Chapter 9 Chapter 8 Nightwood

Even when I spit out curse words at the people who killed me, the shame in my breast still wants the clothes to cover my body.Because I am very aware that I have changed more than half of my body, and I will look like a monster in the eyes of others.This is the only manifestation of the remaining human part of me. Before going to the city, I went to the factory first.Because I remembered that where I usually work, there is a large black cloth that was discarded, which can be used as clothing. Even though it was night, the streets were extremely lively.Looking back now, it seemed to be the first night of the three-day festival.I choose the path of no one, disappearing as soon as I hear footsteps.My hearing has become sharper, and I can distinguish footsteps from a distance.

There were people coming from the front and the back, and I jumped onto the roof of the house in a hurry.I do this unconsciously.The roof is three times as high as my body, but I can jump on the roof tiles in an instant like climbing stairs.What the hell is wrong with my body?Even the roofs of houses in the distance, I can move as if jumping over tiny cracks. I feel my whole body throbbing with destructive instincts, wanting to drink human blood.There was so much energy pouring out of me that I felt like I could even jump up to the moon in the sky and catch the stars. There is no one in the factory at night, and the huge land is immersed in silence.

I find the cloth I want and put it on like a coat.There was a mirror in the factory, and I checked my face, but in the mirror was the face of a half-beast that was completely unimaginable.Have you ever had a dream about your face crumbling and shattering?Normally, I would wake up with a start, stretch my tired body under the covers, and sigh in relief, thankfully it was just a dream.But my nightmare never ends, the distorted and inhuman face becomes reality and continues.The only luck is that no one heard the terrifying howls echoing in the factory and came to find out. I smashed the mirror to pieces, and stole the fox mask that hung in the factory director's office to hide my face that even the gods might not bear to see.Although there are other types, I chose this face.It is not surprising that there are memories of sculpting fox masks as a boy.

The mask is made of wood with holes for the eyes.The fox's face is painted white, except for the bright red circles around the eyes.My eyes could see clearly in the dark, so I turned off the lights in the room so no one would notice.The luster of the lacquer applied to the surface of the mask reflected the moonlight that slipped in through the window.I tied the rope around my head and felt that I was neither a human being nor a monster Sanae sent to the ground, but a nameless being.Covering my face with a fox mask and hiding my body with a black cloth, what kind of person did I become that night?I leave the factory.The night was too light to be called late at night, and many people gathered on the street, presenting a lively scene.There are street vendors lined up on the main road, and I saw happy children holding their mothers' hands. Among them were children wearing cat or dog masks, or figures of entertainers disguised as the Seven Lucky Gods.

I looked down at the noisy crowd from the tall buildings made of stone and brick.Blue and pink neon text hangs high above this roof, turning on and off, illuminating the fox mask.The Rosalia, the bar you told me about, was soon found.It is the first floor of the building on the front. I jumped to the ground on a path where no one was around, and headed into the store, ignoring people's gazes.The person who passed by opened his eyes wide for the first moment, but he probably thought I was a busker or something, so he didn't scream. I pushed open the fashionable store door and went inside, listening to foreign songs.There is a bar inside, and bottles of foreign wine are displayed in the cabinet at the other end.I confirmed that the silver cross was hanging around the clerk's neck.The guests turned to look at me in surprise.

Ignoring the stopping voice, I headed into the store and saw a familiar face.It was Inoue in the uniform of a shop assistant. Not even thirty seconds.Leaving behind screams and shattering glass, I grabbed the neck of the man whose face was contorted in terror, and disappeared into the darkness of night. I asked the location of Akiyama Mansion in the dark.As soon as I told him that I was Ye Mu who was killed and buried by them, Inoue turned pale and called out immediately. When I thought of the smile on Akiyama's face when I was executed, I felt as if my whole body was being burned with hatred.Although I also want to kill the former man, but I think it will be more joyful to vent all this hatred on Akiyama.Therefore, I did not take Inoue's life in the end.

