mission report for clipsie (part 4 of 7)

[capn_planet]

Back to Part 3


"Taichi."

The room was dark when Sakamoto returned later that night. He flipped on the switch, bathing it in light and revealing Taichi curled up in his bed, the same as Sakamoto'd found him every other night he'd come home the last couple of days. Taichi's body jerked, wincing away from the light.

"Taichi."

Again. No answer.

Sakamoto sighed. Dumping his bag beside his desk, he began changing out of his wet pants and socks.

"Hiroshi and I are going out to get a drink or two. Forget about this whole thing for a while." He jerked a dry pair of jeans over his legs. "You should come. It'd be good for you."

It's quiet at first. Then. "I don't wanna..."

"Taichi, you're acting like a small child."

"Who cares."

"Taichi, you haven't left the room all week. Come out with us. We're only going for a few hours."

There was a rustle of blankets as Taichi shook his head. Sakamoto's brow furrowed as he pulled a dry hoodie over his shoulders.

"Taichi, seriously." Pulling the fabric of the hoodie down until it was snug around him, he walked over to Taichi's bed, hands on his hips. "I'm worried about you, you know."

"I'm fine."

"Like hell you're fine." Sakamoto ground his teeth together. "You won't even look at me."

Taichi flung the blanket off, glaring up at him beneath his mussed hair, the greenish-gray staining the perimeter of his eyes making him look like an angered raccoon. "Is this better?"

Sakamoto's expression didn't change, his eyes still narrowed in annoyance. Neither one of them spoke for a moment. Then. "You know what, fuck it. I don't care. Do whatever you want." He stomped off, sliding his jacket back on and taking off for the door.

Taichi watched him with his lips pressed together in a permanent frown. He brought a hand up to scratch at his cheek, bed-lines etched into the skin.

"You're doing a real good job not letting your friend's death go in vain." Sakamoto gave him one final scowl before slamming the door behind him, not even bothering to turn off the light.

Taichi scoffed, eyes focused on the door for another moment as he listened to Sakamoto's footsteps clomp away and down the hallway. Arms finding the blankets again, he flung them over his head and sat there, a lumpy pile on the bed, until his heart-rate had slowed and his anger had disappeared. He sighed, the lump slumping forward, then falling all the way onto the bed with an apathetic whump.

It was too light in the room.

He wanted the darkness.

But he was too lazy to get down from the bed and turn the overhead light off.

His breath was hot and moist, trapped in the sheets around him. It felt comforting yet stifling at the same time. He pulled the fabric tighter around his body.

There was a knock at the door.

He ignored it.

A few seconds later, the knock came again.

"Go awaaaaay... Masayuki, I'm not going out with you!" He groaned, twisting around on the top of the bed.

The door opened.

Flinging the blankets off of himself, he shot up on the bed, face red from heat and anger. "I told you I'm not-!"

He stopped.

Joshima had taken a step back in surprise at his outburst, his hands curled up towards his chest and his eyes wide and round.

Taichi couldn't seem to make himself move. His mouth hung open, breath stuck somewhere in his throat. He felt his face grow warm, hot, burning.

"S-... sorry, I-..." Joshima was the first to speak. "I-I just thought... I would see if you were... ok..." His head lowered, as if in shame, hands up towards his mouth and hiding the bottom of his chin.

Taichi shook his head with a jerk. "It's, uh, no... it's fine... s-sorry, I thought you were someone else..." Taichi turned his body away, running a hand through his hair and hunching down on the bed.

Joshima stepped all the way inside, hesitating at first, but then closing the door behind him.

"...I haven't seen you at all the last couple of days."

Taichi pressed his lips together, but didn't reply.

"I heard about what happened..."

Silence.

"I'm sorry..."

"Why are you apologizing?"

"...I guess I don't really know what else to say." Joshima stood awkwardly by the bed, fiddling with the bottom of his shirt, before slowly sitting down on the edge of the covers.

Taichi looked purposefully away, hand coming up to cover his face. "It's all my fault."

"What's your fault?"

He bit down on his lip, pulling the blanket back around his frame and curling forward. He felt moisture start to drip from his nose and sniffed it back inside with an unbecoming jerk of his shoulders. "That Tatsuya's fucking dead."

Joshima winced, eyes traveling back and forth between his lap and the ball that was Taichi next to him.

"I could have stopped it. I could have stopped this whole thing. I knew there was something wrong with that place. I'd felt it. I'd seen it. I could have said something! But no, I was a fucking coward who couldn't open his mouth, and I let all of this happen and now Tatsuya's dead and it's all my fault." The words tumbled out of Taichi's mouth before he could stop them. "What the fuck is wrong with me? I ruin everything."

The room grew silent. Still.

Taichi's shoulders trembled beneath the blankets.

Then all of a sudden Joshima was up off the bed and his hands found one of Taichi's legs and he was pulling him, yanking him from his spot. Taichi yelped, flailing his arms up and out as he fell unceremoniously off the side of the bed with a painful thud to the floor. By the time he'd made heads or tails of what was going on, Joshima had him slammed back against the side of the mattress and was straddling his legs, his eyes narrowed in rage as his hands gripped themselves in Taichi's shirt.

"And just how is feeling sorry for yourself going to make anything better?!" Joshima's face was so close, Taichi could see his canines snapping angrily. His heart nearly jumped out of chest as his pupils shook in their sockets.

"Your best friend dies, so you hole up in your room and lie around feeling sorry for yourself? That's not gonna change anything! That's not what Tatsuya wants you to do!"

Taichi couldn't find words to answer.

Joshima sat back on his haunches, hands to the top buttons of his shirt as he began to undo them. Taichi's eyes grew larger and larger as the spit evaporated in his mouth and his stomach sloshed in energetic flip-flops. "Wh-...wh-... what are you--?"

Joshima pulled the right side of his shirt down and off his shoulder before grabbing Taichi's hand, shoving it against his skin just above the collarbone.

