On the other side of the dim corridor, Maeda Miwa of Room 205 was, for all intents and purposes, dragged and shoved into her room.
Upon learning that she would have to spend the night in that pitch-dark, foul-smelling room with a female corpse, the woman screamed madly, struggled with all her strength, and cried so hard that her tears, mucus, and saliva ran everywhere. In the end, she even lost control of her bladder. No matter what Takumi and the others said, it was useless.
Finally, Green came up, clamped Maeda Miwa's neck under his arm, knocked her unconscious on the spot, then threw her into Room 205's living room and locked the door from the outside. Only then was this troublesome problem resolved.
Yamamoto Hiroshi couldn't help but feel a little uneasy during the process, but when Takumi asked him whether he was willing to bear the cost of letting this woman scream inside his own room and attract all kinds of ghostly things, the man remained silent for a long time before ultimately choosing to stand aside
Kindness had to depend on time and target.
In this horror apartment where everyone feared for their lives, no one had any extra compassion to share with a person who refused to obey or cooperate and offered not the slightest value in return. Green even bluntly took the supply box from Room 205 and cheerfully presented it to Takumi and the others. Still, taking supplies from someone who was still alive was rather indecent, and since both Maki and Yamamoto Hiroshi found such behavior unacceptable, the supply box was eventually returned to Room 205.
"This is the first time I've felt that a person could be so utterly useless, doing nothing but causing trouble."
After seeing Green fiddle with the door lock of Room 205 using a small iron wire and successfully lock it from the outside, Takumi shook his head and spoke with a sigh.
"When someone has lived too long in peace and comfort, they become like this once thrown back into a cruel environment. In the end, the greatest significance of modern civilization's progress is merely that it's allowed more trash to survive. Normally, you wouldn't notice these people's problems—but at a critical moment, every one of them becomes a burden."
Kaguya, born into a cold-hearted conglomerate family, no longer regarded Maeda Miwa as a person at all. Seeing Takumi return the supply box because of Maki's compassion, she let out a derisive snort, completely disdainful of the two.
"Ahem, at least while she's still alive, we should keep up appearances. Acting a little merciful makes things look better, doesn't it?"
Takumi felt slightly awkward about it. In truth, when Green had brought out the supply box, he had intended to accept it with a smile. But Maki's pity had made him hesitate somewhat. After all, there wasn't much food inside the supply box, and since the Horror Stories within Shirakawa Apartments were so terrifying, hunger wasn't their greatest survival pressure. That was why he ultimately chose to return the box—for Takumi, Maki's opinion simply mattered more.
As for whether he realized that both Maki and Kaguya had already seen through his reasoning—Maki starting to overthink, and Kaguya taking amusement in the drama—unfortunately, he hadn't noticed at all. But such things didn't matter now. What truly mattered was the pressure of survival looming before them.
[Click—click—]
In the end, Takumi's decision proved to be correct. Accompanied by crisp sounds, every hanging clock inside the residents' rooms began turning clockwise faster and faster—time itself started to accelerate.
However, since Takumi hadn't struck the clock this time, he didn't see any abnormal visions. By contrast, Yamamoto Hiroshi suffered terribly—curled up on his bed, vague and fragmented images flickered through his mind, but before he could see or hear anything clearly, he lost consciousness completely and fainted.
He closed the living room door and locked it.
Takumi turned back to look at the nailed-shut window inside the living room.
At this very moment, the light outside was rapidly dimming—the entire apartment's time was swiftly shifting from day to night.
"The hands will finally stop at 8:50. That means ten minutes after they stop, we must remain absolutely silent until the next day arrives."
Takumi looked toward Kaguya, who stood on one side of the room, and spoke in a low voice. Then he took off his shoes and socks and sat down directly on the floor, leaning against the wall.
Because of the earlier exploration of the first floor, Takumi's shoes and socks were completely soaked. It would be difficult for them to dry in a single night, but there was no choice now but to make do like this.
"Understood."
Kaguya nodded lightly and, without saying another word, sat down on the floor as well.
Neither of them chose to sit on that filthy bed.
The light outside the window had already grown very dim.
Takumi knew that complete darkness was not far off.
