Case 04: The hole in the clock tower (3)

It was quite dark in there.

Was it cramped or spacious around me? I couldn’t tell. However, my consciousness was unusually clear, It’s a dream again, I thought. I could smell the dust and the staleness in the air. A closed space with no exit. This was the dream from the other day. I softly strained my eyes to my right side, and sensed someone standing over there facing the wall. I still had no idea who it was.

What was this dream anyway? Dreams are more or less a fragment of the scenery that you viewed sometime in reality. But I don’t remember ever visiting such a place in my reality.

The moment I thought that, I suddenly felt something foreign on my shoe. I jumped back as I stepped on something squishy on the sole of my foot. However, the place I moved to also had the same squishy stuff. It was everywhere I moved my foot to. What the hell is this?

Crouching in fear, I touched that strange material with my hand and shuddered, it was the carcass of a fish. The floor was covered with countless fish carcasses, and at the same time, the rotten smell of fish decay struck my nose, making me cough violently.

---W-Why fish?

Did they appear in my dream because I was researching Fafrotskies phenomenon?

While I was in a panic, I heard another clattering sound somewhere. A few meters ahead of me, Light like a full moon peeked out. Anyway, I don't care where, as long as I can get away from this rotten air. Anywhere is fine as long as I can get away from this creepy place. With that thought in mind, I stumbled through the fish carcasses, covering my mouth and nose, and I started running again. The moment I poked my face out of that round hole, I breathed fresh air into the bottom of my lungs as much as I could, and felt relieved – then I suddenly remembered.

Back then, there was someone alongside the wall, laughing.

Laughing, as if things were happening exactly how they expected, and that delight showed in that laughter, I heard a swishing sound.

--Ah, it’s happening again.

My head was chopped off at full force.

I'm told that a severed head remains conscious for only a few seconds before oxygen runs out from the brain.

Maybe that's why - I saw it. The vision from my falling head, I saw countless somethings, and heard countless somethings.

But-

The moment I woke from the dream, I forgot most of them.

The only thing that remained with me, along with the disgusting sweat that soaked my body, was –

Someone's shrill laughter. The voice was full of malice, hearing it felt as if something disgusting was crawling up from the bottom of my stomach.

With the advent of September, the number of students in the school increased by a lot. The university is on a long summer vacation until the end of this month, and whether they are bored or not, the campus is filled with happy students who are enjoying their summer vacation and are tanned quite well. In the lawn, in the courtyard, in the cafeteria, everyone was dressed fashionably and laughing like they were enjoying their youth.

On the other hand, my life didn’t really change. More than half the research materials still needed to be translated. I honestly don't care about Fafrotskies anymore when I see the crowd of healthy students laughing and acting boisterously. I felt miserable staying in the hot club room translating creepy events of past.

Looking up at the glittering sky, I thought to myself:

--Ah, I’m already eighteen.

When I was a kid, I thought being eighteen would be a lot different. I feel like I'm not quite the university student I imagined back then. I feel like I'm being crushed by a nagging conflict: the impatient feeling of not being sure if I should keep going the way I am now, and on the other hand, not knowing what else to do.

On one hand, I’m not sure if I want to become a fashionable student enjoying life. From the time I entered the school, I had the impression that everyone was indistinguishable from each other. It’s ridiculed as a "rich kid’s university" in the public, this may be because our university is a place where children from well-off families gather. And mixed within them was me, a bumpkin boy with a supposed inferiority complex. Anyway, I felt that something in this university felt strangely closed.

The students here try way too hard to be efficient. They don’t try to work too hard. Anyone who tries to stand out too much is avoided. They introduce good part-time jobs to each other, enjoy mixed parties in moderation, and teach each other how to take exams for each professor based off of information passed down from the seniors.

--Ugh, What is a university supposed to be, anyway?

A place you’re supposed to study, right? It's a place where you can envision what you want to be in the future and accumulate the knowledge and skills to achieve it. Just going with the flow will mean you end up becoming nothing, you guys.

I muttered those kinds of warped thoughts to myself, even though I’m not a particularly studious student myself. In actuality, if I keep going on like this, I'm the one who's going to end up just going with the flow. They’re not bad people or anything. They just generally don’t try hard. They know their place well. They’re enjoying their days while still being responsible in acceptable limits.

But – but, isn’t that just boring? is what I end up thinking. I still don't know what the kind of person I’ll be in the future. That’s why, I have to be reckless. And like that, I’ll go through bitter experiences, and find out what my limits are, and to sometimes go beyond those limits. I end up thinking: Is there any meaning to living a life without adventure?

--Everything ended before it even began.

Before I realized it, I had termed this university’s culture like that.