Taichi couldn't breathe. His body shook with an uncontrollable tremor, sweat leaking down the back of his neck and along his temples. "Wh-... wh-..." He licked his lips, heart beating up through his open mouth.

But now Joshima didn't move. He simply sat there, Taichi's legs captured between his knees and Taichi's hand pressed to the side of his neck, his normally bubbly eyes now as cold as steel as he stared down at him.

Taichi felt sweat form beneath his fingers, wet and sticky. But then. There was something else too. The skin beneath his fingertips felt strangely bumpy, rough almost, but interwoven with smooth vein-line lines. His eyes narrowed just a bit, heart still pounding in his head but his mind now more focused. He pulled his fingers down, running them jiltedly across the textured skin until his hand slid off entirely, falling to Joshima's thigh.

The side of Joshima's neck, the top of his shoulder, all down the front of his chest was scarred with dark red lines. The jagged stretch marks made a sort of circle, speckled with both darkened pockmarks and white, smooth blemishes.

Taichi's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, spit gathering in the dip behind his front teeth.

He didn't know what to say.

Joshima's face softened, though his jaw remained tight, his eyes falling to somewhere around Taichi's chin. "There was a fire. Took the whole house down. They said my father'd left a cigar in one of the chairs. I was still in grade school at the time... everyone thought I was done for, but I survived somehow." Joshima's fingers came up to trace the side of his neck, following the lines of the various scars. "I was in the hospital for months. The attendants taking care of me didn't dress my wounds properly and they got infected. It was a huge mess. They pumped me full of antibiotics, but it was too late for it to heal properly."

Joshima was staring at the side of the bed, his eyes focused on something that wasn't there. "...I spent month after month feeling sorry for myself. Doing nothing but wallow in my own misery. I thought my life was over. Sure, the fire didn't kill me, but it might as well have. Even as I started to feel better, I didn't try to go out. I didn't try to return to all the things I used to love doing. All I did was feel sorry for myself. All I did was lie around and think about how much better off everyone else was.

But then, you know what? I realized something." Joshima's eyes returned to Taichi's, a flash of something reflecting from inside them. "I was alive. And that right there put me a lot better off than so many others. I could still walk. I could still talk. I could still see, and hear, and taste, and feel and-... and breathe..."

Joshima's lips were trembling, and Taichi felt something twist deep down inside his chest. "And I decided that I was done feeling sorry about myself. Because there was so much out there I still needed to do. So much I still could do." He took a little breath, closing his eyes for a moment. "And there are so many things you can still do too. Do you think Tatsuya would want you to lie around in bed crying about him? Or do you think he'd want you to take out this bastard before he does the same thing to someone else?"

Taichi's eyes fell, and he took a breath for what felt like the first time in a long while. He bit down on his lower lip until the taste of copper flooded his mouth.

"I guess I-..." He swallowed. "...hadn't really thought about it..." His eyes darkened as he let out a sigh. "But I guess you're... right..."

He glanced back up to see Joshima smiling at him, that same carefree smile as always, aloof and bubbly. The tension seemed to melt out of his shoulders, chains that had been roping the insides of his chest together coming undone.

"I'm not really helping anyone lying in bed. Not even myself..." He brought a hand up to rub at his eyes, eyelids heavy. When he opened them back up, he saw his other hand still sitting on top of Joshima's thigh, and the flush returned to his cheeks.

He withdrew his hand like it was on fire.

Joshima seemed to take his own proximity into account for the first time, his eyes widening at Taichi's reaction and his face turning pink. "O-oh... I'm sorry..." His hands went to his cheeks, eyes peeking out shamefully from between his fingers. He made to stand up.

Taichi's fingers clamped down on the hem of Joshima's shirt. Stopping him.

The room went silent.

He licked his lips.

"I don't... mind..."

Taichi couldn't look up, his eyes focused, trained on his own legs, shaking, his lips and mouth dry, his muscles trembling. He couldn't hear over the pounding of his heart in his ears.

He'd said it.

He'd said it.

A giant oblong stone was tumbling around and around in his stomach.

He'd said it.

A drop of sweat trickled down from his forehead. He blinked his eyes. Hard. Again. He closed them. His breath caught in his throat.

Joshima didn't say anything.

But he didn't move either.

He didn't jerk away. He didn't wince back. He didn't try to make distance between them.

He just sat there, straddling Taichi's legs with his shirt rumpled and the most curious expression on his face.

After what seemed like forever, but couldn't have been more than thirty seconds, Taichi mentally prepared himself and looked up, searching Joshima's face, searching Joshima's almost blank expression, his fingers still clamped in the fabric of the other's shirt.

Joshima licked his lips before biting down on his bottom lip in what looked like nervous consideration. He leaned forward, slowly. Taichi leaned backwards, slowly.

Joshima stopped, eyebrows furrowed.

They stared at each other.

Silence.

Taichi's mind was racing.

Joshima leaned forward again, hesitantly, his eyes questioning, scared, almost. He was so close, his breath hot against Taichi's face, and Taichi could see his lips trembling the same as his own heart was fluttering in his chest. He couldn't breathe. His eyes were as round as saucers.

It was soft at first. He barely even felt it. The tiniest touch on his lips. Then closer, Joshima's lips were against his, all those bubbles pouring into him with a rush of air that made his heart stop, his brain turn off, everything in him forgetting to function due to the fact that Joshima was kissing him.

They were motionless for a moment with their lips pressed together, mashed together like an awkward middle-school first kiss, before Taichi remembered to kiss back, lips parting and mouth moving against Joshima's, his head tilting and pushing forward, leaning into the kiss, wanting to feel more, wanting to taste more. They were feeding on each other's mouths, tongues passing between lips, tangled with each other, little moans gasped out in the gaps where they repositioned their grips on each other's faces.

