89
Lost
"Slowly but inexorably crawling upon my consciousness and rising above every other impression, came a dizzying fear of the unknown; a fear all the greater because I could not analyze it, and seeming to concern a stealthily approaching menace; not death, but some nameless, unheard-of thing inexpressibly more ghastly and abhorrent." – H. P. Lovecraft, "The Crawling Chaos"
From where he sat, Iori could look out over the water of a pond. Nearby lanterns cast a warm glow on his surroundings: the shoji that formed a wall behind him, the wooden porch on which he and Upamon were sitting. Farther from the building, the night's shadows were interrupted by fireflies hovering over the grass and the pond and between the blossoming cherry trees. It was beautiful.
Iori turned his head when he heard a shoji panel slide aside behind him. Chiho was framed in the opening. Behind her the interior could be seen, the tatami flooring illuminated by bonbori, but Iori's focus was on Chiho herself.
Like him, she was dressed in normal everyday clothing, slightly out of keeping with their old-fashioned surroundings. It was a good symbolic representation of Chiho's personality, with its blend of dignity and vivaciousness that had first attracted him to her. They had known each other to some extent for years, being students at the same elementary school, and besides getting taller she had changed little over time. Her brown hair was cut to shoulder length as it had always been, and her demeanor was as pleasant as ever.
Despite their long acquaintance, they hadn't become close friends until just this year, but by the time August and summer break had come around they had reached the point where they felt comfortable enough to describe themselves as boyfriend and girlfriend.
"Hi, Iori. Hi, Upamon," Chiho said, sitting down with them and leaving Upamon in the middle. The boy and his Digimon returned her greeting, and the three of them sat watching the pond and the fireflies.
"It's a beautiful place, isn't it?" Chiho asked, echoing Iori's earlier thoughts.
"It's great," Iori agreed. They smiled at each other over Upamon's head. Iori felt happy, and at ease. It was almost a strange feeling. He'd been so worried lately, about Chiho and about everything, but this moment was just about perfect. He wouldn't have minded if it turned out to last forever.
"What's that, dagyaa?" Upamon asked.
Iori and Chiho looked back to the pond, which the little Digimon was still watching. There was no wind, but the former stillness of the water had been broken. Something moved under the surface. A splashing began as the thing's motions intensified. Part of it broke the surface, white and puffy in the moonlight.
The boy and the girl had both gotten to their feet. Iori didn't know what was happening, but he knew that something was terribly wrong. His fears were confirmed when the object in the pond suddenly stopped thrashing and stood up out of the water – the form of an adult human. Iori recognized it immediately. It was his father, wearing a dark blue policeman's uniform that was darker still now that it was soaking wet. The skin of the face and hands was unnaturally white, and Iori knew he was looking at a corpse. But the fact that it was dead did not prevent it from wading forward, its limbs moving stiffly.
Chiho gave a gasped scream and tottered backwards into the shelter of the house. Iori followed, keeping his eyes on the corpse's face, its eyes wide and staring and its mouth set in a pained rictus. It was a terrifying sight, but even afraid as he was, Iori realized through the haze of the nightmare that this was not really his father. Hida Hiroki had been cremated in London after his death four years ago. This wasn't him. This was a monster.
Iori was inside now. Upamon came bouncing in after, and for a moment Iori debated on whether or not to slide the shoji shut again, if only to cut off his vision of the thing. But already it had managed to crawl out of the pond, its dripping arms were extended over the floor where the children had been so recently sitting, and Iori continued his slow retreat.
"Iori-kun!" Chiho called, returning in her terror to the old honorific. "Hurry!"
Iori was trying to grasp the situation. He didn't know for certain that the creature meant harm, but his instincts told him that it did, and he couldn't begin to think on how to reason with it. Could Upamon scare it off by evolving?
"Upamon!"
"Iori! I—"
The corpse-thing's expression jerked into a smile. "Can't do that here," it said, in a voice that wasn't Hiroki's, with a tone too cheerful for anything dead. Behind it, the deep blue-black of the sky flashed a stormy gray. Rents appeared suddenly in the paper of the shoji, and the paint on the room's surfaces began to split and flake. The fireflies ceased their normal motions and jerked about in the air, emitting sounds like broken glass. The advancing monster stepped up and into the room. "Come here, son."
"You're not my father!" Iori shouted back.
"And yet you were still willing to give me the benefit of the doubt," it observed, the smile widening, becoming more natural. The staring eyes of Hiroki fell forward out of the face, shattering like glass when they hit the tatami, and revealing the dark, narrow eyes behind them. "You've come so far, Hida-kun, but you still couldn't understand me if you tried."
Iori didn't know what the thing was talking about. He had a feeling that he had heard its voice before, but all he could recall for certain was that it should terrify him. Right now the only thing he needed to understand was how to get himself, his girlfriend, and his partner out of danger. But he didn't have time to think clearly; it was almost upon them. The swollen hands reached for him.
