Chapter 8: Who needs a Teddie?
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Down we fall.
A few seconds later, we hit the ground. I land on my back, and roll. As I slowly get on my feet, noticing how much pain I'm in, I check to see where the others are. Chie and Yosuke landed a few meters away. Both look slightly groggy as they get up.
"Wh-where are we?" Chie looks around as she ask. Good question. From the looks of it, we seem to have landed in some kind of... movie studio, maybe?
"I d-don't know." If these morons hadn't pushed me, none of this would have happened. Guess this is what I get for trying to connect with people.
"So, uh, what exactly is going on here?" Yosuke speaks up as he struggles to his feet.
Well, maybe a recap is in order. My hand went into a television, and then you yell for the world to hear that you needed to take a piss, and then, for reasons which God himself would have a hard time explaining, you and Miss Hyperactive over there pushed me down the rabbit hole! I rub the back of my head to ease a nagging feeling at the base of my skull. It's been there ever since we landed and I don't want to think about what it could mean.
"We're... still alive, right?"
'I hope so. I didn't want to die a virgin.' Eh, I should probably keep that to myself.
"Woah!"
"What, Yosuke? Did you just wet your pants?" I don't know about him, but this qualifies as pant-wetting in my book.
"Take a look around guys. From the looks of it, we ended up in some kind of TV Studio."
"So, does Junes have a TV Studio?" asks Chie. "You know, maybe this is a short cut to it."
"I-I don't t-think so. If y-you look c-carefully, there are n-no cameras. J-just a bunch of s-spotlights."
"Yeah, I guess. Also, there's so much fog. Or is it smoke? You think it's safe to breathe?" Yosuke is holding his nose. Great, that's something else I need to worry about.
"Hey guys, what's this on the ground, anyway? These diagrams? I've seen them before." Yosuke is staring at the floor. I look down, and see a bunch of outlines scattered beneath my feet
"Yeah, you're right. From those cop shows, right? These are those pictures that the police draw to show where a body was. That's … not true here, right?" Chie sounds as nervous as I am.
"Let's not think about that. Alright Souji, what now?" Wait, what?
"Why a-am I the o-one being asked?"
"Duh, because you are the one who brought us here." Great logic, Yosuke. You pushed, therefore it falls to you to lead.
"I t-think that m-maybe our best c-choice should be t-to look for a w-way out of h-here."
"What do you mean, look for a way out? The exit should be right...there..." As Chie looks up, we all realize the same thing. There is no longer any exit. It seems we fell from the middle of the air itself.
"Well, then, no need to hang around here." Yosuke speaks up. "We should start looking for an exit."
"Yeah, but could we even find one? I mean, how did we wind up here in the first place?" Chie is being surprisingly pessimistic.
"It's either that, or stay here. Might be better if we move." With that, Yosuke takes off, and after a look, Chie and I follow after him.
After walking for a while, we find ourselves staring at what appears to be an apartment complex.
"What is this place? It feels different from where we were. Less fog, too." Chie chimes up after having been quiet.
"Yeah, what is with this fog. Why is it so thick? Kinda reminds me of the fog we've been having in Tokyo for the last little while." Yosuke was staring ahead. "By the way, what do you guys think that is?"
In front of us is a large red vortex. The design was enough to hurt my head, and it seemed to be slowly spinning in about a hundred different directions. But, we have no other alternatives. Yosuke goes first, and after sighing, I follow him.
We step through, and I have a slightly familiar sensation, as if this is something I've done before, though where, I can't say. Once through, I'm staring at a large room, apparently part of an apartment. Interestingly enough, even here, there's a bathroom, a living and dining, and a kitchen with a fridge. If it wasn't for the fact that the whole place was shrouded in fog, this would be a nicer place than Uncle's.
"It's a d-dead end." Chie jumps, and then glares at me.
"Do you have to use the word dead, here, huh?" She's sweating a little. Though she does have a point. That may not have been the best word to use. Looking over, I see Yosuke is examining the walls closely.
"Have you guys noticed? The fog is thinner here. Maybe that's what's been blocking our cellphone reception." Opening his phone, he frowns. "Nope, no signal. What a surprise."
"Were you really expecting a cell-phone to be working here, Yosuke? We fell through a TV!"