Taichi's hands rose up to meet Joshima's hips, fingers taking in the feel of his figure, the curve of his back, slipping just under the fabric of his shirt to meet skin, his body almost groaning at the touch of it, mind still in a state of disbelief, unable to comprehend that this was Joshima he was feeling, this was Joshima sucking his tongue out of his mouth. His thumbs traced lower, tentatively, beneath his pantline, Joshima's skin smooth and soft and begging to be touched, unbelievably warm and supple beneath his fingers.

Joshima pulled back, his face flushed with pink and a nervous, embarrassed little smile on his face. His hands went down to the clasp of his pants, fingers visibly shaking as they worked it open, his movements awkward and unpracticed but finally successful, the pink on his face turning a dark red as he pushed the sides of his pants down around his thighs. Taichi felt his entire body go stiff, numbing pinpricks racing up and down his spine as his eyes widened to take in the sight of all that revealed skin.

Joshima took Taichi's hands, directing them around his hips and pressing them against his rear end, eyes searching Taichi for some kind of shameful approval before he was pushing forward again, his mouth back on Taichi's and his hips grinding up Taichi's front.

Taichi could almost die from the way Joshima's soft roundness felt beneath his hands, the way it curved beneath his fingers, the way both sides fit so neatly into his palms. He began massaging the mounds in his hands, lavishing in the way all that smooth skin rolled between his fingers and thumbs, pulling the other's body closer to him, tighter against him, the sensations lighting every one of his nerves on fire.

The door slammed open.

"Taichi! There's been a-!"

Sakamoto and Nagano came practically stumbling in the door, out of breath and eyes wide and searching. Their gazes went immediately to the two on the floor, both Taichi and Joshima's faces agape like deer in the headlights.

Joshima tripped over himself in his flurry to crawl off Taichi, crouching down with his hands between his legs to hide his exposed front, but his naked rear end still in full view behind him. Taichi sat up and away from the side of the bed, hands immediately smoothing down his clothes and hair but unable to do anything about the state of his face, still blazing hot to the touch and stained pink.

Sakamoto's eyes went back and forth between the two of them, one of his eyebrows rising in amusement at Joshima's half-undressed state. Nagano had his hands in front of his face, almost in as much embarrassment as the two on the ground.

"Did we interrupt something?"

Taichi shook his head with a series of swift jerks, coughing into his hand. "N-nothing-..." His voice came out hoarse. He coughed again. "...nothing at all." Joshima just stared at the ground in horrified shame.

Sakamoto smirked, but didn't press the issue. "There's been a water pipe explosion in Wicker. The entire first floor is flooded. The police and everyone's there-it's a huge hullabaloo, and nobody knows what happened."

"Right, um... I'll, um... be right there..." Taichi couldn't look Sakamoto in the eyes. When they made no move to leave, Taichi coughed again. "I said I'll be right there..."

"Ah, right, right, right..." Sakamoto began hurriedly patting Nagano's shoulders and pushing him towards the door. "We'll be right outside waiting."

The two of them left the room, door slamming behind them.

Taichi and Joshima didn't look at each other.

"I, uh... suppose we should go with them."

Joshima still hadn't taken his hands away from his crotch. "...yeah."

Silence.

Taichi ran a hand through his hair before fixing the wrinkled collar of his shirt. He glanced over at Joshima's hunched form.

"...but uh..." He licked his lips, feeling awkward all over again. "Maybe we can, uh... finish this later?"

Joshima looked up, face a blotchy mess but a soft, nervous smile playing on his lips. "...ok."

They laughed, identical embarrassed chuckles as they searched out the mutual approval in each other's eyes.

And Joshima's hand found his when they left the room.

Campus was alight with activity. The four of them scampered across the grass towards Wicker as other students ran around shouting at each other, some panicking and others in a flurry of excitement. The ground was wet beneath them, their feet slapping and sloshing through the puddles and muddy turf, eyes focused on the glowing sirens by the dormitory on the other side of campus.

Taichi pulled his jacket tighter around himself, flannel pants whipping about his legs and not doing much to protect his skin from the chill. Sakamoto ahead of him didn't even look back as they jogged along, not a word between them and only the sound of their feet audible amongst the sounds of the other students.

There was a large crowd gathered outside of Wicker by the time they'd made it, police cars and an ambulance parked outside. Even amongst the confusion, however, it was clear that nothing was actually happening. A few policemen were walking around outside, and the doctors who'd arrived in the ambulance were simply standing in front of the hood with their arms crossed.

Taichi stopped beside Sakamoto as the four of them came to a halt towards the back of the crowd, unable to get any closer. He could barely see anything, even on his toes too short to see over the throng in front of him. The other three didn't seem to be having as much trouble, gazing out over the heads of their fellow students as they watched the strangely calm scene in front of the dormitory.

Taichi grumbled under his breath, rocking back and forth on his feet with his hands in his pockets.

"What's happening?"

Nagano shook his head. "Not much, actually. Nobody's even doing anything."

Taichi ran a hand indignantly through his hair, trying once more to lift himself up enough to see, but failing just as he had before. He turned to Joshima, the other boy staring up towards the boarded-up fourth floor windows blankly, pupils tiny in the round whites of his eyes.

"What is it?"

Joshima didn't answer, not even blinking.

Taichi grumbled again, turning back to the crowd in front of him. With a little huff, he began pushing his way forward, slipping in between the bodies that blocked his view with a few shouts of "watch it!" and "hey!" He didn't stop until he was standing out front, emerging from between two girls in mismatched outfits of pajamas and rainboots.

A policeman was walking around from the back of Wicker while another two were standing on the sidewalk by the entrance, simply talking to each other. A short ways away, one of the dorm administrators stood with a blanket around her shoulders, looking quite bedraggled in her state of half-dress and mussed bedhead.

