Tightrope: Part 2
I am both shocked and humbled that you people like this old-ass story.
Part 2
The hour was somewhere in the early morning, but I wasn't in the least bit tired.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears as I made my way through the polished grey corridors. Thankfully though, everything else was near enough silent. I'd changed from my formal work clothes into jeans, a black vest-top, and a long cardigan that reached my knees, and so as not to make any any noise should have to break into a run, I'd chosen not to wear shoes - a decision that I was now coming to regret.
Yet there was nobody around, so why was I in such a rush? Kobayashi was asleep in his room - I'd checked on the way down from my own. Then it had simply been a case of trying to find the key. Now that I thought about it, it had been surprisingly easy to locate, since we'd already passed the office earlier. The moment I'd seen the key in the top desk drawer, scattered amid paperclips and other pieces of rubbish, I'd grabbed it. Now, it sat clutched between my clenched fingers, and there was no way I was letting it go - not with the burning intention that I had in mind.
It was a completely stupid idea, and one that I probably wouldn't have even considered had it been an earlier hour. But I wasn't going to give up now, especially when I was so close…
I was going to set the man in the cage free.
I rounded a corner and recognised the place at once - in front of me stood the staircase that led to the corridor. Without hesitation, I began to make my way down them, shivering a little at the feeling of the ground against my bare feet. Like before, my heartbeat shook my whole chest, though this time the sensation was somewhat different. When I'd come this way earlier, I'd been full of anticipation and a sense of the unknown; and whilst it was true that those emotions were inside me right now, I was also scared - scared about being found out, and, if I were to be honest with myself, scared about being alone in a room with that man.
There was definitely something odd about the whole thing, and despite the fact I planned to run out of the room the moment I unlocked the cage, there still existed a large chance that something would go horribly wrong. Yet no matter what I thought, I wanted to help him - I'd seen the way Kobayashi had treated him, and guessed that the same level of neglect continued from day to day. What kind of life was that? In this day and age, even animals weren't treated in such a manner - so why should a human be trapped and mocked just for some fat man's entertainment?
I was on the stairs now, moving as fast but silently as I could. Half a minute later, I'd reached the bottom, and began to sprint along the passageway that ended in the door. It was still as dimly-lit as earlier - probably on a constant low power supply, I guessed. Once at the end, I fumbled with the key in my hand, fit it into the lock and twisted until I heard a click, at which the door slid open easily.
Darkness.
With one hand still gripping the door, I peered into the room. Hadn't there been candles here earlier? As my vision adjusted, I began to make out the shapes of the thin objects scattered about the various surfaces. Every last one had been extinguished.
I took a deep breath to calm myself, then reached into my pocket and pulled out a small battery-powered torch I'd found in my drawer earlier. When I pushed the switch, a circle of light landed on the floor near my feet - not overly-bright, but enough to illuminate the few metres ahead of me. I flicked the beam around until it landed on the cage in the centre of the room, highlighting the space inside. My whole body froze.
It was empty. The cage was empty.
I didn't even bother to think twice. I rushed over, crouched down and shone the beam into every corner, though it was no use- the man was gone. Rapidly, I stood and did a sweep of the room with the torch, but again, there was nothing.
"H-hello?" The words were dry as they passed my lips. "Is anyone there?
No answer. I sighed deeply, trying to control the shaking in my voice. “I saw you earlier. There's no need to hide -Kobayashi isn't here. I've come to set you free.”
A shuffling sound from the corner cut me off. I spun. The torch's beam passed clumsily over the area, but there was nothing there. Every muscle in my body was tightened like a spring, to the point where I thought I would shriek if anything happened to move.
I shone the light further along the wall, then noticed something different. A door. Like the rest of the room, it appeared to be badly-kept, and didn't have a keyhole.
My mind launched into a panic; yet despite my anxiousness, I longed to go through and find out what else was stored on the lowest floor of this building. I shot a glance at the door to the corridor. Were it not for the shard of light it let in and my torch, the room would have been completely black.
I turned my eyes back to the door in front. There was the issue of the man as well… How he'd managed to escape I didn't know, but hadn't I come down here to set him free? If I left now, then there would have been no point to the journey - I'd have run the risk of losing my job for nothing. My fingers tightened around the torch.
