(A/N): Translation: "Are you here on holiday?" "Yes." "You speak good Japanese." "You speak good German, too." This will make sense later. Also, I do not agree with Saburou/Manzo Ueda's views on the issues he talks about later. I just wanted to make that very clear.
Da da daaaaaaa. Here is the long awaited Chapter 22. The day after I posted chapter 21, I thought, "I wonder how quickly people will react?" So I checked my email and there were 6 new reviews, so I thought, "Hm, that was quick." I felt very bad for keeping you waiting, so here it is.
There are three songs that I associated with this chapter, one being Haligh Haligh a Lie Haligh by Bright Eyes, Prayer by Kodaline, and Fidelity by Regina Spektor as it is a song that I closely associate with John's situation in this fanfic. I don't know why I decided to say that. I just did.
To my wonderful viewers, thank you for waiting patiently for the next chapter, as I understand I left you on a bit (ok a huge) dilemma. Thank you for reading, reviewing, favouriting and following! To wolfstadt, my wonderful sister/part time editor (she notices some mistakes I make, as well as some very bad typos) I say, 'I hear in my mind, all of these voooooices, I hear in my mind, all of these woooooords, I hear in my mind, all of this muuuuuuusic, and it breaks my heart, and it breaks my heart. And it breaks my heaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaart!' ;) Thank you again, everyone!
At that moment, it felt as if the whole world came crashing down.
"No." My mind reeled. "No. I'm not mad. I'm not insane."
This was not true. It could not be true. Saburou…He was trying to trick me, trick Takigawa. It was all a lie…
…Wasn't it?
Wasn't it? It was a lie?
"You've known it all this time." Saburou – or Manzo Ueda – spoke up, snapping me out of my thoughts. "You've been trying to tell yourself. You know that this is true, but you don't want to accept it."
"No." I shook my head. "No."
"Think about it. The colleague, Kazuki Brooks, Itsuke and Sayomi Watanabe…none of them exist. You made them all up."
"No, I didn't." They were not made up. I knew it. They were real. "They're real."
"Has anyone seen this colleague person?" Saburou demanded. Immediately, I turned to Takigawa, then froze. Dread overcame me as I realised…Takigawa had not actually seen the colleague himself. Both occasions when the colleague had appeared, only I had seen him. The colleague had always disappeared before Takigawa could see him.
"There is no record of an Itsuke Watanabe ever existing."
"He was hospitalised." I argued.
"But there is no record of this." The man shot back. "Ask anyone at the hospital, and no one will remember him. The same applies with Kazuki Brooks."
"No…but…his apartment. His apartment was still there."
"The place you went to…nothing there indicates that someone called Kazuki Brooks ever lived there."
His argument made sense. The place was so minimalistic…we had found no personal items there, not even a passport. No pictures. No identity. It could have been anyone's apartment.
"No." I refused to be taken by his argument. "No, it was his. I remember."
"You're making it all up in your head, John." Saburou intervened. "For how long…I don't know."
"No. Mattaku exists. The Psychiatric Ward, it exists. I didn't make it up. It exists."
"Yes, it does." The man, surprisingly, agreed. "But that doesn't mean it's some evil place, where people are sent and no one returns. It is simply a psychiatric ward."
"How about I ask Friedrich How what he thinks about that? Oh wait. He's dead." I pointed out bitterly. "Or what about Andrew Williams? Or Dimitri Chekskov? If you've seen them around?"
At these points, the man shifted a bit. He crossed his arms, and his jaw line was taut. Yes. This slight change in posture…I was right. I wasn't insane. This was a trick. And Saburou knew I wasn't falling for it.
"…I'm afraid this has only served to assure your delusions." He finally spoke up. I groaned, as he continued.
"You're right. We can't ask Andrew Williams, or Dimitri Chekskov. They are both dead. They did not escape the fire, most unfortunately." He had resumed his confident, calm posture.
"Fire?"
"Mattaku Psychiatric Ward burnt down in mid-March. Very few people survived." He stared intently at me. "You were one of them."
