Chapter 44

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“Shouma, wake up, will you?”

Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep on the porch, and my grandma’s voice woke me up.

When I got up, my head felt heavier than usual, panged with a faint fuzziness. Next to me, there was the light blue rubber ball that I was always playing with.

For some reason, the sight of the toy sent shivers down my spine.

At the same time, however, the fragrance of that sweet fruit, that I had never smelled before, came back to me. It smelled like…

“Um, Grandma. Just a while ago, there was a red eyed man with two horns on his head, right?”

I asked her, as I tried to pull back the hazy memory.

Grandma looked a little surprised at my words, and then finally shook her head slowly.

“No, your grandma didn’t see anyone like that. Maybe you’ve seen him in a dream?”

“In a dream?”

“Yes, a dream.”

When she said the word ‘dream’, it truly began to feel like that.

The memory that had come back to me for a moment became hazy again. That memory, shrouded in a blanket of fog, quickly became too difficult to recall.

It was as if someone was deliberately hiding it from him.

“Were you afraid of that man in your dream, Shouma?”

I shook my head to ease the worried look on her face.

“He wasn’t scary at all. Though, he didn’t even smile a bit.”

“Ah, is that so?”

“But really, a dream, huh… If he was a neighbour, I would have wanted to ask him to come and play with me…”

I had no siblings and no friends nearby, so an adult of that age was very charming to me as a playmate.

My grandma seemed to be a little surprised again by my comment.

“I see… then I’ll let him know.”

My Grandma said this, as if she somehow knew the man in my dream. Then, she smiled kindly and stroked my cheek.

“I hope you can meet him in a dream next time. I’m sure he would come to play and even smile at you.”

“Yes!” I nodded, as my grandma smiled warmly.

—

When Shouma came to his senses, he found himself in some abandoned house.

It was a completely empty room, like a deserted warehouse of sorts. The room was large, yet empty, the paint on the walls was peeling, and even the ceiling was falling down.

The lightless room was surprisingly dark.

The light of the building districts could be seen from the window. Judging from the height of the lights, it seemed that this building itself was no longer in use.

Shouma’s body was strapped to a pipe chair. He was completely unable to move.

“So you’ve come to yourself, huh…”

The voice of Amanojaku called out to him, and Shouma looked around. His eyes stopped as he caught the white shadow hanging on the wall.

The kaii crossed his arms and stared at Shouma intensely.

“What is this place?”

“You don’t need to know.”

He closed the conversation with a snap.

It wasn’t that Shouma wanted to talk either, so he also kept his mouth shut.

Apparently, Amanojaku didn’t have the desire to talk, he simply gazed out the window.

He may be interested in Shouma’s body, mainly his blood, but he was not interested in the boy’s self at all.

(Somehow, I need to find a way to get out of here…)

He tried to move his bounded arms and legs, but the rope was unyielding. The surface of the rope binding him was so rough that it left abrasions on his hands, as he fumbled with it. It didn’t take much time for the blood to seep through.

“It’s useless. Stop it.”

Amanojaku must have seen Shouma’s writhing and twisting, but that was all the kaii said in a quiet voice.

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