Facing it

And those black things still surrounded the young man, writhing and spreading. Jason reached out and simply waved his hand. As though terrified, the black mist scattered with shrieks, hiding in some corner and waiting to make a comeback.

For the first time, Jason looked straight at that face through the infuriating black mist. It was very thin and pale. Apart from black and white, there seemed to be no other color to him, like the dolls some girls had played with at summer camp.

He had never owned such an expensive doll, only a teddy bear his mother had sewn, missing one button eye. He had treasured that, too. Unfortunately, it had vanished later, thrown into the water along with him by the people who bullied him. He had never managed to find it.

But what about this person? What should he do now?

What should he do? He should protect him. He had classified him as part of Crystal Lake, like the forest and the little cabin.

But this was unlike the forest or the cabin, where clearing out the pests would restore their original peace and quiet. What should he do with him now that he was dead?

Jason genuinely thought about it for a while. He wanted to ask his mother. His mother always had a way, but she was asleep all the time and would not wake up. Should he leave the young man here, then? No, someone would take him away. In the end, Jason decided to sink him to the bottom of Crystal Lake. No one would find him there, no one would take it away, and no one would discover him. He would keep him within his protection forever.

It was just a shame he would never get to eat those treats again, or apple pie. But he had nowhere left to vent his fury. This was his failure. He should have come sooner, the moment those foreign pests invaded his territory.

Having made up his mind, Jason was just about to sling the person on the bed over his shoulder when he suddenly noticed something was wrong. The hole in his head had disappeared. He knew this sort of thing. Even when it hit him, it hurt for a while. When it hit intruders, it left a large hole, and they usually died. Never had one slowly... disappeared like this.

He stared at the young man on the bed. The young man had begun breathing again and seemed to have found a long-lost peace, sinking into a deep sleep. Jason froze for a moment, then pressed his burlap-covered ear close to the young man's heart. It beat slowly but persistently.

Alive again?!

Jason laid a hand on him. Cold, but there was indeed a trace of warmth now. Suddenly, Jason seemed to sense something, some connection beyond understanding, like the one between him and Crystal Lake, but not quite the same. Jason could not describe it, but he could feel that the two of them seemed to have something in common.

Jason made up his mind again and gathered him into his arms, quilt and all. The bundle was too large to carry over his shoulder conveniently, so he simply bunched it up and stuffed it into his arms, then walked out. Since he was not dead, he would not throw him into Crystal Lake. They would go keep Mom company together. Mom hated outsiders most of all. Perhaps she would wake up in a fit of anger, but that was all right. He would explain. He was different from those intruders. He was very much like Jason himself.

It snowed that day. Jason hunched his whole body against the cold, but perhaps because of what he held in his arms, it was not unbearable.

He thought that if Mom could wake up, she would knit him sweaters. He was willing to let him wear the first one, but in exchange, the man had to help his mom make an apple pie. A bigger one, one Mom would not have to save for him, enough for all three of them to eat their fill...

This death seemed particularly long. It reminded me of sleep, that luxury of mine, light and soft. Though my whole body felt heavy, it was not uncomfortable at all. Had they finally let me go? Could I finally rush into death's embrace?

I had known those three were coming. They were not professionals. The noise they made could even have woken the neighbors, if I had any neighbors. But it was simply too agonizing, too exhausting. That fatigue and weariness felt like my soul was being chewed to pieces and slowly put back together. I only hoped I would take longer to revive, so I could stay away from all this a little longer.

When I woke again, it was as though the dust had finally been wiped off a pane of glass. The world before me was finally clear and bright. Dust, cobwebs, rotting wood. A little sunlight came through on the left, golden, with tiny specks of dust visible in it. Even the smell of rot mixed with a bloody tang did not seem so unpleasant. Those irritating noises were finally gone from my ears, and the incessant buzzing had stopped.

I was finally dead. Was this hell? It was actually rather nice. My body was heavy, but not uncomfortable at all. Every joint felt stiff, but I did not want to move in the slightest. It was not warm around me, either. It was a little cold, with chilly air still creeping through the gap in the door.

Turning my head slightly, I saw a table with a head on it, a dried-out one. Beneath the head lay a sweater, already so rotten it was barely recognizable.

