Shonoyoru 4. Bad taste.
Let's attempt an understanding of the past days events. I was kidnapped by a guy who I can only assume exists outside of the cycle, and then butchered by him, entirely conscious while he tore my entire body apart until what I can only assume is my actual guardian angel killed me and sent me back to this morning. However, even though he was clearly insane - more so than myself - he did say something peculiar.
eA lot of peculiar things, if I recall.
A core - deep inside me, somewhere within, but was unable to get it out. What else? Something about it being the centre of reality? Living forever?
My first movements in the day were promptly halted by this earthquake feeling in my left chest.
"Am I about to get kidnapped again?"
The answer may shock you.
I was kidnapped again. Same organisation, same routine check.
Locked in the boot of a car with my hands and mouth bound, the vibrations of the road gently keeping me from keeping my cool. After a while, there he is. Raphael, exactly how I remember him. Except this time, he wasn't wearing a prison-plain white top, but a t-shirt saying "Gotcha!" in comic bubble text.
Raphael. Holding a pencil in the most awkward, yet popular fashion, letting the gravity of the pencil dictate its direction, whilst also not allowing it to topple over. The lead of the pencil dipping on and off his lip as he considered the next thing he said.
"Let's try this friendship again, shall we? From the top. Act one. Aaaaaand action!" clapping his hands as the word 'Action' left his mouth, both breaking the ice and leaving me speechless all at the same time.
"We we're never friends." The words come out cold. Unwanting. Which isn't a word, but would be perfect for how I feel towards this man.
"So cold, my friend! So cold!" He rubbed his shoulders with his arms like he was shivering, which was exactly what I was going for, but it looked really stupid when seeing it in person. "I feel we may have gotten off on the wrong foot. I didn't kidnap you, I simply ushered you here without any regard for free will in any shape nor form."
"No-one said anything about kidnapping." Shivers. Also, no regard for free will?
"Ah, but I have the strangest feeling you thought about it earlier. I wanted to clarify some things before we moved forward to explain some reasonings for my actions yesterday. Or should I say what should have happened a couple of hours from now? What feels like twenty-four hours ago? Yesterday makes more sense, though. Wouldn't you agree?" Speaking as if he rehearsed this whole monologue from the moment 'yesterday' ended. Like he's trying to cover up tracks. Defending himself. "So? Do you have any questions?" Sitting down in his spinning chair, hands clasped in anticipation.
"Core." Still as cold as ice.
"Core? Is that it? Are we speaking like cavemen now?" As if we're friends or something. "I'll tell you what I know." That was easy? "Because we're friends, yes? I want you to say it." What?
"Excuse me?" I speak in the calmest manner I've ever spoken in my life.
"Friends. Best friends, in fact. I want you to admit it. Say it out loud for me, this is my special moment, of course." He says, as he leans back even more in his chair, almost impatient.
What?!
A switch flicks from inside of me. Almost as if there was always a pot of rage boiling inside waiting for the lid to be removed. Steam would be rising form my head if it could. If I opened my mouth now, steam would explode from my ears. I'm no longer patient, I'm pissed off.
"Or not. Obviously you don't have to be my friend. I mean, I practically swept you off your feet princess-style and carved through your insides like a hot knife through butter, and realistically I'd do it again. My research isn't 100% complete yet, so I'd need all the resources I could get, so I'm basically asking for your cooperation."
His words come across as frustratingly sincere. As if he knows exactly what he's saying and he doesn't care who it affects, as long as it benefits him one way or another.
Didn't he say just gloss over something though?
"So what do you say? Friends?"
"Eat shit and die."
"My, my, is that any way to treat your first and very only friend? We're companions, you and I. I've watched over your every single move from your school day experiences, your panicked adventures to the police station, your endless trips to the park, I was there when you'd go to every corner of the town. I watched every bit of it. I'm not only your only friend, I'm the only person you can trust. You can confide in me." He says, holding his arms up as if he's the holy saviour.
My knight in shining armour, kidnapping me to paradise, but I won't fall for it. I can't be coerced by a psychopath. Unfortunately though, there is one thing I want to know. Just a thought.
"You say you've been watching me the whole time? Do you have records of anything? Surveillance videos?"
"Sharp as a knife, my first and only friend." I grit my teeth. "I have six-hundred-and-fifty-six tapes."
SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY SIX?!
An exact number without having to check?!
"Well, some are my own personal collection. I like to edit some videos to make funny little music videos for my favourite songs." He doesn't notice me rolling my eyes.
"Do you have any videos of my 'endless trips to the park' and can I see them?" Trying to be as careful with my question as possible.
"Of course, my first and only friend. Friends help friends out, I'd assume you know that."
Friends don't mercilessly mutilate friends.
"I read dozens of books on making and maintaining friends, I have some prototypes in the lower levels." Prototypes of books or friends? "Do you have a specific time?"
"Midday. Any day between the last seven, and the last sixty."
"Met with an interesting approach, were we?"
"You could say."
