Book 5 Chapter 2
Part 1
It was a good thing I had my waterproof smartphone. Without Maxwell, we may not have been able to safely leave the blast furnace, not to mention avoiding the workers while we did so.
Since I was with Himatsuri-san, I naturally returned to that high-rise apartment building where my mom, Magatsu Taori, lived.
But late at night after midnight, a vampire visited at the 8th floor window.
“Satooori-kun.”
“Erika.”
“You need a serious lecturing, so prepare yourself.”
When she said that, I could only seat myself in front of my sister who had gorgeous blonde ringlet curls. That vampire sister was part of the nocturnal group, so she should have been at school at this time. That meant she had skipped school to pay me a visit, so I couldn’t just refuse her.
She must have been quite angry and unable to control her emotions because she put her hands on the hips of her black gothic lolita dress, looked down on me, rudely pointed right at my nose over and over, and finally hugged me for some reason.
But.
“Ayumi-chan was in quite a panic after seeing you disappear, so you need to go speak with her later.”
…Telling my family I was safe was embarrassing, but I had to do it.
“Since Ayumi wasn’t taken with me, it looks like only the people targeted by that giant shark, the Leviathan, are dragged into the glowing ocean. That’s a relief at least.”
“…But this doesn’t really make sense.”
“You thought so too?”
“Yes. If the Leviathan is trying to attack mom over the seven deadly sins stuff, then it should have targeted Archenemy Lilith first and foremost. Even if it specializes in trickery or harassment, it’s hard to imagine why it would target you but overlook Ayumi-chan. You’re both mom’s family after all.”
…That was right.
If the Leviathan’s goal was to take away the people important to my stepmom, it would have taken Ayumi as well. And it would have no reason to continue targeting Himatsuri Asami.
“This might have nothing to do with the seven deadly sins. Could there be some other reason why it would attack just the humans of Kukyou City like Himatsuri-san and me?”
“Come to think of it, mom, Ayumi-chan, and I are all Archenemies. …It could also be that the power to drag people into that lost sea only works on humans.”
In that case, the harassment theory returned. It might want to target Amatsu Yurina, aka Archenemy Lilith, but could not. And the same was true of a vampire like Erika and a zombie like Ayumi. That was why it targeted a close relative like me who was a pure human or other people who lived in the same city as her.
The way I kept shifting from one theory to another showed how little confidence I had, but it was also because this was very important and I could not let myself settle on an answer to easily. I made a mental note of this meaningful blank in my knowledge.
“So what are you going to do now, Satori-kun?”
Erika asked that fundamental question while sitting on the bed next to me. And I knew she was not asking about where I would spend the next night.
“If you fall into that lost sea when you contact water, it seems to me you could stop it by tying a rope around your waist and typing the other end to some sturdy piece of furniture like a bed or dresser.”
“I considered that.” I sighed. “But I don’t know the exact conditions for what is carried over to the other side. If the furniture or column is dragged down with me, it would only weigh me down. That would make it hard to escape the Leviathan, but it would also prevent me from getting above the water if I started in a flooded area. I’ve already experienced a start from the surface, but this would be even worse.”
“I see.”
I of course only had one life. No matter what absurd challenge awaited me, it was all over if I died. I would not last if I attempted a trial and error method in that extreme environment. And we had so little data on that glowing hell that it would be difficult for Maxwell to put together a simulation.
“I also considered staying in a small room with no water. I would of course need drinking water in a sealed container with a straw opening.”
“Right.”
“But the problem is that the Leviathan is targeting me for some reason. This isn’t random. So if I find some way of escaping from that hell, I doubt it will just sit idly by.”
“But I thought the Leviathan could only harm you after pulling you into that lost sea?”
“Have you forgotten, Erika? It can pull other people in there as well.”
“Oh. And in that case…”
“It might use other people to rob us of any safety we find in reality. I haven’t seen that giant shark speak, but it could probably carve writing across a building wall if it wanted to.”
We were up against an Archenemy.
Whatever it looked like, I had to assume it had at least human level intelligence. Whether it also had enough of a conscience to communicate properly was a different matter.
High intelligence did not always lead to a spirit of mercy and benevolence. In fact, animals that – just like humans – harmed others for fun instead of food or defense were much rarer than ones that would commit suicide to protect the food cycle of their group.
“You mean it could make a threat like, ‘Splash water on Amatsu Satori to bring him to me. Otherwise I will continue targeting you day after day and night after night.’?”