He almost screamed when something clutched his arm from behind. Then he heard Chiho urging him to come on, and she was pulling him away from the monster's grasp. Finally he turned, and fled with her and Upamon. Chiho had slid another shoji aside, and they ran into another room that was much like the first. There were no lights here, but Iori saw in the dimness that there was a long, thin object lying on the tatami.
Chiho was still in full retreat. She reached the other side of the room and slid the first panel she came to out of her way. But she screamed again when she saw what was on the other side, because there was no third room or peaceful yard, but only a dizzying vertical drop to the waves of a gray ocean. Had not Iori been directly behind her, she might have lost her balance and fallen over the precipice, but he saw the danger, and just had time to grab her arm and pull her back into the room. They fell together to the floor, but Iori quickly regained his feet, remembering their pursuer.
It was still there, though it had paused, and stood grinning at them from the room's threshold. Despite the lack of bonbori, the glittering of its black eyes was more noticeable than before. Iori slowly helped Chiho up, never taking his eyes from the creature. Upamon stood between it and the children, still unable to evolve.
"Well?" the monster asked. "You have your weapon of choice, don't you? You know a Chosen Child can't afford to be a pacifist." It pointed with one white finger to what was lying on the floor. Using his peripheral vision, Iori could see that it was a shinai like the ones he and his grandfather used when practicing kendo. He hesitated for a moment, then bent and picked it up, keeping his eyes focused on the thing pointing at it.
"Iori…" Chiho whispered.
Iori gripped the bamboo sword in both hands, and leveled it at the figure before him.
"What do you want?" he asked it. He doubted that a fight could be avoided, or that he could win one against an opponent like this, but before the end came he needed to know why this thing was attacking him and his friends.
"It doesn't really matter what I want," the Dark One answered, its smile wide to the point of grotesquery. Besides the damp uniform, there was no semblance of Iori's father left. "But a good show would be nice."
It lurched forward. Without thinking, Iori struck at the head. It was a good hit – he had been prepared for an attack – and his opponent recoiled, still grinning. Iori almost shouted "men" from force of habit, but didn't. He wasn't in a dojo, and this wasn't a kendo match. This could be life or death.
The creature started forward again, more slowly. Iori looked for any surprise attack it might try to launch, but there was no technique in its approach. He swung again with the shinai, aiming for the side of the head, but the Dark One threw up an arm to intercept the blow. The sword struck it in the wrist, knocking the hand to an abnormal angle with a sickening crunch. The thing laughed at Iori – at the pallor of his face, and the cold sweat on his forehead, and the way he trembled.
Chiho screamed. Iori jerked around, and saw that while he and she had been focused on his would-be opponent, something black and shapeless had crawled up into the room through the open shoji. It had fastened onto one of Chiho's ankles, and was swarming up her leg. Iori made to help her, his weapon temporarily forgotten, but before he could take a step the thing he had turned his back on draped itself around him, enveloping him with its soggy arms and stomach, and stifling his breath with its stench.
Before him he saw Chiho being rapidly encased in the black amorphous substance that had hold of her. She reached an arm out towards him, but then it too was engulfed.
"Iori, don't let it—"
Then her head was swallowed up, and the whole quivering black mass oozed back out of the room, taking her with it. The shoji slid shut once it had withdrawn.
"Chiho-chan!" Iori screamed.
"Always looking in the wrong direction," said the voice of the Dark Man. "But at least you still have one friend left. Oh… No, I guess you don't."
And Iori woke. The Dark Man's laughter sounded, either in his mind or in the pitch blackness of the room he lay in; he couldn't tell. When it had faded all was quiet, but the last words of the nightmare remained with Iori, and gradually he came to understand their full meaning. That creature…AncientSphinxmon, or whatever it really was…had killed Armadimon and the others.
"Armadimon…"
It came out as a whisper of disbelief. Too shocked for immediate sorrow, his first emotion was fear as the silence closed in once more. Armadimon wasn't here. But what else might be? He'd have no chance of defending himself this time. His hands were behind his back, and when he tried to move them he found that he was wearing handcuffs. Like my father used to carry, he thought, with a shudder that shook his whole body.
It was only then that it really hit him. Armadimon wasn't here. His partner – his best friend – was dead. Gone. Killed in the line of duty.
"No… No…"
He managed to get on his feet, not caring what his moaning and clicking handcuffs might stir up in the darkness.
"Armadimon!"
There was no answer. Not even an echo. He was alone. The rational side of his mind tried to remind him that Takeru and Ken had lost their partners and found them again, but its protests were drowned out by rising panic and biting grief. Armadimon and his father were both gone, and here he was chained in the dark, with no glimmer of light remaining.
"Takeru-san! Miyako-san!"
No response at all. He didn't dare to try moving around in a place he couldn't see, and there wasn't even a wall to put his back to. All the strength went out of his legs, and he sank back down to the floor.