Part 4: Chapter 4

    It was 10PM in Miyamaedaira, a residential area in Mitaka near the Soga forest.
    I wonder if Akinao is studying about now...
    Tanouchi Midori's large eyes shone like the heroine of a girl's comic book, her slender face framed by short-cropped hair. Even though summer vacation was about to end, her skin was still white and smooth. It looked like vacation was going to come to a close without her getting a single chance to get into a bathing suit.
    I doubt any other 17-year old out there has had a summer this boring.
    Midori looked out the window with glazed eyes. She had been taking her college entrance exams lightly, thinking that even if she blew them off for a little bit, she could still get into a decent private liberal arts school. There should have been at least a little bit of time to go to the pool. The reason that she didn't end up doing so was out of duty to her boyfriend, who was studying to get into Tokyo University's engineering school.
    "Maybe I should give him a call."
    As she stood up, she thought she heard something.
    "Eh?" Reflexively, Midori looked at her stereo. Often she would leave it on accidentally. But the power was off. As she tilted her head in confusion, she heard it again but much clearer--a voice echoing in her head.
    Come, come to me...
    "Who's there!?" Midori looked all around the room, a stern expression on her face. The voice sounded again in her head.
    Come, Midori...
    Midori's body naturally turned toward the direction of the voice. An inexplicable sensation of ecstacy, difficult to resist, urged her onward.
    "OK." With a glassy-eyed expression on her face, Midori nodded. As she left her room, her family was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. They all had an eerie, lifeless expression on their faces as if they were dreaming. However, this did not seem to trouble Midori in the least.
    "Come on, Midori!" Midori's younger brother, who was in the third grade, had his hand on the door as if he couldn't wait any longer.
    "Are you going to go in your sandals?" Midori's mother asked.
    "Good point." Putting on her favorite heels, Midori left the foyer after her brother.
    None of the family knew where they were going. But the voice in their heads told them there was no need for doubt.

    At about the same time, a pair of sweat arms grabbed Yukiko's waist in an apartment in Miyamaedaira.
    "Come on, not where it's bright!" Crying out in embarrasment, she pushed her boyfriend Tooru away. She had only met him two weeks ago on a trip to Okinawa. Even holding each other all day long, they never tired of it.
    I get the sense I could love him forver... thought Yukiko.
    She was a 20-year old college student. Tooru was still a high school student and a little irresponsible, but he had a very bright personality and always made her laugh with his jokes. But more than that, Yukiko liked his handsome looks.
    "OK, I'll turn out the lights." Bowing to her wishes, Tooru flicked the light switch. Then he immediately grabbed her in a kiss.
    As Yukiko murmured "I love you" in her mind, another voice echoed in her head.
    Come...
    "Did you say something, Tooru?"
    "I was going to ask you the same thing!" As the two looked at each other perplexed, the voice sounded again.
    Come....
    There was something hard to resist in that voice. The two stood up simultaneously.

