Chapter 23
3. The Lonely God
"Kodoku..."
A dragging sound echoed—something heavy being pulled along the ground.
The sound of insects crawling, the flapping of bird wings.
The lukewarm air and the uneven walls filled the underground like the inside of a monster's womb, echoing with the sound of something writhing.
The coils inside the cage slowly turned, and the glossy-scaled belly, like Nishijin silk, made a full rotation. Within the lattice sliced by the flashlight, there was a face.
Wet hair clung to a narrow face with protruding cheekbones, neither clearly male nor female. It was the face of someone from this village.
A slack mouth hung open, drooling messily.
The face briefly pulled back, and in the next moment, a loud metallic clang rang out.
"Miyaki, get back!"
A crashing sound drowned out my voice, and the snake in the cell slammed its entire body against the cage. Clumps of dirt and dust scattered and fell. The sturdy bars bent and cracked.
I grabbed Miyaki's arm and bolted.
"Katagishi-san, wait!"
"What!?"
"That!"
Miyaki snatched my flashlight and shone it forward.
The light licked the ceiling gouged by the earth, revealing a pale stretch of the path ahead.
On either side of the long tunnel, instead of walls, thick wooden planks formed a continuous line of cages.
This whole area was a subterranean prison.
The cross-shaped darkness swelled, filled with countless shadows.
A dry rustling like cellophane wings rubbing together, and a heavy, sticky thud like raw meat hitting the floor.
"Miyaki, we're running straight through. Don't look to the sides."
"Even if you asked me to, I wouldn't..."
I lowered my gaze and focused only on my feet as I took off running.
The flashlight bobbed with my stride, randomly illuminating the path.
At the edge of the light's circle, hairy insect legs scraped together. A human torso, lacking limbs and a head, crawled with a bent spine.
Something like fine hair or antennae brushed the back of my neck, and I nearly cried out. Only Miyaki was behind me. It was an illusion born of the darkness and fear.
A faint light appeared ahead.
The path widened slightly, and a dull glow was visible to the right. I quickened my pace.
Exiting the crudely dug tunnel, the wide platform led to yet another narrow path.
The glow on the right came from a puddle reflecting the faint light that trickled through a small hole in the ceiling.
I checked to make sure Miyaki was still following.
"Katagishi-san, let's hurry and get out..."
Her voice was hoarse and tense. Her eyes were on the puddle. Gohara's words came back to me—didn't she say the groundwater had dried up?
The same heavy dragging sound from earlier licked at my eardrums.
Without turning the flashlight, I shifted only my eyes to the right.
A long, black-scaled body like a rain-soaked road—an enormous snake—was right beneath us. In the darkness, a Noh mask-like face emerged.
Before its lightless eyes could catch us, we dashed through the uncertain path.
A chunk of the earthen wall crumbled down, hitting my head and back. The underground passage, with tree roots exposed, was surrounded on all sides by walls. There was no confinement room.
I let out an exaggerated breath, as if expelling my confusion.
"...What is this, a haunted house!?"
"Katagishi-san, what kind of haunted houses have you even been to!?"
Miyaki's yelling voice trembled. She must be forcing herself too.
While catching my breath, I felt along the wall. The dry, scratchy texture made me jump back.
When I pulled out my penlight and shone it, a weak tiger face resembling a Hannya mask appeared. It matched the drawing I saw at the local history museum.
"I knew it..."
Shining the penlight down the pitch-black path revealed old washi paper paintings plastered along both walls.
"What do you mean, 'you knew it'... earlier, you said Kodoku..."
"Yeah."
I cleared my throat and moistened my parched throat with spit.
"Remember how the villagers said they saw snakes and bugs in the marsh? Everyone said different things, but the one thing in common was that they were all poisonous creatures."
I heard Miyaki gasp.
"Also, when we first came to the village, the spring water—remember that sign? It said the village was plagued by disease multiple times, and each time the spring saved them. In contrast, they threw bad things into the dried-up well. Probably, in this village, water from the mountain is considered sacred, and underground water is seen as tainted."
"So, the village worships a water-related god?"
"Probably, but with a twist."
A sound like thin metal being struck echoed, and a droplet from the ceiling hit the ground at our feet.
