Volume 6 - CH 1.5

But soon I realized my error. Sleeping on the bed was the doll of a young girl. Like the other dolls, it had black hair that framed its soft cheeks, cascading onto the pillow. Where there should have been eyeballs, there were only hollow sockets.

Black empty holes were staring at the ceiling.

Beside her, a man sat sobbing, his face buried in the bed.

He clutched a blood-stained umbrella in his arms, and there were faint scars on his wrists. A part of the sheets was stained a graphic red. I touched the bandage on my forehead. It occurred to me that perhaps the dream was a memory I had glimpsed through the man’s blood.

I couldn’t see the bandage, but it might have some of the man’s blood on it.

He continued to cry, hugging the reddish-black umbrella tightly.

I thought back to the dream. A stranger’s sorrow filled my chest.

If only you didn’t look at me. If only you didn’t turn your eyes to me.

If only those eyes were gone.

I…

“Multiple dolls with their eyes gouged out,” Mayuzumi said softly. “Substitutes. Silent sacrifices for something else.”

She approached the man, disregarding my outstretched hand, and stood behind him. The man did not look up; he continued to cry with his face buried in the sheets.

“Is that the person whose eyes you couldn’t gouge out? The reason why you stab other people’s eyes?”

Mayuzumi’s words were laced with contradictions. She referred to the doll as a person. The doll was missing its eyes, yet she claimed that the man couldn’t gouge its eyeballs out.

The man shuddered. He did not respond. Instead his cries grew louder as he lifted his face and clung to the young girl’s neck. His voice rose high and dropped low like a song.

Mayuzumi silently opened her parasol, and red bloomed. It began to spin slowly, matching the rhythm of the man’s voice. Red swirled like a ritualistic dance, spinning faster like a windmill. The man’s voice echoed like the hollow wind.

Suddenly, it stopped.

Mayuzumi closed and opened the red parasol. Something changed in that brief moment.

The man abruptly stopped crying. His face lifted as though pulled by a puppeteer’s string. His timid visage quaked and stiffened, and his eyes opened unnaturally wide.

A whimper escaped his cracked lips. “Ah…”

The eyes of the doll before him were open. Large, moist eyes staring at the ceiling, long lashes surrounding its lovely pupils. Her muscles were rigid, her mouth taut. Her eyes remained still.

The doll had transformed into a lifeless girl’s body. Her eyes were looking at the man.

The man screamed and fell from his chair. He curled up, holding the umbrella in his arms. He continued to shriek, expelling all the air from his lungs.

His howls rent the air, but the doll-like girl remained still. She lay there silently, lifeless.

“So, what is she to you? What did you do to her?” Mayuzumi relentlessly bombarded the quivering man with questions.

It was hard to believe that they were once hunter and prey. The unexpected turn of events left me speechless.

The man continued trembling like a dog caught in the rain.

Mayuzumi smiled sadistically, producing a new tube from her purse. She twisted off the cork and picked up an eyeball.

Crunch.

She chewed on the sweet delicacy.

“Or what you didn’t do, I suppose,” she added softly.

The man suddenly stopped screaming. His gaze remained fixed on the girl’s lifeless form, vacant and unfocused like he was staring up at the sky.

“She was my sister,” he muttered, his lips trembling. “My dear, precious sister.” He spoke as though confessing a sin.

The man pressed his cheek against the umbrella. Memories unfolded before me, vivid and clear. The dead girl’s appearance matched the one I had seen in my dream.

The man held the umbrella even tighter. “This is my aunt’s house. I brought a lot of dolls here when I ran away from home. My aunt is no longer around, since the day I got here. They’re just dolls, but they’re my sister. Even though they’re just substitutes, I gouged out their eyes over and over again.”

His voice trailed off, and he suddenly doubled over, the sound of retching filling the room. Vomit splattered on the floor. Drooling from his mouth, he carried on as if nothing happened.

“But that’s not my sister. Just a substitute. Just a doll. I felt relieved at first, but then it made me uneasy. I hated it, I couldn’t take it. And that’s where the problem began.”

Silence descended. The man’s words slowly seeped into my mind.

