Nightmare of an Endless Night

Chapter Ten

I quickly absorbed my surroundings, there was a clothes hanger hung with bed sheets and curtains. They swung slightly to the light breeze in an almost peaceful manner. I walked through some of the building’s power generators to the ledge. There was the roof to another building, but this one was much lower.

When I was looking down, debating whether or not to jump, I felt a presence behind me. Turning around it was none other than Naoki. This time the sclera of both his eyes were pitch black, and where the pupil should be it was impossibly even darker.

“When did you get here Naoki-bō?” I asked him in the sweetest voice I could muster. But it was difficult; it felt like I had forgotten what my voice sounded like before I yelled at the falling man.

He looked up at me and whispered, “Here comes the end.” Then he outstretched both of his arms and pushed me with such a force that I didn’t know a boy of his structure could contain.

I yelped. The flashlight fell from my hands and landed between the open space of the buildings. I grabbed onto the ledge before it was too late and hopped down to the other building.

“Why would you do that?” I yelled, but Naoki had left. Now I was stranded on an unknown building without a light.

I sighed and cursed the boy in my mind. An odd itching sensation suddenly burned my hand. I automatically reached to scratch it, but I didn’t feel my nails digging into my skin. I looked down and saw that it was Kaiju’s hand on top of mine.

She then reached out like Naoki and pushed me down, but she held onto me when we tumbled down the building.

Before I went out I saw Kaiju shaking her head and standing up above me. On the hospital roof’s building I saw Naoki’s silhouette next to one of a dog’s. 

When my vision returned I wasn’t lying in a hospital bed, I was instead standing up on top of a different building. Looking around, despite the eerie setting, I recognized this as the apartment complex that my parents briefly lived in when I was a child. The place was almost unrecognizable now, for there were apparently many renovations made since we moved out. And there probably had to be many more when this night was over.

I looked down to see a cardboard box. It had the numbers “3–301” on a white sticker, encasing it.

A car’s light shone. I looked around to see if there was another human being around, but could not find a person or the car. But the light was pointing to a “3” written with mud on the side of another building.

I shook my head. What did Kaiju want me to associate with the number? When the wind blew a flashlight hit the side of my foot. I thankfully took it and thought about leaving the box here or not. It was a large, bulky box and it would make traveling awkward and slower. I also didn’t feel like opening it, so I just spun around on my heels and descended from the building.

The ground was muddy mixed with some sand. Orange cones and browned leaves were scattered about. I don’t remember this being here when I was younger, but many things can change in two decades.

I walked on through a destroyed playground though the sandpit remained. When I crossed the low gate guarding it a blond doll wearing a bright blue dress fell from above right at my feet. The doll’s arms and legs rolled away and its head popped off. The doll’s painted red lips and unblinking green eyes stared up at me. I pushed it aside with my foot and walked on.

I went on until I reached a set of stairs on one of the apartment buildings. I looked behind me and went up. Only going up a few cases I saw a room with the tag “3–301” next to it. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to bring the box and deliver it here…