Soldiers A and B checked the area in front of the entrance. "There's blood here..." Soldier B crouched down and confirmed it with his fingertips. "Not dried through yet. It hasn't even been an hour."
"All right, you two keep watch around the house. Seres and I will go in." Soldiers A and B nodded, leveled their guns, and split off to the left and right.
Gilbert and I stood at the entrance of the hushed mansion. Just for form's sake, I stretched a finger toward the doorbell button. Ding-doooong ♪
The bright chime rang out through the house, but there was no answer from anyone. —Not a sound, either. Gilbert and I traded a signal with our eyes, and I softly touched the doorknob. Shhh—... The door opened quietly.
Gilbert, holding up the ray gun he'd been handed for self-defense, peered warily at the inside. The area by the entrance was tidy, with no sign of having been ransacked—but a trail of blood led on, spot by spot, into the depths of the house.
"(...)" "(Mind if I just speak up normally?)" Gilbert nodded without a word.
"Mister MacGregoo~r, delivery for you~! We're coming in—..." The floor, made to imitate some rare stone, gave off a dry clack, clack with each step.
I get the feeling my legs are shaking—. But if I admit it, this shaking feels like it will never stop. It's my imagination. Yes, just my imagination. (I-I-I'm fine with this sort of thing now. I've b-built up a tolerance.)
At the end of the hallway was a single door. Probably leading to the living room. "Mister MacGregoo~r, delivery for y—eek!"
When I opened the door, the spacious living room was in terrible disarray. The floor was smeared with blood—. The large glass window was shattered, wind blew through, and the curtains swayed and fluttered.
And beside the sofa—a woman lay, bleeding heavily from the neck. She was gazing up at the ceiling with jet-black eyes that had lost their light.
I had braced myself. But faced with the worst sight of all, the shaking in my legs could no longer be passed off as nothing.
"G-G-G-G-Gil! Th-th-th-th-this is—" "...Huh? S-S-S-S-Seres~, weren't you supposed to have gotten tougher about this kind of thing?" "O-on video, I was f-f-fine, but, but..." "Nothing for it. Stay put against the wall."
With that, Gilbert began carefully examining the room. "...No good. She's already dead. Doesn't look like much time has passed, though... A resident of this house?" Muttering to himself, he went on inspecting the area around the pool of blood, the way the glass had broken, and the rest.
Unable to do anything, I happened to glance down at my feet. Several photo frames lay scattered there. They must have been displayed on the rack.
I picked one of them up. Inside the frame, a family of three stood side by side, smiling. Dyson, and the woman beside him—his wife, no doubt. And between the two of them, a little girl with an untroubled smile on her face—Kitty.
"Gil, this..." Gilbert compared the woman in the frame with the woman lying on the floor. "...The mother, then."
This peaceful time of theirs had been broken apart, without anyone even understanding why. What in the world had happened on this planet?
"Let's take a look at the other rooms." Saying so, Gilbert pointed toward the kitchen. In the kitchen, the contents of a first-aid kit lay strewn about.
Bathroom, toilet, closet—. We made a full round of the rooms on the first floor, but we found no sign of Kitty. Before I knew it, the trembling in my hands and legs had settled down.
"Let's try upstairs." I gently laid a towel blanket I'd brought from the closet over the wife.
Up the stairs in the corner of the living room, to the second floor—. Two doors, one on each side of the hallway. Starting with the nearer room, we checked them quietly, one at a time. Dyson's taste, perhaps: the old-fashioned wooden door creaked. Creeeeak—
The couple's bedroom. A single king-size bed. A dresser with a jewelry dish set on it. On the nightstand, photo frames of the two of them stood lined up, one after another. And on the wall—a drawing, apparently Kitty's, had been put up.
We looked under the bed and inside the closet as well, but there was no sign of Kitty. Leaving the room, we headed for the next door. Pure white and prettily decorated, it opened without a sound. Sshhh—
A child's room. "Kitty? Are you in here? If you're hiding... please come out."
A small child's bed with a fluffy blanket. Stuffed animals piled up like a mountain. On a little table, a half-finished drawing had been left lying out. A few crayons were still where they had rolled. As if she had been playing here only moments ago—.
(Please... be hiding somewhere... be safe!) But in the mountain of stuffed animals, in the back of the closet, under the bed—nowhere could we find any sign of Kitty.