"Well, I don't see you making any contributions, Ms. Kung Fu artist!" Yosuke and Chie are looking like they want to fight. What should I do? All I really want to do is go home. As I look around, I notice something strange.
"H-hey guys, have you s-seen this?" I'm pointing to what appears to be a noose hanging from the ceiling, with a chair directly underneath it.
"That combination is never a good thing. Oh man, I really, really hope that's just a prank." Yosuke is quivering slightly. I don't blame him.
"Uh, guys, what's that on the walls?" Chie is pointing with a shaking finger.
As I get a clearer look, I realize that it's a photo of what appears to be a woman wearing a kimono. Looks to be from some type of promotional photo. What's really creepy are is that the face has been cut out from each of the photo, and at the bottom of each poster is a single word: DIE.
"What on earth is this?" Yosuke seems to be getting agitated. "Aw, screw it, I can't hold it in anymore! I need to pee" and with that he runs to a corner. Yosuke, I may have the same feeling as you, but even I'm not that desperate. My respect for you has dropped quite a bit.
"Are you seriously planning on peeing here? Right in front of us? Yosuke, you pervert! There's a bathroom down the hall! Go there! Or go do it outside if you have to!" Chie is blushing furiously.
"What are you treating me like, some kind of dog? Besides all you have to do is turn away! Don't watch me damn it!" Don't worry Yosuke, I wasn't, though I'm not sure why Chie hasn't turned around yet.
"Argh, forget it. I can't do it anymore. It's your fault if my bladder bursts!"
"I t-think that if y-your bladder gets t-too full, you just p-pee your pants." Hopefully, that advice was useful.
"Thanks Souji. Next time I need to know something that will end up humiliating me, I'll make sure to ask you."
"Anyway, now that the idiot has finished his routine," Yosuke glares at Chie, "what exactly is with this room? A noose and chair, and a bunch of posters with the face cut out. If it was just one of them, I'd say that it was maybe a joke, but all these put together?"
"Yeah, I've been thinking the same thing. If you look more closely at the noose, doesn't it look like a scarf? Pretty expensive one at that." Yosuke is right. I can pick out faintly what appears to be gold thread running across the noose/scarf. Man, whatever we came here for, I think it's time to get out.
"H-how about we l-leave huh? This r-room is s-starting to c-creep me out."
"I agree," Chie holds her stomach, "plus I'm not feeling too well. My head feels all funny."
"Alright, follow me. Maybe we'll find an exit if we try a different path." Yosuke heads back out through the portal, Chie right behind him. Just as I'm about to follow them, I hear a faint whisper. I can't quite make out what it says, yet it feels... sorrowful, as if in mourning. Yeah, I'm ready to leave this haunted house.
With Yosuke leading, we surprisingly make it back to the studio without getting lost. Surprising, because the fog feels like it's getting thicker with each step we take. And maybe I'm just imagining it, but I swear I'm seeing shadows dancing in the distance. And all the while I hear this damn whisper that won't go away.
"D-Do you guys h-hearing something l-like a whisper?"
"Hahaha. G-Good one, Souji-kun. For a second there, I t-thought you were serious." Chie's laugh, however, feels forced. "There's no need for pranks now, right?"
"So here we are, right back where we started. What do we do now? We haven't found an exit, and I'm really starting to feel sick. And my eyes are burning too. This damn fog is making it hard to see!" Yosuke is getting flustered.
"We're not trapped here are we? I want to go home!" Chie is looking at me angrily. "If you hadn't tried to act cool, none of this would have happened!"
"H-how is this m-my fault. If Y-Yosuke hadn't p-pushed, we w-wouldn't h-have fallen in." I guess I was right: I can't make friends with people like this.
"Let's all calm down, huh? No use pointing fingers at each other. Besides we...need...to…what the hell is that?" Yosuke is pointing to something that is approaching from the fog.
"Huh? Yosuke, now is a really bad time for a...joke? What is that?" Chie has dropped into a martial arts stance. Is she seriously planning on fighting…whatever that thing is?
"Here it comes! Everybody ready?" Chie is getting ready to attack.
"W-wait! We d-don't know w-what it is!" This is all getting crazy. And then, things get a lot crazier, when we hear a voice.
"Who are you guys? And how did you get here?"
