by Yusuke Kishi
Satoru crossed his arms, trying his hardest to dig out the memory of the way we took.
“There weren’t many splits in the road. The most was a three-forked path. The first split, we took a left, then a right, after that…what was it?”
“There’s one thing I remember. The path sloped a little downward the entire way here. ”
I remember because it felt like we were being led to the underworld.
“Oh really? I see…we didn’t go uphill even once?” Satoru grabbed my hand. “Then let’s just keep going up. If the path starts slanting down, we’ll just go back to the previous intersection and choose the other path.”
“But not all paths that slope up are the right ones, right?” I brought up the obvious flaw in the plan.
“That’s true, but even if it’s not the path we originally took, if it goes up, it’ll eventually reach the surface, right?”
Is it okay to be that careless? I was starting to have some doubts about Satoru’s judgment. Would it even be possible to retrace our path in the dark? Maybe if we had a rope or something. Even Theseus had Ariadne’s thread to guide him through the Minotaur’s labyrinth
“Hey, can’t we call the queerats and tell them we want to go outside? Because, if we get lost…”
Satoru leaned in close to me. “We can’t explain to them why we want to leave, right? And we can’t predict how they’ll react if they find out we don’t have cantus.”
Listening carefully, I didn’t sense any queerats nearby. It seemed like dawn was the period when their activity was lowest. But the tunnels outside were even darker than the room we were in, like they were submerged in ink. I couldn’t find the courage to step out of the room.
“Hey, isn’t this kind of weird?” I said.
Satoru made an impatient noise. “Nothing’s strange. What’s strange?”
“Why is it brighter inside the room than outside?”
He stopped suddenly, looking surprised. That’s right. It was barely perceptible, but inside the room, I could see movement. But the tunnel leading from the room was pitch black.
“You’re right. …I see. There must be a source of light somewhere!”
We looked around, but didn’t find anything.
Satoru was still holding on to the spear he had taken from the Ground Spiders like it was the most important thing in the world. After ascertaining my position, he started poking around the room with the spear. As he did so, a little pinprick of light glimmered on the spearhead.
“What was that?”
I walked slowly toward the depths of the room. There seemed to be weak light coming from above. I looked up and gasped.
There was a huge notch cut out of the ceiling, through which I could see the stars shining high in the sky.
“Outside? Does this lead aboveground?”
“No, it doesn’t. …those aren’t stars,” Satoru whispered disbelievingly. “They look like stars, but they’re not twinkling at all. What the hell is it?”
Satoru thrust his spear at the emerald green flecks of light. I thought he couldn’t possibly reach them, but surprisingly, the spear easily touched the ceiling, and the lights quivered.
He drew back the spear slowly. I thought some of the spot of light would come with it, but instead strings of thick liquid dripped from the tip.
Satoru touched it with his finger. “It’s all sticky. Wanna feel it?”
I shook my head.
What was glowing on the ceiling were glowworms that had been domesticated by the queerats.
Evidence of glowworms dating back to ancient times have been found in caves in Australia and New Zealand. Although they’re called worms, they’re more closely related to flies and mosquitoes. The larvae nest on the ceiling, using sticky balls of mucus to trap other insects for food. The light they produce is used to attract prey, but also creates the impression of a galaxy of green stars as it bounces off the balls of mucus.
Glowworms originally did not exist in the Japanese archipelago, but were imported as fishing bait shortly before the collapse of the ancient civilization. A number of them survived and were modified by the queerats to be used as chandeliers in their reception halls.
Satoru stuck the spear in the ceiling again to collect more of the mucus and figure out which part were the insects. Then after a short discussion, I climbed onto his shoulders to collect more. Since I was lighter, I had no choice but to be on top, touching the nasty green glowing bugs.
He took the bugs and stuck them onto the spear (using their own sticky excretions). Maybe it was thanks to the queerats selectively breeding the bugs that they never stopped glowing even when they were handled so roughly.
“Alright, let’s go,” Satoru said decisively, starting toward the exit.
We shouldered our backpacks, grasped each other’s hands, and guided only by the light of the glowing bugs, stepped out into the darkness.
Thinking back on it even now, it was such a strange journey.
The only light came from the faint ghostly glow on the tip of the spear. Beyond that little circle of light, we couldn’t even see our own hands. I tried looking off to the side and waving my hand in front of my face, but all I could make out was a dark shadow. In order to see where we were going, we had to walk side by side. The tunnel was just wide enough for that, and I was even thankful that it was so narrow because now part of us would be constantly touching the walls.
“Are we ascending now?” Satoru said every now and then.
Whenever he asked, I answered with “yeah,” or “I don’t know,” or “who knows?”. No matter how I responded, it’s not like the situation was going to change.
The light sometimes revealed a two or three-way fork in the road. These splits were always easily visible thanks to the luminous moss growing near them.
Although luminous moss glows, it’s not through the same mechanism as the glowworms. In order to achieve photosynthesis in the dark tunnels, they use lens-like cells to store and give off light.