"The local museum dedicated so much space to disease-related exhibits. I'd bet the key is an illness carried by water."
I illuminated the underground space with my light.
"There's no way they dug out a place this huge from scratch. This was probably a cavity where well water flowed. The well connected to other villages, and it was the only route for disease to flow into this isolated village. 'Something bad flows underground' turned into 'something bad lives underground', and that's how the faith was born."
"So, Kodoku was created by combining poison and disease..."
"Just a theory."
In the dim light, Miyaki placed her hand on her chin.
"Then why did they want us to meet this god..."
A dragging sound echoed. We immediately turned our lights toward the noise.
A small figure was crouched a little ahead.
Miyaki let out a stifled scream.
I almost stepped back, but behind us was that giant snake monster. The shadow ahead was smaller.
When I aimed the light again, the figure shielded its eyes.
"A person...?"
A child, emaciated and filthy, with tangled hair and clothes, sat with their back pressed to the wall.
Eyes peered at me from within greasy hair. The child didn't look away, stretching against the wall while seated, then curling up again. The dragging sound was from that.
Then came the pattering of light footsteps further ahead in the dark. There might be someone else in here besides us.
"Um, are you okay...?"
Miyaki covered the flashlight with her hand to dim the light and asked. The dragging sound continued. The child looked up at us with eyes that seemed ready to overflow from sunken sockets.
"Who are you?"
It was a voice on the verge of vanishing. I didn't know how to respond. Their eyes were clear, but unreadable.
"Did you kill a rabbit or a chicken?"
I didn't understand the question and shook my head.
"I see."
The child dug their nails into the dirt and used the wall to stand up. Their legs were so thin that it seemed like they couldn't stand otherwise.
"How long have you been here?"
"I don't know."
In response to Miyaki's question, the child answered softly and turned away to walk. We hurried after them.
Their unsteady steps were easy to catch up to.
"Um, we... the people living above told us to come down here. And, well, we want to leave..."
"Did my mom tell you?"
"Your mom?"
In the penlight's glow, the child's narrow face darkened. The somberness didn't suit their youth—it reminded me of Gohara.
"She said I had to go meet the god here."
At my words, the child flinched. Miyaki gave me a scolding look, then gently held the child's shoulder.
"Nothing good comes from meeting that god. It doesn't do anything, but it's creepy and slithers around. So, when the god comes, we're told to escape by rubbing against the wall. If you speak, your voice echoes."
The child scraped the wall with a dry hand like an old person. The dragging sound was apparently a signal of the god's arrival underground.
"Who's 'we'? Are there other kids like you?"
As I spoke, I turned the thought over in my mind. Why is this child imprisoned underground? Is it some illness? Does the village offer the sick as sacrifices?
"Everyone—people who killed rabbits or chickens."
"What?"
While we stood there confused, the child slipped free from Miyaki's hand and walked ahead.
"From Ichihara-san to Juhara-san, they all gathered kids around my age to kill animals. My little brother cried because he didn't want to, so I did it for him."
Only footsteps echoed in the darkness. I wanted to believe the extra echoes were just reverberations.
"Then my mom said I was chosen by the god and had to live here. The god is lonely, so it needs someone like me who can see its essence, or something like that."
The child's voice held no emotion.
"I've been here ever since. The villagers bring me food and things to wipe my body every day. Hijiri-chan cries, saying it's all his fault, and sometimes brings me manga."
"Is Hijiri-chan your little brother?"
"Yeah."
I remembered the note the Gohara family's boy had thrown. The 'older sister' must be her. That letter was the child's desperate SOS.
"If we can figure out where the food is being delivered, we might be able to get out."
Miyaki lowered her voice. I regretted coming here without informing almost anyone. If rescue wasn't an option, we had no choice but to escape on our own.
"Where do the villagers give you the food from?"
"Over there. There's a path that leads to a swamp only the villagers know about."
The girl pointed toward an even deeper darkness.
"Will you guide us?"
The girl bit her lip and fell silent. A droplet of water fell from the ceiling and shattered like glass.
"But right now, over there..."
I felt as though the deep darkness had begun to squirm with shape. The black line was slightly rounded, resembling a human head and shoulders. A wet scraping sound came from the earth.
"Rokuhara-san is there."