"Holy crap, did that thing just talk?"
"What is it? A monkey, a bear?" Looks like a giant walking egg if you ask me.
Finally, he emerges. I'm not sure I'm believing what I'm seeing: a round ball, with tiny legs and hands, but eyes larger than dinner plates. Red…fur, I think, covers it, and there's a large zipper surrounding his head. And multi-colored. I remember from my high school biology class that nature selects against bright colored animals because it makes it easier for predators to find them. So, what rules apply here?
"How rude! I'm not a monkey! The name is Teddie." I'm really not sure what to say. In this world of madness, he's complaining about how polite we are? And what kind of name is Teddie? More to the point, what is he?
"Teddie? What do you want, you want to fight?" Guess I was right about Chie. We're making contact with an unknown life form, and the first thing you want to do is fight it?
"Don't yell at me like that." And now our unknown life form is cowering. This is strangely... disappointing. But hey, at least it isn't trying to kill us.
"U-um, T-Teddie? Where e-exactly are w-we?"
"Huh? Oh, this place. It has no name"
"How can a place exist and not have a name? Everywhere is somewhere." Yosuke answers.
"I don't know. This is my home. That's all I really know."
At this, all of us stare at each other. Something... lives here?
"So, uh, what does that mean? You live here, in this foggy world?"
Teddie ignores Yosuke, and continues "If I were you guys, I'd hurry back to the other side. Somebody's been throwing people in here. It's been a huge mess." Wait, what? Okay, now I really want to get out of here, and preferably never come back. Yosuke can't seem to leave well enough alone.
"Throwing people in here? What do you mean?"
"I don't know. I just wish they'd think about it before they go and do something like that." Um, I think that if somebody is throwing people in, they probably don't care about your concerns.
"So, u-uh, how exactly d-do we get out o-of here? W-we can't find a-an exit." Chie has a question as well, and speaks over mine.
"What gives you the right to yell at us? Who are you? Where are we? What the heck is going on?" Teddie panics, then runs behind me. Now I have what feels like a giant ball of fur hanging onto me.
"Gah!" I panic and jump. Teddie does the same.
"Wah!" and with that, both of us hit the ground.
"Ow." Twice in less than an hour. I really need to get home.
"You okay there Souji?" Yosuke gives me a hand up. Teddie somehow pops up as well despite the fact his arms are too short to reach the ground.
"Could you guys leave, please?" You're asking us to leave? Great. I want to get out of here as well!
"S-so, h-how do we l-leave?"
"I'll let you out."
"Like I've been saying," apparently, Yosuke hasn't been paying any attention to what Teddie has been saying, "we're trying to...wait, what?" And the light bulb goes off.
Teddie taps his foot on the ground, and out of nowhere, a stack of really old TVs appear. Ignoring the fact that a puff of smoke was all it took to get them here is probably the best way to safeguard my sanity. A TV to get in, a TV to get out.
"What the hell? Where did these TVs come from?" Yosuke and Chie ask at the same time. I circle around, so that I can get a clearer look. If this is our way out, I vote myself to go first.
"Okay, now go go go. I'm a busy bear!" Wonder what he means by... GAH! That stupid bear is pushing us altogether, and oh no.
Here we go again.
()()()()()()()()()()
After another ride that left me dizzy, the three of us pop out again in Junes. Somehow, thanks to a miracle, nobody spotted us dropping out. Whether the security cameras did or not is a different question. We slowly get back onto our feet.
"A-are we back? Are we safe?" Yosuke is looking around. Chie picks herself up, and I reluctantly do the same. I've learned that the only safe place in Tokyo is the ground. The closer I am to it, the fewer crazy things happen to me.
"We made it!" Chie is jumping up and down. I look down at my watch.
"W-woah!"
"Huh, what is it?" Yosuke is looking at me.
"T-take a look! The t-time's only 4:45. We w-went in a-around 3:30!"
"Hey, you're right. Wow, it's that late already?" We just survived a deadly ordeal that lasted hours and you're not surprised that we were gone for only an hour and fifteen minutes? Yosuke is looking at a poster posted next to a TV really closely.
"Now I remember! That poster that we saw in the apartment? It'd been bugging me for a while. I was sure that I'd seen it before. That's the poster right there!" Looking at it, me and Chie gasp at the same time.