And as such, the thing that was now supporting me was ‘Ikaigabuchi’.

Countless fans of the occult gathered there, and countless paranormal events were recorded there. Sure, you didn’t really feel that you were a part of youthful events of any kind, but even as I continue my days of frantically translating English research materials with the respectably petite administrator, I feel like I’m moving forward. Like I’m part of something – like I have something to dedicate myself to, and I guess that was the peace of mind I could escape to now.

That’s why -- I didn’t notice that the defensive instinct inside me had kicked in already. I had ignored the dangerous fact that I had been having a series of similar dreams in a short period of time – That night, that fact came home to roost.

It happened late at night, when I was on the way home back from my part-time job.

In the flow of the lukewarm wind, I was pedaling my granny bike silently past a store in front of a certain train station, leaving the residential area behind me. My apartment is located behind the university, further along the park, and that day I was going along the narrow path between the university and the auxiliary high school—

--When I suddenly felt something on my cheek.

--It’s raining, is it?

I stopped my bike, and looked up. There were no stars in the sky, but there were a few clouds and the sky was mostly clear.

It was a dark street sandwiched between two fences. Beyond the fence on the right-side wall was the sports ground of the university’s affiliated school. On the other side of the left side wall was building number seven of the university. Building number seven belonged to the department of science; they were different from us humanities majors and had to stay late doing experiments almost every day. Even though it was so late, the school building was still lit in places.

That’s why -- I thought it might have been water from the air conditioner.

A drop of water might have been carried over by the wind from an outdoor air conditioning unit from building seven somewhere.

But, I wiped my cheeks, and checked the palm of my head, and thought: ‘Huh?’ It was dark, so I couldn’t be certain but, I felt there was some color tinged to it. I took out my phone, pointed the light at it, and at that moment – I shook in fear.

It was blood; the scarlet liquid stuck to my palm, appearing slightly diluted as it mixed in with the sweat on my face.

--W--what the hell?

Flustered, I wiped my hand on the back of my jeans and checked my surroundings once more. I looked up in all directions.

--Why did something like blood rain down?

I rubbed my face once again. It really was blood on the palm of my hand. The blood feels light, even sticky, like it's pulling a string. It definitely wasn’t paint or something like that.

With bated breath, I looked up once again at the university building. There was no one in the brightly lit window of building number seven. There was no trace of anyone on the rooftop. Even if it was somebody’s prank, I couldn’t see any sign of the person who executed it.

On that hot, sultry summer night, something cold slipped under my feet.

It was then, that I remembered the story Karasu-san had mentioned, the story I had almost forgotten.

In Koumei institute, there’s a place where it rains blood.

There’s a clock tower there, and it is said to have been sealed up due to something creepy that happened in the past.

Where the hell is that?

Does it have anything to do with the ‘strange rain’ incident at Musashino?

But I never saw anything resembling a clock tower in this university anywhere, and Krishna-san had denied that rumor from the start. And right now, there was nothing resembling a clock tower anywhere around h—

It was at that moment.

I caught a glimpse of something behind the wall that blocked the space between the second sports ground and the road.

--What is that?

Was something like that at the sports ground before?

It was the top part of a long, narrow structure that resembled a tower.

The next thing I knew, I parked my bike there and unconsciously wandered near the fence, and outstretched my hands. I crawled up the wall and sat down, examining the structure.

“…Hah”

Feeling relieved, I let out a sigh of relief.

It was the reddish-brown roof of the gym storehouse. I'd been inside that thing before during gym class. Inside, it was just a dusty place where soccer balls, mats, and gymnastic vaulting horses are crammed together. I was only surprised because I saw only the roof part, which I was not used to seeing.

“I guess things aren’t as scary as they seem.”*

But when I took another look at the building from bottom to the top, I shuddered.

“…Eh?”

I hadn't noticed it up until now, but there was a withered old clock in the upper middle part of the building. A large sooty dial which was almost the same color as the wall, it had a minute hand and an hour hand. The second hand was missing, so I couldn’t immediately tell if it was working or not.

No way, it can’t be –

But, doesn't that look like a clock tower?

My blood froze in my veins, as I gazed at the long, narrow building standing deserted in semi darkness; this time another suspicion sprang to mind.

Come to think of it, didn’t Karasu-san mention something about a hidden room present in the clock tower…? Something about a creepy incident happening there in the past?

That gym storage room building was pretty long and narrow. It's as high as a two story – no, you could say, a three story building. But I already know as I’ve been there. There is no second floor. The ceiling inside was definitely high – but still, the ceiling wasn’t as tall as the height of the building. In short, there could be an entrance to a second floor somewhere. As I started to think about things like that, I began to feel that the warehouse inside was smaller than the impression I got from the outside. You could just say the outer walls were thick but, I began to increasingly feel that the gym storehouse was a creepy place.

