A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g10 – a play with one act (however many scenes is up to you)
Tapes that Tell a Tale
Scene 1
[Two men sit across from each other. Between them is a brown packet, still unopened.]
MAN ONE: Was wondering if this stuff got lost in the mail.
MAN TWO: Really? Not wondering if he wasn't up to the task, instead?
MAN ONE [snorting]: He's got more reason than the rest of us to see this through. Still, I wish he'd have brought it to us himself. We're not the ones likely to curse him.
MAN TWO [shrugging]: Can't blame a guy for being cautious, I guess. In any case, he's already doing us a favour by sating our curiosity.
MAN ONE: Not necessarily. We've been a thorn in their side long enough that they're probably saving time and face by doing this. Exposing the truth and letting bygones lie and all that.
MAN TWO: Unless the truth triggers a riot, I guess. [He leans over and rips open the packet. A number of tapes spill out. He sorts through them.] This one's first. Maebara Keiichi, June 26, 1983.
MAN ONE: Four days after the Great Hinamizawa Disaster, huh. What in the world are we going to hear on that? Kid should've been unconscious.
MAN TWO: Kid should've been dead, but that didn't stop him surviving now, did it?
MAN ONE [looking amused]: Point. But it's a lucky break for us. And for the detective. Assuming this lead can actually give us all something.
MAN TWO: He's the only survivor of the Great Hinamizawa Disaster. He'd better be able to give us something.
MAN ONE [laughing]: Or what? You'll string him up by his toes? You'll hammer nails into all of his hand joints and slit open his abdomen and drag out his intestines?
MAN TWO [snorting again]: Hardly. I'm not a Hinamizawa fanatic.
MAN ONE [whistling]: But man, those guys are fanatic, aren't they?
MAN TWO simply raises an eyebrow at MAN ONE.
MAN ONE: Alright, fine. But you can't get a good story sitting on your coat, you know. Still, it's almost a pity Akasawa's helping us.
MAN TWO [dryly]: Of course. You'd rather break into a top-security psychiatric institute and talk to a guy who's clinically insane all by your lonesome – and then be able to do next to nothing with the information since it was obtained legally.
MAN ONE [wagging his finger at the other]: There's plenty that can be done with illegally acquired information and you know that. For instance, bribing people who want to keep things down low.
MAN TWO: Bribing who? Nature for causing the disaster?
MAN ONE [snorting]: You know as well as I do that the chances of it being a natural disaster are slim to none. And Akasawa knows it too. That's why we have those. [He points at the tapes.] But enough chitchat. I'm dying to know what's on those.
MAN TWO: Alright, alright. [He puts the tape into the VCR and presses play.
Scene 2
[There are medical records on the screen, but it is almost impossible to read them due to poor quality and lighting and the age of the tape. One is recognisable as an ECG from its spikes. The others are numerical and indistinguishable from one another. There is possibly a blood test in there, and an arterial or venous blood gas. There is a temperature chart as well, and the other vitals are probably somewhere too. The temperature chart is only recognisable by the colour-coding, and the temperatures marked are in the red.]
[The voice overlaying the images is staticky, and barely understandable. There's a time stamp in the bottom corner as well. 2pm, June 26, 1983.]
YAMAMOTO: This is Doctor Yamamoto from the Shishibone Prefecture General Hospital, in charge of patient Maebara Keiichi: the sole survivor of the gas-eruption that killed the residents of Hinamizawa not four days ago. The police have asked me to record my current findings as the patient is unable to give a witness report.
[The tape zooms in on a set of handwritten notes. They are entirely illegible.]
YAMAMOTO: Patient was found near the base of a mountain almost two days after the disaster, not far from a river. He was dry at the time, however his clothes were stiff, as though he'd fallen into the river and then dragged himself out before falling unconscious.
[The tape shifts to display a set of numbers.]
YAMAMOTO: When he was found, he was in type two respiratory distress due to pulmonary oedema caused by inhalation of the gaseous substance responsible for the death of most of Hinamizawa's residents. We have since been unable to isolate the gas, however ventilation with pure oxygen has returned his blood gases to a normal state and we will run a trial without oxygen tonight to see if he can breathe independently.
[The tape shifts to display an ECG.]