"But that's a poster of Misuzu Hiragi, the enka singer! What does that have to do with anything?" Chie does have a point. Why that particular poster? "Wait. Wasn't she on the news? Something about her husband having an affair?"
"I d-don't remember a-anything l-like that. M-maybe I j-just wasn't p-paying attention."
"Does that mean that weird room we saw is connected to Yamano's death?"
How do you make that leap? "W-why do you a-ask?"
"Simple. If it is, then doesn't that mean that only people who can pass through the TV would know about it?" Yosuke points out.
"I g-guess." Truth be told I just want to go and lie down.
"And that noose and the chair... Okay, stop. We are done talking about it."
"S-sounds good."
"I'm going to forget that all of this happened. Once is enough for me." Just as Yosuke says this however, my eyes flash again. This time, there is no gray at all. Only orange. Did that TV world have something to do with this? Oh screw it, I'm too tired for this.
"I t-think I'll do t-the same."
"Let's go home. I'm not feeling too well." Huh, a quiet Chie. That has to be a first.
"Agreed. I'm heading home. See you guys at college tomorrow." Punching me lightly in the shoulder, Yosuke takes off. Chie yawns, and then follows him. I look quietly at the TV we fell through and make myself a promise. I will never touch another TV, or even think about touching one, ever again.
There should be nothing wrong with that, right? With that, I leave Junes, and head home.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
By the time I get home, I'm stumbling, have a fever, and feel cold, all at the same time. I barely make it through the door before I trip. Catching myself before I hit the ground, I let out a quiet "I'm home" as I enter. To my surprise, Uncle is at home, and he and Nanako are sitting at the table, with cup ramen. The two of them are watching TV. The announcer is talking about the weather.
"Rain has finally let up, and we should see sunshine by tomorrow. Tonight however, a fog warning is in effect as fog moves in from the bay, and covers the city. Remember to drive slowly, and pay attention to the road. Now for sports..."
"Welcome home, Souji. You look out of it. Maybe you're catching a cold? Nanako, can you get the cold medicine?" Nanako gets up and runs off. I take a seat at the table.
"So, how's Tokyo treating you so far? Is it everything you expected?"
How do I answer this question, exactly? Since I've gotten here, enough crazy things have happened that I've lost count of them. The only thing I know for certain is that this has to be the worst decision I've ever made. Attempting to change myself was bound to fail. I just lied myself into believing I could. But I doubt that's what Uncle wants to hear.
"T-things are g-going great. I've m-made a few f-friends."
"Have you? I was worried that the big city might have been too much for you, but you look like you're having fun!"
Either Uncle is the worst judge of a person's emotions, or I'm a much better actor than I thought. How else could he have possibly come up with that conclusion?
"Still, it's a little disappointing." Uncle goes on. "Even though I told you that crime rates were down, since you got here, we've had two people die. Not that I believe there's any connection, just a horrible coincidence, but still..." He looks worried.
"In any case, make sure you stay out of trouble, and try not to go out after dark. Missing persons has received a report, and I don't want to have to fill out one for you. I am responsible for you after all."
"T-thanks. D-don't worry. I d-don't plan on g-going out after d-dark if I can help i-it."
"Good. Ah, here's Nanako with the medicine." She hands it to me silently, and then sits down. I drink the glass of water she has given me and swallow two pills.
"I think I w-will head to b-bed now. Good N-night."
"Night Souji." Uncle and Nanako go back to watching the TV, waiting for the ramen to finish warming up. I head to bed. I really need some sleep.
()()()()()()()()()()()
Friday, April 15, 2011
After sitting through English and Economics with a headache and a slight shiver, I have a break before Biology. As I drag myself to the food court to grab something, I find somebody waiting outside the classroom for me: Yosuke. And from the look on his face, something bad happened.
"Hey. You free? We need to talk." Without waiting for an answer, he grabs my arm and starts walking. I have to almost jog to match his pace. I follow him to a bench, and we both sit down. Yosuke seems... hesitant, like he doesn't know where to start. Finally, he just hands his cell-phone over, with a text message displayed. I'm shocked by what it says.
Yosuke. I just got word from Saki Konishi's parents.
She was found dead.
I'm sorry.
Dad
End Chapter 8