“Just like me, they only have one life and can’t use trial and error tactics. The Leviathan might intend to kill them all anyway, but the other participants would have no way of knowing that. Most of them probably wouldn’t know who ‘Amatsu Satori’ is, but if it keeps making the demand and killing them, it will eventually come across someone who knows who I am. This is all happening in the one city, after all.”
With those methods, it didn’t particularly matter if I had water near me or not. Some malicious person could bring the water to me.
And I wanted to avoid a situation where people were being indiscriminately killed in order to harm me.
As I had thought before, just not touching water would be best. But I was afraid of never considering anything beyond that. I also had to think of a way to survive if I did run across that giant shark.
I had started at my mom’s elevated apartment and the ground level coastal container yard, so I knew just how much the starting point could change things. If I visited the hardware store and some discount stores, I would probably see a treasure trove I had not noticed the day before.
Part 2
And another thing.
“Hi.”
“Himatsuri-san.”
On Erika’s insistence, I went to school for the day, so it was afterschool. We had agreed to meet in front of a large discount store in the harbor sightseeing district’s shopping area, so I saw Himatsuri Asami-san’s incredibly gal-ish hair and champagne-colored dress.
We entered together and she asked me a question.
“So how are we going to attack this problem?”
Carrying the shopping basket seemed to be my job by default. She had a natural swagger to her walk and I could just hear her saying she refused to carry anything heavier than a handbag. She seemed like the type to only have cards in her wallet.
“Looking back, I think we were pretty passive last time.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re moving between two different areas, but we were too hesitant to mess with things on the other side. It’s not like anyone’s going to get mad at us if we smash and destroy things there.”
That hesitation may have come from it looking just like the city we lived in. But the real scenery did not change even when some buildings collapsed in that glowing ocean. The industrial complex had received the double punch of the flooding and the flames, but there was nothing in the news back in reality. We were worried about that world for nothing.
Himatsuri-san turned to the side to slip through the gap between shelves of makeup and candy that stuck out a fair bit. Her shapely breasts nearly bumped into the products as she spoke up like she had just remembered something.
“Come to think of it, we barely made it last time. Especially with that smokestack door at the end! We would’ve been screwed if kicking it down hadn’t worked!!”
“Yes, which reminds me.”
I wanted a crowbar or some other item that would use leverage to break open most any door. …Carrying around an actual crowbar would not end well if we were questioned by the police, so I wanted something else that could accomplish the same thing.
“We also need some way of remaining buoyant. We can’t rely on floating objects like last time, so we need something on our person. Of course, since we’re up against a giant shark, it would be best to not get in or even approach the water.”
“Are you planning to walk around with a float or rubber boat? That’s going to affect your everyday life.”
“I have an idea that might work. Only might though.”
The discount store had most everything we needed, but the atmosphere changed when we approached the area with hardware tools and anti-crime goods. Instead of an area for a happy family, it felt more like a place for muscular men to secure the materials for some secret plan.
“A life jacket?”
Himatsuri-san sounded confused by what I reached for.
“They’ve started selling them like normal to prevent accidents when playing in rivers. Plus, this is Kukyou City. We specialize in disaster prevention.”
The size did not really matter, but it would have been weird to buy children’s ones for a high school boy and college(?) girl. I chose one that fit my body type.
Maxwell displayed a speech bubble on my smartphone screen.
“They work the same as a car’s airbag. Pull on the string and several chemicals mix together to instantly produce nitrogen gas and inflate the balloon.”
“Now we don’t have to walk around with a float or rubber boat. It only takes up the same space as a bento box. And even if we don’t actually wear the life jackets, taking them apart and sticking the balloon portion in our bags should give us buoyancy.”
It would of course be best to wear one under our clothes, but that would stand out when walking around town or attending school. It was all about compromise.
“What are we going to do about a crowbar? We can’t just carry one of those around.”
“Just like lock-picking tools, you can’t just walk around with something used to open locked doors. Unless you’re a professional locksmith, you’ll be arrested.”
I kind of missed Vegas where you could walk around with a multi-tool knife or even a handgun.
Simply checking the tools corner would not help here. We instead visited the personal grooming section where Himatsuri-san and all her brand name attire fit right in.
“Umm. Nail clippers with a nail file?”
Those things would indeed be difficult to use in place of a crowbar. But we needed to change our viewpoint.
“What we’re looking for in a crowbar is the solid metal body and the L-shape that lets us use leverage. But if that’s all we need, we don’t need to risk walking around with one of those. A bridge railing, a sliding window frame, an electronic sign’s frame. Steel parts bent at a right angle are everywhere. We don’t have to worry about breaking things over there, so if we need something, we can just remove the screws and borrow it.”