The ground around the dorm had turned into a miniature lake, and Taichi found the source when he glanced up at the entrance, water pouring out from the doors and streaming down the front steps to coat the already rain-drenched sod around the building. The light in the first floor hallway reflected off the water rushing above the carpet, blinking on off, on off.

"All my stuuuuuff..."

"My clothes are gonna be ruined!"

A few girls behind him were bemoaning, obviously having rooms on the first floor of Wicker.

"I better get compensated for all of this!"

Taichi just stared at the doorway, a cold chill sweeping up his back that not even his jacket could cure.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

All the girls from the first floor were moved out of the dormitory, some of them to rooms in other dorms and some of them to nearby hotels and apartments. No doubt the school would have tried to relocate everyone in Wicker had there been more availability, but since the water pipe itself could be fixed within a relatively short time frame, and as the second and third floor saw no damage, students in those rooms were simply asked to live with the inconvenience and be careful.

Nagano complained about the moldy smell that now drifted from the first floor, but he probably would have complained more had they moved him, as that would have meant relocating everything in his room, so he did nothing more than grumble, holding his breath every time he had to walk in and out of the building.

Sakamoto wanted to investigate the pipe that had blown, but the entire first floor was roped off and the entrance kept under surveillance, so he was forced to simply observe the empty soaked hall from the stairwell. He cursed under his breath as he made his way back to his own room.

He was starting to run out of options, but he didn't seem to be getting any closer to his goal. And now it was as though he was being taunted. Everything was related. It simply had to be. But he had no proof. And even more importantly, he still didn't know what to do.

Did they try to talk to Cullen's spirit? Wherever it was?

Try to reason with it?

Did they try to exorcise it? But he knew nothing of exorcism. And even if they did try, what was to stop Cullen's ghost from killing them like it had Tatsuya? Why had it killed Tatsuya?

What did it want?

He flopped down on his bed, staring at the ceiling. It twirled and spun above him in zigzag-like patterns, the speckled tile dancing in front of his eyes.

There was no reason for it to still be here if it didn't want something, right?

It was searching for something.

It needed something.

Sakamoto raised his hand up towards the ceiling with his fingers spread, then slowly curled it into a fist.

"If I was the ghost of a crazy psycho who cut people open, why would I stick around?"

He turned his head back towards the center of the room, soft light filtering in from the window and making the dust visible as it hung stagnant in the air.

Five guardians. Protecting something important in the middle.

He blinked, biting down on his tongue until the tang of copper invaded his mouth.

Five guardians.

Or perhaps five outposts.

Keeping watch of the happenings at their center.

He sat up from the bed with a slump, then slid off the bed and half-tripped over towards his computer. With a few mouse-clicks, he found the map he'd bookmarked the other day with the five tagged locations spread out across town.

He narrowed his eyes, running his tongue over his front teeth.

Perhaps he was just looking in the wrong places.

It was a good hour and a half later that he was standing on a deserted gravel road just south of town. He pulled his jacket tight around himself, lips pressed together as he gazed out at the ramshackle old building in front of him. It was a giant of a house, three stories and none too cramped, but it was falling apart, its wood rotted and snapped, holes dotting its sides and chunks of timber and stone strewn about its perimeter. The paint had long since dulled and cracked, now a dirty grayish color, and shingles were missing left and right from its roof. The path leading from the road to the entryway was overrun with weeds and stones, and stretching far out to its left and right were fields of tall grasses, golden in the autumn winds. Just over the ridge in the direction Sakamoto'd walked from was a small, dirty creek, trash from up north littering its murky waters.

The entire premises seemed devoid of life.

Barren.

But it sent a chill up his spine all the same.

This was the house that Garner Cuttle had grown up in.

Sakamoto turned away from it for a moment, looking behind him to where fields spread out as far as he could see, the occasional outcropping of trees marring the gold with browns and greens. He tucked his hands into his pockets and gave a little shiver, shaking his head before turning back around and letting his feet take him towards the worn path leading to his destination.

The house stood foreboding and ominous in front of him, many of its windows boarded up, and those that weren't glaring at him like dull, black eyes. Somewhere, a board was loose, creaking and swaying in the wind, and just beyond that came the normally cheery tinkle of a wind chime, each clink of the far-off glass sending pinpricks up and down his arms and back. The closer he got to the house, the taller it seemed, rising up high over his head as though about to swallow him, blocking the sun and blanketing him in a heavy chill.

He stopped just before the porch, gazing at it in apt hesitation. Boards were visibly loose, some of them missing with nails rising up from the dark gaps. He furrowed his brows together, took a deep breath, and started up the stairs, the entire house seeming to creak with each step, wood just barely sinking beneath his weight.

He carefully avoided the holes in the porch, house groaning around him as he walked across it towards the front door. The groan changed to a tremor as he took a hold of the door knocker and pounded it twice against the rotted oak.

The house stood still as the sound of the knock faded, echoing out through the wood and into the open air.

No response.

He gazed down at his feet, repositioning them once, then twice, biting the inside of his cheek as he rocked back and forth.

Thirty seconds.

A minute.

He counted in his head to keep his mind occupied.

Still no response.

He bit down on his lip, shaky fingers working up the courage to grab the knocker again. This time he knocked three times, the force of it liable to send the entire house into a pile of wood and rubble. He listened carefully as the echo faded away, straining his ears.

And then.

Footsteps.

He straightened up immediately, an electric shock running up through his spine and his mouth dry. He suddenly wasn't quite sure he was up to this anymore. He pressed his lips together tightly in trepid anticipation, eyes locked on the door.

It opened slowly, a long creak which struck at his heart and curled up through his ears. Black marred where the rusted red paint had once blocked his entrance, widening like the opening to a dank cave, and no more inviting.

The woman who poked her head out barely looked alive. Her face was heavyset with wrinkles and pockmarks, brownish-gray hair pulled tight in a bun and her hands small, frail, curling just so around the frame of the door as her beady eyes surveyed the porch before landing on Sakamoto, a tall stick shivering in his boots.

