Chapter 45: Chapter 35: Chaisi: The First Resident He Saw

In the beginning, the hospital room was a revolving door of people.

Strange faces came and went, their features quickly blurring together until Chaisi couldn’t tell one from another. He remembered traffic cops, nurses, doctors, detectives, social workers... Every fleshy, indistinct face would open its mouth and pour out an endless tide of questions.

Who is your mother?

Where did you get on the highway?

Did you notice the car door? Was it closed? Did she jump out?

What about your father? Oh, you’ve never met him?

Do you have any other relatives then?

Other than being able to answer, "My mother’s name is Daiju Monroe," Chaisi couldn’t respond to a single question.

Chaisi used to sometimes imagine he had a father—a CIA agent working deep undercover abroad, or maybe a top scientist on a secret project that kept them apart. They were the ordinary fantasies of a child.

But during those days, Chaisi, his arm in a cast, sat alone on the hospital bed. He watched one stranger after another come in and out, leaving behind snacks, empty paper coffee cups, cigarette butts, business cards, and countless questions...

In the face of reality, all his old, naive fantasies fell away, like he was shedding a shell he had long since outgrown.

"It’s just me," he told the police officer. "I’m the only one at home now."

One day, he overheard a few people talking by the door. To a child, it was hard to tell if they were police, social workers, or something else entirely.

"I’ve been in this line of work for decades, and I’ve never seen a mom just take off like that," a middle-aged man said, chewing on tobacco. "Parents who leave in the morning and never come back, that’s common enough... but how could she just vanish from a car crash?"

"It’s bizarre. There’s nothing at the scene to indicate how she disappeared," said a younger-looking man. "Ironically, though, if she hadn’t suddenly vanished, the kid probably would’ve ended up with more than just a broken arm."

"Oh, right, you mentioned that before. Something about the direction of the car?"

"Yeah. You know how they say that in an emergency, drivers will instinctively turn the wheel to the left, putting the passenger side in the path of the impact? That’s not always true; some drivers will swerve toward the bigger opening. But in this specific accident, the kid’s mom had no choice but to turn left—"

Because to the right was a cliff.

The answer surfaced in Chaisi’s mind at the same moment the middle-aged man let out a sound of understanding.

"She probably vanished from the driver’s seat before she could turn the wheel, or just as she started to. Her hands came off, and the steering wheel snapped back to center, right? According to the kid, when he realized his mom was gone, he instinctively grabbed for the wheel... That made the car swerve slightly to the right—just enough, but not so much that it smashed through the guardrail and went off the cliff. It was the perfect amount, actually, leaving the kid with only the lightest of injuries. It’s like a miracle."

"He’s really lucky," the middle-aged man began, then stopped himself. "...No, you can’t say he’s lucky. Only five years old, and he’s got no father and no mother. What happens now?"

"His mother has a distant great-aunt in Blackmoor City who agreed to come look after him for a few days," a third person chimed in. "But whether she’s willing to become his long-term guardian is hard to say... If she’s not, the kid will have to be sent to an orphanage or a foster home."

On the third day, Chaisi was discharged from the hospital with a broken arm in a cast and a bill he had no idea what to do with.

His great-aunt was quite old. Her glasses were always sliding to the tip of her nose, and she would start dozing off as soon as it hit eight o’clock. Neither she nor Chaisi knew how to act around the other. The small, usually noisy and bustling apartment fell as silent as if it were empty.

On the night of the sixth day after the accident, Chaisi couldn’t sleep no matter what.

For one thing, his arm ached. For another, his great-aunt snored loudly once she fell asleep. Every time he looked up, he saw the strange, mountain-like silhouette of her back sleeping in his mother’s bed.

In the middle of the night, unable to bear the boredom and torment, Chaisi quietly climbed out of bed and went into the living room. There was nothing to do there, really. He thought he wanted to play with his toys, but after staring at the box for a while, he didn’t even reach out to open it.

Chaisi walked to the window and looked down at the familiar, empty street below.

’If only Mom would come back,’ he thought. ’Right now. Walking back down the street, wearing the same clothes she had on the day she disappeared, carrying snacks and breakfast for me, her keys jingling with every step...’

Though he was only five, Chaisi had already realized that his imagination couldn’t make things real.

So when he actually saw his mother walking up the street, step by step, he leaned forward in shock and—THUD—his face hit the glass.

"...Mom?" he called out in a small voice.

The apartment was on the second floor, still a long way from his mother, but she looked up at him as if she’d heard.

For that one instant, Chaisi didn’t move, his forehead pressed against the cold glass.

Half of his mother’s face was covered in blood.

The blood, in the darkness of the night, was blacker than the night itself, making half her face look as if it had been devoured by a void. One eye was swollen shut. Only the other, mired in the dark, filthy blood, was looking at him, its pupil faintly glowing.

But it was definitely his mom.

