Part 21: "Hospital Basement"

Harry is a very supportive kinda guy so...

A wins!


Chapter 18 "Hospital Basement"



"And then...?"

Lisa looks down a bit and then continues to speak.

"Hey, Harry, do you know a man called Kaufmann?"

The image of the pudgy man I had met several times came to mind.

"Yeah...I have met him a few times. I believe he is a doctor at this hospital."

Lisa raised her head in surprise, and her eyes opened wide.
And then she let out a long sigh.

"Yes...
For a long time I that there was something strange about it...
Lately especially that..."

I adjusted my sitting position and looked at Lisa as if I could see
through her.

"Especially?"

"I am working as his assistant at this hospital.
As for what is in any room, I should know better than him, I must know better.

But when I learned that this hospital had a basement by strange chance,
he suddenly got angry.
He told me to never go near there...
I was scared, so I never brought that subject up again.

But then he changed.
It wasn't just the way he treated me, but he was also irritated with everyone
else, and no one wanted to go near him.
That was around last summer."

I quietly listen to Lisa's story.

"After that he began saying things that did not make a lot of sense.
Things like "This is the end of this world" and "Descent" and so on...
Stuff that sounded like weird religious terms...

"That all humans would disappear from the world and only he would survive..."
"That the landscapes seen by our eyes were all false," he said nothing but
things like that...

And then...he killed himself."

I was stunned.
"...Suicide?"

"Yes...he set himself on fire...
The body was unidentifiable."

I pressed my hands down on my trembling legs.

"That...that's impossible!
I just met Kaufmann and spoke with him not long ago.
Just who was that man?"

Lisa looks amazed and smiles wryly while shaking her head from side to side.

"It was Kaufmann.
Doctor Michael Kaufmann...
I guess he didn't die after all.
There were too many mysteries surrounding his death, and even the
police were troubled by it.
With no real proof they concluded that it was suicide."

I took a deep breath...

"Kaufmann was alive... Maybe he switched the bodies."

"I don't know...
But people have come forth that say that they have seen him recently.
On top of that...
They said it was inside this hospital."

I was at a loss for words.

"Don't tell me... that even you have had contact with him..."

I recall my conversation with him.
A dream?
No, I don't think that was a dream.
"So...he is in the basement?"

"I thought that as well.
So I fearfully when down to the basement.
But after moving just a bit forward I turned back.
Just thinking about him being alive in that darkness was too dreadful..."
As Lisa said this a tear rolled down her cheek.

I placed my hands on Lisa's shoulders, and made up my mind.
"Like I have told you before...I am looking for my daughter, Cheryl.
I don't know who this Kaufmann guy really is, but does he know something
about the change in this town?"

Lisa doesn't answer.

"Lisa, come with me to the basement.
That might be where Cheryl is being held.
Even if Cheryl is not there if we find Kaufmann then we might be able to talk
to him."

Lisa thought for a bit and slightly nodded.

"...Ok, let's go then."


Using the flashlight to light our way Lisa and I walked downstairs and headed
to the storehouse in the basement.
We entered the hidden room in the back of the storehouse and opened the heavy
iron grate in the center. Lisa headed in first and I followed behind her.

"It's cold..."
Lisa mumbles to herself.

It seemed as if we had ended up lost in a giant refrigerator.
I couldn't imagine that a person could live down here.
I thought about that again.

If Cheryl is being held down here...
My body trembled.

We finally reached the end of the passage.
A solid-looking metal door towers in front of us.

"I have never gone any farther than this."

Lisa's voice was shaking as she spoke.

Lisa and I looked at each other and lightly nodded, then I placed my hand
on the handle of the door.
The skin on the palm of my hand was so frozen by the cold metal that I
thought that my hand would get stuck to the handle.
Lisa took a step back. I looked at the door, put my weight into hands
and opened the door open with one pull.

The door opened with a 'thunk'.
Beyond it a passage no different than the one we had just followed extended.