"According to the building's layout, this window should actually face the hallway of Room 205."
After thinking for a while, before the time came when they could no longer speak, Takumi decided to say something—hoping to strengthen their connection a little.
"Spatial distortion—you mentioned it before. You said the third floor had already turned into an infinitely large chaotic space."
Kaguya's cold voice came from quite a distance away.
"That's right. Besides that, there's something else I'm very concerned about." Takumi hesitated for a moment, then continued speaking. "Shijō Maki, Yamamoto Hiroshi, Green—each of their rooms contains a corpse. All three are alone, one person per room, forming a clear, consistent pattern."
"But there are exceptions to this pattern. For instance, our room—two people sharing one—is unprecedented."
"Also, the situation in Room 205 is strange: two corpses, a sealed kitchen door—none of that is normal. And as for that man Tanaka's Room 210, I think there's something abnormal there too. He once warned me about the danger of the corpses, but if he truly is the resident of 210, then the corpse inside shouldn't attack him during the day."
"In the end, a Horror Story that follows rules must abide by those rules. Even if there are exceptions, there should still be corresponding reasons, a logic behind them. Yet I've never been able to figure out what the rationale is behind the exceptions of 204, 205, and 210."
"Do you have any thoughts, Shinomiya-ojō-sama?"
As Takumi finished his last words, the light outside the window vanished completely.
"Who knows. Even I can't reach a conclusion with such insufficient information. Besides, rather than dwell on questions that have no answers, I'm more curious about something else—something I'll ask you about tomorrow."
Kaguya's voice sounded in the darkness, then fell silent.
Silence spread throughout the irrelevant rooms.
Takumi sat there, leaning against the wall, quietly waiting for the night to end.
No sound.
A land of silence within complete darkness.
Takumi suddenly recalled a story he had once heard—two people made a bet: one of them would stay in a haunted house for three days, and if he came out safely after those three days, he would receive a generous reward. So the man moved into the haunted house. Of course, there was no real haunting—his opponent in the bet was the one playing ghost inside.
On the first day, the hidden prankster created all kinds of strange noises in the house, but they failed to scare the resident. On the second day, he made even more frightening sounds and staged various supernatural phenomena, yet still could not do anything to him.
Then, on the third day, the person hiding did nothing at all. Nothing abnormal happened in the house that day. Yet it was that silence which broke the man—he could no longer bear the quiet and fled the house early, failing to complete the bet.
What terrifies people is not necessarily the appearance of some horrible monster, nor strange noises.
In truth, merely sitting now in this dark environment, with vision restricted and utter silence pressing in, was already enough to make one's nerves tighten to the breaking point.
It really was unbearable.
Takumi couldn't fall asleep. He couldn't stay calm.
He wondered what Kaguya was doing across from him now. Ha—maybe she'd already been replaced by something strange, and was standing right before him, staring at him this very moment.
Takumi's vivid imagination couldn't help but conjure that image in his mind.
He closed his eyes.
Leaning against the wall, Takumi waited quietly like that.
Gradually, the restless chaos of his thoughts seemed to fade.
Gradually, it felt as though he could hear something—see something…
What was it?
That sound… that sound which flared so violently, the one that repeated every few days…
In a daze, Takumi opened his eyes.
[Let us row the boat together～]
Was that a child's singing coming from the hallway?
Takumi slowly stood up and turned his head, looking toward the bed beside him.
He saw Kaguya lying on it, sleeping quietly.
And he saw himself lying on the same bed, staring back at him.
His head crushed down the middle, half his torso nearly flattened, his body covered in red and white stains—himself.
He saw his own dangling eyeball hanging from the shattered skull, saw within that eyeball's reflection the mutilated body standing there in the living room.
"So that's how it is…"
He was in a dream.
In a daze, Takumi inexplicably understood this fact.
Everything around him was now suffused with a hazy, dreamlike tint, and inside the tattered Room 204, he saw Shinomiya Kaguya resting on the bed—and beside her, himself, whose head had been crushed flat by a truck.
So that's how it was.
In that moment of trance, Takumi finally understood his own identity.
Room 204 was not without a corpse—there was someone who had taken the corpse's place, and that person was himself.
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