"May I help you?" Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard, eyes burning through him above her small wire-rimmed glasses.

Sakamoto blinked, unable to form words. "C-... Cuttle. Is this the Cuttle house?"

Her gaze never left him, her dark, sunken-in face searching him from head to toe in visible analysis. "You have the right house, dearie, but who exactly are you?"

Sakamoto laughed nervously, hoping he didn't seem as awkward as he felt. "I'm, uh... doing a report for my school paper which, uh, includes some bits about... Garner. Garner Cuttle." He brought his hands together, fingers dancing across each other idly. "I thought it might be novel to go to the source, so I was hoping I might be able to get some information on the whole... affair... as it were."

The woman's eyes changed with his every word even as her face stayed frozen in acute displeasure. When he was finished, however, her mouth spread into a disconcerting smile, displaying her blackened, crusty teeth. "Well, of course, dear. We do enjoy company after all. Come on, come in. I'll make you a pot of tea and fetch my sister."

It was so easy, he almost didn't believe it at first, rooted to his spot in the middle of the porch, but as she opened the door wider for him and gestured towards the darkness, he gave himself a mental kick in the rump and scuttled inside, the heavy darkness of the house closing in on him from all sides.

"Where do you go to school, dear?"

He was so close to her now, he could smell the musty, almost rancid odor drifting up from her garments. Her fashion was indeed strange, a red polka-dotted blouse and long blue skirt with ripped lace along the edges, both pieces looking as if they'd come from the free box at Goodwill.

"Dulbruk University. I write for the newspaper there."

"Is that so?" Her voice crackled with humor as she began walking down the hall, and Sakamoto followed behind with fearful glances to his left and right. "Dear little Garner went there for a while. Such a nice place. The campus is just darling in the spring."

"Yeah, the campus is pretty nice..."

The inside walls of the home were of dark wood, making the hallways seem even more narrow and suffocating, old paintings and photographs lining the walls or placed along dusty shelves. Sconces above his head sent soft glimmers of light along his path, flickering on off, on off in a pattern that reminded Sakamoto of candles.

Once emerged from the hallway, he found himself in a small, tiled kitchen. Dark red cabinets stood against the walls on the floor and ceiling, pots and pans hanging down from shelves above racks of spices and knives. An aged, off-white fridge stood to one side just in front of a small dining room table, circular, with four cushioned chairs forming a ring around it.

"Do have a seat. I'll start up the tea."

"Thank you..." Sakamoto couldn't seem to stop staring, eyes fluttering left and right to take in everything, from the black and white family portrait framed on the wall behind him, to the door opening into the adjacent room, a strange mixture of whites and laces and what looked like a doll in a wedding dress off to one corner just visible through the opening.

He pulled one of the chairs back carefully, trying not to make any noise, and sat down, the cushion soft against his backside.

The woman was busying herself by one of the cabinets, having put a kettle on the stove and now readying a small tea set complete with cups and pot. She placed a tea bag neatly into the top of the pot, then turned back to him.

"Let me go fetch my sister." Sakamoto nodded morosely as she turned on her heels and headed for the hallway opposite the one they'd come, her long blue skirt rustling against the floor.

It grew quiet, eerie, only the sound of the kettle beginning to boil to take his thoughts away from the nauseating feeling that had begun to squirm beneath his stomach.

It felt like someone was watching him.

The house creaked and groaned around him with each gust of wind. He could still hear the wind chime from inside, the sound of it making his heart twist and tighten.

It was only a few minutes before the woman came waddling back, this time with another woman, taller than the first, but face sunken in, all dark and dour the same as her sister. She bowed her head just so at Sakamoto's presence in the kitchen before walking over to take a seat.

"What a little dear. We don't get company much way out here."

Sakamoto laughed, though it came out half-hearted. "It is a bit of a trek up from town..."

"He writes for the newspaper, Edith. Up at Dulbruk." The first woman was back to her teapot, pouring the now boiling water into the ceramic container and grabbing a few treats from one of the overhead cupboards.

"Is that so? Our little Garner went to Dulbruk, you know."

"I already told him that, dear."

Sakamoto pulled on the collar of his shirt, suddenly a bit warm. "Yes, ah... that's what I was hoping to learn a little more about. We're..." He bit down on his tongue, wracking his brain. "...doing a few articles on the history of the school, little things that both students and residents in town might not know much about, so I'd thought it would be interesting to include some things on Garner since, well, he's a bit of a celebrity on campus."

Edith scoffed. "Oh, that Garner. Always was one for the attention. It's too bad he's not still around to see the name he's made for himself."

Sakamoto's tongue felt dry in his mouth as Edith's lips flapped up and down, sending little specks of spittle out onto the table.

"Wouldn't he, though?" The other woman brought over the tray with tea and biscuits, placing it in the middle of the table before sitting down herself. "Help yourself to some tea, dear." She poured one of the cups full and set it in front of Sakamoto, whose hands went to it instinctively.

"This is lovely, Dharma." Edith reached out to take one of the biscuits, the flaky wafer crunching and crumbling between her dry lips as she took a bite.

Dharma poured a cup of tea for Edith before pouring one for herself.

"Now, what did you say your name was, dear?" Edith glanced at him precociously, eyes like dark, toothy caverns.

It took him a second. "S-... Sakamoto. Sakamoto Masayuki, ma'am."

"A lovely name."

"Yes, lovely, lovely."

Sakamoto's hands tightened around his tea cup, making the ceramic shake. He took a drink.

"What all would you like to know?" Dharma's mouth was now full of biscuit, pieces of dried cookie falling to the table as she spoke.

"Well, uh..." Sakamoto licked his lips, staring at the tray. "I guess, uh... well, I mean... how exactly are you related to... to Garner?"

The two ladies stared at him, then looked to each other, then began laughing, a harsh noise, like two strangled hyenas.

