“So I guess I’m just dancing to Zonko’s tune. I’m not an ‘I danced it’ video dancer, I’m the admin of an aggregator blog now.”
Yesterday, Zonko had suddenly started talking on a whim and had told me where the bodies were being kept. I stayed up all night, uncertain of what to do. By afternoon, I finally made the decision to head to Daiseiji.
As I got near the temple, I saw more and more people. A lot of parked cars, too. Normally, this was just a residential area, but now there were cars parked up against all the gates to the yards. I could tell from the places listed on the license plates that they didn’t belong to the locals. Some of them were from out of town. All the people out walking were heading for the same place. Everybody looked solemn, and they were all pointing their heads down.
I joined with the crowd and headed to the temple.
In front of the temple were a bunch of media and several guards. People who’d come to see if the bodies of their family members were here were being confronted by merciless flash photography and requests for interviews. I didn’t see any gawkers. Probably nobody wanted to come to a play like this...
“It’s going to be pretty hard to get in here...” What was I supposed to do if someone from the media shoved a microphone in my face? Even if I said, “No Comment,” they’d still probably follow me around everywhere. And I certainly couldn’t tell them I’d come to see my own body.
Maybe I should just go home...
I was scared now, so I turned to go.
“Where are you going?”
I heard another staticky voice from the Skysensor again. She really only talked when it helped her, didn’t she?
“Um, well... you know?”
“I know what?”
“Um...”
“So if you run here, what will you do next? Keep clinging to the impossible wish that you’re not really dead?”
“If I tell Sarai or Toko about this place—”
“What, you’ll ask them to see if your body’s here? But even if they tell you it is, you’re probably not going to believe them, are you? It’s really important to see things with your own eyes. It shoves reality in your face so you can’t deny it.”
“You’re talking like you’re certain my body is here.”
“Go see for yourself if it’s certain or not! Jeez, you’re such a pain!”
“It’s not easy to admit that you’re dead, okay?” I realized I was talking louder than I wanted to and quickly put my hand over my mouth. Even if there were a lot of media here, the area around us was quiet. If I talked loudly, it would echo pretty far.
Calm down. Don’t let Zonko manipulate you anymore.
“Just go inside, okay?” she said.
“I don’t want the media to see me...”
“Nobody’s going to be noticing you now. You’re dead, after all. Hahaha!”
That’s not funny.
Was Zonko doing this deliberately, knowing it would piss me off? But just like Zonko said, if I went home now, there would have been no point in coming. And if I went inside, it would give me a good story for Kirikiri Basara.
Screw whether it was appropriate or not. Hit counts were all that mattered.
“F-Fine... I’ll do it!” I charged into the row of cameras.
Daiseiji had a big gate, but it was closed right now, and the only way in was the service entrance right next to it. That’s what everyone was using. Maybe it was to keep out the media. There were several guards at the gate who were questioning people who went in. It looked like the media weren’t being allowed to pass.
I got right behind an old couple and pretended to be part of their family. Nobody questioned me as I went through the entrance. Evidently, they weren’t checking people very thoroughly to keep the media and pranksters out. Or maybe they couldn’t see me at all...
The temple hall was right past the entrance. I could see gloomy-looking people go in and out. Nobody was wearing funeral clothes, but it sure felt like a funeral. Just breathing the air made me want to throw up.
At the back of a hall was an eerie, black Buddha statue. The statue was looking down silently on rows and rows of coffins.
There were so many... white wooden coffins... All their lids were open so that the bodies inside could be seen. They were... real bodies...
But compared to the bodies of Dr. Hashigami, or Myu-Pom’s friend Chi, they were in much better condition, so it wasn’t scary at all.
If my body was here, was it still in one piece, too? That made me feel just a little better. I didn’t want to see myself with my face all messed up, or my limbs ripped off, or maybe my whole body unrecognizable to begin with.
“No, no... There’s no way... There’s no way I’m... here...” I wanted to run away. But my legs were drawn forward as if something were pulling me closer.
Suddenly, I saw a tiny girl stuffing her hand into one of the coffins in front of me. She was my age. She looked so pale that I almost imagined that she was one of the corpses who had gotten up and was walking around. Was she part of one of the families?
Right behind her was a gruff-looking older man who was watching over her with a worried expression. I took a closer look and saw that there was a big plastic bag on top of the coffin. I recognized what was inside.
The Skysensor!
For a second I though my heart had turned to ice. I quickly looked down at my chest. I was carrying the Skysensor, like I always did. It was slung over my shoulder in its usual place. That meant that whoever’s Skysensor that was, it belonged to somebody else. Not many people had a retro radio like that these days, but the number probably wasn’t zero.
That’s right. It wasn’t zero. That wasn’t mine. But I realized...
There was a Zonko tied to the Skysensor’s strap.
“H-How...”
This was impossible.
Impossible.
Run. You can’t stay here.
Don’t look at anything else.
That’s what my instincts were warning me.
But I couldn’t. My eyes turned on their own to the inside of the coffin the girl was sticking her hand into.
I shouldn’t have looked. It didn’t feel real at all. But even so, I froze in horror at the undeniable truth in front of me.
Inside the coffin... was my own body, pale like the color of clay...
“Th-That’s me...” I said, and the girl looked up at me suddenly.
Our eyes met.
Did she... hear my voice?
“You...?” The girl tried to talk to me, and then passed out and fell to the ground like a limp doll.
“H-Hey! What’s wrong? Kizaki!” the scary guy behind her shouted in surprise. He called over the police officers and had her taken to another room.
But I wasn’t interested in that girl at all. I looked back at the body’s face.
It was me. There was no mistaking it. I was dead after all.
There was no denying it now. No making excuses. I’d found my own body.
This wasn’t a dream.
Something caught in the back of my throat, and I couldn’t breathe.
“Ah... aaah...” Dead.
I was dead.
“Aaah...” I cradled my head in my hands.
Somebody, please tell me it isn’t true.
Tell me this is all some elaborate candid-camera thing.
Tell me that the body is just some elaborate thing made of wax.
“Aaaah—”
“Gamon!”
I gasped as somebody shook me by the shoulders. Toko and Sarai were next to me.
“Gamon... You saw it, huh?” Toko rubbed my upper arm gently. Her face was solemn.
Sarai was much quieter than usual, too. “Both Miss Sumikaze and I found our own as well.”
That one sentence told me everything I needed to know.
They were here. In this place.
Sarai’s body. Toko’s body.
“Miyuu’s coffin is here as well.”
Even Myu-Pom...
I could feel the strength draining from my body.
There was another coffin just behind me that I only barely managed to avoid slamming into. I recognized the body in it, too. I gasped as I looked at the nametag.
Shun Moritsuka.
That cosplaying jerk detective. That explained it. It had been after the 256 incident when I talked to him.
“Ha... hahaha....”
I’d come here because Zonko had told me to, but I didn’t think she was really telling the truth. Until I’d seen my own body, I’d held out some tiny shred of hope. I told myself there was no way I really was dead. There was no way my body was here. It was all just some big mistake.
“Th-This is all a lie. It’s a dream.” Even if my heart had given up, I was still saying words of denial. “Come on, Sarai, this has to be a dream, right? It’s not real, right? This isn’t even ‘occult’ anymore!”
Sarai didn’t answer. He was looking down at his feet, exhausted.
Come on, stop. Sarai, don’t make that face.
“Come on, use your logic like you always do! It doesn’t even matter if you’re right or not! Come on, just rip this apart! Please, Sarai!”
But neither Sarai nor Toko said a word. And none of the other bodies, and none of the other people, reacted to my scream.