看護師鴬
*** (Ume POV) ***
Shishi stopped me just before we returned to the hospital stairwell. We had only taken a few steps away from the ICU sign, but clearly, something was still bothering her.
I looked at her, waiting. The soft indirect light left her face in shadow. It reminded me of times I compared her to Lauren Bacall. Bacall that had wandered into a horror film. The hall behind her could have come straight out of a Kurosawa Kiyoshi film, a desolate hallway with random derelict medical equipment and rubble.
I realized I was staring. My face got hot remembering my feelings from when I’d been so close to her under the counter. Afraid she would notice, I looked away.
“Ume, I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I replied.
“For calling you out just now. You would have figured out it was the wrong floor on your own.”
“You did the right thing. It’s Ume and Shishi. We are a team and work together.” I looked back at her. She seemed so serious, nothing like a cynical, wisecracking Bacall. It was sweet, but unwarranted. She was adorable. “Correct me anytime I’m wrong.”
Her expression lightened and I could almost hear her mentally comparing me favorably to Mikawa. It was a low bar, but the one she used.
That face, so cute.
But the hall wasn’t the place for a romantic scene, so we entered and crept down the stairwell, carefully avoiding any debris that might give away our location. In a few moments, we stepped out on the second floor. Light from the patient rooms fell on an abandoned stretcher and a fire hose lying in a door across from the stairwell. Not so different from the third floor.
We stopped just inside the hall and listened for pursuers, but there wasn’t any sound. Hopefully, that meant we had the floor to ourselves. At least from corporeal entities. Supernatural creatures were another thing, one we probably couldn’t avoid. I shivered remembering Uguisu’s malign presence.
After consulting a map on the wall, we turned to the right, walking past rooms filled with empty hospital beds, spilled medical supplies, and equipment. As we turned down a side passage, we froze at the distant sound of high-heels and the rattle of a patient room being opened.
Silence descended again, and we hurried down the passage, away from the noise toward the surgery.
The passage was brightly lit by windows at first, but then appeared to plunge into darkness. To my already heightened sense of foreboding, it made me think of the gates to the underworld. There was no point in hesitating, though. We took torches out of my pack and hurried on. Ahead, the torch beams illuminated two wheelchairs abandoned in the hallway. The oppressive feeling of unseen things grew stronger, and I studiously didn’t look into the chairs to see if something inhabited them. At any moment, I expect a cold, dead hand to grasp me. But despite those feelings of apprehension, nothing untoward happened.
At last, the surgery’s large stainless steel doors appeared on our right. Through a gap between them, we saw a heap of medical supplies spilled on the floor, illuminated by an unnatural, thin, wavy blue light.
“It’s bad,” Shishi said.
“Yeah, it’s bad.”
With my free hand, I took one of Shishi’s. Her fingers felt cool in my hot, sweaty palms.
Gripping her hand firmly, we passed through the doors. I’d hoped to see the kudan’s mate, but that would’ve been too easy. Instead, we stood in a room painted a pastel, institutional mint green. It would’ve been pitch black except for our torches and floating blue lights like you see in an aquarium grotto; a watery blue incandescence. The light revealed medical supplies spilled on the floor and heavy medical equipment I couldn’t identify. The light was strongest to our right, spilling from a long stainless steel washbasin bookended by dark entryways. Instinct told me we would find our answer in one of those rooms.
Nurse Uguisu’s voice whispered in my ear, “So much pain,” and I spun but saw no one except Shishi, who looked around wildly.
There was nothing for it. We had to go forward, but which door? Since I had no idea, I looked inside the closest one. The room was dark, the aquatic blue lights lapping at the entry, but failed to enter it. Our torches revealed a wall of stainless steel cabinets to the right, and a large red cart to the left. Hanging in one corner of the doorway hung two dolls. One red and one blue.
The whispering voice resumed from behind us. “There is nothing like a nurse’s love.”
Beside me, I heard Shishi weakly begin chanting the mantra Kao had taught us. Her voice grew stronger as I joined in.
Yatagarasu ga mamotte kureru
Anata no tsubasa ni tsutsuma rete
We entered the room, ducking under the dolls, and walked around, shining our lights into the corners. I didn’t know what to expect or how the kudan’s mate might manifest, but nothing happened. It was time to try the other room.
As we exited, I briefly saw a nurse standing across the room, hidden in shadows. I averted my eyes and turned right, proceeding to the other room. Next to me, the wash station radiated cold and I could hear water lapping, but I didn’t look at it either.