"What?" I did not understand what he was saying.
"You were admitted to Mattaku Pyschiatric Ward, John. On the 5th March. This has only fuelled my belief that you are mentally ill."
The shock of this open fact stunned me, and left me unable to speak. "You escaped during the fire, and fell off a cliff. That is how you ended up in hospital. As simple as that. No men with guns. Nothing. You need help."
I scowled. "You're lying. You can't fool me, Saburou."
"My name is Manzo Ueda." He insisted.
"Bullshit!" I hissed. Regardless, he continued.
"You've known it all along, and your subconscious has been trying to tell you. This colleague that apparently changed your security alarm…what number was it? 011511? Do you know what that number is?" He stared intently. "You should. 011511 is the Australian Mental Health Line. 1800 011 511."
Again, I was speechless as he continued, driving more nails into my coffin. "It's a number you know well, isn't it? A number you know very well. When was it…only 5 or 6 years ago, wasn't it?"
"Bastard." I tried to move forwards and attack, punch him until his teeth rattled, but Takigawa restrained me. "If you say another word –"
"You can't hide your secret, John. I know about it. Doesn't your friend know?" He asked. All the while, rage and fear coursed through me. No. He knew the dirty, little secret I had locked away for so many years. How did he know? How was it possible? No. I had tried to forget all about it. It had not crossed my mind for so long, and in that blissful time, I had forgotten about it. Not spared a single thought of my time to it. Now it was coming back to haunt me.
"You've had a mental problem before, haven't you?" He was exposing my secret painfully, excruciatingly slow. "Very minor in comparison to your current welfare, but a problem nonetheless." He sighed sadly. "Eating disorders are less common among the male gender, I know, but they do happen."
I froze completely. The world was crumbling before my eyes. No. No. No. No. I felt Takigawa slowly release me. No. My filthy, dirty, shameful secret. The skeleton I had hidden. The thing that had plagued me and burdened me for those years of hell.
Takigawa was staring at me. I felt his gaze. When I met that gaze, I saw he was staring at me like I was a stranger. It almost shattered my heart.
"You…you had an eating disorder?" His voice was barely audible.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and opened them again. "…Yes. Briefly. But eating disorders have no parallel to schizophrenia. And it does not change who I am."
"That's not the point." Takigawa sounded hurt. Almost angry. "You…why would you hide that?"
"Why would I reveal it?" I asked him back. "Why would anyone reveal it?"
He looked away, and I could see that Saburou's argument had won him over. The realisation filled me with panic.
"Houshou, please. Trust me. I'm not insane. This man is not called Manzo Ueda. He is lying. He's trying to trick you into letting them take me away. Please. This is exactly what happened to Sayomi."
"But…how do I know she even exists?" His words struck me like a sword. "All we have is your word. There is no other proof."
"That's what he wants you to think!" I shouted, exasperated. "Please, you have to believe me. Please."
His silence filled my heart and lungs with a despair and grief that seemed to drown and destroy everything. I just backed away from the man I had trusted, the man who I had confided in. The man I thought was my friend. The man who was now falling for lies. The man who trusted a thug in a uniform over me. The man who thought I was insane.
"…Why?" Tears welled treacherously at my eyes. "Why? Why would you do this?" I blinked them away, hurriedly.
Takigawa just swallowed and stared at his feet, ashamed.
"No." The waters of my grief burnt up, and bitter resentment thrived. "You're wrong. You're wrong." I turned, and ran to the door.
Outside, the air was cool and sharp. The streets were virtually empty. Above me, a cloud hovered ominously, and the harsh wind seemed to have blown the stars and moon away, leaving me in a darkness that could only be comforted by the fake, artificial lights of the city.
I held back a sob. This was not happening. This could not be happening. I had lost my first and foremost ally. And the pain I had gained was unbearable.
Where would I go? What would I do? How had it come to this?
A voice caught my attention. "John, wait!"
Takigawa ran out from the apartment. "Wait!"