“I see. But then wouldn’t we want a screwdriver?”
“Just like a lock pick, you can get in trouble for carrying those around without a good reason. Maxwell, will this product work?”
“Sure. The maker’s design document says the stainless steel nail file is made from a single piece of metal with the rubber grip attached afterwards. Remove the grip and the thinner portion below should function as a flathead screwdriver.”
Needless to say, a flathead screwdriver could remove either a flathead or Phillips screw. The size of the screw would also matter, but we wanted a sturdy piece of metal we could use as a crowbar. We wouldn’t need to remove extremely small screws, so we only had to think about middle and large sizes.
“The nail clippers can work as pliers. It’s the same concept.”
“It would be somewhat difficult, but you can likely grab the screw or bolt and turn it with that,” said Maxwell.
It was roundabout, but that was why it functioned as camouflage. I wanted to avoid letting my fear of the glowing ocean make me screw up in reality and have the police or a teacher keep me from acting. Because it might be more than just the shark who was working against us.
“But it looks like we really don’t have a way of defeating that giant shark,” said Himatsuri-san. “I just hope it doesn’t learn and figure out how to respond to each of our methods.”
“About that…”
I was hesitant to speak up because a lot of this was unknown to me as well.
“We assumed we couldn’t defeat the Leviathan because a hunting rifle at close range wouldn’t be enough to break through its thick muscles and fat and because we can’t get our hands on greater firepower here in Japan. That was the assumption.”
“And?”
“But I noticed something during the industrial complex battle yesterday. If we can destroy that glowing ocean with reckless abandon, then can’t we throw out that assumption? They didn’t actually work, but the exploding tanks and collapsing smokestack had to be more destructive than a hunting rifle.”
“Ah.”
“We can’t walk around with a bazooka or drive a tank around. But since the glowing ocean is based on reality, we can use anything found in the real Kukyou City.”
“You mean we might be able to win? Yes, that’s right! We could blow up a tanker truck or break off the top of a mountain transmission tower and send that high-voltage current into the flooded area!!”
“Let’s try one thing at a time. That shark is going to force us there either way, right?”
It would be difficult to blow up a tanker truck or destroy a transmission tower right away. But there were a few simpler methods that would still be fatal to marine life.
I only had so much allowance money, so I had to go with what I could afford.
“Where are you going?” asked Himatsuri-san.
“The appliances section that prioritizes low prices over quality.”
“What are you looking for?”
I had a vision, so I immediately answered her.
“An old model of washing machine.”
Part 3
We didn’t know when the Leviathan would challenge me to today’s round, so we wanted speed.
The buildings and objects in the real Kukyou City would be present in that sunken world.
“All this is pretty heavy once you gather it together…”
It was probably unusual for someone to be aware of its weight.
I set down the sack on the edge of the road and took a break. It was camouflaged among the sandbags meant for frozen roads in the winter, so no one was going to move it.
While that giant shark was frightening, I couldn’t exactly set up a bunch of plastic explosives around the city. The safest option was something entirely useless in reality but dangerous in that demon lord’s ocean.
But that was easier said than done.
The battlefield was the entire city and no one knew where the “today’s exit” goal would be. I might be able to choose the starting point by diving into that blue hell through some kind of water, but I could not rely on guesswork since the route I would have to take depended on the goal’s location.
That meant I had to set up those sacks all across the city.
We used Maxwell’s container yard as a work area. We prepared a giant pile of those sacks, loaded them one by one on my collapsible bike, and distributed them around the city.
Himatsuri-san was wearing a mask and goggles while mass-producing the sacks, so the distribution was my job.
Maxwell used a social media speech bubble to speak from the smartphone I had attached to my collapsible bike’s GPS holder.
“Couldn’t you increase your work efficiency by asking for Miss Ayumi, Miss Erika, and the Class Rep neighbor’s help?”
“That could draw the Leviathan’s attention to them and I’m not getting them registered as participants. Everyone around me is way too kind, so they would probably run headlong into trouble if I told them.”
That also meant I couldn’t ask for help from Itou Helen the Witch or Muramatsu Yukie the Dark Elf. They had extraordinary powers that could not be explained with modern science, but they would have difficulty in a brawl against a 30m shark in a sunken city.
Ayumi and Erika had been helpless against our stepmom, who was Lilith, a true demon lord. And the Leviathan was apparently on the same level as her. This was on a different stage. Being an Archenemy was not enough to ensure someone’s safety here.
“All I’m doing is travel back and forth between the city and the container yard. I can handle that myself. It’s not worth dragging other people into this mess.”
