The Dull-Colored Corroder Episode 6

Episode 6

Around 1:40 AM, I quietly slipped out of the room.

As I passed from the bedroom to the living room, I glanced for a brief moment at Sosuke lying on the sofa.

The television, which had been broadcasting strange, eerie signals, was off, and the living room was wrapped in silence.

"I can still turn back now..."

To be honest, I wanted to laugh off what I saw today as a hallucination. It was me who was acting strange, and if I just took my medicine and rested, I should be able to spend happy days with Sosuke again. Betting on that fragile, slim hope, I quietly peeked at the sofa.

"!"

My modest hope was crushed right there, quite spectacularly.

Sosuke, who had been lying on the sofa, had skin that had dulled to a lusterless, cement-like gray, and the black dots swimming on his surface were stagnant as if he were asleep. His slightly open eyes were entirely pitch black, and his mouth, left hanging open, was sloppily drooling. His expression lacked any emotion, yet it could also be seen as one filled with agony. Had something happened to this Sosuke? But I didn't have the luxury of worrying about others right now.

Once I gave up on that reality, I left the living room and dashed outside.

When I rushed outside, I was forced to feel tension once again by the state of things.

As if all the electricity in the city had been cut, the streetlights and room lights were all extinguished, and the surroundings were enveloped in darkness and silence. Furthermore, the few people who should have been walking around the city were frozen in place, as if time had stopped. Even when I tried to pass by, they didn't even look my way; they just stood there, frozen. Or rather, it gave the impression that they had been powered down and brought to a sudden halt, just like the city lights.

I don't know what that phenomenon means. But I headed toward the Misaki Hotel, slowly, trying not to be too impatient.

The hotel I arrived at was also pitch black, and the automatic doors at the entrance didn't work. I opened the door by hand, passed through the empty, dark front desk, and headed up the stairs toward my destination, Room 203.

My footsteps climbing the stairs echoed in the silence. Startled by them, I stepped up slowly and carefully, trying not to make a sound.

Even in this darkness, I could easily sense that this hotel was old and the building itself was steadily deteriorating. The musty smell peculiar to old buildings only added to this. Needless to say, the darkness itself created the most bizarre atmosphere.

I adjusted the mask I was wearing once more, and took another shallow, repeated deep breath so as not to be swallowed by this darkness.

When I reached the second floor, I strained my eyes in the darkness, tracing the wall and checking the room numbers one by one.

"Found it... 203..."

And there I found Room 203.

Who was waiting on the other side of this door, and what would happen to me after this? My heart was filled with endless anxiety. At worst, if I opened this door, I might die. Even if I didn't die, I might be kidnapped and treated cruelly. But even setting that aside, I wanted a satisfactory explanation for this situation. And even if it was just a little, I needed a way to return to 'normal'—that was what I needed right now. I couldn't let the risks I could imagine hold me back.

"Phew!"

I steadied my breathing with a deep breath. After wiping the unsettling sweat seeping into my palms onto my denim jeans, I steeled myself and knocked on the door.

No one came out.

"Huh? Is there no one here?"

I knocked again, just a little harder.

"Could this be a prank? No, there's no way that could be it!"

I muttered that to myself in my heart, and knocked on the door hard once more. At the same time, the door slowly opened. An entrance to another darkness, opening within the darkness. I strained my eyes into that eternal gloom.

"What are you doing? Come in quickly!"

Before I could adapt to the situation, a whispering voice urging me on came from the darkness. I hesitated, but took the plunge and jumped into that darkness.

And as the door slowly closed with a creaking sound, I steeled myself with even more caution and resolve than before.

“I’m sorry for startling you. This was the only way I could make proper contact with you.”

A whispering voice of apology drifted from the darkness. In the pitch black, where I couldn't even steady my footing and couldn't identify the owner of the voice, I was at a loss for an answer. Before long, the faint light of a candle was lit, and the figure of the voice's owner emerged from the darkness. Seeing her face, I gasped.

“Y-you are...”

Appearing in the darkness was that woman with human-colored skin whom I had passed by this evening.

Her name was Mari Washisu.

It seems she was in the exact same circumstances as me, suffering from the situation she had been placed in. As a result, she said she had found her own answer in this 'present'.

As one of those answers, she discovered a weak point in this world. It is that the dull-colored ones cease their activities from around 1:30 AM until just after 4:00 AM. It seems they all shut down at once, freezing in their respective places. Then, after rewriting the experiences of that day as data, they reboot after 4:00 AM.