I turned angrily from him, ignoring his call. Kazuki had been right all along. I could not trust Takigawa. I had been wrong. The colleague had changed his loyalties, and I had been a fool to believe he would stay with me.
I felt a hand grip my arm. "John, please wait."
"What do you want?" I asked. There was no anger or sadness in my voice – just sheer disappointment.
"Please, just…you can't leave." He began. I laughed. Despite everything, I was laughing.
"What, do you think I'm a danger to others? A danger to myself? Would you rather me just…stick around and wait for your precious expert to take me away?" I shook my head, fighting back tears again. "Do you really want me to stay and just let them take me away? Do you really think that I need serious help? Treatment?" I bit my lip. "Remember what you told me. You said you wouldn't let the colleague hunt me down. You promised that you would help me." At this, his expression looked pained, and he said nothing.
His silence made me laugh bitterly again. "I was so stupid! Stupid stupid stupid. To think that a person I had only known for, what, three years, would help me? Believe me? Wow. I really am an idiot."
"John, please…"
"What, are there more false promises you want to make?" I spat. "More vows you want to break?"
Somehow, these words seemed to hit a nerve. "Well, what would you expect? I was the stupid one, to go along with all this, with no proof to support your claims! Those spirits you saw in the abandoned house – why couldn't anyone else see them?"
"I already explained that."
"Shouldn't Masako-san have been able to see them? And yet it ends up that only you can see them? What are the chances of that happening?" He was angry now. "All these flash backs…how do I know they're not delusions? And the music and the spirits, how do I know they're not delusions too? And the apartment that burnt down – no one is obsessed enough to burn down a whole apartment, just to destroy one room of evidence. That's just unrealistic."
"I'm. Not. Insane." I shouted. "How do you explain the lilies? Mai was there when one ended up outside the door of SPR. Or what about the information at Kazuki's apartment?"
"We don't even know –"
"The FBI agent who just mysteriously disappeared after investigating Mattaku? How do you explain the gun in the duffle bag, the money, the bug, the phone that played the melody?"
"That melody? That could have been anything. How do we know you didn't put it there yourself?"
"Put it there myself?" I echoed his words in disbelief. "Do you think I put the number on my back there? Or that I inflicted the strangulation mark on myself?"
He could not explain this. Instead, he stuttered, "W-well-I…"
I did not wait for him to finish, and began to walk away from him. To this, he grabbed my arm again.
"Hey, you can't just walk off!"
"Watch me." I shot back.
"Listen, whether you like it or not, you don't have a choice here. If a doctor says –"
"He's not even a doctor! Does he have any proof? Since you're so keen on that?"
"Yes, he did, actually. John, a doctor – an expert – thinks something is wrong. You need to at least take into consideration what he's saying."
"I've taken it into consideration, and I know that he's lying." I retorted.
"John –"
"I trusted you!" I shouted at him. "I trusted you. I confided in you. I put so much faith in you. And you stabbed me in the back."
"Please –"
I turned away, muttering, "Go and break someone else's promises."
He must have heard. And, once more, something about the comment must have made him angry. One last time, he grabbed me, and turned me roughly back around. Then his hand rose back, and slapped me across the face.
My head turned with the blow. For a moment, I did not move, and just remained still, trying to comprehend what had happened. Finally, I faced Takigawa again. He was staring at his hand, as if it had acted on its own and he could not understand how it had moved.
He looked up at me, at a loss for words. "…I…I…"
I'd had enough. Shaking my head, my hand at my cheek where I had received the blow, I backed away from him.
"Stay away from me." I whispered. Before he could argue, I turned and ran into the darkness.
I had no idea where I was going. That didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. I just ran and ran. I didn't care where I ended up. There was nowhere I could go. Who else had Saburou tricked? Had he told Kazuya and Lin the same lies? From what Lin had told me in the car, about 'realising something I knew but refused to accept', had he already been visited by 'Doctor Ueda'? It seemed likely. I could not turn to Kazuya or Lin for help, not if they believed what Takigawa did. And the likelihood was, Mai and the others had been told, too. What about Amaya and Leiko? Had they been told I was mentally unstable as well?
