Suddenly, the elevator bell ring's a couple of minutes after they enter the apartment. Outside the elevator came Yuki and the two hungry fools, carrying their lunches for the tired bunch. Max came to help them carry, they entered the apartment and set up the tables. Niko dug in after the plastic bags were lifted off the rice meals.
Do you really sit there and eat? Nothing more than a meal to fill your own stomach without a trace of the food once there, how can you just digest the feelings brought upon you? The acid in your stomach, a bubbling somber tape of corrosive chemicals, chewing through memory after memory.
As they ate, Max grabbed the broom and began sweeping the floor, constantly saying how he'll eat when the work was done. Maragi stood up and grabbed the broom from him, instructing him to sit down
They finished their meals in a snap, while Max was still picking at his food and saving the last bites for last. Niko quickly went up to start cleaning and rearranging the boxes Yuki had planned to move. Maragi began dusting the ceiling, ridding it of cobwebs and dusty hangings. Max followed suit by grabbing the broom to sweep again.
How sure are you that your friends are real? How much do you value the things you gain from eating with them? Does a simple meal get so far ahead of your mind that you take a leap of faith into trust just to catch them one by one as they fall from their own problems? A silly act of kindness, hiding a malevolent corridor full of self-gain.
Yuki simply sat down and watched them take her entire duties. Her tired face became a smiley one, the moment was a wholesome bond of five hardworking people who wanted to help their friend. To her surprise, they finished the whole house before an hour passed by, as promised Yuki gave them roof access
Maragi told her that she'd rather stay downstairs in her room and sleep on the bed, Yuki did not hesitate to accommodate her wishes. Mari took her phone from the bag and sat down on the newly vacuumed couch to browse the internet. Niko and Max decided to resist the slow trickle of rain upstairs and stood over the rooftop.
"Rain? Is it raining?" Niko looked up the clouds, over the railing she saw droplets of water.
"It's only a little bit, we can still stand on the edge without getting drenched." he set the tarp up, taking the dust off to make sure Niko stays dry under the rain.
"Wooooo!~Cold up here, the wind is refreshing." Niko was spinning in circles with her hands in the air, Max watching behind her, admiring her excitement over such a rare moment.
"So, hey-, what happened to Akemi?" Niko remembered their interaction, watching as Max was choking on his own sandwich. She kept away from their vision, knowing their chemistry is best when left alone.
"What?!" Max was confused, trying to figure out how she would know such a minute detail.
"Don't lie, we talked about it while playing the other week. Now tell me what happened?" Niko reminded Max about their short interaction as they played Minecraft all day long, the boy had forgotten after such a hectic daily schedule.
"I- I really don't know… Haha I found it just ironic how much I regret it." details he kept to himself, now slowly unveiling themselves, to a friend who was always distant until the right moment.
"You like her again huh?" Niko stared him dead in the day, pupil to pupil, observing closely as they fluctuated in size.
"Never really stopped, that was my mistake…But- Ah never mind, I- don't- eh…" Max couldn't help himself, he admitted, admitting to the sins he's committed, accepting the failure.
Max could barely speak his thoughts, stuttering, and inability to find the words for what he felt. Niko poked at his mind, and eventually with enough power, she was able to stab the right thought.
"So you love her all this time, and you feel excited by her presence, go back to her then?" Niko poked even more at him, trying to get him to rethink things he's said.
"Ah- I don't know! I can't help but think of her and how fucked up it was to choose somebody else just because of guilt! I can't blame her, I can't blame anybody else as much as I want to say it's Soran's fault. Now, now all I can do is regret, sulk over it, dream of her and my future. To only wish that in another lifetime, I didn't fuck up, that everything worked out the way it could've…"
"Now that's the truth, don't hide it from yourself. She really meant that much to you." it was all she could say, trying to absorb everything Max had just spilled in front of her, tears unable to fall, his eyes were dry and coarse.
Maragi opens the rooftop door to see both of them on the side of the railing, leaning over the chain-link fence that kept them from falling on the brown trees below.