But now writing this letter, I feel sick with disgust at myself.I won't write down the details, but my mad vengeance and powerful arrogance led me to do something extremely cruel to Inoue.I left countless scars on Inoue's body.And during that time, I was so happy, humming like a child.Now when I think about what I did at that time, I even regret not taking my own life. I left the fainted Inoue and went to the Akiyama house he told me about. Qiushan's house is located away from the downtown area.There are many luxurious buildings where the upper class lived.It was late at night and no one was walking outside.The night of the first day of the festival has also ended, and the streets have become silent; but even though the streets are still lively, the beating of taiko drums should not be heard in this quiet area.Akiyama Mansion is indeed there.The inner side embraces the extensive courtyard and mansion, and the land is surrounded by a wall.I climbed over the fence and across the courtyard.The lights in the mansion were extinguished, no human voice could be heard, and everyone in the house fell asleep.I don't know who the family members of the Akiyama family are, what the layout of the house is, I don't know anything, and I don't know where the person I'm looking for sleeps.So I had to go inside the house and check every room.

Whenever I want to open the paper door, the moon will reflect my figure on the sliding door.There was almost no one in the room, but there were also rooms with quilts.I confirmed the sleeping faces, but they were all people I didn't know. Is that Akiyama's younger brother?Once, I opened the paper door of a room where a young teenager slept.Sensitively aware of my breath, he rubbed his eyes and got up.I raised my index finger in front of the mask, asking him to be quiet.He seemed to be able to see me even under the moonlight, and nodded with an expression as if he was still dreaming.Even after closing the paper door, the boy didn't make a sound.

The room I'm looking for is just inside the house.I found the eyelid I had seen in the factory under the quilt.My whole body was shaking with joy, and for some reason my mouth was overflowing with saliva.The bones of my jaw were crooked and my teeth were so oddly shaped that I couldn't close my mouth tightly.As a result, saliva overflowed from between the lips, and trickled down the inside of the fox mask onto the tatami. Akiyama didn't notice me who opened the paper door and came in, with my mouth half-opened, in a dreamland.I knelt beside his pillow and for a while, just stared at that sleeping face.It was an incredible feeling.Are you going to strangle him next?Or gouging out his eyeballs?I'm thinking of ways to do this in my head.Even so, the man in front of him still didn't notice anything, snoring happily.It's ridiculous.Really stupid.

After a while, I put my hand into Akiyama's slightly opened mouth.I hold his exposed white front teeth between twisted index and middle fingers.It is really easy to pull it out with force. He woke up from his sleep.His eyes were wide open from the pain, and he rolled on the bed, as if it was extremely difficult to breathe, and he didn't let out any mourning. If there was such a thing as an eternal prison, I would take the initiative to step into it.I looked at Akiyama, who was in so much pain, and smiled. He found me sitting next to him and stopped rolling on the bed.But he didn't seem to be able to stand up and escape, he just faced me, moved his hips on the tatami, and fled to the corner of the room.

