a/n: Semi-sequel to 知識 (Knowledge).
Someone has made a face on the alley wall with orange spray paint. It's a grotesque depiction of a smiling man, misshapen. She doesn't like it. She stabs the wall and the knife cleaves the concrete like naked flesh. She drags the weapon straight down with both hands, carving an entrance.
She peels back the lip and her hand comes away caked with some thick, mucus-like substance. It reminds her of blood. She wonders if it will smother her.
It's a simulation, she tells herself. She can't die. She can wake up. She pries apart the opening and pushes herself inside.
She can't breathe. Her lungs clog over with the blood-mucus and she tries not to inhale. She should have held her breath.
She's not in for long. She claws her way out and gasps for air. Wishes she hadn't. She falls to her knees, coughing up the stuff. Every step feels like she's walking on warm, pulsating jelly. The walls are slippery, too.
She pretends she is walking around on the inside of a giant animal. Down the bloody hall, turning a corner or two. Another stupid face in the wall. She stabs it, rips her knife down. Holding her breath, she shoves herself through the opening. She's going to be sick. Keeps it down.
Out of the wall, into the open. Blind, she bumps into something that is not part of the wall and yelps. Rubbing her eyes, trying to make out her surroundings through the stuff caked on her skin. Another room, jam-packed with grimy creatures with long hair and dirty, ragged hospital gowns.
She pretends she is the only white blood cell in a sea of disease. Cutting down the viruses, one by one. They choke on their own screams, falling. Blood smears her shoes and ankles. Keep walking.
Her arms are tired from so much stabbing. Her lungs burn.
Almost there. The last girl falls and the wall opens up. A new path. She walks in.
An empty theater. Little girls in hospital gowns and hair reaching their waists. There's another one, the biggest girl Sabitsuki has yet seen, arms melding into the wall behind it.
It is not a girl. A monstrous behemoth. Its breath is low, a harsh, wet death rattle. A bastardized sacrifice in the name of science.
Sabitsuki is indifferent. She's seen things, terrible things that would send any regular girl her age into hysterics.
Kids hang from meat hooks and run around empty hallways. There are no sedatives, no vaccines. Only the smell of urine and vinegar to mask the burning flesh.
The little black-haired girls are melting into puddles of liquefied organs and bones and sallow skin. One by one, one after the other. Sabitsuki doesn't watch them all.
The big one is gurgling. It convulses, straining against its fleshy chains. It opens its gaping mouth and blood spills out like a fountain. Its stomach twitches from within. Sabitsuki wants to run but her legs won't obey her. The big girl chokes on its own blood, gargling. It groans wetly. Panting, straining harder against the chains. A river of blood from its mouth. It goes limp, held up by its arms, pulled down by gravity.
It shrieks, tosses its head back and the sound is thick with blood. Its stomach splits open. Bursting at the seams and the innards spill out.
Static interference.
Sabitsuki wakes up, head on her desk, numb. She feels sick.
