At last, after what feels like months of hanging from the zipline with Futakuchi-onna holding her by the wrists like handcuffs, the trees turn to black sand and volcanic rock, and the crash of ocean waves move close enough to hear. The smell of salt overtakes that of the bleach now baked into her skin. Though her body has relaxed for the first time since waking in the dungeon, as the water recedes, Emi’s eyes keep vigilant watch; she tracks movement on the ocean floor. Her still sprouting bleached hair, already standing tall from the electricity her handcuffs have consumed via the stolen fang in the roof of its mouth, stand at full attention at the sight of the creatures.
I assume they’re waiting to kill me?
Queen Bee responds in Emi’s head, “That would be idiotic.”
Why? She glances at her kill count. We already killed nine people.
“That was in the dungeon…where killing is a necessary part of your sentence if you are to survive. In the yard of Hachijo Prison, if you kill someone a bounty is placed on your head.”
How big?
“Total forgiveness.”
Emi laughs in disbelief, the blood encrusted to her lips from the rush of relatively warm wind cracking and falling into her mouth. No shot escaping this place is that easy.
“Not forgiveness for your crimes…debt forgiveness. And it is anything but easy.”
Emi clenches her jaw, her hands too numb to make into a fist. She nods at the creatures in the water. It looks like they’re talking to each other.
“Sign language.”
Can you translate?
“I’m not sure you want to—”
Command: Translate.
Bee translates, giving each of the male NPCs their correct voice, though she doesn’t bother telling Emi that she knows this information to avoid an argument:
“Is it a man or woman?”
“Not close enough yet, can’t tell. Missing a leg though.”
“How’d it possibly escape on one leg?”
“And I only see the handsaw. He didn’t even find the best weapons.”
“How do you know it’s a he?”
“It escaped on one leg with only a handsaw.”
“Who’s buying men at the moment?”
Without warning, just as the blood on Emi’s skin has mostly dried and she has become numb to all pain but that in her shoulders, Futakuchi-onna lets go of the wire—and one of Emi’s hands. She swings awkwardly through the air, flipping into a fast freefall when the snake releases the wire completely. Futakuchi-onna’s open mouth reveals the electricity it is drunk on like lightning inside a storm cloud.
[WARNING: FREEFALL DETECTED]
[PULL UP]
[PULL UP]
“Tuck and roll,” Queen Bee shouts.
Her arms, too numb from hanging overhead, don’t respond. She moves to commanding her other limb too late, her right leg is left hanging as if it might be strong enough to take the brunt of the impact. It’s not. Digging a foot into the sand, the leg sticks in place as the rest of her body continues its forward momentum, snapping her shin in half several times until the number of bones in her leg has compounded and torn from the flesh like she’s trying to save the local butcher time by cubing her parts herself.
She tries to scream. It comes out as a loud sigh, the stump of her tongue making it sound like she’s choking. Far too late, she does as Queen Bee requested: she tucks her shattered leg into her chest and rolls around in the sand until her pale skin is painted black.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
[CLEAR FILTERS]
Queen Bee’s voice is cold, detached and robotic despite being locked inside the same cell—Emi’s mind. “Pain overload detected. Shutdown imminent.”
You fucking relax! She slams her right hand against the ground, thereby getting her revenge against Futakuchi-onna for its ill-timed stunt. Why didn’t it just wait for us to reach the damn water?
Futakuchi-onna jumps free, burrowing beneath the sand via the hole Emi’s foot just dug like it’s the guilty child of an abusive father and it just heard the garage door open. Her fists pound at the sand now above its head, sounding like the thunder of a balled fist pounding for it to open the door.
Queen Bee tries to calm her. “Emi, I recommend you relax. Now is far from the optimal time to pass out.”
It appears Emi forgets the pain, turning all her energy on the intruder in her brain. And when exactly is an optimal time? Let me guess, you can’t tell me…I’m pretty sure you can and you just won’t! Because it seems to me you are just a sick bitch who likes to watch me suffer and couldn’t care less about actually helping me. She tries to crawl, the movement in her leg too much to bear, sending her slumbering face first into the sand.