I knew what I had to do.
Slowly, silently, I moved forward. My body was stiff as if I'd been standing for ages, though I knew that was just the fear. I took a breath to calm myself. I had to be strong now. Slowly, I pushed on the door, watching as it swung open. Then I stepped forward.
What I found before me was more of a surprise than a horror.
It was a room, much larger than the one I'd just come out of, and completely devoid of furniture. The only appliances were several dim lights mounted upon the grey walls. To the right stood a netted wire fence that stretched all the way from the ground to the high ceiling, bisecting the room perfectly. Well, almost perfectly: as I followed it with my eyes, I noticed that some of the wire had been torn open to leave a hole a few feet in diameter. I stared at it for a moment, before lifting my eyes again.
He stood on the other side of the fence, perfectly still and straight. As before, his clothes were all black, and his hair cut away half of his face - it was difficult to tell where it ended and the material began. And that one eye... Despite the distance, I could pick out every hateful, cold emotion that seemed to dwell within it, to the point where I felt the shivers run down me.
Perhaps what made me the most uneasy was that he was looking directly at me.
I would have turned and ran back to the door, back to the corridors and the safety of my room. Yet I found myself walking towards him. I tried to search for some kind of justification in my mind, some unconscious explanation for my actions, but there was none. It was as if the fear had been drained from me. A magnetic attraction. The draw of a moth to the flame that would burn its wings and send it crumbling to the ground.
I reached the fence and stared through the wire, hypnotised. The man didn't move. He was mere inches away now. I found his eye, taking in the dark patches that had probably been caused by a lack of sleep, but apart from that, he was flawless. My mind flicked back to the sight of the cigar burn melting away earlier. Had that really happened? I felt my eyes drop to the spot on his cheek, searching for some kind of scar or imperfection, but there was nothing.
All of a sudden, the man brought his leg up and drove his foot into the fence. I reeled back from the shock, jump-started by the broken silence. I watched as the man spun. With the speed of an electric current, he raced along the fence, bent low and slipped through the gap in the fence. I barely had time to collect myself before he was sprinting towards me. Realising that I was too late to run away, I lifted my forearms to my face as protection, just as something took hold of my wrist and slammed my back into the fence.
As I opened my eyes, something wound around my neck and squeezed. Furiously I struggled, though that only seemed to make things worse. The man leaned forward, using his whole body to force me into submission. I was powerless, unable to escape. My throat burned from lack of air. I pushed against him, but I might as well have been trying to move a rock.
The moment the fingers loosened, I took my chance. Gathering my strength, I pulled back my shoulder and slammed it into the man's. The force knocked him off-balance, allowing me to tear myself away and stumble sideways into the open. The door flashed before me. I sprinted towards it.
Yet before I had ran so much as halfway, something swiped the back of my head, knocking me to the floor. I lay there, dazed and gasping. My head ached, and my throat burned with each breath. Through weighted eyes, I saw the open door, taunting me like a single eye. I'd missed my chance to escape.
I was going to die here. I knew it.
The sound of hard boots against concrete was like a timer. I counted them down, one by one, until they stopped in front of me. Slowly, I looked up to see a figure staring down at me, and flinched. My whole body ached. What was the point of trying to escape? If I was going to die, I should accept it without struggle. Yet as much as I tried to force these thoughts upon myself, I still couldn't shake the fear. Twenty-one years of existence, wiped out in a matter of moments. The whole idea just seemed so... final. I felt myself shudder.
My vision was starting to blur. I'd probably concussed myself with the fall. Desperately, I reached out a hand, but a boot came crushing down upon it. I screamed through clenched teeth.
“Please,” I gasped. “I-I didn't come here to hurt you. I just wanted to set you free...” The words flooded from me. Only after I'd finished did I realise I'd said them in English. I repeated in Japanese and snapped my eyes shut, feeling the tears well up.
Gradually, the pressure against my hand lessened, but I was far too exhausted to appreciate it. Still, it was one less pain for me to deal with in my final moments before I closed my eyes and let myself slip into nothingness.