Are the people I saw frozen in time on my way here examples of that? But if I think of it that way, it certainly explains that bizarre sight. Thanks to that, she was able to sneak into this hotel without difficulty. I understood that this was why she had called me out at such an hour.

Given the content of her story, and the fact that the sympathy I felt for her in the evening was genuine, I felt a considerable sense of relief. I felt the tension and wariness that had been coiled tight loosen just a little. However, I gasped at the other answers Mari-san had found after that...

“I’m sorry for the strange emails, over and over again. That was the only way I had to contact you. But the fact that you noticed them is proof that you, too, feel doubts about this world, isn't it?”

Beyond the fleeting candlelight, her voice echoed quietly. According to her, messages that were long or asked for detailed content would be deleted by them the moment they were sent, and they would even be traced back. Furthermore, sending multiple messages to the same person in one day would also be a factor that would make them suspicious. For that reason, she said she was limited to sending me at most one message a day. And what's more, as long as the recipient is satisfied with the 'present,' they are unlikely to notice the message, and it is only when they start to feel doubt that they first become aware of the incoming call.

“Yes...”

I nodded in the faint candlelight as well.

“Mari-san, where are we? What is happening right now? I’m not losing my mind, am I?”

I had a mountain of questions I wanted to ask her. But I didn’t know where or how to start, and my questions ended up being incoherent.

“I don’t know where we are either. But the world we are in right now is not reality. I’m certain this is a virtual world created by imitating our memories. Furthermore, it’s trying to soften us up by showing us an ideal world. But it’s all a sham. You’ve had a vague feeling about that too, haven’t you?”

Mari-san spoke to me in a whisper from the other side of the candle.

“It’s true, I did feel like things were progressing too much the way I wanted them to. Even things I thought, ‘It would be nice if it were like this,’ would happen in advance, and it felt like everything was turning out for the better.”

“It was the same for me. In my case, my chronic illness was cured, my body kept getting healthier, and I was incredibly happy...”

The face of Mari-san, whispering those words, looked incredibly fragile even in the faint light.

“Also, what are those dull-colored people in this world? Suddenly, they were everywhere around me... and in the end, even my acquaintance became like that... And the photo of me that was attached... what on earth does that mean?”

I interrupted her with my questions. In doing so, I vaguely referred to Sousuke as an ‘acquaintance.’ At this point, I trusted Mari-san about seventy percent, but I intentionally kept the existence of ‘Sousuke’ vague. I didn’t know if I didn’t want something precious to be touched, or if I was trying to make Sousuke’s existence a thing of the ‘past’ by intentionally calling my beloved an ‘acquaintance.’

“I don’t know... But I think the neighbors we thought were real were, in the end, those dull-colored creatures—I call them ‘Hitogata’—and they were just impersonating them. About that photo, I’m sorry, I took it without asking... And the photo of you happily chatting with a Hitogata, to you at the time, they looked like a normal friend, but in reality, it was just a Hitogata impersonating them... That’s why even when I took this photo, you were in the middle of happiness and didn’t pay any attention to my existence. I was quite close by. But I kept waiting, believing that you would surely notice.”

“I’m sorry... But how did you know about me?”

I pressed her with another question.

“When you fell into this place, those black cars increased all over the city at once. I quietly followed those cars. What I encountered at the end was a station wagon abandoned along the coast of Suzaki Bay. I witnessed you being taken away by a Hitogata from there. I kept taking pictures in a daze, but the only one that showed that station wagon was the photo I sent you. That station wagon was just something from the real world reflected here. It vanished without a trace in a matter of minutes. I don’t know the details of what happened, but your entrance to this world is surely that place. There is an inn there that I sent you in the photo, and I wonder if you didn’t use that inn in the real world? From there, I kept looking for you. In the midst of that, I found you on social media. In this world, the internet is also imitated and can be browsed. The only ones posting stories and videos on it are us humans. You suddenly appeared on a feed that had nothing displayed. From there, I roughly tracked where you lived and kept sending you messages on social media.”

Her whisper eventually took on the appearance of a passionate speech, and the candlelight flickered with her breath.

I did remember the station wagon and the inn. However, it didn’t reach the level of a ‘memory.’ It was shrouded in mist, and it didn’t seem like it would clear up at this stage.

“So that’s how it was... I’m sorry for being slow to notice...”

“Don’t worry about it...”

“But, for what purpose are those Hitogata keeping us?”

“This is just my speculation, but I think we were captured as some kind of experimental material and are being kept here. We are being domesticated in this world, and some kind of information is constantly being extracted from us... I have that feeling. In fact, we have metal fragments embedded just below our right ear and in our right ankle, and from there, I’m sure various information is flowing to them. I’m sure our location information is completely transparent to them, and I think even our emotional spikes and changes in physical condition are being recorded in detail.”