"Y'all talking about something?" she says as she stood by the door leading to the staircase.
"Just chilling…" Max implies, pretending to act normal, almost like a drunk man trying to act sober.
"He was fine, I think we should head home now, we've been here for a few hours now." Niko was walking back to the stairwell, going past Maragi to meet the elevator again.
Maragi asks what time it is, Max answers "5:00 pm". He accompanies her down the stairwell, telling her that she should thank Yuki for letting them stay for a while.
Max gave one final glance at the Tetsu Kabe moving alongside its railed path around the city, analyzing it as the turrets moved in the rainy weather. Puddles of water formed on the rooftop floor, the roof above began to spill rainwater, and the Tetsu Kabe was shrouded in a windy fog. The heartbroken boy went downstairs to the elevator shaft.
Yuki had escorted all of them on their way down, giving them umbrellas to borrow. The rain was constant as they got downstairs and saw the darker shadows, the dim light that snuck in from the window blinds of the establishment. Max opened the glass doors and bowed respectfully to the three girls who were headed in the opposite direction of the street.
As the rain poured, trickling down his umbrella, he thought hard about why things had gone the way they did. Immersing himself in the rain, the wind was whistling in his ears, his thoughts were louder than the cars and people that passed by. Focused on the road, unable to think of where to go, trying to make out something in his mind that could comfort him.
Helplessly walking, his footsteps intentionally hitting the water, unable to move on from the thought of being with Her. The "What ifs' pestered his mind, holding on to the possibility of how she may still be interested. Hearing random knocks and uneven ground, he bumped into somebody, the feeling brought him out of his own head.
After an hour of walking, the sun was starting to set, he could not see himself being with anybody else but Akemi, despite the time changing, his mind stayed the same. The office was finally in view, the rainy night gave him a sense of dread, however, Dairue's warning was enough to pull him out completely.
The boy remembered Dairue telling him not to miss the ride they were about to take. Max had zero details, all kept confidential, except for a key point. After scrambling for a few minutes on whatever Dairue said, a vague thought of a red car picking him up came to mind. Suddenly all the things he had previously forgotten slowly built the memories back up.
Lo and behold, a red car arrived near exactly 6:00 pm, Max was dumbfounded at what to do yet the man inside simply gestured for him to come over.
"Hey, Max right? Could you hand me a spark plug, I'll pay double later." the well-dressed man pointed beneath the cupboards, trying to give a clear picture of what he needed.
"Sure, but are you my ride?" he asked the man
"Indeed, my name is Junichiro Kenji, you can call me Ken, get a move on."
His hands reached for the biggest spark plug they had, unaware of how sizes work, he assumed it wasn't being used for a car. Somewhat an accurate assumption, as Kenji confirmed it was for something much more sinister. Max pulled down the steel gates and kept his fingers crossed after going inside the car. The cold seats kept him on edge, digging into his skin.
"If the seats are cold, I'll turn the heater on later, we need to rush right now." Kenji pointed at his personal thermostat, the car was brand new from within, a direct contrast to its form outside.
"Dairue has all the context you need, there are a few crackers at the back if you're hungry" Kenji was murmuring over the dashboard, trying to give Max a comfortable time.
"Thank you for the offer, but could you please tell me what we're doing and where we're going?" yet he was merely curious, his tone was that of worry, trying to comprehend how little there was to think of.
The man explained how he didn't want Max to be involved, his single mother and his distant brother had kept the hesitation of bringing him into something that could be his last moment. Yet he knew that the boy must find out, to keep his family safe, to keep him aware of everything that goes on from here on out.
Are you sure you'd like to go? To leave your mother behind just to have a puny call of safety, to find out in exchange for your life, to bring knowledge to death. Questions that seek answers yet only take you deeper within, do your dreams drown you instead of providing a heavenly blessing? Does the corridor always haunt you when you see a hallway? The car does not sleep on the road.