YAMAMOTO: We detected some abnormal heart rhythms in the past few days and will continue to monitor.
[The tape cuts off there. As it doesn't seem to be the end of the examination, the viewers can only assume AKASAWA copied only this much for them.]
Scene 3
[The scene returns to MAN ONE and MAN TWO sitting in front of the VCR, with the first tape ejected.]
MAN TWO: Well…
MAN ONE: I wonder why he thought the heart bit was important. [He leans over and goes through the labels of the remaining tapes.] August 29, 1983. Maybe this one has actual answers.
MAN TWO: It's like a puzzle that might slowly come together. Of course, we knew that going into this story.
MAN ONE: But the whole point of buying information off someone is there being some actual information in there. [He glares at the tape they've just ejected.] That medical report only tells us the kid was in the perimeter of the gas explosion and somehow survived. So what? The water has magical healing properties? Or the gas couldn't dissolve in it? Either way, it's not as though he could have been under long enough.
MAN TWO: Well, we can always chase up those medical reports and see if there's something in there.
MAN ONE: And here you are, making illegal suggestions yourself after complaining about mine.
MAN TWO [sighing]: I complain but I go along with it, don't I? In any case, let's watch the next one.
[MAN ONE puts the tape labelled Maebara Keiichi, August 30, 1983 into the VCR.]
Scene 4
[The screen shows only an image, which both men recognise as the psychiatric institute that has turned them away when they arrive seeking interviews. The voice-over belongs to the same doctor as earlier, but this time his voice is clearer, and there is another voice as well, asking questions, whom they recognise to be AKASAWA.]
AKASAWA: So this is the place.
YAMAMOTO: Yes, it is. No media allowed in. No-one but medical professionals and family, usually, but since you're investigating the Hinamizawa case… Tragic thing, that.
AKASAWA: Yes, tragic. Almost two thousand people dead in a single night. But not all of them were mere tragedies, you know.
YAMAMOTO: How do you mean?
AKASAWA: Surely you've heard, doctor. Twenty or so people were never found, including the detective on the scene. And about Furude Rika-chan?
YAMAMOTO: Aye, I heard about Furude-chan. Not about the detective though, or those other missing people. Where'd they go right out of their beds? It was pretty early morning, wasn't it? Off to work or something?
AKASAWA: Perhaps some of them can be explained like that. But Ryugu Rena-chan? She's a student. Most of the students were asleep in bed. The only other ones out were Hojo Satoko-chan and…
YAMAMOTO: Furude-chan and Maebara-kun, correct?
AKASAWA [after a brief pause]: Yes. We know why Furude-chan was missing from her bed, at least. And Hojo-chan was found near the same suspension bridge Maebara-kun claimed to have fallen from so we could assume the two of them were together before Maebara-kun fell. But together doing what?
YAMAMOTO [sound uncomfortable]: Maebara-kun claims to have not been involved in Furude-chan's murder.
AKASAWA [sounding tired]: I know. When we ask, he only says: "It wasn't me. It wasn't me. Please believe me Satoko-chan." Which tells us a tale…but is it the truth? Maebara-kun is our only lead.
YAMAMOTO: Then we either believe him or don't believe him, I suppose. It's hard to prove or disprove when there's only one witness and all the evidence has been washed away, so to speak.
AKASAWA: Yes, indeed it has. Far too neatly.
YAMAMOTO: As it is, I prefer to think of my patients as patients and only that. Regardless of what they've done or haven't done, they're in the hospital because they need medical attention and I, as a doctor, am obligated to provide it and keep their confidences.
AKASAWA: Police investigation is and perhaps always will be one of those exceptions. [He sighs.] As it is, he is no longer your patient. I'm not aware of the details, though.
YAMAMOTO [sounding uncomfortable again]: Well, it's always hard to talk about patients like that, you know… I called the station to let them know Maebara-kun was being transferred, anyhow.
AKASAWA: Which is what brought me here.
YAMAMOTO [chuckling]: Yes, indeed, you detectives are merciless. Though I suppose we doctors are merciless in our own ways as well. Doing our utmost to keep people alive… Even the ones who want to die.
MAN ONE [from offstage]: Hurry up and get to the point already!
AKASAWA: Attempted suicide?
