passed, the more the names on the list and the victims matched up.
“Maybe my name is here, too...” I shook my head to drive the cold I suddenly felt away.
“...Dad. The research you poured your life into is being called a conspiracy by people who don’t have any scientific evidence at all.”
I’d been one of them, once. Right now, I didn’t know if my dad was right or not. But I did have the list. It was clear that my dad knew something. That’s why I wanted to talk to my dad now, to reveal the truth.
Of course, if I really was a ghost, then maybe Dad was out there somewhere, and I could talk to him.
...How stupid. Was I starting to believe in the occult, too?
“Where’d my dad get this list, anyway? And who was he hoping would find it?”
It didn’t do anybody any good hidden here, especially now that the incident was over. Did my dad die trying to protect this thing?
“The only time people get killed for conspiracies is in fiction. Or did he want to leave this riddle so someone could solve it? Why go through all the trouble? Did he want to be the hero of some tragic play or something?”
I thought he was more intelligent than that. He was more like a character in a third-rate novel. Did he understand how frustrating this was?
“Come on, Dad. It’s not fair for me to be the only one talking here. Come on out and prove it. Prove I’m wrong. This time, I’ll prove all of your ridiculous theories... wrong.”
...Damn it.
I bit my lip and left the study. The fact that I was letting emotions like these threaten to crush me made me want to vomit.
After spending so much time with Gamon, Aikawa, and Miss Sumikaze, maybe I’d started to change. Or maybe now that I was just static particles with no body, that was having an effect on me. There was also the possibility that I wasn’t me anymore, just another, similar personality. Maybe I just hadn’t noticed it.
“Even thinking that is a stupid conspiracy theory.”
I went to my room and collapsed on the bed. Usually my mattress creaked, but today it didn’t.