As I stumbled down streets and alley ways, I tried to hold back a sob as my heart began to deteriorate. All I could think of was Takigawa. He did not trust me. I could not trust him. I was wrong to have trusted him at the start. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It had taken a lot just to share my situation and my problems, a lot of courage that I did not realise I owned. Now, there was no way I would ever have that courage again, not after this. Not after being betrayed like this.
After an eternity of running blindly, I found myself in some back street alley, filled with trash cans and old, wooden crates. Leaning against the wall, I took deep breaths, trying to control the agonizing misery inside of me. Come on. Hold it together. Find somewhere safe, then you can cry as much as you want. Just find safety first.
Then the sound of footsteps rung out against the night silence. I looked up, to the source of the noise. Someone was standing at the entrance of the alley, and in the dark, their lab coat seemed to glow.
There was a brief pause. He moved forwards. "…Hello? John?...Are you there?"
I slunk back into the shadows, sliding to the ground and crouching behind a stack of old crates. I peered through the gaps. Saburou ambled towards me, but stopped a few metres away.
"…You know, I'm very surprised he fell for it." He leant against the wall, pulling something out from behind his jacket and examining it with glee. "The thing is, I've done this quite a few times before. The first step is to get him angry, angry at you. So, get him arrested. Get him put in a holding cell. Then, he'll be more likely to believe what I say."
He chuckled, then went on. "Next step, gain his trust. Not an easy thing for me to do, actually, not with you having told him the situation. He was very hesitant to trust me. But, as human habit goes, people are much more likely to trust someone in uniform. From there, once he believed I was an expert…well, I am actually a doctor, in a sense…It was child's play."
Something clicked, and he continued. "You see, if it was any old person saying you were a loony, then of course, there would be no way he would believe it. But if a doctor says it…everyone trusts a doctor. Why would anyone doubt me? Doctors know best. Doctors are much more trained and skilled in the medical field. I could say anything I want, and he would believe me. So then, a mental illness…that makes it even easier. Because, between a doctor and a supposed mental patient, who are you going to believe? The answer is obvious, to anyone and to everyone." Again, he laughed. "At first, he really was sceptical of my 'diagnosis'. But then I started giving him evidence, backing up my claims, whereas you had nothing to back up yours. We set it up well, don't you think? We really had a lot stacked up against you. I mean, the security alarm, I think that was a good one. And the lilies, too. It's all so dramatized…it's hard to believe it's real. Which was exactly what we wanted. And even when you did have a scrap of evidence to support you, he was too angry and confused to think rationally and consider it. He's a kind character, that monk, but he does have pride. And that pride got in the way of his logic. Besides, you might not realise this...well, western cultures seem to treat mental illnesses like they're normal. It's something I cannot understand about your culture. But here, in Japan, we know that they're not normal, not at all. So that little tidbit…that eating disorder…that was a real stroke of luck. As soon as I revealed that, he was sold. You're right. There is no parallel between eating disorders and schizophrenia. But he doesn't care. If I say there is, then there is, because I'm a doctor." He laughed unpleasantly. "You have no idea how fun it was, you know. You really believed me for a second. I could tell. You really began to think that I was telling the truth. Watching you get so scared and so angry like that…oh, you have no idea how long I've waited for this. And deceiving your friend, destroying his trust in you…it was a lot of fun. You're all alone now, John. Completely alone. And things are going to get a whole lote more interesting."
He stood back from the wall. "I know you're here. Somewhere. I saw you run down here. Where are you hiding?"
I did not move.
"Hmm. A little stubborn, are we?"
The wood in front of me splintered suddenly. Something pinched my shoulder. I looked down, and saw my jacket had a hole in it. The outside was black and burnt, and I could see a trace of blood.
I stared at Saburou again. He had a gun. A silencer was attached - that explained why there was no noise.
My hand reached out in the darkness, not taking my eye off Saburou as he stalked around. Something cold and hard brushed against my fingers, and I closed them around an iron bar.