YAMAMOTO: Of course, we are the two professions graced with such frankness. Yes, attempted suicide. The nurse on duty caught him, but we'd had suspicions as to his mental state for a while now. Almost as long as he's been in the hospital. It's part of the reason he hasn't yet left.
AKASAWA: And he's been in poor physical health as well, or so I've been told.
YAMAMOTO: Not that poor. Nothing that couldn't be handled at home…if not for the other things. He's far more peaceful when isolated, as sad as it is to say…and see.
AKASAWA: And home wouldn't be with his parents in any case. Another tragedy. They were just returning from Tokyo and got caught in the radius.
YAMAMOTO: His guardianship belongs to a distant uncle. He's the one who authorised the transfer.
AKASAWA: I wonder… If it's them washing their hands of him, or hoping a place like this can give him peace after the storm.
YAMAMOTO: Perhaps a bit of both. They do have their own kids to think about as well. And after a tragedy like that – He may as well have been on the front lines of a war. Children are strong in many ways, but fragile at that point.
AKASAWA: Children don't belong in a war – but they get swept up anyway. [A pause.] I wonder…if the Curse of Oyashiro is a war. And between who? Humans and demons? Or are the demons another group of humans who've slipped into the shadows.
YAMAMOTO [with some surprise]: You don't believe the Great Hinamizawa Disaster was a natural incident?
AKASAWA: …it certainly wasn't. And the proof was that it was predicted over five years ago.
[There is static on the tape suddenly, and the image disappears. A voice returns after a little bit, but it is only AKASAWA, and it is clearer as though it was taped later.]
AKASAWA: Furude Rika was the last shrine priestess of Furude shrine. I met her in June 1978, at which point she predicted the five year curse of Oyashiro and the end in her death days after the fifth Watanagushi Festival. First: the construction manager dies, and one of the men involved in his dismemberment disappears. Second: the step-father of a girl named Hojou Satoko dies. Her mother is presumed drowned as well but her body is never found. Third: Furude Rika's father, the then priest, collapses and dies. Her mother's shoes are found near the swamp and she is presumed to have committed suicide but her body is never found. Fourth: the aunt of Hojou Satoko who is known to beat her. Her brother Satoshi was presumed to have killed her until someone else confessed to the crime, though he disappeared. And finally, the fifth year: a photographer and a nurse, and then Furude Rika herself, disembowelled behind the shrine. All of these were predicted. And all of these occurred.
[The tape runs a little silently, before AKASAWA continues.]
AKASAWA: That is the curse of Oyashiro. A detective called Ooishi spent five long years investigating it. [Another pause.] You see, the first man who died – the construction manager – was like a father to him. He blamed the Sonozaki family: a very powerful and influential family with ties to the Yakuza…and they were one of the Three Great Families, alongside the Furudes and Kimiyoshis. But he was a detective, and he wouldn't accuse without proof. So he dug and dug and tried to get to the bottom of the mystery that became the curse – and then fell out of contact the day before the Great Hinamizawa Disaster.
[There is a longer pause, and the sound of shuffling papers.]
AKASAWA: He has left his research behind. Most of it, anyway. Most of his notes on the suspected murder of Hojou Teppei are missing and presumably were on his person before he disappeared himself. But he didn't believe the incidents were natural – or supernatural for that matter. Rather, he believed there was a perpetrator – or many, involved. For instance, the confession of Hojou Tamae's murder that alleviates suspicion from Hojou Satoshi is suspect. A drug addict who commits suicide that very same day? Too clean. Too hard to do any further digging with. And then there's the incident with Hojou Satoko's parents. She claims to remember nothing but Ooishi-sempai was sure she knew something. Perhaps he even suspected her to be involved. She was, after all, the only person we can confirm to be present at the time of the incident aside from the couple themselves – and she has a motive, to boot. The siblings Hojou Satoshi and Satoko, both implicated in two separate murders… Can the other two murders be linked to them as well? Or are there four separate perpetrators for four separate crimes? Or eight? Or any number in between? And that's leaving alone the final year. A bicycle can't get that deep into the mountains. It's doubtful that even on foot a child – or an adult with little mountain-climbing experience – can manage it. He searched for these answers. He searched and searched… I wonder if he found those answers, and if somewhere within his notes what Hinamizawa has left behind, if I can find them too…
[The tape ends.]