    A huge line of people proceeded from Miyamaedaira toward the Soga Forest, seemingly going on forever. Those in it numbered at nearly two thousand.
    At 10:15 PM, Officer Nimura, on dispatch in Miyamae, saw the first member of the group approaching.
    What the hell is going on? Looking at the massive crowd approaching, Nimura scratched his head in confusion. Mothers leading their children. Couples walking hand-in-hand. There were even a few salarymen in the line, still in their suits and ties, looking as if they had stopped for a drink on the way home from work. Each one of them was just an ordinary citizen. But there was a strange air about the crowd that gave any onlooker the shivers.
    "It doesn't look like they're here for some sort of event..."
    Watching the procession, Nimura realized that not a single person in it was speaking. Feeling that there was just something not right about this, Nimura contacted the station and asked them what to do.
    But the response he got was less than helpful.
    "At this time of year they're probably going to a Bon dance or something. Don't bother the station with trifling matters like this!"
    Irritated at the dispatcher, Nimura grabbed the arm of a salaryman at the end of the procession and spoke to him.
    "Excuse me! Where is everyone going at this time of night?"
    But the man did not respond.
    Nimura immediately realized that he was not being deliberately ignored. The man's glazed-over eyes looked forward without focus, and it was as if he did not even notice the police officer next to him.
    Nimura spoke to the boy in front of the salaryman, who appeared to be a student. But there was no response from him either. The group simply proceeded to walk forward like a pack of lemmings. After a few moments of indecision, Nimura decided to join the end of the line.
    He walked for maybe a little less than an hour. Residences became more and more sparse, and as the street lamps became further and further spaced apart, a deep fog enveloped the unusual procession. The fervor in the mob's eyes grew ever more insane.
    "They're heading to the Soga Forest...?"
    A bizarre stench assaulted Nimura's nostrils. It was like a musky, sort of rotten smell. Unconsciously Nimura gripped his police baton and stopped walking. Two meters ahead in a fog too thick to see through, the footsteps of the people became ever more distant.
    Gradually, Nimura was overtaken by a creeping terror. When he finally started walking again, it might have been less because of his duty as a police officer and more that he did not want to be left all alone in the middle of the fog. Stumbling and tripping, Nimura ran ahead, several times nearly running into huge larch trees.
    Soon the fog cleared ever so slightly. And in contrast, the strange smell became stronger. Right as he caught up to the end of the line, Nimura let out a sigh of relief and hid in the shadows of a large tree as he watched the people start to form a large circle. From somewhere in the middle of the circle, he heard the words of an incantation being chanted like a sutra. As the the voice became audibly louder, the crowd of people prostrated themselves on the ground.
    When Nimura saw for the first time what was in the center of the ring of people, he had to use all his resolve to suppress a cry. A completely naked girl was tied up on a T-shaped Egyptian-style cross, which glowed with a dull silver light.
    Is she a doll?
    Her beauty seemed so perfect, that was the first thought that popped into Nimura's head. But her face, which every so often twisted in contortions of pain, gave lie to the fact that she was indeed a real human. The girl was encased in a veil of a clear, jelly-like substance. Nimura observed that the veil occasionally writhed like a living creature.
    Is this for real? Are they shooting a movie here or something?
    Nimura knew all too well that he was trying to make excuses to try and hold the terror at bay. His entire body was rooted to the spot as if he was frozen. The sound of his breath assaulted his ears, almost sounding deafeningly loud.
    What the heck is going on...?
    How long had he been waiting there? An hour?
    As it looked like the jelly veil rippled around the girl's head, two red lights started flickering in it, almost as if ornamenting her hair. Strapped to the cross, the girl writhed her head around. Nimura realized that she was stuck inside the body of some sort of mysterious creature that could only be described as a gigantic amoeba.
    And that otherworldly creature was expanding rapidly. The two red points of light glowed brighter and brighter, before becoming two demonic eyes that darted over the area, glaring. The gelatinous substance had already engulfed the entire cross the girl was tied too, and was still getting bigger.
    At that moment, Nimura noticed a man clad in a black robe standing behind the cross. Even from a distance, the lines on his face clearly delineated the features of a foreigner. The strange sutra-like incantation that he had been hearing was coming from this man.
    All of a sudden, the incantation stopped. Silently, the man raised his right hand to the heavens. And as if on queue, the innermost ring of people in the circle stood up, tore off their clothes, threw them aside, and started advancing toward the cross in the middle. The amoeba pulsated, and engulfed their naked bodies. At that moment, their expressions were those of pure ecstacy.
    The ring started to fall apart. Irritated that disrobing was taking so long, they all jockeyed to be first to be absorbed into this otherworldly creature's veil--young and old, man and woman. The girl tied to the cross had already become completely obscured by the mob. People climbed over one another, and Nimura thought he heard the dull sound of bones breaking. As all the people that had made up the ring appeared to transform into a massive mountain of bodies, lights ran through the membrane of the amoeba.
    A low, rumbling roar that sounded as if it sprung from the very depths of the earth sounded, severing the last bare thread of Nimura's sanity. All the strength flowed out of his legs, and he fell to the ground on his backside; not being able to stand even if he tried, Nimura let out an incomprehensible wail as he started desperately crawling along ground, trying with all his might to get away as soon as possible.