"Come out." Saburou's frustrated voice was coming more loudly now, and with panic, I realised he was standing much closer than I thought. His back was to me as he faced the opposite way, and I seized what would be my only opportunity to escape from him. Swinging back the iron bar with all my might, I sent it crashing down on him.
Before it reached him, he turned around. The bar hit his wrist, and I heard a crack. However, Saburou did not even flinch. He just smiled, and said, "Nice try."
I saw his hand move. The gun rose. I grabbed it, and wrenched it out of his hands. Trembling, I pointed it at him.
To this, he laughed. "You're not going to fire that."
My hands shook, but I did not lower the gun.
"Do you even know how to work a gun?" He jeered.
I opened up the chamber and spilled out the bullets. "Yeah. I do." Sinead had taught me a few things.
Saburou raised his eye brow. "Bad choice. Now you have no gun."
"Neither do you."
Saburou faltered, then quickly stole back his bravado. "What are you going to do? Fight me? You won't last two sec –"
I simply turned and ran. There was no way I could fight him. His pain tolerance must have been very high, if he did not flinch at my previous hit. My attacks wouldn't make a difference, whereas the mark on my neck already proved his capabilities. No. I just ran from the alley way as fast as I could, into the view of passer-bys. Across the road, I saw a group of people clustering outside a bar, trying to squeeze in, where the music was booming. My arm was hurting a bit, but there was not much blood, so I guessed that the bullet had only just grazed me. Quickly, I sprinted over and interspersed myself into the crowd, edging into the bar. No one batted an eye lid at my appearance – I saw more than one person with bright, dyed hair. Many were taller than me, and were all shouting and cheering at something. Inside the bar, I saw a live band playing.
Peering through the people, I caught a glimpse of Saburou walking towards the bar. He had obviously seen me, but he would have a hard time finding me among all these people. Thankful for my smaller than average height for once that made me harder to spot, I force myself through the door, and then stood to the side. Pressed against the wall, I watched the door carefully. Again, no one noticed my strange antics.
The music was blaring and seemed to pierce my eardrums, but I forced myself to focus on the door way. It did not take long for Saburou to burst through the door and push his way through the standing attendees. Then he stopped, scanning the crowd in frustration as he searched for me. In his intentness, he did not notice me slip back out through the door and run along the streets.
This trick would not fool him for long, but it would buy me some time. Tripping down the streets, my mind raced as I tried to think where I could go. Where would be safe? Really, there was no safe place – only safer places. Skidding around a corner, an idea flashed into my mind. It would not be completely safe; wherever I went, the colleague would find me eventually. But, for now, there was one place he would not look. The only problem was how to get there.
Finally, I steadied myself to a halt. I saw a car pulling onto the curb, and for a minute, I felt panicked. Surely Saburou would have brought backup…However, a group of young, drunken people spilled out instead, and as I stared at the licence plates of the car, I realised they were green, rather than yellow and white. It was a taxi. Hesitating, I then hurried towards it as the people staggered away.
"Hey." I called, pulling my jacket hood over my head as the taxi driver changed a plate on the dashboard from green, stating 'occupied', to a red plate stating 'vacant'. At night in Tokyo, taxis became very popular as a means of transport, and it was especially hard to find one on Friday and Saturday nights.
The taxi driver wound down his window. "Hm?" He squinted curiously at me, paying close attention to my eyes. There was nothing I could do to hide the colour of them right now, unlike my hair – catching people's attention was the last thing I wanted. My scruffy appearance, and the small trickle of blood, did not help matters.
"You free right now?"
"Ummm…" He checked his watch. "Yeah. Where do you want to be heading?" The rear left door clicked and opened.
"I need to go to Shiroku." The taxi driver frowned, trying to remember where this was, so I quickly added, "It's a village, about an hour away from Tokyo."
"Ah, yes. Shiroku. That's quite a way away for this time of night." The taxi driver pointed out as I slipped nervously into the back seat. "Anywhere in particular you want to be dropped off?"
