Plain: Book 2

To Face the Dark

"Lin," Naru snapped.

But it was Takigawa who had reacted, taking a wad of cloth from his sleeves and stuffing it into her mouth. The veins in her neck bulged with the force of her scream and her eyes popped.

My knees had buckled together. "N-Naru...it's-it's her."

"You recognize those words?"

"Yes...the worms...in my gut, deep in me..."

"Stop," said Ayako, pushing down on my shoulders. "Don't think about it Mai."

I ignored her. "Naru, what's going on? Why is she in Masako? Can't you explain even a little while we wait for John?"

He hesitated, his own dark eyes glinting not unlike Masako's, but after meeting mine for but a glance he folded his arms.

"The worms are probably her symbol, not just for innards, but for the penis. Mary Pommel, who was submitted to the hospital for a blow to the head that had knocked her unconscious, had been born with what we now know as a high-functioning autism, which explains why she has favored this basement so much. With all those people going through upstairs, the lack of stimuli here would have been comforting. She had been brought here to calm her fits when she was alive, for after the blow, her frontal lobe was damaged and her conditioned far worsened. But what truly made this girl before you was how she was raised. Mental conditions can make or break a person depending on how they are raised, and this girl, well...rape does interesting things to a girl. Sexual intercourse reaches us on all levels, and approached violently can usually have two outcomes," he put down his arms and slid his foot to the side to steady himself. Not an inch of him shook. "She either gains extreme distrust in men and general intimacy...or she becomes a nymphophiliac. Combine that with her already existing mental condition and the blow—"

The cloth fell loose with a string of spittle. "VIRGIN!!"

As Takigawa and Lin worked together to wrestle the cloth back into Masako's mouth, Naru turned back to me, grim and cold.

"I know you pity her, Mai," he said softly. "But I can guarantee that she hates you with every fiber of what's left of her soul after she forced herself against so many wards."

"Wh-why?" I asked.

"Well, you see, it wasn't the nine-cuts that protected Masako that time. Yes, this girl was initially prone to possess you two first because you were both mediums, but also because you both appeared to be the opposite of what she was: a virgin, which, as you can tell..."

"Wait, hold on," Ayako had caught on. "Why didn't she ever try attacking me?"

Naru gave her a droll stare and just continued. "Mai, the reason she targeted you and attacked you isn't because you're a medium and the only one she could reach. It was because you are the only female virgin, and a well-loved one at that. You are salt to her wounds. It only took her a moment to realize Masako was not, so she focused all her attention on you."

"But...but then why did she—she wanted to be the wall, how is being a nympho have to do with—"

"You are hearing her from the wrong perspective. I wrote down your quotes, word for word. She didn't want to be small, she didn't want to be a wall. It was what she thought she had become—what she was both afraid of and needed. Recall the words 'no breasts, no hips, no mouth, no nose,' most of those body parts have sexual connotations. The symbolic attack on your mind to make you experience layers of violent rape, the biting of your wrists, the direct attempts to destroy your well-being and mental constitution—she hates you, Mai. You are what she could never be. You are whole, loved, and pure. She," he looked back at Masako, coldness melting to grimness. "Is not. Even in death, as she was orphaned and friendless."