O-02-56

Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak.

After the incident inside T-02-43's unit and Laurence's… disappearance –as I vaguely explained to Marette–, my mood was not really good. I refused to feed my guilt to One Sin. My pain was mine. Letting it go would only weaken my resolve. Accordingly, nobody ate my sins and I was the sole sinner of the Control Team. Marette kept working on One Sin despite their memory loss incident and I kept taking care of the spiders. Meanwhile, life continued and a new abnormality was assigned to our department, expanding new corridors and installing a system of elevators to descend further down.

Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak.

The spot the white bird kept landing its tiny beak started to itch, but I continued taking notes outside its containment unit. O-02-56 had the tendency to breach from time to time and wander in search of someone committing sins. After finding someone, sinner or not, it will thrust its beak repeatedly against them as if to punish them for their misdeeds. It name reflected its nature: Punishing Bird.

Marette was puzzled about why it attacked them after having their sins eaten by One Sin. I didn't bother to explain them the truth about their assigned abno's diet.

Besides, the damn bird loved me. Or hated me. One or the other. It never got tired from hitting my head. If not for the healing dispensers the clerks kept maintenance for, I could be dead.

I grabbed the bird. Its tiny black eyes challenged me. I felt so furious I considered squishing it to death. I looked at the name written on the unit's plaque and I entered the room. I left the bird on a branch we put there to give it something to climb on.

"O-02-56. We've worked together for a while now. Instinct and Attachment went normally. Insight works the best, so you must possess some kind of intelligence. Tell me, then, why do you torture me so?"

It titled its little head. The manager tasked me to attempt Repression Work, so I was happy to oblige.

I punched Punishing Bird. The force of the impact slammed it against it the wall. Then, it fluttered up and opened its beak. Its other beak. The red stain on its tummy was its true mouth. For slings of flesh opened and surrounded me. I was about to be devoured whole. The pain was sudden, but it vanished quickly. I felt the warm embrace of death. Ah, no. Those were my [too gross] sprayed over my [yuck].


It tilted its little head. The manager tasked me to continue with Insight Work, so I had the perfect chance to find out why it hated my guts so much. I wanted it to stop pestering me every once in a while. My heart strings were being pulled to the extreme just by working on Spider Bud and feeding lies to One Sin. That annoyance was the last thing I needed in my day.

After finishing my work, the same red turd haired clerk from before welcomed me back.

"Hey, employee number 1."

"Hi."

"Again Insight Work with the bird?"

"It annoys me, but it is easier to deal with a single annoyance than a multitude of biting spiders. Do you have anything for me, Pepe?"

"Sure have, [DATA EXPUNGED]."

Clerk Beta8325 gave me an update of Punishing Bird's profile. L Corp does not limit itself to employee us to disposable workers to research abnormalities. By paying the right amount of PE-Boxes, a group of investigators formed by the department's clerks studied the abnos and even collected every last bit of data possible about them.

Apparently, this Punishing Bird was part of a trio of birds who protected a forest from the dangers of a prophecy. Since Punishing Bird's beak was tiny and failed to shoo the evildoers, it developed a new mouth that could devour any monster.

"You must be kidding me…"

As annoying as it may be to withstand its repeated attacks, never lay a hand on Punishing Bird. It will open the mouth in its tummy and gobble anything and anyone, regardless of equipment, skills or virtues.

"Bad news?"

"Terrible news for all of us. This [Excessive use of profanities] is going to make our lives miserable and we cannot retaliate. Listen well, Pepe. Tell you buddies not to mess with this thing."

"You don't have to worry about that. One of them is an open masochist, so they usually volunteer to take the beating."

"That's worthy of a sin, I'd say."

"Haha. Keep up the good work. See ya."

"Yeah."

I watched Pepe go and took another look at the updated profile. Who had more value? A bird protecting a non-existent forest? Or a nice person? I already knew what the higher ups thought, but… Does my opinion matter?

Beak. Beak. Beak.

Punishing Bird sensed my sinful thoughts and slammed its beak against the door's window, trying to breach and beat my itching skull. A thought crossed my mind.

"Come along, you [profanity]. We're making new friends."

I opened Spider Bud's door and went inside. I tossed the bird towards the spiderlings.

"Help…"

I frowned upon noticing Laurence continued to breathe. If only he died already, I wouldn't suffer from sympathizing with him. Ah! I felt great! I could bear as many sinful thoughts as I wanted to! The bird was too busy feasting on the spiders to realize my wickedness! Spider Bud then pierced Punishing Bird with one of its legs and brought it upwards to make a cocoon from it. A slash later, Spider Bud's bud fell to the floor.

"Holy!"

Then, I watched in horror as Spider Bud disappeared and reappeared as it always had been: in one piece, hanging from the ceiling, spawning new children. The bird slammed its tiny beak against my skull once more, taking out its anger on me for tricking it.

"Please, refrain from experimenting with abnormalities. Further citations will result in a punishment."

I looked back at the beautiful lady waiting at the doorstep. The last time we met like that, she felt more imposing. I approached her.

"Why should I care? I am punished every freaking day by this disgusting thing. What are you going to do to me? Murder me? Fire me? Feed me to some other crazy abnormality?"

"I would give you new reasons to fear punishment."

I thought I was ready to face the fear, yet that inhuman woman's attitude made me waver. She didn't open her eyelids that time. She didn't need to. Once again, I was reminded of my insignificant role as a gear inside a huge machine that held no compassion for me.

My knees collapsed and an apology escaped my lips. Someone sighed.

"Don't make this any harder for yourself than it needs to be. This hell was not made for you."

"Uuhhh…"

Oh! By killing Spider Bud and resetting its immortal body, the cocoon broke and the almost-digested remains of Laurence plummeted to the floor. I repressed the urge to puke. Unsurprisingly, not a single employee volunteered to retrieve the corpse of their cocooned colleague.