"Not really." My lack of precision made the taxi driver frown, but he said nothing. The door closed, and the taxi driver pulled away from the curb. He glanced at me through the mirror.
"You're foreign." It was less of a question and more of an observation.
I nodded, and said nothing more. He spoke up again.
"Where from?"
"Germany." Revealing personal information about myself did not seem the best of ideas.
"Oh. Sind Sie hier auf Urlaub?"
"Ja."
"Sie sprechen gut Japanisch."
"Danke. Sprechen auch gut Deutsch." I complimented him back, secretly thankful I had chosen a country with a language I could actually speak.
For the rest of the journey, nothing was spoken between us. The taxi driver wove in and out of traffic, and soon we were out of the city. My arm had stopped hurting by now. All the while, I was completely on edge. So far, nothing bad had happened. Even so, I edged towards the rear right door, and kept my hand near the handle. Just in case.
Finally, after a restless journey, the taxi driver stopped his car. I saw a small sign, stating 'SHIROKU'.
Quickly passing over the fare, I tried not to look too hasty as I stepped out of the taxi. When it had driven away, I began to walk swiftly, keeping an eye out for my desired destination. It was a while before I found it.
The Precious Hearts Burial Site remained unguarded and untouched by any local or other person at this time of night. Pausing in front of the gates, I walked in, trying to shake myself of the tiredness that today's ordeals had given me. Entering the grave yard, I walked straight to Itsuke Watanabe's grave. The orange lilies were still there, dishevelled and tarnished.
The realisation of my current situation hit me like a wave. I was completely alone now. No one was going to help me. Not Takigawa, not Kazuya, not Lin. I could not trust anyone. I had been marked as ill, mentally unstable. All the while, someone was out there, hunting me down. Trying to kill me. They would be searching for me this very second. And there was only so long that I could carry on running.
At that moment, I collapsed in front of the grave, exhausted. I wanted to rest, but I couldn't fall asleep, not with the colleague searching for me. I curled up, trying to maintain my body warmth. Maybe if I could just rest for a few seconds…
Today is March 5th. It has been more than two weeks since Kazuki returned to work and, since then, I have barely seen him at all. Every now and again, I have managed to have a brief conversation with him over the phone, but I have not seen him in person. He always sounds stressed and troubled, although whenever I ask him if he is alright, he denies there being anything wrong.
As for me, I am back in the library, still trying to discover how to find Sayomi and the Mattaku Psychiatric Ward. After talking to the Kyoto Pyschiatric Ward, I had found no new information – apart from the fact, perhaps, that the ward was very reluctant to even mention Mattaku Psychiatric Ward. Why, I had no idea, but Sayomi's situation was sounding worse and worse. In my desperation, I had ended up at the library again, pouring through the countless records in the archive. So far, I have found nothing. Like always, Mattaku is virtually non-existent, and there is no record of Dimitri Chekskov or Andrew Williams ever walking the earth, apart from Howe's report.
Wait. Howe's report. Maybe…if Howe had managed to discover the incident, maybe he had found something. But what had I missed?
Perhaps I should focus on Friedrich Howe himself. Starting a new approach, I begin to search for any records of his activities. I come up almost empty, apart from one single record – Howe's obituary. After a quick read, it does not reveal much more information; his car crash was ruled off as a 'tragic accident'. However, something catches my attention. This record is much nearer the front than any of the other records, although it clashes with the carefully ordered structure of the records. Yet, it is covered in dust…no one has looked at this record in a while…to be fair, not many of the records in this section had, and most of them were covered in dust…but someone had viewed it more recently than the other nearby records. Who else would be looking into Friedrich Howe?
I open up the record, looking to the inside cover. A sheet has been stuck there, with a long line of columns. On the lines, people are meant to write their names and the date they have viewed the record…On these columns, though, there are only four names:
One is a German name, Claudia Howe. It's from 2 years ago, a month after Friedrich Howe's death.
The second, in a different coloured pen, is the name Sophia Shole, a few more months after the accident. In the same pen, the name Matthew Forcit is written on the same date.
