track: courtyard
You run through the courtyard, Maeda close on your heels. She shouts at you to explain what is going on, and where you are headed, but you are entirely focused on the tree ahead of you, at the end of the long, winding path. Even though it is not in sight yet, you can
feel it. The grass sways silently. The breeze is picking up, and drowning out the singer. The song fades gradually as you draw closer to your destination, until the only thing you can hear is the whistling of the wind. Your pace slows down. There is an electrifying prickling running through your skin, from the top of your head to the tip of your toes.
You are here.
Huffing and puffing, Maeda comes up behind you. “Shinoseki! What are you thinking, taking off like that? Hey, are you listening-“ She stops, staring at the tree. Her reaction is no surprise. It cannot be helped. The Juunimon, massive and bowed with age, weighs down the entire landscape with its presence. The clearing around it looks
almost normal to the naked eye, but there appear to be transient
oddities that are there one second and gone the next. There is a strange sensation of gravity centered around the Juunimon, that the land and air surrounding the large tree are being warped and distorted in a higher plane... one felt, not seen. The falling pink petals swirl around the clearing in a downwards spiral, passing through each of the wooden archways formed by the tree’s twisted branches and trunk until they finally come to rest on the ground only to be blown upwards again by the wind and repeat the motion all over again.
You do not pay much attention to any of these, however: your eyes are drawn to the long-haired girl sitting in the branches, her bare-footed legs swinging idly. She flickers in and out of existence… an entity that is not entirely here. Her eyes stare blankly at some faraway scene. Though you must have made some noise making it here, she does not seem to notice your presence at all.
Why?
----
Her name.
You should know her name, but it flashes through your mind only as a burst of static.
“That girl… isn’t that Uehara? What is she doing up there?” gasps Maeda.
That’s right. She looks like her. ---a.
Wordlessly, you take one step forward, then another, walking towards the girl as if drawn by some unseen force. Maeda grabs you by the arm quickly, jerking you back. The touch of her fingers is warm; it seems to heat up your very core. It is as if some spell has been broken, and you regain your wits. You don’t know what possessed you to move towards her, but it seems to have vanished, leaving behind only a faint urge to rush towards the tree.
“Shinoseki, what’s the matter with you? That’s probably not Uehara, you know?”
“Y-Yes, I know. I’m sorry.” You apologize for your moment of weakness. Who knows what would have happened if you had wandered too close to the girl?
But if I do not get close, I will never know. But- A burst of static sends you reeling, your vision, sight and mind temporarily blanked out by it.
track: unease
As your sight recovers, you see the colour gradually fading away from the world. A ripple spreads outwards from the center of the tree, as if the land itself were water… and perhaps it is. The surface begins to shimmer in the moonlight, and you realize from the wetness seeping into your shoes that water is coming out from the ground, rising gradually. Maeda clings to you, surprised at the sudden flood. “W-What is this… broken plumbing?”
You can only hope that it is the case. A shadow begins growing in the water, a dark, irregular patch with ill-defined, waving borders. Hair… then a head… begins to rise from the shallow pool that can be no more higher than the base of your feet.
“Maybe…” whispers Maeda, “we should go.”
She is right. You should go. You turn, and try to lift your feet. They do not move. Wrapped around your ankles are thick, matted, tangled black strands of hair, tightening in a vise-like grip. Maeda lets out a scream, trying to pull away – her legs, too, have been tied up. There is a splashing sound coming from ahead of you, sporadic and broken… as if someone is attempting to stumble through the water to get to you.
Before you realize it, wet, clammy fingers are wrapping themselves around your neck. The
thing in the water is twining itself around you.
When did it get behind me? Maeda is screaming. The stench of water-logged death fills your nostrils; you gag, trying to shake it off, but more and more rotten hair begins to wrap around your neck and mouth and nose and eyes. Your spectacles are crushed by the force, the jagged edges of the broken plastic cutting your cheeks and brows. You begin to choke. The girl in the tree is still sitting there without a care in a world, swinging her legs.
You gasp for breath.
die
die
die
die
die
A woman’s voice, unfamiliar to your ears, fills your mind with its vindictive insanity.
The world begins to fade.
betrayer
Suddenly, it –
she – shrieks.
You feel the pressure loosen, and vanish entirely. You fall to your hands and knees, coughing and sputtering in an unsightly manner. Something darts in front of the field of your blurry vision. You squint. Is it a beast, or…
track: struggle
You can barely make out what seems to be a man, crouched on all fours. His elbows and knees are bent at unnatural angles, and his spine is broken in two, forcing him to drag himself along in a strange, shambling crawl. He is clad in a dirty, bloody doctor’s coat. With a clacking noise, he turns his head abruptly to stare at you.
Dr. Usui. The dead corpse bares his teeth in a mocking smile, the lips stretching wide enough to split. He lets out a low, disturbing chuckle. You can tell that he means you no good. Crouching down, he prepares to pounce at you. You shake your groggy head and splash about in the water helplessly, attempting to fall back to a better position.
As the dead doctor leaps, a black mass of shadows erupts from the water and strikes him right in his sides. The watery shade rises again, forming herself seemingly from the pool itself. The tendrils of hair tunnel themselves under the corpse’s flesh, creating writhing channels all over his flesh. The body shudders as it is shredded apart from the inside, but it seems like Dr. Usui is not going down without a fight: he lashes out, with claws and teeth, flailing ferociously at the shadow imprisoning him. But to no avail. He is strangled and torn apart in a mist of blood and flesh.
Maeda helps you up, her once well-permed hair now a wet mess. “Come on, let’s take this chance to run!”
The laughter of the dead echoes all around the clearing, as if answering her. From the darkness between the trees, they crawl out, closing in on the Juunimon’s clearing – the ones who had been massacred in the hospital, staff and patients alike. Their lifeless, blood-shot eyes gleam with madness and pain.
***
?????
A. You attempt to climb up the tree. The girl that is sitting there, the one that looks like Uehara. You know her… somehow, you have a notion that she is connected to your past. If you can just reach her… maybe something will happen. You will just have to pray that it is something good.
B. You run for the archways. The glowing petals seem to be vanishing slowly, dwindling in number as they fly through the tree’s gnarled branches. There is a strange sensation from the gaps. Perhaps that is your way out. There was that ritual, wasn’t it? You have a strong feeling that passing through the archways now will take you somewhere… hopefully somewhere safer.
C. The dead corpses seem to be focused more on the ghostly shadow and the tree than they are you at the moment. You should be able to get past them if you move quickly, heading for the research facility. You dare not tarry here any longer.
***
1. You grab Maeda’s hand and drag her along with you, whether she wants to come along or not.
2. Maeda can take care of herself; you let her make up her own mind as to what to do.