The air inside the cabin was light. Taz sat at the small table near the wall, running his hand over the papers as if touching a history he knew no longer belonged to him. Jack sat on the nearby bed, his eyes half-closed, while Yuki kept watching the strange man who saved their lives without them knowing anything about him.
Taz finally lifted his head, hesitating for a moment before he started speaking, like someone preparing to open a door that had been closed for years."I think you both deserve enough of the truth…" he said quietly.No one replied. The atmosphere felt like it was waiting for him.He breathed slowly, then relaxed his shoulders as he ran his fingers over the sheets of paper."Five years ago… I was the best military investigator. My job was clear. Disappearances, crimes, illegal operations… things anyone in my field would face. But… things started to change."He paused for a moment, as if his memory needed to arrange the scenes before he spoke them."Cases appeared that didn't make sense. People with strange strength… reports of human behavior that wasn't human at all. Marks at crime scenes that didn't belong to normal people. Everything pointed to something bigger… something hiding in front of us for a long time."
Yuki stepped a little closer."And what did you do?"He gave a small bitter smile."I told my superiors. They said I was imagining things… that I was overworking… that I needed a break. But the truth? I didn't need a break. I needed answers."
He lifted his cup of tea, took a slow sip, as if it helped him continue."I started investigating on my own. I connected cases no one wanted connected. Similar disappearances… identical biological traces… and files that were deleted right before I reached them. I was getting close to something, and I didn't know what it was."
His voice changed a little, tired but steady."After three years, one day… all the cases and files disappeared from my office and my home. My coworkers were pressured… and me? They arrested me for 'investigating false truths.'"He laughed softly, like someone laughing at his own past."A charge… that didn't even exist before the day they gave it to me. It was just a way to silence me. That's when I realized there was someone controlling the truth from behind the curtain."Jack looked at him, as if hearing a distant reflection of his own story.
Taz continued, his voice deeper now:"After I got out… I became an independent investigator. I was almost broke, but I kept going. And one day… I met a man named Giomi."The name made Jack stare harder, and Yuki too.
"He sat in front of me and spoke with confidence… and said one sentence that changed my life: your theories are 94% correct. Then he told me he was running away, and that the ones hunting him were not normal humans… and he couldn't survive alone."Taz closed his eyes for a moment.
"I helped him. I helped him and his companions for a whole year. They were different… they were like you, Jack."Jack didn't comment.Yuki looked at him, worry clearly in her eyes."Then… after a year… they decided to return to the facility. They said they wanted to take out whoever they could save. They left… and none of them came back."
Silence filled the room.This time, the silence had a face… and a weight.After a few moments, Yuki asked with a shaky and tired voice:"Those… theories you discovered… what were they exactly? Where are they and what did you do with them?"
He opened his eyes and looked at her directly."I left them. I had no choice. My life became a chain of standing on the edge of death. Every time I got close to the truth, the world tightened around me. I realized what I was looking for… was only a very small part of what truly exists. So… I stopped."
Yuki looked toward Jack, her expression trembling for the first time:"You… are one of them…"Jack didn't avoid the question."…It seems so."The answer wasn't just a word, but a door opening into a world Yuki never imagined.She turned again toward Taz."What are we… heading into?"Taz gathered the papers and turned off the lamp without lifting his eyes."Not tonight. Rest. Tomorrow we continue."
Yuki fell asleep quickly, exhausted from everything she went through.Taz lay on his bed, but he kept staring at the ceiling for a long time… as if sleep was something he needed to trick.As for Jack, he tried to sleep, but he couldn't.The memories of the facility returned to him:training rooms… soldiers' footsteps… scientists' voices… the metallic cold of the hallways… the tests… the water… the silence… the screaming.He sat up suddenly, as if the air tightened around him.
He left the cabin.He sat on the nearby rock, watching the cloudy sky as if seeing it for the first time.
Moments passed before Yuki came out quietly, standing behind him.She didn't say anything.Just her being there was enough.The calmness was like a small bandage over a torn day for both of them.And inside, Taz kept staring at the ceiling with open eyes until the last moment.He raised his fist… tightened it… then relaxed it, and finally closed his eyes.
With the first light of dawn, Taz woke up.He fixed his bed, then looked at Yuki, whose traces of crying were still visible even though she tried to hide them.He went out to look for Jack… and found him sleeping near the rock, as if he never moved the whole night.He shook his head with a small smile, then returned to prepare breakfast.They all sat around the table a little later, in a silence that fit this kind of morning.
Taz broke the silence:"Okay… our next step is to get out of Japan."Jack repeated the word slowly:"Japan…?"Yuki raised her eyebrows:"Get out? How? Won't they catch us?"Taz shook his head."No."Yuki became a bit excited:"Then let's go book the earliest flight."Taz laughed… a short but real laugh."And how would Jack have a passport?"Yuki froze."…Oh."
But Taz's expression suddenly changed.The laugh faded.And his voice became heavier than before:"We'll leave… through smuggling."The word stopped in the air…like an announcement that they were entering a completely different world…
End of Chapter.