“GIVE IT BACK…”
✦ ✦ ✦
A voice behind her made Chika spin around with a start.
She knew that voice. She recognized the strange, drawn-out cadence. It was the person who had called out to her from behind the fence five years ago. But nothing could have prepared her for what that “person” actually looked like.
“THAT’S MY FLOWER… I TOOK IT… I GREW IT… GIVE IT BACK TO ME…”
✦ ✦ ✦
At first glance, the speaker appeared to be a girl in a kimono.
Except it definitely wasn’t. The thing’s overall body shape looked human enough, but its skin was the texture of glazed clay—smooth in some places, cracked in others, with an unnatural sheen. And in the middle of its face were two tiny clear orbs, more like something that had simply been painted on than real eyes.
“What…are you?”
“I AM THE OWNER OF THIS GARDEN… I THINK…YES, HUMANS CALL ME…THE FLOWER THIEF.”
Chika couldn’t move. She was paralyzed with fear. The thing in the kimono—the Flower Thief—made a dry, cackling keh-keh-keh noise from the back of its throat. It was laughing.
“SO CRUEL, DON’T YOU THINK…? I NEVER STOLE ANYTHING… HUMANS GIVE ME THEIR UNWANTED EMOTIONS…AND I TURN THEM INTO THESE BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS…”
It made that dry, scraping keh-keh-keh again. As the creature laughed, Chika gritted her teeth.
In a way, I guess she’s right… Five years ago, I didn’t want my anger. I wanted to get rid of it. That’s why I gave it to her when she asked. But…but still…
Chika clenched her fists and glared at the Flower Thief.
“You’ve got some nerve, taking advantage of desperate, vulnerable children. You make them feel like they have no choice but to get rid of their emotions. They’re not giving them away; you’re taking them! People are right to call you a thief!”
Her anger had been stolen from her five years ago. A part of herself had been ripped away, all to give this monster something pretty to look at. Thinking about that made Chika angrier than ever. This was her emotion, her anger. It wasn’t just some decoration for somebody else to enjoy!
“NEVER MIND THAT… GIVE IT BACK…!”
The Flower Thief shrugged off Chika’s argument completely.
She’s not going to listen to me, huh…?
In that case, there was no point trying to continue this conversation any further.
Chika turned around and ran. The flower garden was surrounded by the same weathered wooden fence she’d seen before. But after a few seconds, she found a door that seemed to lead outside. She sprinted toward it, threw it open, and scrambled out.
“Where am I now…?”
Outside the flower garden, she found herself among familiar scenery. A mountainous landscape full of plants and trees growing wild…
She was back outside the school!
Chika paused for a moment and looked behind her. The Flower Thief had lumbered out of the garden and was coming after her.
Darn it, Chika thought. I should have gone out through the gap in the fence instead.
The thief didn’t have a Gap Entry Ticket, so it would have been impossible for it to follow her that way.
Now that I’ve got her out here in the mountains…
Chika suddenly remembered something she’d found while exploring this area.
If I lure her over there… If I can just get there before her, then…
She took the ticket out of her pocket and, holding on tight so she wouldn’t drop it, ran for the place she had in mind. That gentle upward slope covered in fallen leaves… It wasn’t so far away from where she’d come out, and she managed to make it there before the Flower Thief caught up to her.
She leaped to the top of the slope with a quick jump, then stopped and turned around. The Flower Thief was still chasing her, scuttling forward on all fours like some kind of animal. It would catch up any second now.
The strange creature lunged at Chika. Its mouth was open, a deep red gash in the middle of its face. Its unnaturally long fingers reached out for her, their sharp nails glinting like knives. But just before they could touch her…
“Take this!” Chika screamed, shoving her Gap Entry Ticket into the monster’s kimono.
The next moment, there was a metallic clang. The Flower Thief’s feet had come down heavily on the metal bars hidden by the fallen leaves.
And then—shwsh!—the power of the ticket made the thief’s body shrink and slip through the bars. It plummeted down into the ink-black void of the old well, letting out a screech that sounded more insect-like than anything a human could make. The whole thing took just a few seconds.
Panting hard, Chika leaned over the bars and yelled into the darkness:
“That’s what you get!”