[Buzz—]
The ground was trembling.
Cracks opened in the walls.
Dust and fragments of stone fell from the ceiling.
The Shirakawa Apartments seemed to be gradually moving toward collapse.
At the moment when everything became clear, it was as if after the final cage and the final chains shattered, everything that originally existed here began advancing toward an irreversible stage.
"What—what is going on here?!"
Green widened his eyes and looked around, discovering that at some unknown point a heap of broken and tattered furniture had appeared in this room, along with a corpse that had rotted until only bones and a few remnants of tissue were left. At the same time, more accumulated water had appeared, and many patches of moss had grown on the walls, as if the things from the 1st floor, 2nd floor, and 3rd floor had all been mixed together.
"Outside… it sounds like there are noises?"
Yamamoto Hiroshi looked nervously toward the area outside the door. He had heard some ominous sounds—he could not describe exactly what they were, but they made people feel extremely uneasy.
"Hi, wait, why you guys watch a tape recorder with no sound? Very weird, eh?"
Jamal did not pay attention to anything else; she simply found it strange why the three of them had been sitting in front of a silent cassette player for quite a while.
As for Maeda Miwa, she had screamed again in fright. However, because she had been given a soundproof mask in advance, her scream was not too loud.
Except for Takumi, Kaguya, and Maki, it was clear that the others had not heard the sound played from the cassette player. This cassette player had not actually played a real tape; it had merely used the device as a medium to reveal a certain kind of information. And the condition for receiving this information was the degree of awareness of the "truth."
"We heard quite a lot, but it felt like it stopped halfway. Takumi-kun, what you heard… might not be the same as what we heard?"
Maki had not heard Kyosei's final message to Takumi, but from the reactions of the others, she quickly realized that the content of the information received by each person might vary. She immediately turned her head toward Takumi, wanting to confirm his reaction.
"Mm. It is time to go. Everyone… needs to go. Now is the last… chance. Maki, give me that toy… I must be the one to take her back."
Takumi took a deep breath and had already turned his head, looking toward the direction of the door.
[Rumble—]
The trembling of the apartment was becoming even more intense.
He took in his hands that doll which appeared broken beyond repair in everyone else's eyes—this small child who, in Takumi's sight, was covered in wounds, her body still stained with dirt and dust.
Although the threads on his mouth had already been cut, the pain still assaulted him without pause.
The burns on his body were also continuously worsening, as if at this moment he were undergoing an execution, as if boiling water were once again being poured over his body.
However, there was nothing about this worth paying attention to.
Now, it was time to end everything and leave this damned place.
[Creak—]
Takumi stepped out of the room and strode forward.
He was not wearing the rescue-team uniform, yet a rescue-team uniform faintly appeared on his body, helping him suppress the curse on him.
This shattered ruin had become even more distorted than before. Floors were collapsing one after another, various pieces of furniture were stacked together in a jumble, like some kind of waste-processing plant full of discarded trash.
The ground kept trembling.
One could see doors—either floating in midair, standing on the walls, or directly lying on the ground. All the doors with numbers beginning with 1 bore severe marks of water erosion. All the doors with numbers beginning with 2 had something knocking behind them. All the doors with numbers beginning with 3 were already broken, their locks damaged and no longer able to close.
Takumi knew these doors were not the one he needed to find.
He could already feel the location of that door.
He already knew the direction he needed to head toward.
"Do not fall behind. This is the last chance."
He lengthened his stride, advancing quickly toward the front.
All kinds of sounds echoed within the ruins.
Those pale porcelain dolls frolicked within the shattered ruins, and when they saw Takumi and the others running through the wreckage, they stopped, giggling and laughing, pointing and wanting to chase after them, yet stopping their steps because of the filthy water and grime covering the ground.
Footsteps wandered endlessly within the ruins, passing one door after another, pausing slightly when Takumi and the others went by, and then, for some unknown reason, ignoring them entirely and heading in a single direction.
It seemed that from far away, the roar of those "parents" could be heard.
Maki turned her head and saw that pair of man and woman rushing over at extremely high speed, yet their path was blocked by the footsteps.
[Time to repay the money, time to repay the money]
[I have no money, let me pass, I have no money to give you]
[Repay the money, repay the money, repay the money—]
Both sides seemed to be stuck in a standoff.
The knocking anomaly that existed within this apartment and the girl's parents seemed to have entered conflict because of the logic by which they operated, and thus were temporarily ignoring the group here.
Those children—are they afraid of dirtying their clothes? Because they exist as the "clean children from other households" in the memories of children, will they, no matter what, never allow themselves to be dirtied?
These Horror Stories were unexpectedly being obstructed by the gaps in their own mechanisms at a moment like this—was someone helping them?
Maki did not hear the final sound that Takumi heard.
But she had already faintly guessed the only person who could possibly take action to help them at this moment.
[Splash—splash—]
More and more flowing water began to hinder their speed of advance.
In the sky—or rather, on the ceiling—more and more droplets began to drip down, as though a rain was falling.
Takumi, walking in the very front, was still continuing to take steps.
His mouth had already been forcibly sewn shut by thin threads under the power of the curse.
On his body, those burns had begun to spread once again, and even the power of the life-saving suit found it difficult to stop them.
The pain was becoming increasingly intense.
His body seemed to be losing strength bit by bit.
It felt as though he were being trapped inside a box, unable to move at all.
It was like being locked in a toilet for a long time, hungry and in pain, only able to struggle and crawl on the floor.
It was like being stuffed into a broken hole in the wall of a toilet, being crammed inside, stuck in a space only as large as a small box, sinking into darkness.
No—that would not happen.
This should not be the ending of this story.
Enduring such pain, Takumi merely took deep breaths, using his own will to resist this suffering as he continued stepping forward.
That door would definitely open.
That door, which had carried on from many years ago until now, would definitely reopen at this moment.
He could already see the faint light ahead.
He could see that door right in front of him.
[Step—]
Yamamoto Hiroshi was at this moment breathing with difficulty, becoming less and less able to run.
Seeing him like this, Jamal did not hesitate and immediately supported Yamamoto Hiroshi, leading him forward.
On the other side, Maeda Miwa, after running for a while, also began to run out of stamina and started to become unable to keep running.
However, Green simply did not bother with this woman at all; he now only cared about catching up with the three people in the very front.
Takumi at this moment had no way of noticing these conditions—or rather, even if he noticed, he had no way of taking any action. With both his body and his will at the very edge of their limits, if he stopped even for a little while, he might never be able to move forward again. In the tug-of-war between the curse and the Obsession, he could only place all of his attention on the door he was about to reach.
Maki and Kaguya were in the same condition at this moment. Under the erosion of the curse's power, although they had not yet had their mouths sewn shut like Takumi, scalding boiling water had already begun to appear out of thin air on their bodies. To resist this pain, the two could only quicken their steps, with not the slightest spare capacity left to pay attention to anyone else's situation.
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