It is completely pitch black in there, and without my flashlight it seems
that it would be utterly impossible to continue forward.
I cannot understand why someone made this space so deep in the hospital
basement.

"Look!"

Lisa said.

"Lisa...? What's wrong?"

"Wait a minute Harry... There is something drawn on the wall."


I stopped and shined the flashlight on the wall that Lisa was pointing at.

"Th...this is..."
A familiar crest was drawn there.

"Does...this mean something?"

"Lisa...since you have not left the hospital you wouldn't know, but this crest
has been drawn all throughout this town...
Have you not seen it before?"

Lisa looked surprised and muttered.

"...Nope..."

That crest was also drawn on the floor.
Upon closer inspection I found that the mark had been inscribed in places
all throughout this passage.

The mark of Samael...
I recall that that is what Dahlia called it.
And then my body trembled...

"Alessa...
Is Alessa here?
In this area..."

What did you just say...

"Eh"
For an instant we looked each other in the faint light that was lighting
the darkness.

"What...what did you just say?"

"I said, Is Alessa here?"

Lisa's face suddenly twisted in anger.

"Why do you know about her? No one should have told you!"

I was thrown off balance by Lisa's sudden rage.
"I saw her several times before I met you.
She called Dahlia "Mama"...
Are those two mother and daughter?"

Lisa looked down and her shoulders shook with anger.
I had no idea why.

"...What in the world
Just what is wrong with you?"

"I...
can no longer trust anyone..."

"Lisa...?"

"I only did as I was told.
Like a true believer obedient to the scripture, I continued even
though I lost everything."

"What are you talking about?"

"However, after all this...
There is no such thing as god.
There are only ugly humans, ruled by desire!"

Lisa said that and then forcefully pounded on the wall.

"So you know something. Won't you tell me please, Lisa?"

Lisa smiles a bit, and then a creepy expression appears on her face.

"You too...
You are the same as them aren't you?
Thinking that you know everything...
Even now..."

"Here, look at this."

Lisa suspiciously snatches Alessa's diary from me.


"April 15"

From today this will be my new diary.
Lisa secretly gave this to me as a present.
And it means that soon I should be able to take my bandages off.

A bird landed on a branch of the tree outside my window.
I gazed at it for a bit.
Seeing those beautiful colors I thought again that it must be spring.

I wish I could play outside like the other children...

It is now afternoon, and they have come again.
I pretended to be asleep, and it looks like they did not notice.

They talk quietly as not to be heard outside my room. I do not understand
the meaning of what they discussed.
They never talk in this room, I thought.

Lisa raises her head in surprise and I ask her a question.

""They"...do you mean the ones written about in there?"

"Where on earth did you get this?"

"In Alessa's room."

"So she kept a diary. She even wrote about me..."

Lisa smiled a bit.

"Anyway...
Are "they" the people that Alessa wrote about in there?
Lisa?
Please tell me what you know."


Before I finish talking Lisa shakes her head back and forth.

"It's fine.
I was used by that man. I know that.
Maybe you are in cahoots with him, or maybe you were used as well. I don't
care.

Now that I know I will have my revenge.
I continued to believe that she was really Alessa...
I never thought that even that was a lie."

"Used
or not...
I don't know what you're talking about..."

And then Lisa's face twisted in amazement.

"No...don't come...!
I only did what I was told!"

Lisa's sight was fixed on someone behind me.
"Lisa...?"

"Why have you come for me?
Shouldn't you be going after someone else!
You have no reason to have a grudge against me!"

I timidly turned around.

...And at that moment...

My flashlight went out and the area was wrapped in absolute darkness.
Something is here

"KYAAA!"

The scream echoed off the concrete walls...
There is no mistaking it, it was Lisa's.

Something is here.
I have not heard Lisa since she screamed, but I can hear a low howling and
an unpleasant sound that sounds like something crunching on something. It
is coming from somewhere very close to me.

I...

A ) move toward the direction that the sound is coming from.

B ) immediately get away.


here is something to make up for the lack of images...