Had she run outside—? For the time being, we decided to head back to the living room. "Say, Gil..." "Now, hold on. I know what you're about to say, but—"
Just as we started down the stairs, I noticed something was off. "Huh...?" Looking down into the living room, all that was left where the wife had been lying was the bloodstained towel blanket. —Her body was gone.
"G-G-G-G-Giiiil... th-there!" "Stay right here and don't move. I'll go take a look." Gilbert made his way carefully down the stairs.
So the body really did get up and move. The corpse in the "coffin" I carried before, on the freighter Valkyria, and now here too! And not just getting up and moving. They attack people? Why is this happening?!
I had come partway down the stairs and was watching over Gilbert when... Creeeeak— I thought I heard a door creak from the second floor. (...This is one I mustn't... write off as my imagination, isn't it.)
Pat...... pat...... pat—————— Slow footsteps were coming closer, toward me. "(G-Gil! Giiil—!)" My voice... won't come out right! The footsteps drew nearer still—!!
(Th-th-th-that's right, it could be Kitty, couldn't it? Yes, it's Kitty! She was hiding somewhere! She thought we'd left and came out to see. It has to be that... please! Let it be that!)
The instant I steeled myself and started to turn around—Gilbert, down below, looked up at me and shouted. "Run!!"
My body leapt on reflex. I went down the stairs as if tumbling—no, I tumbled. Held up by Gilbert, I looked up toward the second floor—and what stood there was not Kitty. It was the wife.
With hollow eyes, she came slowly down the stairs. "G-Gil... what should we do?"
From what happened on the Valkyria, and from everything I'd seen on this planet, I knew she was "not someone you could settle things with peacefully." But still— To Mr. Dyson's wife. To Kitty's mother... I couldn't do anything rough. I didn't want to.
"I know. Get back." Gilbert whispered it calmly, then grabbed the towel blanket. The wife, having come all the way down, suddenly gathered speed and lunged at him. Gilbert twisted his body aside, dodging the charge, and wrapped the blanket around her.
(I see! ...In that case!) Catching on to Gilbert's intent, I ran for the closet. There should have been rope in there. Behind me, the sounds of a violent struggle rang out. (Found it!)
When I got back to the living room with the coil of rope, Gilbert had the wife wound up tight and pinned down. With practiced hands he bound her and fitted a gag into her mouth. Then, just as she was, he hoisted the writhing woman up and carried her outside.
With Soldiers A and B lending a hand, we lashed the wife to a seat inside the Aurora. "That should do for now. You two—don't go near her carelessly." "Y-yes, sir. But what on earth is going on..."
In that instant, a "strange sensation" wrapped itself around me. I could see a place I had no way of seeing—. I could hear a voice I had no way of hearing—.
(What? Who is this? ...Kitty, is that you? Where is that place?) It lasted only the briefest instant. But I had felt it, unmistakably.
"Gil! Kitty is still inside the house!" Without even waiting for an answer, I was already running. Into the house, through the living room, up the stairs to the second floor. And then, at the very end of the hallway—.
"Hey, Seres! What's gotten into you?!" Gilbert caught up, looking thoroughly rattled. "Right here."
I don't know why. But I know there's a hidden switch there. Beep— With a faint electronic tone, part of the ceiling opened and a set of stairs came down.
"There's an attic? But how did you know?" "...I don't know. But I felt it." Saying that, I climbed the stairs.
"Kitty? It's all right—we've come to help you." There in the corner of the attic was a little girl, hugging her knees and trembling—.
"There we go. Not too tight?" "Uh-huh. 'M okay. Where's Mama?" Kitty sat in the seat with a tense look on her face, her small hands squeezed into fists.
"Mama's in the back too. Mama is, um... a little—well, very unwell, it looks like. So we're all going somewhere she can get treated. Okay?" "Uh-huh. Mama got ouchies... we go hostipal?" "Yes, that's right."
I sat down next to Kitty and leaned in close so she couldn't see toward the seats behind us. I gently rested a hand on her faintly trembling shoulder.
"Launch preparations complete. We can go whenever you're ready." Soldier B lowered his voice, hesitant to intrude. "Please do."
The Aurora's engines gave a low growl, and it began to lift quietly off the ground. Kitty kept hold of my hand and wouldn't let go. "It's all right... you're all right now."
"This is the Aurora. Two survivors, successfully rescued. Returning to base." I could hear Soldier A giving his report 'properly' for once.
(...'Survivors,' huh. They're not... all right... at all...) Released at last from the tension, I was swallowed up by a sudden, overwhelming sleepiness—