Queerats should be able to run around these tunnels relying only on their sense of touch and smell. But as they became more civilized, they needed a more efficient way to move around, so they started using the natural properties of things around them.
We continued walking silently. Since we didn’t meet a single queerat, I assumed that this was probably their resting period. At first I thought this was fortunate for us, but as time went on, things started looking a little foreboding.
“Hey, haven’t we been walking for a while now?” I asked Satoru.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe this really is the wrong way?”
We stopped. If we were wrong, then where were we? I thought back over the path we took.
“This doesn’t make sense. I’ve been remembering as we walked, how many, and which turns we took. So I don’t think this is the wrong path…”
“But I still think we went wrong somewhere. It shouldn’t be taking this long.”
“I guess so. Let’s go back and try again.”
We turned around and headed back the way we came. It was depressing to be heading down deeper into the tunnels again, but we didn’t have a choice. However, within a few moments, a surprising scene appeared.
“A fork in the road!” I breathed.
“I don’t believe it. That wasn’t there earlier, was it?”
Since I had been memorizing the path as we walked, I was completely sure of my answer.
“…it wasn’t.”
Satoru started examining the dirt around the path
“Hm…I get it! Damn it,” he growled suddenly, making me jump.
“What’s wrong?”
“I see. That’s possible too. But in such a short amount of time…” he sighed deeply.
“What are you talking about? Hey, what’s going on?”
“The dirt around here is fresh…”
I felt the blood drain from my face as I understood.
Queerats are always building new tunnel
s and changing the shape of their nests. In other words, there’s no guarantee that the path we took hadn’t changed from the time we arrived in our room until now.
“We thought we were fine since there was no activity going on. But it seems like the tunnel digging goes on despite that. They’re probably preparing the nest for war right now. I’m guessing that right after we had gone through the tunnel, they dug through from somewhere else, creating this split.”
Satoru threw the clod of dirt angrily against the wall.
“So we’re…”
“Yeah, we’re lost.”
If I could see Satoru’s face right now, I’m sure it would be full of misery and unspilled tears.
We wandered aimlessly through the dark tunnels. Although in reality we were probably only there for about half an hour, the stress of walking through near-absolute darkness in addition to being in an extremely cramped space made it seem like an eternity. Although we were lightly dressed and the air was cold enough to raise goosebumps, I was drenched in sweat.
With vulgar words that we rarely used, we cursed our bad luck, complained to the gods, and cried uncontrollably, but we never let go of each other, and continued to walk.
Then gradually, our minds fell into disarray.
For me, the first sign was auditory hallucinations.
I heard a disembodied voice call “Saki, Saki.”
“Did you say something?” I would ask Satoru, and sometimes an annoying voice would answer from above my head, “No.”
“Saki. Saki.”
I heard it clearly this time.
“Saki. Where are you? Hurry and come back.”
My father’s voice.
“Dad. Dad!” I shouted. “Help. I’m lost.”
“Saki. Listen. Never go outside the Holy Barrier. There’s a strong force inside the barrier so it’s safe, but the moment you take a step outside, there’s no cantus to protect you.”
“I know. But I can’t go back. I can’t find the way back.”
“Saki. Saki. Be careful of the queerats. They worship people with cantus as gods and will obey them unfailingly. But we don’t know how they’ll behave toward children without cantus. That’s why we have to keep them away from children as much as possible.”
“…Dad.”
“Hey, what are you saying? Get a hold of yourself.”
Compared to my hallucination, Satoru’s voice sounded far away and unreal.
“It is said that when the fifth emperor, the Emperor of Delight, came into power, the public’s cheers went on for three hundred years. The first to stop applauding were burned as sacrifices and their charred corpses were used to decorate the palace. Because of this, the citizens nicknamed him the Emperor of Eternal Screams.”
“Dad. Help.”
“The thirteenth empress, Airin, was called the Queen of Sorrow…every morning, the people who had displeased her…took great joy in the most brutal…fasting in order not to throw up…thirty-third, Emperor of Magnanimity, called Wolf King…devoured corpses…his son, the thirty-fourth, Emperor of Pure Virtue, Heretic King…strangled his father to death when he was twelve…feared assassination, killed his younger brother and cousins, all children…their bodies fed to worms and roaches…sixty-fourth, Empress of Holy Beneficence was called Owl Queen…kidnapped a pregnant woman every full moon, swallowed the fetus whole, pellets of human bones as far as the eye can see…”
My father’s distorted voice suddenly became strangely monotonous.
“Listen. An ethologist from the ancient civilization, Konrad Lorenz discovered that animals with strong killing instincts like wolves and ravens have an innate mechanism that causes them to avoid conflict with their own species. Physically weak species like rats and humans don’t have as strong of a mechanism, so they fight to the point of massacre.”
“Dad. Stop.”