Suddenly…

Feeling a strange gaze on me, I looked up… and noticed it.

The dial of the clock tower.

Around the number four.

There was something dark and hollow there.

At first, I thought there was something stuck to it, but it seemed to be a hole. Right between the middle of numbers three and four, there was a dark hole around the size of a human head. Seeing it sent a chill down my spine. Like I shouldn’t keep looking at it, as if something was peeking out from the other side.

Could that be the fabled clock tower in the rumors? And if so, Krishna-san saying ‘No such thing exists’, could that have simply been because she didn’t want me to get involved?

--My mind was still in rehabilitation, I had ended up coming to an extremely dangerous place.

“…This is dangerous.”

The moment I had finished warning myself-

“Why is that clock always late?”

Unexpectedly hearing that voice again, I almost fell off the fence.

“In a closed space where students are supposed to be under control, there's not a single good thing about being late.”

The voice was coming from just below.

On the other side of the fence, from the darkness facing the sports ground.

When I looked -- someone was there, leaning against the wall.

Wearing a white blouse, black tie—the uniform belonging to the Koumei institute. And that long dark hair, she seemed to meld in perfectly with the darkness. Her pale face was illuminated by the moonlight.

“Y-you, Are you?”

I asked timidly from the top of the fence.

“--Yoishi?”

The girl turned her pale face towards me, with an artificially cheerful expression.

There’s no doubt about it. Emotionless, bisque doll-like beauty; Eyes like glass beads. Is it just my imagination? She seems like she’s lost some weight. Or should I say, that person who has refined her gloomy aura is without a doubt -- Yoishi Mitsurugi.

Yoishi stayed silent in the darkness as she gazed her eyes toward me, eventually letting out a grunt. “It’s been twenty days, seven hours and forty-two minutes.” She muttered.

“W…what are you doing in a place like this?”

This, is really Yoishi. Or should I say, is she alive? No, she just spouted something about it being twenty days and something in hours so she must be alive. But then, what’s up with this rotting look? Has she finally lost her mind completely? In the first place, with time and place being what they are. And on top of all that, I had just been showered in some creepy blood. Generally speaking, I was unsure if what I was seeing was of this world. That’s why, I asked her again.

“Hey, do you hear me? I asked you a question, what are you doing here at a time like this?”

Below me, Yoishi muttered a few words in response. “I’ve been thinking.”

“….Huh?”

“I knew I couldn’t find the answer no matter how much I thought about it. But even so, I had no other choice, so I kept thinking about it. But then, someone spoke to me…. I ignored them at first. But they were persistent. I replied to them. But they were still bothering me. So, I walked away to be alone--.”

Yoishi then looked up to me with intense curiosity.

“So, what exactly are you doing here?”

“I was the one asking you.”

Ah-Is that so, she nodded with a vacant look in her eyes as if she understood.

“The person I spoke to, was already dead.”

That low whisper instantly made me cower and sent goose bumps up my spine.

“Hey! What are you going on about?”

Still feeling shocked, I jumped down to the sports ground, and stood up again, staring once again at her pale, gloomy face.

It was without a doubt, Yoishi Mitsurugi.

Her pale white face with its too-perfect proportions was frightening in its sculpted beauty, all wasted on her, and her ever so slender frame had slender arms joined to it.

The warm summer night breeze blowing across the sports ground ruffled her black hair. Without even trying to hold it down as much, she intently stayed dark, gloomy and silent. It was as if, at this very moment, summer had ended, autumn had been skipped over and the ice age had arrived. Her frozen beauty was still the same, but her uniform was so wrinkled; I imagined she had slept with it on, and her long, supposedly beautiful black hair was so coarse that I wondered how many days she hadn't washed it. Riding on the wind, a slight acrid odor drifted my way.

In short,

Yoishi Mitsurugi hadn’t changed at all. She doesn’t take baths. She was still living with one foot planted firmly in the world beyond. Or should I say, she’s become even more ragged -- as pitiful as a stuffed doll abandoned at the wayside for many years.

“….Y-You, That’s enough already!”

Maybe it was a reaction to the fact that I was scared out of my mind, or maybe I was just angry that I'd been startled suddenly in an unusual way. Even though it’s our first meeting after so long, all I could feel was an irritating anger.

“Have you been eating properly at all? Did you take a bath? Have you just been wandering around creepy places since then? Around graveyards or haunted places?”

During my successive questioning, I realized something.