The second room resembled the first one. Here, however, the blue watery light rippled throughout the room, revealing a barren concrete floor, anesthetic hoses hanging from the ceiling, and surgical tools scattered in the center of the room. The air was so cold it cut to the bone. It felt like this should be the place, but the kudan’s mate still hadn’t appeared. Perhaps it had always been a trap set by Mikawa.
Our footsteps and chanting sounded strangely muffled as we walked around the room. Almost as if we were underwater. In contrast, a faint scraping sound of metal against concrete sounded sharp and clear, drawing our attention to where the surgical tools slowly moved, creeping like horror film special effects. First, they formed the character 安. “Peaceful,” I whispered involuntarily.
The character dissolved as the tools continued their slow dance and formed 楽. This time Shishi read it, as her chanting trailed off, “easy.”
Unable to tear my eyes away, I watched as the instruments reformed to create a third character, 死, which we read simultaneously, “death.”
The message completed, the compulsion to watch departed, and we turned to flee, only to see the ghostly nurse standing in the doorway. A syringe in her hand. Behind her hovered shadowy forms in phantom hospital gowns.
“There is no need to suffer,” she said. Her voice was chillingly beautiful, but her smile left no doubt of the malice behind it. “I can help you. End all your pain.”
Shishi resumed chanting and the nurse’s brows briefly furled.
“No need to struggle,” Uguisu said, advancing. The shadows filled with a myriad of sad eyes flowed around her, blocking the door. “It will be over soon. Sweet sleep.”
I dropped my torch and grabbed the talisman that lay under my shirt.
Around us, the wavering lights solidified into small blue fireballs that ran around the room and then swirled around the nurse’s feet. Again, her brows drew together, and the smile flickered.
“Why struggle? I hate to see your pain. I’ve come to end your suffering.”
My thoughts moved sluggishly, and part of me wanted to listen.
For a moment, I thought I saw a fox amid the blue globes. A kitsune with three tails. It and the lights ran straight at the nurse, who staggered. The shadows fell into confusion as the kitsune passed between them.
Shishi grabbed my arm, saying “Run!” and pulled me toward the door.
“What?” I thought, but followed her lead.
My vision blurred, and my limbs grew numb as we dodged past the spirits. But in an instant we were through them, running across the outer room, following a trail of blue lights and the tips of the kitsune’s tails that disappeared around a corner.
As we rounded the corner, I slipped on records that littered the floor, but caught hold of a cabinet barely keeping from falling flat. I had lost Shishi’s hand and momentarily lost sight of her and the lights. My limbs were so heavy and I struggled, unable to regain my balance.
I glimpsed Shishi’s ashen face as she looked back. She stopped, turned, and came back. I tried to scream for her to run, but nothing came out.
“That’s right. It’s useless to struggle.” Uguisu’s voice was next to my ear. “It will be over soon. No more pain or suffering.” Her voice soothed, so caring.
An icy hand grasped my arm as my senses dimmed. I couldn’t feel my legs and my mind blurred. I didn’t know which way to go. My tired eyes closed, as I thought, “It will be over soon.”
“Struggling is hopeless.” Gloating malice replaced the soothing tones. “You’re mine.”
Then, as if from a far distance, I heard a Shishi saying, “You can make it,” and a warm hand grasped my other arm. It was so warm it burned and my eyes flew open. Shishi’s face swam in front of me.
“Come on,” she tugged, and I stumbled to my feet, breaking free of Uguisu’s icy grasp.
Her voice behind me screamed, “You’re mine!” But I was on my feet now and we took off running. Shishi in the lead pulled me along. As we went, the feeling returned to my limbs and my mind started functioning again. Then the full impact of what I had just escaped hit me.
We were out in the hall now, pelting down it at full speed. Ahead, I could barely see the blue lights flowing over a chest-high barricade of equipment blocking the hallway. Without pausing. we clambered past the Shinto charm plastered to it, and fell down the far side in a panting heap.
Silence descended, broken only by the sound of a faint breeze coming through the broken glass of a large alcove window nearby. Outside, under a steel-blue sky, stretched an expanse of blackened, shattered buildings as far as the eye could see. Shishi tugged my arm and pointed to something on the wall. A poster of a soldier with the rising sun behind him and the wartime motto “Eight corners of the World under one roof.”
“We’re in Kakuriyo, aren’t we?” she said.
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Note: Welcome to the Kakuriyo, The Shadow Land.
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Story by Nara Moore
Twitter/X:@nara_moore
Mastodon: sakurajima.moe
WordPress: Josei Yuri and Paranormal Romance
Art by Mai-sensei
Twitter: @Maiisheree
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