… The bone in my nape creaks.
Is the coldness that’s making me tremble coming from outside or inside my body?
Leaving what can’t be distinguished aside, Shiki keeps walking.
There’s no sign of people at the Fujiyoh building.
It’s two in the morning. Only the white light illuminates the hallway of the mansion. The cream-colored walls are lightened up by the light and I could see to the end of the hallway. The artificial light which takes away the darkness looks too artificial that it rather looks scary.
Passing by the card checker at the entrance, I enter the elevator.
It’s empty inside. The back of the elevator has a mirror attached, and it is made so that the rider could see themselves. Inside the mirror is a person wearing a black leather jacket over light blue kimono, with lazy looking eyes. Those eyes look like they care about nothing.
Shiki looks at the figure in the mirror, and pushes the button that says “R”. With a small start-up sound, the world around Shiki rises. The machine-powered box will reach the top floor in a matter of seconds.
It is a closed up room for the time being. Nothing occuring outside right now concerns Shiki, and it is impossible to be concerned with the outside world. That feeling seeps into the supposedly empty mind. This small box is the only world I’m supposed to feel right now.
The door opens without a sound. What’s outside is a totally different world, a world of darkness.
After getting out to the room which only contains the door leading to the rooftop, the elevator leaves Shiki and goes back down to the first floor. There are no lights, and the surrounding is painfully dark.
Going across the small room, Shiki opens the door leading to the rooftop.
… The black darkness turns into a faint darkness.
The vision fills up with the view of the city.
The rooftop of the Fukiyoh building is a plain one. The floor is made of flat concrete, and there is a fence that surrounds the whole rooftop. There is only a water tower on top the room Shiki was in, and there is nothing else in particular. The rooftop itself is a plain one. But the view from it is what is out of this world.
The view of the night town from this building that is at least ten stories higher than the surroundings feels more lonely than beautiful. It feels like you’re on top a tall ladder looking down onto the world. The dark, bottom of the sea-like view is certainly beautiful. The lights here and there are like the lights of the deep-sea fishes.
If my view right now is the whole world, then the world right now is indeed sleeping. Probably forever, but unfortunately temporary. The quietness tightens my heart more than any coldness, and it is rather painful…
The coldness in the night sky is standing out as much as the coldness below. If the town is the deep sea, then the sky is just pure darkness. In the darkness, stars glitter like jewels. The moon is a hole. It only looks like a large hole in a big black canvas called the night sky. So that thing is really not a mirror of the sun, but rather a view of the other side… That’s what I heard at the house of the Ryohgi. According to them, the moon is a gate to another world.
The moon from ancient times has carried magic, women, and death. And with that moon behind it, a human form is floating…
… With eight girls flying around it.