Come to think of it, this place itself fit the bill of a creepy place. There’s a clock attached to the gym storehouse – and didn’t she say something about a clock earlier?

“So, what were you going on about earlier? What were you saying about the clock being late?”

When I asked her that, she nodded in reply.

“Is that about the clock on the gym storehouse?”

“The gym storehouse?”

“That one over there.” I pointed to the old, long and narrow building I'd been staring at.

Yoishi nodded once and simply restated.

“You mean the clock tower.”

“….And?”

“That building is curious. The structure itself is strange but, the strangest thing of all is that the clock there is always late.”

“W-wait a second.”

I stopped Yoishi from rambling on endlessly and asked her.

“You -- just now, you called it a clock tower.”

“No matter how you look at it, it’s a clock tower.” Yoishi looked at me with curiosity and nodded.

Oh my God. She was dead on. The clock tower Karasu-san mentioned actually existed. And the phenomenon of blood raining down, as I just experienced earlier, was probably real too!

I spoke, “Yoishi, it’s over. Let’s just stop. Or rather, for one reason or another, it’s now forbidden for me to meet you. I can't just keep waltzing off to some creepy place with you anymore.”

“Well, it’s not as if we arranged this meeting beforehand.”

“Er, that might be true, but…”

“I was here first, and you arrived afterwards. I can't be blamed for that.”

--Ahhh! She has a comeback ready for anything I say.

“Anyway, I’m leaving. I don't know what's bothering you and I don't know how long you've been standing there, but I can give you some advice somewhere where there’s daylight. Now you go home, too.”

But it was as if Yoishi wasn’t listening to anything I was saying.

“Say, did you read the ghost story about the warp in space time?”

“…Huh?”

“It’s a story you hear often, people who go into a manhole, walk a while and exit from another place, only to find that the world slightly differs from the one they came from, or about elevators that stop by themselves on an unlit floor in the middle of the night and take you to a slightly different world when you get off. In that world, you might have a younger sister who is not supposed to exist, or a close friend who now acts like a complete stranger.”

Of course, I'm a bit of an occult enthusiast myself. I’ve read lots of stories of that kind. They’re very entertaining, I would even go far to say they’re my favorite kind. But, what does that have to do with the situation right now?

“Many of those space-time warp stories are often dismissed as discrepancies in memory ---but what if multiple worlds did in fact exist. And, if that doorway were to open somewhere in this world for some reason. It wouldn’t be strange to think that they could open in the sky.”

“C-could you be possibly talking about the strange rain phenomenon?”

Yoishi nodded in agreement.

“…No, be it multidimensions or whatever. Then, what about area around that gym storehouse…or should I say, the clock tower; what about blood raining there? Are you saying there’s a door to a multidimensional world there?”

Yoishi stared at me for a while before asking me:

“….Blood?”

“Oh, that’s right. It fell on my face a while ago. It already faded a bit, but here.”

I thrust out the palm of my hand before Yoishi. And then explained Karasu-san’s rumor to her about blood raining around a clock tower somewhere in Koumei institute, and I told her about this blood falling down on my cheeks a little while ago. There wasn’t really much trace of blood left on the palm of my hand, but a black stripe was still perceivable if you looked closely. Yoishi silently drew her face near my hand, and sniffed the scent. Is she a dog? I thought, as she finally nodded and spoke.

“I can certainly smell hemoglobins and sodium chloride.”

“R-right? Why did something like blood fall down? Where did it fall down from? And—”

I looked up and froze, just as I was about to ask about the hole in the clock face I had discovered.

The hole in the clock tower dial had disappeared. Only a white board remained between the numbers three and four.

“Huh…? There was definitely a hole there just now—”. The moment I said those words…

“Did you see that hole as well?”

Goosebumps crawled on my skin, at the sound of her somewhat happy voice.

When I saw, Yoishi Mitsurugi’s eyes had suddenly begun to shine.

“The Fafrotskies phenomenon, the blood rain around the clock tower, the clock being late – there’s an origin behind all these phenomena. But the primary factor may not be necessarily understood by humans.”

While being horrified by that dark shine which had already become nostalgic, at the same time it also brought back the days of cruising the depths of the underworld with her that had already faded into the deep recesses of my memory. For the first time in a while, my whole being was now enveloped in a sense that something was slipping away. This world and the world beyond are becoming connected, a feeling I could never cope with, a feeling of despair that death was creeping in–

This was bad.

Everything would simply slip away from this point on.

No—w-wait a minute, time out! Time out!!

But…Yoishi already had her face so close to mine that I could practically feel her breath on my face.

“Say…”

“…..”

“Wouldn’t you like to go there? To the clock tower?”