Scene 5
[MAN TWO ejects the tape.]
MAN ONE [whistles]: Phew, that was a heavy load. Of course, we already know some of that… But still…
MAN TWO [agreeing]: Far more informative than the first. But doesn't it sound like that last part was added in for our benefit?
MAN ONE: Sneaking in what information he cared to share so we couldn't ask questions he doesn't want to answer? Maybe…or maybe he's just thinking out loud. Regardless, if we've got questions at the end, we ask them. Even a highshot detective like him'll be hard-pressed to stop us. It's just easier like this.
MAN TWO: Use every source possible, huh. But definitely a heavy load. He thinks a seven year old kid was responsible for killing her own mother?
MAN ONE: It's not as clear cut as that. Remember the incidents that started cropping up after Hinamizawa went down into the swamps? Those people suddenly going psycho? And wasn't Maebara Keiichi found downstream of the bridge Hojou Satoko was found near?
MAN TWO: You think she could have pushed him off?
MAN ONE: I'm saying things connect together a little too conveniently, don't they? This is exactly what that other detective meant. What's the answer? The obvious one? The one everyone sings? Or the one no-one can see quite yet?
MAN TWO: Well, that's what we're looking for, isn't it?
MAN ONE: Indeed it is, and Maebara Keiichi has answers one way or another. So let's have it.
[MAN TWO inserts the final tape. This one is unlabelled, but clearly used.]
Scene 6
[The tape shows a white-walled room. There are odds and ends about the place and a bed in one corner. Someone sat on the bed in pale pyjamas. Their hair was dark and their skin pale, but the recording couldn't do their features much justice. It is a bird's eye view, perhaps taken from a security camera. AKASAWA is sitting on a chair near the head of the bed.]
AKASAWA: My name's Akasawa Mamoru, detective for the Metropolitan Police Department of Tokyo. And you're Maebara Keiichi.
KEIICHI: You already know, don't you?
AKASAWA: One can't believe everything they hear. Like you killing Furude Rika –
[The boy on the bed sat up straighter at that.]
KEIICHI: I didn't do it!
AKASAWA [raises his hands in defence]: I didn't say you did.
KEIICHI [more quietly]: I didn't do it. Satoko-chan thought so too, but I didn't. I didn't. I killed her uncle. Just her uncle. And then I wished Takano-san would disappear because she suspected me. Then there was Doctor Irie who wouldn't believe me when I told him what I'd done, so I wished the curse would strike him too, and then he'd committed suicide the next morning but Satoko-chan said it wasn't my fault. That I couldn't wish them dead! Except she also thought I killed Rika-chan but I didn't! But I did wish this cruel world would perish and then it did!
AKASAWA: And Ooishi-sempai?
KEIICHI: …he saw me digging.
AKASAWA: Digging?
KEIICHI: I buried Hojou Teppei's body in a ditch somewhere. Takano-san said something to make me panic so I ran back to check – and Detective Ooishi found he. He made me dig until I hit pipe, and there was no body.
AKASAWA: Did he? He can be merciless, especially when it concerns Oyashiro's curse.
KEIICHI: Does he believe? Or not believe?
AKASAWA: The curse? Well, there's quite a bit we haven't been able to explain otherwise…
KEIICHI: I can tell you.
AKASAWA: …I was hoping you could.
KEIICHI: Did you know dead people walked in Hinamizawa?
AKASAWA [with some surprise]: …come again?
KEIICHI: The dead walk in Hinamizawa. [He laughs suddenly.] Takano disappeared before the Watanagushi festival, right? Except she gave me a ride home that night. And I killed Hojou Teppei, but Satoko said he'd come back home the next day. See? Walking dead! And now I'm one of them.
AKASAWA: …are you talking about how you survived the Hinamizawa Disaster?
KEIICHI [laughing]: Who knows? I don't know.
AKASAWA: What do you know then? What can you tell me?
KEIICHI: I can tell you about the curse. My curse. I've told you.
AKASAWA: Your wishes that coincided with the disappearances? [There is an uncomfortable pause.] But that doesn't apply to Hojou Teppei, does it?