After fleeing the scene, he brought dolls from his home to this place, which he claimed was his aunt’s house. Yet, there was no trace of any woman here, and his aunt had been gone since the first day. His words coincided with the putrid stench emanating from the storage space under the floorboards. My blood ran cold.

“In short, that became a problem,” Mayuzumi said coolly. “Dolls were not enough to satisfy you. They couldn’t satiate your urges. Am I wrong?”

The man jumped, as though electrocuted. He shivered and vomited again.

Mayuzumi wielded her words like a weapon. “Dolls were not enough so you began targeting people instead. Or perhaps the urge was too strong to be suppressed by dolls, and you were forced to gouge people’s eyes out. Either way.”

Mayuzumi perched herself on the bed, the red parasol twirling idly behind her.

A red shadow fell on the white fabric. The man’s gaze was fixed solely on the girl; he didn’t even look at Mayuzumi. She swung her legs playfully like a child, her slender ankles peeking out from under black lace.

“You said you don’t want to gouge out eyes anymore, but deep inside you want to. You desire it, crave it, yearn for it. And yet, you don’t want to do it. Where does the urge come from? How do you want to be saved?” Her firm voice was daunting, both to me and the man.

Suddenly Mayuzumi reached out her hand and traced the girl’s cheek with her fingertips. Normally she wouldn’t be able to touch the skin of the departed, but Mayuzumi caressed the doll’s face as if it were the girl herself.

“What did you really want to talk about that night? Speak. You made the decision to come to me of your own accord,” Mayuzumi breathed, low and sweet.

Her black nails trailed sensually across the doll’s features, skirting around the eyes. The man let out a ragged breath as he followed her movements.

And as if under a spell, his lips parted.

“I…”

A somber murmur filled the air.

And then he spoke.

“I am a fool.”

A human more pathetic and worthless than anyone else.

I was a person who never quite fit in with others, someone whose ability to navigate the world had been completely obliterated. Loneliness and desolation were my constant companions. I lived a life tormented by others.

My father criticized me for being pathetic. My mother pitied me for it.

Everyone else laughed and mocked me, deriving pleasure at my inability to carry on a conversation.

But my sister was different. She showed me kindness and defended me from their cruelty.

She acted as a shield between me and the rest of the world, standing in front of me and aiding me in every aspect of life. Even after I was disowned by my father, left with no choice but to leave home and rely on an allowance sent by my mother, my sister was there to offer me shelter.

Were we happy? No, not at all.

I realized I became a burden to my sister. She was always so kind and encouraging, but even the deepest well of kindness has its limits.

Gradually, her eyes began to lose their light. When I saw the deep sorrow in her gaze, I realized that I had lost my only ally in the world.

Her eyes, devoid of joy, silently criticized me.

She pitied me. She was disappointed in me. She thought I was a burden.

Whenever our eyes met, I shuddered. Slowly, I began to feel a strange urge, a violent impulse, to destroy her eyes.

I wanted them gone.

I yearned to gouge out my sister’s eyeballs. The twisted impulse burned within me.

Then my sister fell ill, unaware of my inner turmoil. Her weak heart was failing.

Our grandfather underwent life-prolonging treatment before dramatically passing away. That could have been the reason my sister refused to contact our parents and opted to recuperate at home. Despite my best efforts to care for her, I couldn’t bear to meet her gaze and did my job poorly. Her once melancholic eyes grew sadder, eventually transforming into a well of sorrow.

One late night, I thought I heard my sister’s feeble voice calling out to me, “Brother, brother.”

I dismissed it as a mere figment of my imagination. Consumed by fatigue and unwillingness to see her eyes, I ignored her pleas and went to bed. The following morning, I found my sister lifeless.

Did I mourn her passing? No, not at all. If anything, I was relieved. I rejoiced at the worst possible thing.

I am a pathetic, worthless human being. A fool who celebrates not having to look into my sister’s eyes anymore.

My retribution was swift and unyielding. When I saw my sister’s face, I screamed.

Her eyes remained open.

Confused, I turned to our parents for help. I was met with my father’s fists and my mother’s reproach. I felt as though I were already dead. Consumed by fear of my sister’s eyes, I lost my mind.

Before I knew it, my sister’s funeral had come and gone. She was turned to ash and bones.

Therefore, I couldn’t see her eyes shut.