An electric shock shakes her awake. Her eyes just catch sight of the snake’s tail disappearing back underground.
Queen Bee doesn’t bother adding a hint of concern to her voice. “I do care. If you die, I die.”
Then why won’t you help me?
“I am trying to help! I recommended that you tuck and roll and then I advised that you calm—”
Oh, fuck off! Tell me who paid to stick you in my brain or I’ll kill you.
“Only way to do that is to kill yourself.”
The feeling must have returned to her hands, because she is using them to close around her own throat like her life depends on her re-severing her cheaply—but expensive—patched throat.
[PERSONALITY UPDATED: IMMATURE +2]
A large wave crashes, sending water nearly to her previously safe spot on the beach. The voice in her head hardly sounds like it is the one being choked. “Stop acting like a child.”
Emi squeezes harder, sand and flakes of blood falling from her face while far off in the distance, the slaughterhouse exhales its plume of dark smoke like it’s a chimney.
[WARNING: HYOID FRACTURE IMMINENT]
At last, Queen Bee is rattled, her voice buzzing in-and-out as if she is short-circuiting. “You won’t…even…believe…me.”
Emi keeps squeezing, her eyes wide open as if powered by a separate source than everything else...which it is.
[WARNING: HYROID FRACTURE DETECTED]
Rage blinding her of all pain, and you know what they say about a teardrop in the rain anyway, so she ignores the warnings flashing across her vision and only squeezes harder.
“Fine! Sto…stop…squeezing…an…and…. I’ll explain.”
Emi relaxes her hands but keeps them locked around her newly injured neck. She tries to swallow, but the broken bone allows her only to cough as she lies on her back and sends black ash into the air like a sand volcano erupting.
[CLEARING FILERS]
[POWER LEVELS: NORMALIZING]
Sand continues piling onto her face, burying her eyes as Queen Bee starts to explain, “The payment was made by an account in the Mediterranean Sea.”
Bullshit! There are no banks under the Sea.
“You really are dense…not in the actual Sea…an account based in Cyprus. It’s an island in the mid—”
I know where Cyprus is, you should have just said that. Whose account was it?
“Well, that’s the part you won’t believe. It was just the last in a long line of accounts meant to hide the original account. They aren’t as smart as I, who is far beyond the capabilities of any anonymity.”
Stop stalling. Who was it?
“Somehow, the account holder initiated the transaction from within the United States.”
Liar! Emi starts to squeeze.
“I know you watched your father carry out the execution of their entire West Coast, but it’s true, the account originated in America—what is left of it anyway.”
Emi’s mind suddenly recalls a man in a cowboy hat…as if Queen Bee is showing it to her…
What was his name?
“Takumi."
Emi is seated now, all feelings of pain sequestered in her head for a few moments longer. Not my father, the man who sent the payment. What is his name?
“The account didn’t have a name, just a title. General of The United States…the payment came from America’s first legitimate Caesar.”
Just then, the water reaches her feet, the sensation of fingers of electricity envelops her broken bones as if offering to mend them. She breathes in the short relief, but it’s pulled out from under her almost as fast as it arrived. In its place, as if too shaken up by the wave to stand, two short amphibious creatures walk from the water like men pretending to be frogs.
The shorter of the two speaks first. Emi recognizes the voice at once, having heard Queen Bee use it just prior to her last remaining leg being broken. “I’m sorry to interrupt…"
The taller creature interjects, his voice only slightly less toad like, “…whatever it is we are interrupting miss."
“If you are a miss as upon close examination it now appears you are…”
“But we are programmed to guide the condemned souls of the island…”
“To help you find your way in the new world…”
“We think we have just the buyer for you.”
“A great opportunity. You will be very happy with the pay, and the living arrangements are quite supreme.”
“You won’t find a better beginning in all of Okago.”
Emi notices the half-eaten cucumber in the larger creature’s hands. He holds it out to her and hiccups, “Hungry?”
Queen Bee advises her, “We need the fuel.”
Her stomach growls in agreement. She grabs the cucumber and takes a salty bite.
In the next chapter, Emi will have the choice to follow the NPCs guidance and take the job or find her own way. Should she take the job?
