Episode 2: The Phonograph That Ticks Away Death (Record No. 013) | Part 2 | Administrator Nina's Record Room | The Specimen Box of Truth
Introduction
Click here for Part 1
Main Story
[Part 2: Behind the Mirror]
...Wait, that's impossible. Hearing a voice when there's no one there.
I raised my voice in spite of myself.
The 'peaceful daily life' I thought I had maintained was slipping through my fingertips.
The 'silence' of the girl in front of me, as if she could see through everything, felt as though it were forcibly stirring up the dregs inside me.
We must think more realistically... Was that voice produced by a living human being?
{No}
...Then, some kind of device? Was there a tool left in the room to produce sound?
{Yes}
...A device. Could it be a recording? Are you saying your mother recorded her own voice?
{Yes. ...Please, give me the answer.
[Specimen of Truth]
[The correct answer] is... because my mother had died long ago, and what I was hearing was a 'recorded voice'...
I felt a violent wave of dizziness at the answer that came out of my own mouth.
The shut-in mother found it troublesome to face her daughter, so she recorded her own voice and set it to play at fixed times.
...But the mother died suddenly shortly after that. For several years, the girl continued to bring meals to the corpse until the machine's batteries ran out.
...Don't you think it's a ridiculous story?
Nina's voice was completely flat.
I dropped the cloth bag I was holding onto the floor.
That's insane... That's just a machine. There's no love in that at all!
However, Nina slowly stood up and lifted my chin with a fingertip clad in a white glove. With a strength I couldn't escape, her glass-bead-like eyes peered right through my heart.
...Oh, is that so?
Nina whispered, as cold as ice, right into my ear.
The girl in Specimen No. 013 was deceived by a machine.
...But, Yoshie. You are much more 'excellent'.
By hiding your mother's death, mimicking her with your own voice, and continuing a conversation as two people, you have been giving 'life' to a rotting corpse.}
W-what are you...
What's drifting from this bag isn't the smell of a home-cooked meal.
Formalin... the smell of the chemical used to keep specimens from rotting.
The one you love isn't your mother, but the 'devoted and righteous self' you are, aren't you, you motionless doll?
Ah, ah, aaaaaah...!
I screamed and bolted from the room, as if chased by the sound of my own footsteps.
[Epilogue: Administrator Nina's Record]
The original silence returned to the room after the client left.
On the floor lay the remains of the 'love' she had forgotten—a bag soaked in the smell of chemicals.
I picked it up and dropped it into a nearby trash can without even checking the contents.
She no longer has the right to hold this.
...Editor-in-chief. Today's specimen also showed quite a beautiful 'crack'.
I muttered to myself while taking a sip of the cold tea I had left over.
A person who even uses the death of others to play out their own justice.
The taste of that poison makes me feel colder than any cold tea.
Clink...
I closed the drawer and locked it.
Record No. 013. A record of a phonograph that kept ticking away death and the woman who couldn't stop its rotation.
Now... I wonder what kind of misfortune will knock on this door next.
