CH 40

Dr. Fernando waited on the beach for about an hour before meeting up with the search team, the Captain and the other soldiers, who were following them.

The situation had been briefly explained over the radio beforehand, so it seemed that the elite soldiers wouldn’t take any unnecessary action, but would immediately begin the pursuit.

[Doctor, you can stay here or return to the base camp if you like.]

[No, I’ll go with you.]

Dr. Fernando, who was more of an indoor person, wondered why he wanted to accompany them to a dangerous place.

However, for some reason, he felt an inexplicable urge to head deeper into the jungle.

The Captain had tried several times to contact the two who went to scout ahead by radio, but perhaps, due to the terrain, they seemed to be having trouble.

[Doctor, I’d like to see those traces left by the corpses.]

[Let me guide you.]

Dr. Fernando leads the others to what remains of the corpses and the drag marks in the village.

No matter how many times Dr. Fernando looked at it though, it was quite a puzzling sight.

Upon arrival, the members of the search team quickly scanned the area with their gaze.

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[We know that they were dragged away. However, it’s strange how there are no footprints around.]

[The soldiers who went ahead said the same thing. That the footprints have been covered up really well.]

[That’s possible. However, it’s hard to imagine guerillas having soldiers of that caliber. Moreover, they have as many as eight of them. It feels more as if……]

The Captain cut his words short.

However, Dr. Fernando felt as if he could hear the voicelessly spoken “As if the corpses had crawled away on their own”.

Thinking that he may have lost his mind, Dr. Fernando shook that thought aside again.

[Let’s go after them.]

★　★　★　★

What had seemed like a daunting pursuit towards a highly skilled guerilla force turned out to be a surprisingly easy task.

The aforementioned guerrillas should be dragging corpses through the jungle, so they hadn’t been able to cover their tracks at all.

[The guerillas had the skill to cover their tracks, but not to cover that trail of dragging corpses……]

[They sure are rather unbalanced folks.]

Yes, what was happening was quite unnatural.

What exactly are they chasing?

Are the people beyond the path they’re going through really guerilla soldiers?

Eventually, their suspicions reached their peak.

A soldier found a human fingernail peeled off and stuck into the root of a tree in the jungle.

[Doctor, what do you think this is?]

Hearing him being called out, Dr. Fernando inspected it.

The color of the nail…… The shape…… All of it looked familiar to Dr. Fernando.

[It’s a human adult’s nail. The second finger. It seems to be the nail of the index finger. It looks like it’s been subjected to a tremendous amount of force and peeled off.]

[Did someone pluck that off of someone.]

[No. If that were the case, that wouldn’t explain how he got stuck in the root of the tree.]

[Maybe a finger was bent from rigor mortis and got caught in the roots of the tree, and they were forced to remove them.]

[……It’s not inconceivable but……]

The corpses really must have crawled around on their own.

And someone’s nail must have been ripped off when he grabbed the root of the tree.

Dr. Fernando may not have spoken that out, but that was hardly out of his own imagination anymore.

Even though the soldiers weren’t talking, they too were exuding a sense of fear and trepidation.

The sun was supposed to be high in the sky, but the dense greenery enwrapping the jungle made the place look gloomy.

In the distance, a monkey whose territory had been invaded could be heard shouting warning to the intruders.

★　★　★　★　★

Their initially optimistic plan that they would be able to catch up with the crawling intruders soon enough had already collapsed.

Still, they continued to move at an alarming speed through the dense jungle.

The dimness of the jungle and the fatigue were causing them to gradually lose their sense of time.

The soldiers were silent, just watching their surroundings and following the trail made by the corpses.

Dr. Fernando was also doing his best to keep up with them so that he wouldn’t fall behind.

Eventually, the pursuing party came to a patch of open terrain in the middle of the dense jungle.

Sometimes, when a fire occurs or storm topples a large tree over the canopy, a small flat area like this is temporarily created where the sun shines down on the ground.

Dr. Fernando looked up at the narrow, circular open sky and saw that the sun was beginning to tilt.

[Alright. We’ll take some rest here.]

They can finally take a break.

Even the members of the team, who had been trained in strict actual combat, couldn’t hide their mental exhaustion from the series of inexplicable phenomena, and they looked relieved.

For an untrained person like Dr. Fernando, not being able to see what lies ahead in this dense jungle can be extremely stressful.

He is now feeling slightly regretful, thinking that he should have listened to their suggestion and just stayed in the camp.

Having such thoughts in mind, Dr. Fernando looked out over the flatland in a daze.

The flatland, which seemed to have been recently formed, was sparsely populated with short grasses and short trees.

Even so, Dr. Fernando found those trees rather unusual.