Kenji explains how the countryside territories were invaded by a crawling mass, a cult, and a priest that seeks to take in children. Experimenting on the living, there was no evidence for the claims or signs of a cult, yet today was different. Dairue had overheard something going on by the catholic church building, out of place for the Buddhist temples around the region.
Kenji does not elaborate on the details, Max is left scratching his head, the loud droplets of water on top of the car kept the whole ride loud and excruciating. Finding out about Dairue's hidden plans and why he was being pursued by an unknown group of religiously inclined people, Max began to piece the puzzle together.
He repeats the same phrase over and over again. "Ill keep you safe" almost as if its a warning to Max
"You have a family waiting for you, I'd be more expendable… " Max says out of the blue.
"You're a child with potential and ideas, my ex-wife has gotten full custody of our children with her husband. There's nothing to lose really, my company is already being sold, You don't have to hear about it, but please value your mother, your brother is also out there. The last thing I want to happen is knowing they'll find out about your death." Kenji has mourned for himself.
"I am sorry, well, in hopes that all this bullshit goes well." Max was not capable of providing anything to revere the tragic life that Kenji had lived, unable to witness how it truly felt to be like him.
The two travelers passed over a town, Kenji coined the term "Window town" to describe how every window in the town was barricaded, some hanging open, free to enter. Small rain showers quickly shifted to a continuous downpour, the plan was beginning to look impossible as the storm gave its final wave.
"The windows… They're like mine, they open on their own…" Max looked out the window, trying to wipe the foggy windshield to get a better view of the houses.
"It's said they're using open windows to mark houses that have contact with Darue" Kenji tried to plug a question with a foreboding answer that leaves a two-way street into Max's head.
"Is his reputation that infamous? Was I being stalked the whole tim-?" Max decides not to continue the question, assuming he had already stumbled across an answer that was sufficient.
"We don't know for sure, but our terrible idea might just give them something to think about before messing around with our properties again."
"We're close, ill speed up so the cameras don't catch us entering this restricted zone, the ghost houses will likely be inside that area soon." he stepped on the gas pedal, zooming by the neighborhood.
The car was reaching its top speed, the roads were slippery and desolate, the horizon was turning from a civil urban area to a dark and foggy forested zone. Their destination felt closer and closer by, the engine slowly gave in, and the car slowed down to maintain its momentum over the tampered roads
Max held tight, the car gradually sped up again as they left the unpaved asphalt. Light posts were slowly growing distant and scarce, the road was soon shrouded in darkness. Max was cluelessly looking at the side mirror, seeing the rain and eventually rising to the roadside. Kenji's cold dead fingers grasped the wheel with all his strength.
A large beam of light was forming on the horizon.
"I see, I see something massive… It's luminescent and almost man-made.." the light was growing as they went closer and closer to the object, almost like hunting the light down. Max's eyes glued to the light, unable to look away for even just a second to blink.
"So it was real…" a revelation from Kenji, yet he could not see anything past his wipers.
"What was?! What's going on?! Those are not spotlights, those- no, this can't be real…" Max was beginning to question if his imagination had gone too far, seeing what it expected to find instead of what reality had in store.
The car was threading over a dirt road, a beaten path away from the highway. Trees filled the distance, plenty of overgrown pieces, fallen logs, Kenji was trying his best to sway around the trees. The young boy could only stare at the beam of light as it disappeared and reappeared, eventually the people came into view, and the light was coming from the church.
Panic ensued over him, as the environment around him faded, his vision was turning blurry. The clearing over the road became a muddy pile of dirt, the muck and the water had their very car in a chokehold. As the vehicle swung around, avoiding tree to tree, the lights became blinding, the origin of it unknown, disappearing and reappearing depending on the angle.
"The lights… They're- they're non euclidea-.. Non euclidea- Slow down Kenji!" he no longer found the truth, his body was in a dark room. Feeling as if the walls were closing, the singular light in the room was all he could find.
It waits, the barrier is an illusion for those who step too close.
"