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Part 2
The hour was somewhere in the early morning, but I wasn't in the least bit tired.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears as I made my way through the polished grey corridors. Thankfully though, everything else was near enough silent. I'd changed from my formal work clothes into jeans, a black vest-top, and a long cardigan that reached my knees, and so as not to make any any noise should have to break into a run, I'd chosen not to wear shoes - a decision that I was now coming to regret.
Yet there was nobody around, so why was I in such a rush? Kobayashi was asleep in his room - I'd checked on the way down from my own. Then it had simply been a case of trying to find the key. Now that I thought about it, it had been surprisingly easy to locate, since we'd already passed the office earlier. The moment I'd seen the key in the top desk drawer, scattered amid paperclips and other pieces of rubbish, I'd grabbed it. Now, it sat clutched between my clenched fingers, and there was no way I was letting it go - not with the burning intention that I had in mind.
It was a completely stupid idea, and one that I probably wouldn't have even considered had it been an earlier hour. But I wasn't going to give up now, especially when I was so close…
I was going to set the man in the cage free.
I rounded a corner and recognised the place at once - in front of me stood the staircase that led to the corridor. Without hesitation, I began to make my way down them, shivering a little at the feeling of the ground against my bare feet. Like before, my heartbeat shook my whole chest, though this time the sensation was somewhat different. When I'd come this way earlier, I'd been full of anticipation and a sense of the unknown; and whilst it was true that those emotions were inside me right now, I was also scared - scared about being found out, and, if I were to be honest with myself, scared about being alone in a room with that man.
There was definitely something odd about the whole thing, and despite the fact I planned to run out of the room the moment I unlocked the cage, there still existed a large chance that something would go horribly wrong. Yet no matter what I thought, I wanted to help him - I'd seen the way Kobayashi had treated him, and guessed that the same level of neglect continued from day to day. What kind of life was that? In this day and age, even animals weren't treated in such a manner - so why should a human be trapped and mocked just for some fat man's entertainment?
I was on the stairs now, moving as fast but silently as I could. Half a minute later, I'd reached the bottom, and began to sprint along the passageway that ended in the door. It was still as dimly-lit as earlier - probably on a constant low power supply, I guessed. Once at the end, I fumbled with the key in my hand, fit it into the lock and twisted until I heard a click, at which the door slid open easily.
Darkness.
With one hand still gripping the door, I peered into the room. Hadn't there been candles here earlier? As my vision adjusted, I began to make out the shapes of the thin objects scattered about the various surfaces. Every last one had been extinguished.
I took a deep breath to calm myself, then reached into my pocket and pulled out a small battery-powered torch I'd found in my drawer earlier. When I pushed the switch, a circle of light landed on the floor near my feet - not overly-bright, but enough to illuminate the few metres ahead of me. I flicked the beam around until it landed on the cage in the centre of the room, highlighting the space inside. My whole body froze.
It was empty. The cage was empty.
I didn't even bother to think twice. I rushed over, crouched down and shone the beam into every corner, though it was no use- the man was gone. Rapidly, I stood and did a sweep of the room with the torch, but again, there was nothing.
"H-hello?" The words were dry as they passed my lips. "Is anyone there?
No answer. I sighed deeply, trying to control the shaking in my voice. “I saw you earlier. There's no need to hide -Kobayashi isn't here. I've come to set you free.”
A shuffling sound from the corner cut me off. I spun. The torch's beam passed clumsily over the area, but there was nothing there. Every muscle in my body was tightened like a spring, to the point where I thought I would shriek if anything happened to move.
I shone the light further along the wall, then noticed something different. A door. Like the rest of the room, it appeared to be badly-kept, and didn't have a keyhole.
My mind launched into a panic; yet despite my anxiousness, I longed to go through and find out what else was stored on the lowest floor of this building. I shot a glance at the door to the corridor. Were it not for the shard of light it let in and my torch, the room would have been completely black.
I turned my eyes back to the door in front. There was the issue of the man as well… How he'd managed to escape I didn't know, but hadn't I come down here to set him free? If I left now, then there would have been no point to the journey - I'd have run the risk of losing my job for nothing. My fingers tightened around the torch.