The two trees in his vision, perhaps the result of another tree bifurcating, were also growing here and there on the flatland that is beginning to turn dark.

[Unnn?]

However, as Dr. Fernando focused his attention on it, he started having doubts. Are those things really trees?

As the blur of fatigue came into focus, it became clear to him that those weren’t “trees” at all.

However, something had happened that Dr. Fernando’s mind just couldn’t accept it at all.

[Ahhh, ah……]

[Doctor, is something the matter?]

One of the soldiers, concerned about Dr. Fernando’s strange condition, called out to him.

However, Dr. Fenando couldn’t bring himself to speak, and he only pointed at that thing that wasn’t a “tree”.

[What about it? Is there something in that tree……]

The soldier was at a loss for words at what he saw, before he shouted.

[What the heck!!!? That’s a human leg!!!]

Yes, a human leg.

Dr. Fernando repeated silently in his mind.

What was growing out of the ground, just like trees, were human legs.

Dozens of dozens of them, in rows and columns, all over this flatland.

All of them are human legs.

Some are adult’s big legs.

Some are children’s small legs.

Some are women’s slender legs.

Some of old people’s wrinkly legs.

White people’s legs.

Black people’s legs.

Sinhalese legs.

Tamil legs.

All kinds of human legs.

[Blargh!]

Dr. Fernando puked, unable to bear the discomfort rising in the pit of his stomach.

Something blasphemous and decadent was pounding on his nerves, making it difficult for him to stay sane.

[T- This is……]

The well-trained soldiers didn’t vomit as unsightly as Dr. Fernando, but they still tightly clutched on their guns and froze.

Some of them closed their eyes and started earnestly chanting prayers.

[T- Those legs are moving! They’re still alive!]

One of the soldiers shouted in horror, to which Dr. Fernando raised his gaze, trying to clamp down his nausea.

If the buried people are still alive, they need to save them.

[Urph…… Which one?]

Trying to endure his nausea, Dr. Fernando strained his eyes open.

[A- All of them. All those legs are moving!]

[That’s impossible……]

However, what he said was indeed true.

All the legs pointing to the sky were moving slightly.

And upon closer inspection, there was a strange regularity to the arrangement of those legs.

The legs formed a large circle across the flatland, and the toes pointed outward from the circle.

[Unnn? What is that?]

And occasionally, mud would be spewed out from near those legs.

No, that mud was being thrown out.

After that, the leg pointing towards the sky would sink a little.

[No way…… Are they…… digging?]

[No way……]

For a few moments, as they watched in agony as if their nerves were being triggered, it seemed that all the legs were making the same motion.

It was completely beyond common sense, something that wouldn’t have crossed their mind, but all they could think was that in this strange ceremonial space, the upside-down corpses kept on digging at the ground.

Heading straight underground, all the corpses were trying to dig a huge hole in the ground in a circle.

Dozens of corpses were digging single-mindedly, and eventually, some of the legs facing the sky were about to be buried in the ground.

[O- Oi! Those feet are wearing military boots!]

[Aren’t those from those that scouted before us!?]

A soldier with good eyes spotted a leg with military boots on the other side of the plain.

Perhaps because it has been relatively little time since they started digging a hole, the legs on that part of the ground were relatively exposed.

[D*mn it, I’ll go help him out!]

[Wait, you can’t help him without wearing protective clothing!]

[Doctor, stay where you are!]

Without waiting for Dr. Fernando to stop them, the soldiers crossed the plain and headed straight for the rescue of their colleague, who was buried in the ground with his military boots on.

They crossed the middle of that circle with their feet pointing to the sky.

However, they abruptly disappeared.

[Uwaahh!]

[Eh?]

The moment all the soldiers passed through the middle of the circle, they were gone forever.

No sound of impact, no sound of fall……

No trained skills, equipment, nor any teamwork managed to help them.

They just fell and disappeared.

[A- Ahhh……]

The legs, which had been drawing large circles on the flat land, began to move in circles, getting closer to each other, shrinking within the circle, becoming closer and closer into the circle…… until all that remained was a small, black hole.

Everything was gone, leaving only Dr. Fernando blankly looked at all that happened.

And then, the doctor staggered up to his feet, scooped up the mud around him with both hands and began to throw it into the hole.

The doctor, who had lost his sanity, felt as if he heard a voice from inside the hole saying “Gyeeehh” in his insanity-infested consciousness.

★　★　★　★　★

After losing excellent SBS members and a doctor, the Sri Lankan military set a blockade and burned down the fishing village with a napalm bomb, destroying all evidence and abandoning all their activities in the area concerned.

The flatland was soon covered with the dense forest’s rich greeneries, and no small hole was ever discovered by anyone.