The last name puzzles me, and casts suspicion into my mind. Saburou Osaki, a few days after the previous two names. That was Kazuki's co-worker…What was he doing, looking into Friedrich Howe?
Then something strikes me. Kazuki knows about Mattaku, although I was unable to discover the full extent of his knowledge. Saburou works with Kazuki, and was looking into a man who wrote the only existing record of Mattaku.
Now, I set to work trying to track down more information about Saburou and, although I could not hide the feeling of guilt, Kazuki. I could not find a single thing about Kazuki, and it both relieved and frustrated me. But my search for Saburou is not so fruitless. Among some records I am looking through, records about people with the last name 'Osaki' who are doctors, within recent years, a several sheets fall out from the record. From their creased condition, it looks like someone shoved them into the record carelessly, not in the proper place. Out of curiosity, I pick up the sheets and read them. It's…an autopsy report, from a small morgue in a village called Shiroku. The details of a young woman, found wondering through the forest, is written. She was in very poor condition, it seemed…but what shocks me most is the fact she had been branded on her back. Who had done this to her? The woman was never identified, and the police didn't really investigate. A doctor came and took the body away, to a bigger morgue…but it looks like something happened on the way, and the body was lost in some kind of accident…the vague details do not specify exactly what happened. The doctor…was a Saburou Osaki.
My heart racing now, I turn to the front of the record. This time, Saburou's name is not there, but I recognise two other names immediately: Sophia Shole and Matthew Forcit. From the looks of it, whoever they were, they were investigating Mattaku. More than that, they were investigating Saburou as well.
Now I am getting somewhere. I search through the records for Sophia Shole and Matthew Forcit. It seems that, while in Japan, Sophia Shole was involved in a car crash that quickly turned into a pile-up, and she was sent home to the US for treatment. As for Matthew Forcit, I get nothing on him. Shiroku, though…it's a small village, about an hour away from Tokyo. I search through the records intently. It has a reputation of being a poor tourist destination, due to folk lore and ghost stories warding off many visitors, while it is too ordinary for the likes of foreign tourists. Not many people live there, it seems, and there is not much industry, so it is a struggling village…most of the money gained there comes from…doctors?
I read on. It seems that the place is frequently visited by doctors, who stay overnight there while on shifts since their own homes are so far away, and Shiroku is the nearest location to their work place, which is about half an hour away from the village.
Strangely, what looks like an incident involving a ghost is within the record. Two villagers claimed to see a man, dressed in blue hospital clothes, wandering around outside the village. When they approached him, he simply disappeared in front of their eyes. The apparition appeared a few more times after that, and was identified by one of the doctors staying overnight in the village inn as a patient in the psychiatric ward he worked in –
Psychiatric Ward. This was becoming more and more ominous. A psychiatric ward, only half an hour away from Shiroku, where the woman with the brand was found…the case that was being investigated by the same people investigating Friedrich Howe's death, one of whom ended up in an accident herself…it all linked back to Mattaku.
Was there a chance that Mattaku was situated near this village? Had I finally found the location of the Psychiatric Ward, and perhaps the location of Sayomi?
It seemed likely. Leaving the hospital, my mind raced as I thought of what to do next. Maybe I should ring Sinead. She had been talking to me earlier today, about a new game that had just been released. Maybe she would know what I should do. I couldn't just barge into the ward and demand to see Sayomi. Then again, it seemed I had no other alternative, since there was no contact point, no way to negotiate.
Another thought comes to me. What about Kazuki? How far is he involved with this? I know that Saburou is undeniably involved, and not in a good way, but what about Kazuki?
Walking into my apartment, I head into the main room, getting out my mobile as I did so. Ringing Sinead seems like the best option here.
Suddenly, I freeze. Something isn't right.
Of course. My security alarm. It should have gone off when I opened the door. Why didn't it?
Wait.
Is someone already…here?
Hands seize me. An arm goes around my neck, another around my chest. I cannot move. Panic rushes through me.
Something pricks my arm. Everything goes black.