Saying that, she placed the candle on the floor, took off the sneakers she was wearing, and showed me her right ankle.

“Eek!”

I covered my eyes at the sight. Below her ankle, there were countless deep lacerations. Yet, the area beneath her ankle remained slightly swollen... surely those wounds were from her attempts to extract the metal fragment. I felt as though I caught a glimpse of all her past pain and sorrow in those scars. And I must not forget that I, too, have that same swelling; I am also one of them. That pain is not someone else's problem. I gently placed my hand behind my right ear. The hard, foreign sensation and the swelling were still there, just as before. I sighed at the feeling.

“I’m sorry. Forcing you to see something so strange... but this is how they have always monitored us, constantly working behind the scenes to ensure we don't notice reality. They mix drugs that sustain this deception into almost everything we consume—our food, our medicine. Some people adapt to it well, but we couldn't. I’m sure you, like me, must have been plagued by severe headaches and nausea. As a result of that rejection, we woke up from the illusions the drugs were showing us and realized we had been living alongside the Hitogata. That’s why, only after waking up, do we notice those sluggish movements and the color of their skin. And they, the ones who realize this reality, are either mercilessly erased by them or sent off to even harsher environments. You saw it too, didn't you? That black car. That is a vehicle for our execution or abduction...”

“That can’t be...”

I was astonished by Mari-san’s explanation, even at this late stage. It was an explanation that satisfied the doubts I had been feeling. While I felt a sense of consistency in it, I hadn't quite reached the point of total conviction. Of course, everything she said was speculation. But it carried a persuasive power born from her own experiences—experiences she had endured without breaking, even while suppressing her own ego. With not a single piece of certain information, her experience was the most vital information of all. Everything she said was something I didn't want to believe, but right now, I had no other choice but to believe it.

“And one more thing, Saki-san.”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember September 19th, the date I mentioned this evening?”

“I remember you saying it. But I have no idea what kind of day that is...”

“Then, do you have any memories of that day, or anything before it? Could you tell me your oldest memory? Also, memories from your childhood, your family, friends, or even from a few years ago?”

What, is that all...

I thought lightly of it and began to pull at the threads of my memory...

“Huh? No way... wait a minute...”

Even as I said that, I felt a surge of panic.

I can’t remember...

I have memories of the past month or so, but everything before that seems to be completely shrouded in mist; I couldn't recall a single thing.

"I see... our memories are being manipulated by them, too. Perhaps we aren't even 'real' ourselves. But the one thing I can say for certain is that since that day, we have no memories from before it. As far as I can remember, you arrived here on September 20th. So, something must have happened to you the day before, on September 19th. And now, for better or worse, we have begun to realize the reality. That might be a sign of something. The fact that our 'bodies' are rejecting the 'present'—I want to believe that our 'real' selves are about to wake up. So..."

Saying that, Mari-san choked on her words.

"So? What is it? Mari-san."

"I'm sorry... so, please don't miss the voice of someone you thought was just an auditory hallucination. That will surely be your lifeline to your true self. By listening to that voice, the past that was blocked off will gradually, albeit in fragments, come back..."

Mari-san's voice was trembling. It was as if she were trying to hold something back, covering her feelings with her voice. I was hesitant about whether I should mention that trembling.

"If I stop hearing it, then that's the end..."

"Huh?"

"I don't know if that's actually true, but once you stop hearing it, you can't return to the true reality..."

Mari-san's expression clouded over. She was already tired and haggard, and in the stark, dim light, that cloud cast even deeper shadows on her face.

"What should I do?"

I tried to put strength into my voice.

"The place where you fell is near Suzaki Bay. The clues must be hidden there. Head to Suzaki Bay as soon as you can after this. And don't be afraid of the auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, or changes in your physical condition. They are shortcuts and signposts to return to the true reality. Don't be afraid; accept them. Now that you've realized the reality, those anomalies should be pushing you forward."

I felt like I saw a glimmer of hope on Mari-san's face as she said that.

And I, too, made up my mind to escape from this reality and return to the true reality, to my true self. I had no concrete plans or evidence. It was hard to say that I understood everything Mari-san had told me. But I couldn't help but think that way. Believing that I could return to reality was the only breakthrough I had at the moment.

I will return to being myself and reclaim my real life!

And I will seize true happiness with the real Sosuke!

That is what I swore to myself.

To be continued