If this was hell, that was fairly normal. Several plates sat in front of the table, holding all sorts of treats. Strange, why did those plates look so much like mine? The treats looked so much like the ones I made, too. I lowered my head slightly. Why did the quilt look so much like mine as well?

I carefully felt things out for a while, but those irritating noises really were gone from around my head. I finally deigned to sit up. So what was going on? I felt the back of my head. There was still dried blood there, proof that I really had been killed last night. But it had healed. I had come back to life again.

So had I been kidnapped? For once, I mustered some emotion, somewhere between delight and alarm. None of that mattered. Where had those voices gone? Would they come back? The main thing I needed to figure out now was why those voices had disappeared.

Before me was a very old-fashioned door bolt, the entirely handmade kind. I tugged it twice, but it would not budge. It was jammed tight.

While I was thinking, my surroundings suddenly turned cold and sinister again. I meant that cold, sinister sensation, like tentacles crawling out of the depths of hell and wrapping around you. Those voices came closer from afar, seeming to burrow into my head again.

A breakdown, a hysterical breakdown. Why had they come for me again? My mind felt as though it had exploded. My soul was howling, but my body remained silent. Not all that silent, really. I was merely kneeling beside the wall and smashing my head against it.

Because these voices were much quieter, faint and illusory, as though afraid of something. The sort that would scatter if you so much as blew on them. Yet that made them all the more irritating. I wanted to dig out my cochleae with a knife, but that would not work. I had tried. Those voices went straight into my brain. But if I dug out my brain, I would die, then wake up to those voices and break down even further.

Soon, however, footsteps sounded outside the door. They were heavy. A big fellow, apparently. I thought for a moment. I had not tried having someone else kill me yet. Could it be that someone more powerful was more powerful when killing me, too?

Powerful enough to scatter those things for a little while. Then kill me again, please.

But that did not happen. After that big fellow came in, he seemed to reach out and grab at the air beside me. Those voices instantly scattered like birds and beasts.

I froze completely, holding my previous pose for at least half a minute, then immediately raised my head in disbelief.

Why did he have this ability? The person before me was unbelievably tall, well over two meters. The moment he came in, the reasonably spacious cabin felt cramped. He wore a burlap sack over his head with a tiny hole poked in it, making me wonder whether he could see clearly. His clothes were ragged all over, with a thick coat full of holes as the outermost layer.

At that moment, he was watching me without moving.

I worked my hoarse throat. For the first time, I could feel that my throat hurt. In the end, it all came down to one word.

"Hello?"

Naturally, there was no response, but it seemed to trigger some kind of switch. He stood up, his enormous body exceptionally imposing. He walked to the corner, then sat down, his gaze fixed in this direction. I could not tell whether he was staring at me or the human head on the table.

I had tried many methods: Taoist priests from the East, monks and priests from the West, shamans and witches from the South, exorcists from the North. Not one of them could do anything about this thing. In the end, I still remembered what that Eastern Taoist priest had said: let nature take its course, and there would be a sliver of hope for survival.

At the time, I had scoffed at it. Let nature take its course? Did that mean waiting until one day my soul was utterly shattered and could never be pieced back together, then naturally reincarnating? Just wonderful.

But now, I seemed to understand a little.

First of all, this was probably a person. I observed him. He seemed not to have cleaned himself in a very long time. The cleanest thing on him was that not-particularly-clean sack on his head. There was only one hole, so small it made me wonder whether he could see clearly. So he was one-eyed, too.

My head started hurting again. I decided to treasure this rare chance to sleep and sleep a little longer. It had been at least a dozen years since sleep had come this easily to me.

No urging, no clamor, as though the whole world had fallen quiet.

When I woke again, I had no idea what time it was. I turned my head. The door was open. The cold wind had woken me. I went outside to look. It was already snowing, and both the big fellow and the head were nowhere to be found.

I walked out the door. We seemed to have gone deep into the forest. Through the gaps between the trees, I could faintly see a river frozen solid in the distance, glittering.

Because of my body temperature, I had very few requirements when it came to temperature, but that did not mean I could stay wrapped in a thin quilt, wearing pajamas, in a little cabin with drafts coming in from every side and the door left open, while snow fell outside. It was probably around minus ten degrees.

To survive, or to survive?

That was a good question.