Chapter 5: Dial              

Soaked, exhausted, and still unaware of what was really happening, Yamori, during a brief moment of calm, considered calling for help. But the only device he had on him was unreliable. Sometimes it seemed to work, but there was no signal. Other times, it did not work at all. He had relied too much on that single device to handle so many things he could have done on his own. And yet, while anyone else might have panicked at the sight of their phone in tatters, Yamori felt almost calm. There had to be another way to make a call, somewhere in the house. Perhaps he could borrow someone else's phone.

Yamori left the infamous water-drain room in search of a handset, or anything that might serve the purpose, as long as it worked. The electricity seemed to be back, and once again, the very same places had apparently shifted shape, shifted identity. The same rooms, over the course of a week, over the course of years, can change the emotions they reflect. We do not notice it because we get used to things quickly, we grow accustomed even to what is uncomfortable, when in truth, we should not. That share-house was shifting every time Yamori blinked. To such an extent that he had stopped blinking altogether, without even realizing it. Like a zombie glued to his computer screen.

It is also important to note that the identity of the share-house depended drastically on who lived in it. In a single year, there were countless move-ins and move-outs. Each resident could add or take away a fragment of the house’s identity.
But when all of them seemed to have hidden away, seemed to have vanished into the hallways, the cracks, the in-between spaces: what remains of a place’s identity?

That is partly why we are so prone to strange feelings when we enter places abandoned by society. The value of a place lies in its people: if no one is there anymore, the walls that once held the roof become prison bars, bearing the blade of a guillotine ready to slit our throats. And yet, some choose isolation. They go live in the forest, even if that forest is made of concrete, locking themselves “in” by their own will. Sometimes they lock themselves out instead, under the stars as their only roof. But there is a difference;
a difference between taking time to restore one's place as a human being within Mother Nature, and being alone in a concrete space where, only hours earlier, the residents were trying their best to keep the mood cheerful.

Thus, Yamori walked alone through the desolate, dark, cold, and foul-smelling share-house. But unlike a few minutes earlier, this time he walked with purpose. A simple goal, certainly, but one that kept him moving forward. The young man was in search of a phone. Whatever was happening in the house right now was beyond his control, and understanding its very nature was far out of his reach. All he wanted was to find a phone, a handset, a carrier pigeon if needed, and call for help.

Yamori walked across the crumbling floor in his worn-out slippers (since, inside the house, beyond the genkan, shoes were of course forbidden). His footsteps echoed like drops of water falling into a well. Drained, exhausted; whatever was happening in that share-house was utterly wearing him down. Soon, he reached the main room, the one with the co-working area. A room usually spacious and filled with light, but now exactly as it had been before he got sucked into that vortex, like waste flushed down a toilet: upside down, dark, the floor still soaked, and that gaping hole in the genkan still there.
That strange hole, from which rose screams of pain and the groans of grimy machinery. But in that sordid space, there was also the manager’s office. And in that office, there was a phone; perhaps even several. That much, he was sure of.

He was about to enter the manager's office without even knocking when he caught a glimpse, reflected through the debris, of a young woman. She seemed to be around his age, holding a stuffed rabbit tightly against her chest. She looked frightened, but more importantly: she seemed to know much more than he did about what was happening, as she moved with the air of someone who knew exactly where she was going - or at least, that’s how it appeared to Yamori.

She hadn’t noticed him. Or maybe she was ignoring him. It was common in the share-house for girls to avoid eye contact with other residents; it wasn’t considered rude, it was, maybe, a way of protecting themselves, and most people respected that boundary. But this time, the situation called for communication. So, Yamori, who had been about to step into the manager’s office, turned around and walked toward the girl.

As he approached, the girl began to slow down. They both stopped. She turned fully toward Yamori. They exchanged a brief glance. The young man didn’t even have time to say a word before the girl froze, eyes wide with fear. She let out a scream and bolted.
Yamori tried to figure out what he had done wrong for a second or two, then remembered why he wanted to talk to her in the first place and began to chase after her.
In her flight, she had dropped her stuffed rabbit, so Yamori picked it up to give it back to her. Then, like lightning striking a rock, he suddenly realized it was probably better not to run after her at all. He should just go to the manager’s office, call for help, and mention the girl to the rescuers.

Heading back to the manager’s office, he placed the rabbit plush clearly in sight, in case the girl was looking for it.

A young girl, holding a rabbit plush tightly against her chest, was walking, desperate, with dried tears on her cheeks. She knew where she was going but was not sure why she was going there. The further she moved through the rubble, the tighter she squeezed the rabbit plush against her fragile body. As if this rabbit plush protected her from evil or corrupted energies.