"Oh, dear, dear. We completely forgot to mention that, didn't we?"

"We did, Edith, we did. The poor boy must be quite confused."

"You tell him, Dharma. I've become quite uncomposed here."

Dharma glanced back at him with grayish tears blurring the sides of her eyes. "We're the boy's sisters. Well, two of them at least."

"Indeed. The others have moved away. Why, we've not heard from any of them for quite a few years now."

"Quite a few, quite a few. A shame really. They left this beautiful old house, and what with our age and all, we've not been able to do much to keep it in shape."

"A shame. A shame." Edith shook her head. "I've so been wanting to fix up the outside. A new paint job would do it quite well."

"A new paint job and a few new boards."

"New boards, yes." Edith took another sip from her tea. "That porch has become quite hazardous lately."

"We should really call one of those nice men from the Fleet Farm up here. They did such a nice job on the foundation last year."

"They did, they did." Edith nodded her head sagely, her face sinking in even further in on itself as she upturned her nose in thought.

Sakamoto sat silently with his lips poked together in a small circle. He padded his fingers against his tea cup before taking another drink, the liquid almost too hot as it slid down his throat.

"Now, now, look at us babbling on here and forgetting our guest. He wants to know more about Garner, not about our home improvement affairs."

"Dear me, I'd almost completely forgotten." Edith reached forward to tap her hand against Sakamoto's wrist, her skin as dry and crusty as her teeth. It took all his effort not to pull his arm back.

"Now, where were we?"

"We'd just told him that we're Garner's sisters."

"Ah yes, that's right. Yes, we're his sisters. Grew up together with him here in this house."

"Poor boy did have quite the childhood."

"We all did, really."

Sakamoto finally worked up the nerve to input his own comment into the unending blather from the other side of the table. "Could you tell me? I mean, a-about your childhood. I'd be interested in hearing more about it."

"Ah yes... when we were young..."

"Quite the story, I suppose, for someone of dear Masakucky's persuasion."

Sakamoto twitched, but did nothing to correct her.

"Well, now, let's see..." Edith sat back in her chair, fingers swirling her tea cup in her hand. "There were six of us in all. Dharma and I, of course, little Garner, Petrick, and then the twins, Anna and Bastion. All of us here under one roof. It's certainly not a small house, by any means, but that's a considerable number of children to try raising in one household."

"It is, it is." Dharma nodded, taking another bite of a cookie. Sakamoto reached his own fingers across almost unthinkingly to grab a wafer for himself.

Edith continued. "Father was a bit of a drinker back in those days."

"A bit?"

"I was trying to put him in a bit of a better light."

"Edith, dear, father could drink an entire bottle of whiskey in one sitting. And he did it on more than one occasion too!" Dharma waggled her finger in the air.

"Alright then, father was, well, he drank quite a bit back in those days. I can't remember many days he returned home from work without having partook in some sort of alcohol. Mother wasn't fond of it, always reprimanding him. In the earlier days, he would take it in stride, even following her words and trying to cut back on his drinking..."

Dharma shook her head. "...but at some point, it took a turn for the worse. He drank more and more and would come home violent, in rages, laying his hands on mother the moment she opened her mouth."

"It was hard for us children to take in, and we spent many nights up in our rooms, just the six of us keeping each other company and talking over the sound of our parents downstairs."

Dharma took a sip from her tea with a heavy sigh. "Though mother wasn't the only victim."

"That she wasn't..." Edith pursed her lips. "We were quite often the target of his rage as well. Oftentimes it was simply a whack on the head, a kick to the backside, but other times it was worse, many of us with belt-sized welts all over our backs."

"And the things he made us do!"

Edith clucked in the back of her throat. "Indeed. Quite worse than the beatings, really."

Sakamoto's eyes widened as he chewed on his cookie with sloppy, cow-like motions. "What do you mean?"

Dharma rested her chin on her hand, staring at the table. "He'd work us into exhaustion doing chores around the house."

"I can still remember the bruises on my knees after having to scrub every floor from top to bottom."

"I remember one night he made poor Petrick act as his footstool. The little boy had to spend hours on his hands and knees while father slept in his chair."

"He nearly made poor Anna burn herself fixing the boiler in the basement. Little thing didn't even know what she was doing and accidentally sprayed steaming hot water all over the floor."

"She got a beating at that too, to make matters worse." Dharma shook her head with a sigh.

Sakamoto swallowed his cookie down with another sip of tea. "And what about Garner?"

"Ahh, Garner..." Edith brought a finger to her chin and tapped it, her skin folding beneath the touch. "He'd leave for days at a time."

"Days?" Sakamoto blinked in confusion.

"Yes, yes." Dharma this time. "He'd disappear and we wouldn't see him for days. He'd come back all covered in mud looking like a little ragamuffin."

"A skinny little thing, he was. I don't think he'd eat at all those days he was away from home."

"Where did he go?"

Dharma crossed her arms in front of her, sunken face curling in on itself in concentration, as though searching back through her memories. "Out in the forest, I can only guess. Back then the town wasn't as close as it is now, so I don't believe he could have made it all the way to town."

"Likely he simply hid out in the fields and trees, trying to survive by himself, but having to return once he grew weak with hunger, poor thing."

"And even when he was here, he never talked much. He'd sit up in his room, staring at the wall in the corner."

"He did quite enjoy his corner. Always the same one."

Dharma nodded. "He wouldn't even hear you if you tried to talk to him."

"And he was always scratching and tugging at his ears." Edith demonstrated on her own ear, and Sakamoto was half-afraid her wrinkled ear was going to tear right off the side of her head. "He'd have horrible scratch marks on the sides of his head. Stopped listening to any of us, really, even his siblings."

"We tried to help him, we did." Dharma reached forward for another cookie. "We saved him from more than a few run-ins with father."