The moment their eyes met, his mother raised her hand and waved vigorously a few times, just like she used to when she picked him up from kindergarten. Then she continued on toward the apartment, limping and stumbling. In her haste, she almost tripped.

He knew he should have woken his great-aunt right away, but in that moment, Chaisi completely forgot she was even in the apartment. He ran to the entrance, threw the door open, and clattered down the stairs.

"Mom!"

Chaisi ran toward her so desperately that if his mother hadn’t quickly caught him with one hand, he, cast and all, would have crashed right into her arms. "Mom, what happened to you?"

"I had a nasty fall," his mother said, gasping for breath. She was half-doubled over, but she managed a small laugh. "It hurts like hell. Your arm—"

"Where did you go?"

His mother studied him for a moment before answering, "A... a very strange place. But that doesn’t matter. I’m back now. Don’t worry, I’m never going back there again..."

As she said this, the strength that had carried her all the way home seemed to give out at once. Like a stack of toy blocks suddenly kicked over, she collapsed onto the side of the road.

"Mom?" Chaisi yelped, startled, and rushed to help her up.

But he couldn’t actually lift her. It was more like he was clinging to her arm as he tumbled down to the ground with her.

But his mother waved a hand, signaling that she was all right. "I’m just tired... Need to rest... Are you home alone?"

"Auntie came from Blackmoor City," Chaisi replied.

"Go back home... have her call... call an ambulance..."

Chaisi looked down and saw that the front of his body, his arm, and his cast were all stained with blood.

"Go... go quickly," his mother said, her voice so low it sounded like it could be carried away by the wind.

Chaisi nodded frantically. But before he could get up, for some reason, his hand trembled as he gently touched his mother’s side.

He might have been trying to see where she was hurt, how bad it was, but his hand brushed against something strange.

"Mommy," Chaisi froze. "What’s this tied around you?"

In that instant, his mother’s expression froze solid.

In his entire life, Chaisi had never seen such a terrifying face—because the person it belonged to was drowning in absolute terror.

A fear as heavy and suffocating as wet cement slowly settled over the air. For a moment, Chaisi wanted to shrink down until he was so small that no one could see him. Not even his mom.

His mother didn’t look down at her waist, as if not looking would stop her fear from becoming reality. Her one open eye stared fixedly at Chaisi, shining with a frightening light that might have been the glint of tears.

"Wh... What? There’s... what tied around me?"

Without realizing it, Chaisi had started to cry, tears tracing itchy paths down his cheeks. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"I-I don’t know," he said, not even sure what he was afraid of. He didn’t dare pull his hand back; it remained on his mother’s waist as he stammered, "I-It feels like... a thin rope..."

Just then, he felt the rope under his hand twitch.

As if someone had just tugged on the other end.

The other end...

Chaisi realized with a daze that the rope around his mother’s waist had to have another end.

"Don’t look,"

he heard his mother’s voice, pleading with him. "Don’t look behind me, Chaisi... Go home. Run..."

But Chaisi didn’t seem to hear her. His body felt as if it had been taken over by someone else. He stood up involuntarily, took a step to the side, and his gaze fell on the ground behind his mother.

A rope lay slack on the pavement, stretching back into the night, eventually disappearing into a darkness the streetlights couldn’t penetrate.

’...That’s strange. Who tied a rope around Mom?’

The rope twitched again.

"Chaisi! Come back!"

Chaisi started, only then realizing he had unconsciously taken several steps, following the rope. He glanced back at his mother, then turned his head forward again—but this time, it wasn’t just the night, the street, and the long rope ahead of him.

The giant, dark shadow holding the other end of the rope was standing right in front of him.

"Run!" His mother’s furious, almost shrill cry jolted Chaisi back to his senses.

He didn’t have time to get a clear look at the shadow’s form before he spun around and ran. He might have screamed, he might not have. A neighbor might have turned on a light, or maybe not.

In that instant, the world’s rational facade was torn away, revealing the black, sewage-like nightmare churning beneath. Nothing felt real anymore.

He heard the shadow speak.

Its voice spanned the night sky, drifting on the air.

At the time, he couldn’t understand the words, but every single one was etched deep into his bones. Later, when Chaisi came to understand their meaning, too much time had passed. It was too late for everything, and he tried never to think about it again.

Only once, while interrogating a traitor, those words from that denizen inexplicably surfaced in his mind.

When Chaisi came to his senses again, someone was holding him back by the waist, begging him to stop. He had beaten the traitor into a bloody, shapeless pulp, no more human-like than a pile of mud.

"Why, thank you,"

said the denizen, "the only way for me to enter the human world is to find a dog, put it on a leash, and have it lead me in. You didn’t really think you escaped me, did you? You actually believed you could come back and reunite with your son? Ah, let me have a taste... I’ve heard that the dashed hopes of humans are the most delicious."