His fear was as sweet as cotton candy.Escape more miserably!Then let out an embarrassing scream, please me!At that time, I shouted in my heart and enjoyed it. I drop his front teeth, which I rubbed between two fingers, and stand up and grab him. "You killed me. Remember?" I put the fox mask on his cheek and made a sound.Akiyama was frightened and looked at me with puzzled eyes. "You want to see my real face, don't you? I'll let you see it now." He seemed to wake up to who I was when he heard me say that.His screams sounded so pleasing to the ear, delighting the beast lurking in the shadows of my heart. He struggled to get away, so I grabbed his jaw and forced him to turn to me. Have you ever crushed solidified soil?If you touch it lightly, it feels like a stone, but if you apply a little force, it will crack and become shattered. Akiyama's jaw was broken like that.Akiyama made a cry like a frog being trampled to death. I am satisfied.Then I fell in love with the fun of crushing bones.I grabbed Akiyama's right hand and watched his index finger carefully.Slender and soft finger pads, round nails.I pressed lightly on those places and felt the touch of bone running through them.I gradually increased the pressure, and at a certain point, the bones burst in waves. Then I squeezed his middle finger and ring finger tightly, feeling the touch of bone shattering.After confirming it, there was only one bright red and soft piece of meat left in his hand.The fingers that were originally two were crushed from both sides and stuck together into one. I started from the bones of my fingers, one by one in order, and let him slowly crush them painfully. Akiyama struggled frantically with his hands and feet, but I didn't let him go.There is nothing more delightful than that face pleading with tears and drool. I heard someone running, so I grabbed him by the neck and went outside and climbed up to the roof. The roof of the Akiyama Mansion is huge, and I imagined his blood turning into a turbid stream and flowing all over the roof tiles. Akiyama was almost unconscious. Whenever he was about to faint, I smiled and encouraged him to "come on" and "don't lose to the pain". After a while I had no fingers to crush, and my hands, feet and shoulders were all ruined, so I thought of cutting him open.I put Akiyama, who was tired of begging for his life with empty eyes, on the roof, and ripped off his clothes to expose his belly.How flat is Akiyama's white abdomen floating in the moonlight.Imagining the fresh internal organs stuffed inside, my heart seems to be very happy. I'm going to cut open his stomach with my fingertips - my sharp claws.It was the tip of my finger that was chipped off with a chisel when I was a teenager carving a fox mask.I poked the tip of my claw into his skin slightly.A red bead of blood swelled on the white belly, turned into a line and flowed down.Then just scratch it down like robbing a fish maw with a kitchen knife. At this moment, Akiyama groaned weakly. "God..." I listened to this sentence with an incredulous mood.That voice was like a cry from a thousand years away, extremely weak.His jaw has been destroyed, but for some reason, only these words reached my ears clearly. What an unexpected and unnatural sentence for Akiyama.I don't know much about Akiyama.But from the mean smile he showed me, and the embarrassed look when he knew I made him angry, I can imagine his general image.He's not the type to rely on gods. I forgot to cut open his stomach and looked at him limp and weak.The teeth had been pulled out, and the poor mouth was stained bright red from the shattered jaw, with blood bubbling from the corners. I felt my body, which was already boiling with blood, cool down rapidly.I don't know what it is that makes me like this.Is it the only remaining human part of me?This may be the second salvation given to me by the gods.Somewhere in my heart I heard Akiyama's groans, and he yelled like he was cursing the gods.But I feel an incredible confusion. people.I forgot to cut open his stomach and looked at him limp and weak.The tooth was pulled out, the chipped jaw shone brightly. Akiyama murmured the name of that thing, and I felt as if I had been slapped in the face.He also depends on the gods.What is going on in his heart?Is he repenting for killing and burying me while his consciousness is hazy from the pain he inflicted on his body?Is this the same as when you were a child who also needed gods?Listening to the voices of your parents scolding each other, you, who stayed quietly by the door, and Akiyama, who easily killed people out of hatred, why do you know the same words?Dominated by a huge force and reduced to a filthy animal, I looked around.The moon hung high in the night sky, and its cold light illuminated all the roofs as far as the eye could see.My anxiety at this moment is like being thrown into this world for the first time.The coldness of the night air seeped into my skin, and as for the sound, only the clamor of the crowd who had heard the screams came faintly from under the house. The anger that had driven me was gone without knowing it.No, it was gone not long ago.I always thought it was hate that drove me, but it wasn't. When I broke Akiyama's bones piece by piece, did I have hatred in my heart?What existed there was pure ecstasy.I'm like playing with a toy, hurting people in the game.Is this really revenge?At this time, I realized that what I did was not a human act of revenge, but a wild animal appreciating the damage of the human body.The world seemed to collapse.I saw myself constantly falling into the abyss.Before I knew it, I forgot about the human emotions of anger and hatred, and became a beast that only knows how to take pleasure in destruction.God.Only this sentence keeps repeating in my heart.How sinful is the destructive impulse dormant in the body.I looked up at the bright moon, begged for forgiveness, and then had to ask: which side am I?Am I human?Or another creature?I hugged Akiyama who was still alive and went down the roof.Several people gathered, and those who saw me showed expressions of astonishment.I put Akiyama on the ground and left. When I recovered, I was standing in the darkness of the factory.My fingertips are stained with Akiyama's blood, and the touch of his broken bones is still clear.Grateful for the silence in the factory, I leaned my back against the rusted metal pipe and sat like that for a long time.All I could think of was Akiyama moaning in pain, and me smiling at him.The kind of cruelty that can be said to be the inhuman heart inside oneself is so appalling.Is this what Sanae instilled in my brain?Or has it been in me from the beginning?I went into the factory manager's office and took a blank sheet of paper and a pencil.At least I have to explain my cursed body to you.Then, I must confess to you.In this mood, I began to write about myself.In the past, could I have envisioned a day when I would confess to others like this?I almost forgot even the habit of writing. When I first started writing, my hand holding the pen was so restless.I don't know how long I hesitated just writing the first line.But I just wrote my heart into a few lines of articles, and then, like flowing clouds and flowing water, my mood was transformed into words.When it came time for people to come to the factory, I moved the place and continued writing.As the sun made its rounds in the sky, I recalled my boyhood memories of wandering solitude and confessing violent sins.