Dad Morishige

Strange

Akamine looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face after I asked the question.

"Why? Is that what his friend's name was?"

I simply nodded my head and stared at her intently. Her normally snow colored face changed color. I knew what it meant, but the reason behind it confused me.

Akamine was a good friend of mine. We always worked together... and she didn't judge me when I told her about my idea. When I finally succeeded, I could tell she was excited for me. Her face lit up and she clenched her right fist. I'll be honest: I had no idea what she was doing.

"Come on, Morishige! How old are you?"

"Not that old."

"Fist bump me, then!"

I hesitated, but did as she told me...

Now, I relied on her to perform the ritual again. It wouldn't be difficult, now that I knew what to expect. The hardest part would be finding something near and dear to Suzumoto...

An idea suddenly struck me, and I felt a wide grin emerge on my face.

"Akamine, this may be a bit of a stretch... but could we use Sakutaro's student ID to bring Suzumoto here? They were extremely close."

Akamine beamed at me, and started bouncing on the balls of her feet. She seemed to like the idea after all.

"That's great, Morishige! It should work!"

She grabbed the metal rods, and we repeated the process. The only difference was the item we used. When we were done, I saw another corpse... but it wasn't a typical skeleton like Sakutaro.

It was meat like, and I nearly threw up.

"God... that's awful..."

Akamine nodded and turned away so she didn't have to look at Suzumoto's... body.

"Morishige, where's your... formula?"

Shoot. I left it at home. This wasn't good at all. We couldn't just leave their corpses unattended in front of a hospital.

"Akamine..."

She raised a finger to me, and smiled a little.

"You know... You don't have to call me that."

"Wait, you want me to call you Fukumi?"

She smiled even more and nodded.

"Don't worry, Morishige. I'll stay here with the bodies. You left it at home, didn't you?"

She always understood me, and what I was thinking before I even made any visual cues. I don't know how she did it. Maybe she was psychic, too.

"I did. And... Seishirou."

"You're kidding? But you're a doctor. That--"

"I don't mind. I insist. Call me Seishirou."

She nodded again, but didn't say anything this time around. I waved before running off towards my house.

When I got there, the atmosphere felt different. Something was wrong, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Maybe Kumiko knew what was going on?

"Kumiko? Are you here?"

I walked around the house, frantically searching for my wife, but to no avail. The only thing I found was a note taped to our bedroom door. It was folded up, and it simply said "Morishige" on the outside.

"Kumiko?! This... is this another one of your jokes?! I'm not laughing!"

No response.

I sighed and took the note off of the door, and unfolded it. When I read it, I froze in place. It shook me... it was horrifying.

I've taken your wife... and her life. Now you're all alone.