"And then he'd simply take off the next day without a word, and we wouldn't see him for days."

"He'd show up at the front door without his shoes, a dirty little mess. The few times that father was the first one to the door... which wasn't that often, mind you, as he was always making us children do menial things like answer the door... he'd get quite a beating."

"Poor dear wouldn't even be able to sit down or sleep, not with those ugly welts all over his backside."

Sakamoto looked down at his now empty tea cup, biting the inside of his cheek. When he looked back up, he half-expected to see Garner himself, covered in dirt and grass and standing at the table looking at him expectantly.

"Don't hurt me."

Sakamoto's eyes tightened.

"Please don't hurt me."

He shook his head, suddenly unsure if what he'd seen had been in his mind or real, then looked back up towards the two sisters. Dharma was refilling their tea cups, and Sakamoto took his gratefully, the warm sides of the cup comforting against his fingers. He heard what sounded like a giggle behind him, barely audible, but when he turned around he saw nothing expect the doorway to the white-laced room.

Edith was staring upwards at the ceiling, lost in thought. "It was quite a mystery, really."

"What was?" Sakamoto turned back hesitantly before taking a sip from his tea, tongue already numb and oblivious to the heat.

"That he was so good in school. Quite brilliant, really."

Dharma nodded, taking another cookie for herself. Her dull eyes were poring into the far wall. "A gifted little child. It's quite a shame that he wasn't ever able to make good use of his wit."

"I'd read that he went to Westchurch High School."

Edith's eyes rose up to meet his, strangely sharp. "He did, indeed. Though he hadn't wanted to, and none of the teachers wanted him there either."

"But we convinced him that it was for the best, dropping him off at school ourselves every day for the first couple of weeks."

"He did quite well. His grades were always extraordinary."

"Yet he was quite the handful in the classroom. I can't even begin to recount the number of times he came home with notes about his behavior. Or the calls we used to get!"

Edith dipped one of her wafers into her tea, the wet, juicy crumbles sliding beneath her lips as she sucked up with her tongue. Sakamoto's eyes furrowed as he watched, a chill running up his spine. "...what kind of... things did he do?"

Dharma shrugged, which looked odd given her sloped shoulders. "Apparently he'd say horrible things in class about demons and Hell. He'd pretend to be possessed and attack some of the other students."

"Stabbed one girl through her hand with a pencil, he did."

"That one didn't go over well with father."

"No, no, that it didn't." Edith clucked in the back of her throat.

"Would say nasty things to the teachers too. Called them all sorts of names that I'd be quite morally pressed to say here, I might add."

"Dreadful, dreadful things."

You're a nasty cunt who goes home and fucks her own pussy.

Sakamoto's eyes widened with a start and he jerked his head to the side, but there was no one there. He could still feel the whisp of air on his skin, the hiss of breath as it whispered the words in his ear.

He turned back to the two sisters, ignoring the giggle from behind him. Louder this time.

"He didn't last long in high school." Dharma shook her head morosely.

"He didn't, no." Edith murmured. "Not after the incident."

Sakamoto took another drink of tea, almost cleaning out his cup. "The incident?"

Dharma's head bobbed up and down, her face darker than before, even more prunish. "One of the counselors thought she'd try and help the boy out. Form a support group for him. She thought he had a lot of potential, that one, and certainly it would seem as though he simply had some issues."

"He did get exceptional grades. Had I mentioned that?"

"We already talked about that, Edith."

"Right, right." Edith nodded sagely.

"Anyway, she brought together a few teachers to help her in her cause and try to straighten the boy out."

"We never heard much about it."

"No, no, we didn't." Dharma tapped her nose in thought. "She called home twice, but the first time father answered it and got into quite a shouting match before hanging up."

"That's right, he did." Edith's finger came up as though poking the air. "The second time, however, I was the one who answered it, but she didn't say much. Simply that they had plans to try and help him and were hoping for our support."

Sakamoto licked his lips, mouth dry again now that his tea cup was empty. "But then...?"

"The plans never went anywhere. Only a few months later, all five of the teachers were found dead in the school." Dharma's eyes were solid black now, hidden beneath the dark folds of her brows.

"Suicide, they said. Gone hung themselves by the neck."

Sakamoto's hands felt cold. He laced his fingers together between his legs, trying to warm them.

"A terrible sight, really. Such fine young men and women."

"Do you think that... Garner had anything to do with it?" Sakamoto was careful with his words.

Both women looked at each other in silence for a minute, then turned back to him with unsettling smiles. "We'll never really know that, now will we?"

"Though he did always have a way of... getting people to do what he wanted them to do."

Edith chuckled beneath her breath. It sounded like firewood crackling in a hearth. "Almost made poor Bastion leap out the fourth story window once."

"Now that was a sight." Dharma joined in the laughter, taking another cookie for herself.

Sakamoto looked back and forth between them, shoulders hunched. He reached forward for the teapot, pouring the last bits of tea into his cup.

"Of course, there was no way they were going to let him stay in school after that."

"Dear me, no. The other parents would have none of it. And he'd already caused a considerable amount of trouble." Dharma admonished.

"So they told us it would be best if we took him somewhere where he could get help." Edith crossed and uncrossed her thin little legs. "So he was committed. Taken in by Oswald's on the other side of town. The doctors told us they could make him better."

"That they could fix him." Dharma's eyes flashed up and down Sakamoto as he took a sip from his tea.

"And it worked somehow or another. He was released after only a year, would you know? Good as new, they said. And certainly Garner seemed like a changed boy."

"So happy! Like we'd never seen him before. All keen on changing the world."

Edith nodded her head, scrawny veined neck making her look like a bobble-head. "He had all these ideas for helping the mentally challenged. Wanted to go back to school, did you know? Wanted to get a degree so he could help people. Wanted to learn."