I knew what I had to do.
Slowly, silently, I moved forward. My body was stiff as if I'd been standing for ages, though I knew that was just the fear. I took a breath to calm myself. I had to be strong now. Slowly, I pushed on the door, watching as it swung open. Then I stepped forward.
What I found before me was more of a surprise than a horror.
It was a room, much larger than the one I'd just come out of, and completely devoid of furniture. The only appliances were several dim lights mounted upon the grey walls. To the right stood a netted wire fence that stretched all the way from the ground to the high ceiling, bisecting the room perfectly. Well, almost perfectly: as I followed it with my eyes, I noticed that some of the wire had been torn open to leave a hole a few feet in diameter. I stared at it for a moment, before lifting my eyes again.
He stood on the other side of the fence, perfectly still and straight. As before, his clothes were all black, and his hair cut away half of his face - it was difficult to tell where it ended and the material began. And that one eye... Despite the distance, I could pick out every hateful, cold emotion that seemed to dwell within it, to the point where I felt the shivers run down me.
Perhaps what made me the most uneasy was that he was looking directly at me.
I would have turned and ran back to the door, back to the corridors and the safety of my room. Yet I found myself walking towards him. I tried to search for some kind of justification in my mind, some unconscious explanation for my actions, but there was none. It was as if the fear had been drained from me. A magnetic attraction. The draw of a moth to the flame that would burn its wings and send it crumbling to the ground.
I reached the fence and stared through the wire, hypnotised. The man didn't move. He was mere inches away now. I found his eye, taking in the dark patches that had probably been caused by a lack of sleep, but apart from that, he was flawless. My mind flicked back to the sight of the cigar burn melting away earlier. Had that really happened? I felt my eyes drop to the spot on his cheek, searching for some kind of scar or imperfection, but there was nothing.
All of a sudden, the man brought his leg up and drove his foot into the fence. I reeled back from the shock, jump-started by the broken silence. I watched as the man spun. With the speed of an electric current, he raced along the fence, bent low and slipped through the gap in the fence. I barely had time to collect myself before he was sprinting towards me. Realising that I was too late to run away, I lifted my forearms to my face as protection, just as something took hold of my wrist and slammed my back into the fence.
As I opened my eyes, something wound around my neck and squeezed. Furiously I struggled, though that only seemed to make things worse. The man leaned forward, using his whole body to force me into submission. I was powerless, unable to escape. My throat burned from lack of air. I pushed against him, but I might as well have been trying to move a rock.
The moment the fingers loosened, I took my chance. Gathering my strength, I pulled back my shoulder and slammed it into the man's. The force knocked him off-balance, allowing me to tear myself away and stumble sideways into the open. The door flashed before me. I sprinted towards it.
Yet before I had ran so much as halfway, something swiped the back of my head, knocking me to the floor. I lay there, dazed and gasping. My head ached, and my throat burned with each breath. Through weighted eyes, I saw the open door, taunting me like a single eye. I'd missed my chance to escape.
I was going to die here. I knew it.
The sound of hard boots against concrete was like a timer. I counted them down, one by one, until they stopped in front of me. Slowly, I looked up to see a figure staring down at me, and flinched. My whole body ached. What was the point of trying to escape? If I was going to die, I should accept it without struggle. Yet as much as I tried to force these thoughts upon myself, I still couldn't shake the fear. Twenty-one years of existence, wiped out in a matter of moments. The whole idea just seemed so... final. I felt myself shudder.
My vision was starting to blur. I'd probably concussed myself with the fall. Desperately, I reached out a hand, but a boot came crushing down upon it. I screamed through clenched teeth.
“Please,” I gasped. “I-I didn't come here to hurt you. I just wanted to set you free...” The words flooded from me. Only after I'd finished did I realise I'd said them in English. I repeated in Japanese and snapped my eyes shut, feeling the tears well up.
Gradually, the pressure against my hand lessened, but I was far too exhausted to appreciate it. Still, it was one less pain for me to deal with in my final moments before I closed my eyes and let myself slip into nothingness.
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