She spoke no words, nor did she think anything. She was just walking toward something. In the realm of silence, only the sound of her footsteps echoed against the walls, the shards of glass, and the ruins. Until, behind her, she felt someone approaching. She stopped; the presence behind her did the same. Slowly, she turned around. So slowly, as if she feared what might be waiting behind her and preferred not to know.

When she saw "it," she froze. It felt to her like she had been frozen for centuries; time slowed down. Every fraction of a second exposed her vulnerabilities. Within arm’s reach of disaster, unable to flee, to fight, or even to cry, she was a prisoner of herself, facing a threatening entity.

Until, from the deepest part of her heart, she grasped a thread of courage that seemed almost accidental. And she screamed—she screamed so loudly it broke her paralysis, and she ran. She ran as fast as she could, as far as she could, only to realize she was being followed by that monstrous thing.

That "thing" was humanoid but had no eyes, only a mouth: a wide mouth filled with dreadful teeth. Tall, with long arms and long toes, armed with big claws. Its skin looked like mucous membranes and glands, dripping with bodily fluids.

In her panic, she accidentally dropped her rabbit plush, much to her regret, but she couldn’t turn back. She ran until she felt safe, even if "safe" was a big word for what she was constantly feeling.

After a long run, she sat in the shadow of the ruins. From there, she was able to see that monster; much like when you see a spider and prefer to keep it in sight rather than lose track of it and panic at the thought of it laying eggs in your nostrils during a deep and pleasant night’s sleep.

From that crack in the concrete and steel, she observed the monster. It was wandering, looking for something, holding her rabbit plush. Then, for some reason unknown to her, that thing gave up on the plush and walked toward the manager’s office.
"It" tried to enter, but the door was closed. Maybe locked from the inside, or something was jamming the hinge; impossible to tell. So, the beast grabbed a piece of junk and struck the window of the door. Once, twice, three times, and then the door was sort of open.

Finally, the monster disappeared inside the office.

                Yamori stepped over a pile of debris and trash. The office was dusty, lit by a neon light casting a pale, sickly glow, almost as if the light itself were ill. It seemed to drain all color from the room, flickering and making noises reminiscent of a cat’s purr, except this cat must have been made of scrap metal.

The room was littered with filing cabinets, folders, and all kinds of papers. Office supplies were scattered everywhere, the desks covered in dust. A few computer monitors sat with cracked screens, and some keyboards were missing keys. One of the rolling chairs was inexplicably embedded in the ceiling. The gray paint on the metal lockers against the wall was peeling, revealing thick rust. Inside, worn-out shoes, boxes of staples, and hundreds of dead insects could be seen, as if these lockers were a military graveyard for moths, all fallen during their last stand in the war against the mosquito repellent device. Unfortunately, it seemed the device had also lured in poor collateral victims.

Here and there, photos were pinned to the walls, people whose faces seemed to have been erased by mold, or perhaps even scorched. The windows facing the genkan were hidden behind metal venetian blinds and tangles of cables hanging from the ceiling, in which trinkets appeared to have drowned; manga character figurines, trophies... Whatever they were, there was no way to see outside the office.

Finally, the other door in the room was completely blocked by a mass of broken furniture, office supplies, aluminum wall frames, and a heap of things that probably mattered not so long ago.

Nevertheless, the most important thing: the reason for Yamori’s presence in this room: the telephone. It was a landline phone, perfectly ordinary in terms of model. A black device suitable for both home and office use. The device was dusty, but some of the keys looked less dusty, as if someone had used it not long ago. And, luckily, the phone seemed to be working - or at least receiving power - because the indicator light was on. A faint greenish glow emanated from beneath the dust.

Yamori, who was standing in the middle of the cramped room, rushed to the phone. Everything was happening so fast in his head; should he call his family? A friend? The police? The fire department? He probably didn’t have time to think, so he swiftly grabbed the phone, brought it to his ear, and dialed a number.

To his great surprise, he heard a dial tone.

It sounded faint, as if it were on the verge of dying, but it echoed in Yamori's head like the voice of a rescuer through a megaphone. He was agitated, as if he urgently needed to pee and, at the same time, was being hunted by goblins in the depths of a grimy cave. Hopefully he wouldn’t be caught by the beast, the ghost, or whatever new abomination was next.

All of a sudden, after a long moment of dial tone, someone - or something - picked up. For a nanosecond that felt like an hour to Yamori, the phone was silent. Until he heard a voice.

The sound was saturated, yet compressed, as it always is over a phone line. The voice that came through, however, was clear. Yamori was about to speak when the voice said, before hanging up:

"You shouldn't be here."

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