"And his grades had always been so excellent, it wasn't hard for him at all to get into school, even with his background." Dharma took the last cookie from the tray, crunching it between her thin lips. "So off he went to Dulbruk, to make a name for himself."

"He had some of the craziest ideas, that boy." Edith shook her finger at Sakamoto. "Something about the physical body affecting the mind."

"That's what it was, that's what it was." Dharma looked up at her sister's words with a start, bones cracking at the sudden movement. "He kept talking about this new psychological theory he wanted to propose. About how the human body itself is a catalyst for dysfunction of the mind."

Sakamoto narrowed his eyes, leaning forward just a bit over the table. "The human body itself? What do you mean?"

Edith splayed her hands to her either side like trays. "Quite simple, dear. The parts inside of us. Garner was certain that it was defects inside of us that caused flaws in our minds. Which would of course make those defective organs the reason for someone's mind to malfunction."

Sakamoto felt a stone tumble around in his gut, and he sank back in his chair with a thump, hand to his chin as his eyes bored into the grain of the table. "'Defective organs'...?"

"Quite a silly idea, really, if you ask me." Dharma waved her hand in front of her.

"Though do any of us really know what causes many of these different mental... disabilities? For lack of a better word?" Edith curled her fingers around each other. "For all that he seemed off-balance, he had quite the good head on his shoulders. He could very well have been on to something."

"Oh hush, Edith. You don't even know what you're talking about, you old ninny!" Dharma laughed as she took the tea pot and tried to pour some into her cup, but frowned when she found it was empty.

Father had a bad bladder. That's what everyone said.

The hair on the back of Sakamoto's neck stood straight up as his spine stiffened. It had come from his other side this time, but he didn't dare look, his heart thudding in his ears.

His body felt cold, a deep chill washing over it that extended all the way to his fingers and toes. There was a breath against his ear, hot, traveling across his neck, tracing his hairline.

A giggle.

That's why he killed mum.

He turned to the left with a jerk, the whispered breath still tangible against his cheek.

Nothing.

He left out the breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding, tiny ice prickles all over his skin. Slowly, he turned back to the table, heart still pounding in his temples.

He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out, his tongue dry and fat in his mouth and spit stuck in the back of his throat. He coughed into his hand, tears welled up in the corners of his eyes.

And finally.

"His, um... his father. What... what happened to him?"

Both sisters looked at him with identical faces of surprise, then smiled, sickeningly sweet.

"Oh, would you like to see him?" Edith's eyes were boring into him.

"H-he's here?" Sakamoto's own eyes narrowed as he sat back, the chill from earlier refusing to leave.

"Of course he's here, dear. Come now, let me just put these cups in the sink." Dharma stood up, collecting their cups back on the tray with the pot and empty plate and carrying it over to the sink. It settled inside with a little clink as the ceramic shuddered.

"Come along, come along." Edith ushered him to his feet, and he followed hesitantly, pushing his chair back beneath the table. The two sisters began leading him back out through the hallway. Sakamoto glanced back at the white room of lace as they passed, almost scared to look, but morbidly curious all the same. Yet nothing had changed about it, the carpet, lace, and chairs all the same as when he'd first walked in, and the doll in the wedding dress with the same porcelain smile as when he'd first glanced at her. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, then quickly followed the two women in front of him lest he get left behind.

The three of them walked outside of the house entirely, and he found himself being lead to the entrance of a walk-in basement on its opposite side. It had grown colder since he'd first entered the front door, the breeze having picked up and the sound of the wind chime grating his nerves as it got battered to and fro in the gusts.

"Right this way, dearie." Edith was smiling at him, her face even more wrinkled and puckered in the daylight.

Sakamoto swallowed hard, gazing down into the darkness as Dharma opened the two big wooden doors to reveal steps.

"He's in the basement?"

"Where else would he be?" Dharma laughed, her crusty teeth rattling against each other.

Sakamoto took a hesitant step downwards, the two women behind him.

"I can't even see anything."

"There's a light switch right to your left there, dear." He saw Edith's hand point forwards, and he reached out his own hand to find the little nub in the wall, switching it on. A bare lightbulb above his head flicked on, casting light on the moldy cement stairs beneath his feet. Lips trembling, he let his feet step down, one after the other, taking him deeper into the cool basement.

The smell was the first thing to reach him. Unholy in its rancid pungency and attacking his nostrils as soon as his head was below ground level. He brought a hand up to hold his nose, eyes already beginning to water as he drew further inside, greenish brown mold and slime coating the walls to his either side.

Further.

His steps echoed around him as he made it to the final stair, eyes traveling downwards to make sure he didn't trip as he settled onto even ground. The smell was worse here, enveloping him, seeping into his pores and swirling in his eyes, hot and bitter.

He looked up.

And stopped.

There was a chair not more than a few steps in front of him, rusted and bent, a grisled skeleton with its head angled to the side strapped to the seat by its arms and legs and tattered remains of clothes hanging from its bones.

Sakamoto's eyes bugged out of his head, smell all but forgotten as the breath escaped his lungs.

"Sh-...shit-..."

His pupils shook in their sockets as his eyes swept the rest of the room, blood-stained worktables to his either side, covered with dull blades and tools and lined with canisters, various human organs floating in strange liquid and staring back at him, his heart jumping up into his throat as his stomach twisted in two.

"F-fuck, shit...!" He took a step back, then another.

The skeleton's mouth was hanging open, its dull eye sockets boring into him. Blood was pooling out from the hole where its nose has once been, the dark red reflecting back the light from the bulb straight into Sakamoto's eyes.

He hit the back of the stairs and almost tripped, hands flinging to the slimy surface of the cement.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit..." He scrambled back to his feet, unable to take his eyes away from the gruesome pile of bones that filled his vision. He clambered backwards up the stairs, finally wrenching his eyes away and racing back to the top in terror, the two women laughing at him, hyena-like howls as he stumbled, gasping, out across the field and away from the house behind him.

Part Five