"Looking, looking…" he murmurs whilst scrolling through dozens and dozens, turning into hundreds of different video files, all of… me. At the park. Walking around. Practicing kung fu. Yeah, so? I was going to die eight hours later, no-one was supposed to remember. "What am I looking for?"
"I don't understand."
"We live through the same cycle every single 24-hours, and the day is reset, and yet you have recorded evidence that I existed in specific points in time?"
"That, my good friend, is a good question. In fact, I'll give you a hypothetical gold star for that observation. However, that's a question to be answered for another day. That's one question per kidnapping. Now, what am I looking for?" "Me on a bench. Specifically the north most bench, between the two trees, on the side of the path."
"Ah the classics. Sometimes I would pretend I was sitting right there next to you."
I suppress the urge to punch him in the face. This unspeakable urge that is practically overflowing.
"Who's this? A girl? I'm almost jealous." A girl?! I bolt to the screen, trying not to look too eager, but yes. There she was.
God herself. I look directly at the screen at who I assume to be my truest guardian angel, and yet, without any prompt, she looks directly back at me, and I hear something I never expected:
"I see you found me."
A familiar voice creeps in, filling my mind with a solemn calm that ensures I'm not hallucinating.
God, herself, is in the house.
"I would ask you never make that joke again, lest you want a thousand more deaths."
I don't ask how this conversation is possible. I assume that God works in mysterious ways, and if this is the same day, I can also assume God is there now, as she was before. "And you would be correct. I am here now, and you are not. And yet, you are. I do not ask how this possible, but it does grant me some solace to know you breathe to some extent."
Backhanded. I, too, am glad to be suffering, but alive. However, I need help.
"And you will get it, but not from me."
What? After all this trouble I went through, thinking of any way to speak to you and you say you can't do anything?
"Correct. I would apologise, but I have nothing to apologise for. I am not here to be your personal encyclopaedia."
Her words cut deep, but unsurprising.
"I don't know what you expected. I am God, not some miracle worker."
I should have expected that, too. I waste no time trying to figure out how this is possible, piecing together that I must be in some suspended animation, speaking telepathically to only me. Or would that just be wishful thinking?
"You'd be half correct."
And yet I still know nothing.
"Which stays unsurprising. I know you will not let this go until I grant you some amount of solace, and so I will grant you a sliver."
Oh, how gracious our God is.
"You would do best to hold thy tongue when speaking such sarcastic obscenities to a quite literal God, lest you want to die a million more deaths."
That number definitely went up.
"That man beside you,"
Raphael.
"You can warm up to him. He is one of those who will help."
That's it? That's all the hints that God can grant?
"Yes."
Some 'almighty omnipotence.'
"You'd to best to hold thy tongue, lest you wish to die a bazillion more deaths." As she looked away and ceased connection. What a bizarre conversation.
I turn to Raphael who remains completely unphased, who turns back to me and says the most peculiar thing.
"How was your little chat with the most divine?" There was absolutely no way he could've known, i wasn't even speaking out loud. I assumed it was suspended animation, but now that I think about it, it could have just been a really frustrating long-distance form of telepathy.
"I also had a chat with our great Lord. She informed me that you would be of great importance, and so I admit, I jumped the gun and assumed that you would be the key to our salvation, but it appears you are simply a pawn."
Then which one are you, smart-ass?!
"All the same, I believe there is a great deal of good we can do if we initiate a team-up."
"A team-up! Of course! How did I not think of this before? I'll be Sonic."
Raphael laughed a truly disgusting, extremely exaggerated and genuine laugh right before my eyes.
"Okay, I'll be Banjo."
The laugh continued, getting more visceral and almost siren-esque, and quite literally making my ears bleed. Maybe not literally, but it was so ear-piercing that my delusional mind concocted the image of blood at my fingertips.
"Just tell me what you want. I won't make any jokes, I just want to understand somewhat." Trying not to plead, but also extremely eager to leave.
"I want us to be best friends, of course. Working on the case together. Listen, there's only so many people we can trust in the world with a power like this, but know that there's a handful nearby. A purple-obsessed lady with a hero complex, and a man with a million faces."
He said a handful, and then dropped two people.
"I'll let you figure out the other few, but I know there are irregularities in the tapes. At least seventy-nine of the tapes have irregularities. I noticed the purple lady going through the park, and she also takes laps around the town. She works out, a different exercise a 'day', and she really enjoys swords."
"This surveillance sounds a lot more like stalking." I raise my eyebrows in realisation that he might be insane.
"Think of it as trying to keep us safe, whilst also scouting out new allies to help us out too."
He's insane.
"The man with a million, bajillion faces is an interesting case, however. He doesn't cover his face, he actually changes it. Wearing the same clothes every day, he'll come out as a woman's face, an old man's face, and sometimes a normal working man's face. I don't know his name, his real age, his occupation, anything. Every time he leaves his house, he does go somewhere, but it's completely blind to my loving surveillance cameras."
Loving.
"Anyway, I think i've talked your ear off enough. Now, my good best buddy and new friend and ally, that I've given you precious information and knowledge, I need you to do something for me."