I opened my eyes.
But there was nothing to see.
I tried to move my hands.
But nothing moved.
I was fixed in place, unable to do anything.
At this mont, I understood.
Why the countless sentient beings trapped inside Quota Worship’s box had been tortured for decades until they died, unable to use any skill or object they’d had in life.
‘I’ve been swallowed.’
I can perform no act at all.
My body right now is clamped tight and sealed inside sothing.
For the sake of ditation.
Digestive fluid is secreted.
– It’s hell, hell, hell. How can pain be like this? I have realized the horror of primal pain. Descriptions like ‘the saddest mory of my life repeats, it provokes deep trauma’ are lukewarm and convoluted, re comfy exhibitions for the comfortable. I envy them. True pain is of the flesh, the pain that shatters the mind.
– This pain of scraping skin-film and nerves one layer at a ti with a needle! Pain through the whole body! My viscera, wherever they are. My stomach, my twisted skin burns. It’s like being trapped in an endlessly burning hell. My mouth, are they prying it open and pouring digestive fluid in? No! Thank goodness I don’t have an esophagus. No, it feels like the esophagus is being bored open…
A sound rings inside my head.
The ascetic’s voice reciting exactly my pain, my distraction, my analysis, my begging, my screaming.
And…
– dontwannadiewannadiedontwannadiewannadiedontwannadiewannadiestop!stop!stop!whythough?whyreyoulikethisithurtsithurts!ithurts!!Ireumnimihave donesothingofvalueisaidithurts!ihave donesothingofvaluepleasesavepleasekillpleasesavepleasekill
– I can’t breathe. I can’t endure the pain. I knew it instinctively, that there is no way I can withstand this for decades. I think it’s fortunate it was who ca in, but even imagining how long that thought can hold is terrifying. My mind won’t even blur. A supernatural disaster like this…
Two other sentient voices.
The voices of others being tortured ring right beside . Exhibiting us to one another is precisely what completes this ‘Ascetic in the Box’.
As is, we will be helplessly linked as parts of the ascetic within the digestive fluid, and in the maddening susurrus composed by each other’s pain, we will suffer for decades.
The digestive fluid acts as a kind of preservative, preventing us from dying and making us feel pain with a clear mind.
Madness. Terror.
But a mad pain that will not even let you flee into madness!
‘Happy Maker…!’
I ached crazily for that item I didn’t have on hand now, but I, I…
‘Endure.’
I try to raise my smoke.
No, rather, I turn into smoke outright.
Because smoke is a component of , I can do it without moving. The smoke tightly fills what feels like the ascetic’s incubatory sac that has sealed .
Even as smoke, the pain does not abate. Every surface, every point of contact shrieks a death-agony of pain.
Only one difference exists.
‘Smoke is a gas.’
Within the smoke, from the very innermost part, I reconstituted just a single part.
A horn.
And I barely shook it.
Jingle.
The little bell attached on the horn rings clear.
‘…Ha!’
The pain does not recede. But my capacity to think and my will have returned.
‘So, thing.’
Sothing I can do!
I know there is another human beside the sac that has trussed so I can’t budge.
‘…S, Slowly.’
For the first ti I’m grateful I can’t find my vocal cords, even if I want to wail.
‘This ti…’
I draw out a patch of bare skin from beneath the uniform at what corresponds to almost the surface of the smoke.
My tattoo.
‘Inventory…!’
The tattoo touches the bizarre mbrane that has sealed , and I try to push the mbrane itself into the tattoo.
But it won’t work.
‘…!’
Every attempt to shove it in only makes the pouch tighter. The volu contracts by exactly as much as I push into the tattoo, enough to overload even a body turned to smoke.
‘It won’t work.’
And all it does is make more digestive fluid gush out, as if so lubricant were being secreted!
– Pain! Pain! Even if I turn into black smoke, the pain doesn’t vanish. If anything, it intensifies.
No physical resistance works. Inside the box, the victim is an accessory in the ascetic’s stomach. You cannot injure the ascetic!
But I receive the physical pain in full. What an unreasonable, hellish ghost story.
– No, stop, the digestive fluid, this pain that’s like, no, this pain that’s like dying, what is this insane pain I never felt even in Daydream, even on the Tamra-bound train
Then.
– Agent Grapes?
……
…!
– That can’t be. Why? Why Agent Grapes and not the villain? I suppose the shove was out of resentnt toward the Bureau, no, the pain makes the reason irrelevant. No.
– You’re saying he has to be here for decades feeling this pain? Him too?
The ascetic exhibited ntal pain as well.
Agent Bronze’s ntal pain.
And mine too.
– I’m used to pain, I can endure it. I, am used to pain, it’s a little better since I can take another form. Ring the bell within the smoke and, no, it hurts! Pain! No, I can endu—
At that mont.
– I see! Thoughts linked to pain are heard by the other party. Linked to pain, pain and…
Agent Bronze realizes it.
And the ascetic’s whisper that had been displaying the pain changed. Faster, more erratic, as if mirroring its subject’s state.
– I am in pain. Therefore, if I can partly turn to smoke, if I can move even a little freely within it, I will imdiately use the five-colored shoelaces to escape this pain.
…!!
– Right now. I can’t endure this pain any longer. Tie the laces and walk. All that matters is satisfying the act of walking! Hurry!
……
And then I rember again.
‘Agent Bronze cannot leave even if he has the shoelaces.’
Just as at Looky Mart, when both his legs were severed and he couldn’t use the five-colored shoelaces, sealed as he is now, he cannot get out.
Only I can leave.
So if I leave.
The others who remain will stay here on display, suffering, in a place they can never escape.
Together with a new one the box would swallow in my stead.
……
……
– I don’t hear Agent Grapes. Did he get out? Am I the only one taking this pain? It gives hope, and yet this wretched pain makes imagine I’ll end up cursing at him for escaping alone…
I turned part of the smoke into the shape of a hand.
I bared a patch of skin,
And touched the mbrane.
To the ‘Ascetic in the Box’.
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