“Ioki realized that by sacrificing one of his bases, his troops would be able to sever the enemy’s lines. But there was one problem. The base that had to be sacrificed was his own. As he predicted, his group was surrounded by the enemy. Ioki and six of his comrades fought bravely until the end, but they were all slaughtered, the bodies mutilated to the point that they were indistinguishable from ground hamburger meat.
“You idiot. Snap out of it!” Satoru hit my shoulder.
“I’m okay,” I said, but the voice persisted.
On top of that, I started seeing things.
“Did you obtain permission from your school to come this far?” the monk said mockingly. “You have violated the very foundations of the Code of Ethics, the last of the Ten Precepts, ‘Do not desecrate the Three Jewels’. You have fallen for the words of a demon and questioned the teachings of Buddha. So I will seal you in these human shapes for all of eternity. You will spend the rest of your lives trapped in them…”
“Saki! Saki!”
I was being shaken so hard that I thought I might have whiplash. Slowly, I returned to reality.
“Satoru…”
“What have you been muttering to yourself? I thought you’d gone nuts.”
“I think I have,” I whispered.
That was probably the real danger. If we didn’t have each other, we might really go crazy.
We wandered the tunnels for a long time. In that time, we didn’t meet a single queerat, but now that I think about it, they might have detected our presence long before we arrived and left to let us pass.
I was the first to become aware of something unusual.
“Did you hear that just now?”
There was no response. I squeezed Satoru’s hand hard. Still no response.
“Satoru?”
I smacked him lightly on the cheek twice, thrice. Finally, he let out a low moan.
“Wake up! I heard something weird.”
“There’s been a sound this whole time,” Satoru said faintly. “Calling us from below. The voices of the dead.”
I shuddered. Instead of me, Satoru was the one acting insane now. But more importantly, that sound was worrying. After walking through the pitch black tunnel, I felt that I had heightened intuition. My sixth sense was warning me that danger was approaching. This wasn’t the time to be worrying about Satoru’s condition.
Listening carefully, I heard it again. Because of the reverberation in the tunnels, I couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from. But it was gradually getting louder. I could hear it clearly. The shrill screams and battle cries of the queerats. The sound of something metallic, like a gong. And something indiscernible, like applause or the roar of the ocean.
All these sounds clashed cacophonously; it was the sound of war. My premonition was right.
“Hurry, run! The Ground Spiders are attacking.” I pulled on Satoru’s hand, but he didn’t respond.
Another fork in the path appeared. Which way should I go? Left, right, or back the way we came?
I reached for Satoru’s right hand and pointed the spear forward, but couldn’t see the faint green light at the tip. After checking the spear, I discovered that all the glowworms were dead.
Then I realized that we weren’t in total darkness. The moss around the path glowed dimly. There must be light coming from somewhere. We had been in the tunnel for so long that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was already light outside. If I was right, then the exit should be ahead.
Peering through the darkness, I saw a faint glimmer of light. I grasped Satoru’s hand tightly and approached carefully. As we walked, the tunnel gradually brightened. But as it did, the sounds of fighting grew louder as well.
If we went out right into the midst of the fight, we’d have no way to protect ourselves.
It was soon as bright as a moonlight night in the tunnel. Light was coming from an uphill path that curved to the right.
I hesitated for a moment then took a step forward. We couldn’t stay here forever. At any rate I wanted to go check that it really was an exit.
In the end, that small hesitation probably saved our lives.
Suddenly, there was a scream, and a queerat came tumbling down the curve.
It shuddered and twitched sporadically. As it tried to come this way, I saw that it was fatally wounded.
At the same time, I smelled something strange. Like rotten eggs. As I looked past the dying queerat, there was a flash of light, and smoke started drifting into the tunnel.
Don’t breathe in the smoke. That was my first instinct.
“This way!”
I wheeled around and dragged Satoru back the way we came as fast as I could.
But as we ran down the path, the smell didn’t abate. On the other hand, it became stronger.
As I started to panic, Satoru finally came around.
“It’s no use trying to run. We’re like mice in a maze,” he laughed.
“We’re not mice,” I snapped.
“Yeah we are,” he muttered completely nonchalantly. “When they’re smoked, mice run to the end of their holes.”
“Smoke?”
I finally realized the reason for that strange feeling I was having.
“That’s weird. Normal smoke goes up toward the sky, not downward.”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
Seeing that I didn’t understand, Satoru said, with the attitude of an intolerable know-it-all, “They’re attacking the enemies inside the tunnels with poisonous gas that’s heavier than air.”
I gasped. “If you knew, then why didn’t you…!”
Suppressing my irritation, I continued down the tunnel, thinking over the paths we had taken so far. There was one long uphill segment that I had hoped would lead aboveground. But when we were close to the surface, it dipped downward again, as if purposefully trying to disappoint us. If we could make it there, then maybe we could avoid the poisonous gas.
Without light from the glowworms, we ran around the labyrinthine tunnels in a state of near-panic. It would be a miracle if we managed to find the right path.
“This one goes uphill!”
I felt a long incline. Although our legs burned as we ran upward, we gritted our teeth and kept going. The pain was proof that we were still alive.
