“When did you get so familiar with the rules here? Then we should all just stay awake together.”
“No… I’m not actually that familiar with them.”
Oomi’s eyes darted away in an obvious attempt to avoid my gaze. He fidgeted unnecessarily with his glasses, restless. Usually, he had trouble making eye contact with anyone, but I was the one person he spoke to while looking straight at. When he acted like this with me, it meant he was hiding something.
“What is it? Just tell me the truth.”
“…I heard it from Silent-chan.”
That caught me off guard, and I was the one who fell silent.
“…Silent-chan spoke?”
“Keep it a secret. Don’t tell anyone.”
Oomi’s voice suddenly dropped.
“What’s this about? When did you get so close with Silent-chan? She’s pretty, after all—good for you.”
“That’s not it at all.”
The way he cut in to deny it, like an elementary school kid, was almost endearing.
“So, what did Silent-chan say?”
“She told me about the people who died on that other ship. Apparently, they were all asleep right before they died. Silent-chan was the only one awake.”
If that was such an important story, I thought, we should let everyone hear it right away. But Oomi kept his voice low.
“She said that those who were asleep began committing suicide one after another. Even Silent-chan, who’d only been dozing, nearly killed herself, but she somehow resisted. I think she survived because she didn’t actually fall fully asleep.”
It felt like I’d been sound asleep earlier, but the whole picture still wasn’t clear to me.
“Why does falling asleep make you commit suicide? Wasn’t it the Harvester on their ship who killed them? From what I saw—granted, I was too scared to look closely—it looked like they’d been stabbed.”
“Sorry, I’m still a bit worked up. I’ll explain.”
Oomi shifted to sit properly on my bed and took a breath.
“First, the connection between Silent-chan and the three who died. The woman among them was Silent-chan’s best friend. They met in middle school and had been close for ten years. The younger man was her cousin, and the older man was her kindergarten teacher.”
Honestly, I couldn’t even tell which one was supposed to be “younger” and which “older,” but something else was bothering me more.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“It’s possible for a best friend and a cousin to be on the same ship, but do people really still keep in touch with their kindergarten teacher?”
“She met him by chance. Apparently, right after boarding, she ran into him in the cafeteria—that’s what they call the dining hall on that ship. While they were having breakfast together, they introduced themselves and realized who the other was.”
As I nodded, Oomi leaned closer with a fervor that made me instinctively pull back a little. “And then?” I prompted.
“After eating, they were warmed up and, since it had been an early morning, they all felt sleepy. They decided to return to their rooms for a short nap. Silent-chan and her friend shared a room, while the two men each had their own. Unlike Silent-chan, who couldn’t sleep because of seasickness, her friend fell soundly asleep. She stayed still for a while, and when she was finally starting to drift off, she felt a sharp pain in her right palm. Looking, she saw a blade breaking through her skin, growing toward her—like it was alive, reaching for her face—”
He was describing a blade sprouting from a hand like it was nothing. I bit my tongue, swallowing hard, unwilling to interrupt Oomi now that he was on a roll.
“When the blade had stretched so far that it was about to stab her in the face—even with her arm fully extended—it suddenly stopped. Once the danger passed, she looked at the other bed, where her friend should have been sleeping. It was empty. In her place, bright red blood was scattered across the white sheets. Panicking, but careful not to get stabbed, she fled the room. Standing up, ducking under the door—any wrong move and the sharp blade could have gouged her own flesh. She said it was terrifying. She dodged the blade, now about the length of her arm, and followed the trail of blood to a staircase leading to the deck. Opening the heavy door with one hand was hard, so she pushed it open with the whole left side of her body. And what she saw there—”
“The bodies we saw on the deck?”
Oomi took a deep breath. Even speaking in a whisper, his excitement meant he hadn’t been pausing to breathe much.
“No. Not them.”
“What? Not them?”
“At that point, they were still alive, though covered in wounds. Like Silent-chan, they were desperately trying to escape from blades sprouting from their own right palms. But Silent-chan noticed something: theirs were clearly longer than hers, and still growing. That’s why they’d gone out to the open deck, seeking more space than their cabins allowed. If the blades only grew longer, you might think they could just stand still, but there was another problem—the blades changed direction unpredictably. In seconds, the one growing from your palm might instead sprout from the back of your hand, or from your fingertips. The angle could be vertical, diagonal—anything.”
I might’ve seen an alien like that in some movie, or maybe I hadn’t.
Thinking back to the corpses sprawled on the deck, the raw, visceral fear came back to me.
“So you’d never know when your own blade would pierce you… and anyone trying to help would—”
“That’s right. You couldn’t approach carelessly. Silent-chan used her own sword to try to save her friend. She intercepted blades aimed at herself, and blocked those aimed at her friend. But the blades from her friend’s hand were strong, and slowly stabbed and slashed her. By the time her friend died, Silent-chan was drenched in blood. Staring down at her dead friend in shock, she finally realized how quiet it had gotten. Her cousin and teacher were already lying there, soaked in blood and motionless.”
“…And what does that have to do with not sleeping?”
Was that what I’d been headed for just now? I stared down at my right hand.
“Rhone told Silent-chan, ‘I couldn’t stop them. They’d fallen into a deep sleep.’ In her case, she hadn’t been truly asleep for even five minutes, so she survived. And as time passed, the blade growing from her right hand slowly shrank. That’s everything she told me.”
Oomi coughed, a dry sound. Maybe he’d caught a cold from being outside in the thunderstorm so long. I draped the towel blanket I’d been using for Ululu over his shoulders.
“Ah… thank you.”
Covering his mouth with one hand, Oomi spoke between subdued coughs. Once they eased, I asked the question that had been nagging me.
“Why did Silent-chan tell only you about this?”