KEIICHI: No, of course not. But Satoshi-kun understood. I used his baseball bat, you know. The same one he used to kill his aunt. He understood. He told me to help Satoko-chan because no-one else would. And then the footstep came.
AKASAWA: Footstep?
KEIICHI: The extra footstep. When you stop walking suddenly and there's another footstep before the silence.
AKASAWA: Ryuugu Rena said something similar, in her school in Ikebukero. The extra footstep that's always there. The curse she claims caused her to smash all the windows at her school and beat three boys with a baseball bat.
KEIICHI: Rena… Rena…
AKASAWA: We didn't find her body. Do you know where she was?
KEIICHI: …I don't know.
AKASAWA: And do you have any idea about who killed Furude-chan?
KEIICHI [shaking his head]: Everybody in Hinamizawa loved Rika-chan. Maybe it was one of the dead people. I was just trying to protect Satoko! [He hugs his knees and shakes.] And she hated me at the end, and then I wished her dead with everyone else and I'd take that back but the footsteps aren't here anymore…
AKASAWA: You know, I met Furude-chan once. Five years ago. And she predicted she would die after this year's Watanagushi Festival…and she asked me to solve the mystery of the curse and save her. I failed.
KEIICHI: …the curse? The mystery of the curse. [Then he laughs, and the laughter goes on for a while.] You don't believe me either, do you? Okay, detective-san. I'll forgive the questions because I want to know too. The curse didn't kill Rika-chan. I didn't kill Rika-chan. So someone else did, and I want to know who it is so I can wish something on them as well. Something crueller than Tomitake-san clawing out his own throat – but you know, I didn't wish that either. Just Takano-san.
AKASAWA [quietly]: They found her corpse, you know. Stuffed in a drum.
KEIICHI [laughs]: I know. I met her the next night. And then I wished her dead. But detective-san, I don't like that you don't believe me. No-one believes me, but at least the nurses write it down for me when I ask them to. What about reporters? I'm sure they're interested.
AKASAWA: …they are. But this place won't let them in. Still…someone might come to talk to you.
KEIICHI: A reporter. Huh. Then the whole world will believe me. Or not believe me. I wonder…
AKASAWA: Wonder what?
KEIICHI: Wonder if Oyashiro's curse will return long enough to wipe out all the non-believers… But don't worry detective-san, I want you to stay alive. You promised Rika-chan, after all.
AKASAWA: …I did. [His chair scrapes as he stands.] I think I've overstayed my welcome. Thank you for talking with me, Maebara-kun.
[The recording abruptly ends.]
Scene 7
[MAN ONE and MAN TWO are seated across from each other. The tape is still in the VCR but now the screen is blank. They sit silently for a while, and finally, MAN ONE whistles.]
MAN ONE: It answers a few questions…but not everything.
MAN TWO: Of course it doesn't. He's talking about hearing footsteps and cursing an entire village. [He sighs] I guess it was too much to hope for. He is in a psychiatric institution.
MAN ONE: Not necessarily. I mean, granted, it's impossible to prove or disprove most of what he said except by disbelieving the supernatural, but aside from the walking dead, there's nothing contradictory about his statement.
MAN TWO: The walking dead is a pretty big deal.
MAN ONE: Except he's not the only one to mention Takano Miyo appearing on the night of the Watanagushi Festival despite having been dead since the night before, according to the autopsy. It's a pity we can't redo autopsies.
MAN TWO: It's an odd thing to fake. Especially when drawing more attention to the case.
MAN ONE: Odd indeed. But the entire situation is odd. That's why the truth will be a fascinating tale worth the effort we put into it.
MAN TWO: You don't mean…
MAN ONE: Akasawa said it himself. A reporter's breaking into that place. I've still got questions to ask. And there's still a mystery to solve.
Post A/N: A bit of an alternate epilogue to Tatarigoroshi-hen. MAN ONE is the interviewer in the original epilogue whose parents live in OSAKA. MAN TWO is someone else who was on the same boat that shipwrecked and killed him. Too bad Ooishi's already dead in this one. It would've been fun to use him too. XD Yamamoto is the Doctor at Takano Clinic in the world where the curse never happens and Takano and Irie never come to Hinamizawa. I used him instead of making an OC for that role since I needed a doctor.