“Sure. If that is your decision. But that does not mean the others will accept it.”
“I’m aware of that. Once this is all over, I’ll apologize for leaving them in the dark.”
Kukyou City had a wide variety of locations: from the coast to the dam in the mountains. Carrying the sacks out one by one and then making a U-turn back to the container yard took hours.
The distribution was far from even and the sun had long since set by the time I had positioned a decent amount of them. It was so late a high schooler would get in trouble for still being at the arcade or karaoke box.
“Warning: Continue any longer and the patrolling police officers will not overlook you. What you are doing is harmless, but they will order the sacks removed if they are discovered. You should avoid any noticeable actions.”
“Understood, Maxwell. We can finish this up tomorrow.”
I called Himatsuri-san and told her it was time to head back home.
“…You’re talking to a young woman waiting alone in a dark container yard, but you’re not being a man and offering to accompany me home? Ohhhh, I see.”
“Oh, hell. Fine then!!”
That gave me my final job for the day. I whipped my exhausted body into motion and followed Maxwell’s navigation to the container yard.
The city was the same as always.
Even this late, groups of boys and girls younger than me were walking through the shopping district. The people entering the train station without paying any attention to their surroundings were likely salarymen with families. Despite the signs stating the local regulation against calling for customers, there was almost always a young man next to the crosswalks wearing an izakaya apron, spinning a menu around on his finger, and somewhat sternly calling out to people. The convenience stores and gyudon restaurants were so unchanged they made me think they would keep running even after the destruction of the human race.
It was late at night, so the date would be changing soon.
…And yet we still hadn’t been attacked. Would it not happen today? Did we have an advantage if we made sure to be careful about water?
If I did not pay attention to the weather forecast, I could be caught off guard by the rain like before.
“Maxwell.”
“Sure.”
“…How did your research go? Y’know, looking for victims of a giant shark.”
“No. I have not made a report because I have not found anything worth reporting. I have gone back ten years in the electronic versions of the local newspaper, but there are no mentions of strange corpses that sound related to this. I am constantly intercepting the radio transmissions from the police and firefighters, but I have found nothing promising. The first reports from the scene cannot be altered, so it does not seem the incidents are merely being suppressed by some kind of pressure.”
“That makes it sound like the victims go missing…”
“Sure. On a national scale, more than 80,000 missing people are reported to the police every year. Although most are voluntary disappearances such as someone skipping town in the night or running away from home, so they are not considered criminal in nature. Thus, simply searching for missing people would not be enough to narrow it down.” Maxwell paused for just a moment. “However, when looking just at Kukyou City, the number of missing persons reports has increased starting a month ago. The Bright Cross was still active back then, so they are not necessarily all due to the Leviathan, but I have found several cases with interesting witness reports.”
“Such as?”
“That the missing person was oddly afraid of water before they went missing. That they were found soaking wet. That they would mysteriously disappear and then reappear somewhere else entirely. And so on.”
…All of those matched Himatsuri-san and my situation.
And that was just what had been reported to the police. There had to have been more people who never told anyone and tried to bear with it themselves.
All of my effort had gone into fighting the Bright Cross.
I hadn’t noticed the SOSs of these people living in the same city as me.
What if?
If I had also been involved in the Leviathan incident back then, would I have been able to defeat that blue bunny girl, Valkyrie Karen? Could I still have rejected the Bright Cross’s ideas by proclaiming I would free all Archenemies from that rule of fear?
“There’s no point in thinking about that…”
Even if the Bright Cross had offered their help in defeating the Leviathan in exchange for allowing the Colosseum to continue, I couldn’t have agreed. That would not have been an option regardless.
Once I arrived in the deserted container yard which looked perfect for some kind of late-night deal, Himatsuri-san noticed me while leaning against Maxwell’s container and doing her nails. She cheerfully waved one of those shiny slender hands.
“So you finally got here, video game generation boy.”
“Please don’t throw me into a category too broad to be meaningful. It’s not like I’ve ever had a chance to play a table arcade game.”
That reminded me that the hot spring inn in the mountains was rumored to still have a legendary alien invasion shooting game along with its ping pong tables and massage chairs, but I had no idea if that was true.
“Well, it doesn’t really matter.”
With a groan of effort that made her sound a bit like an old lady, the cabaret girl sat down on the collapsible bike’s cargo rack. Was she friendly and boyish, elegant and classy, or an old lady? It was hard to tell with her. Instead of solidly straddling the luggage rack like Ayumi, she sat sideways with her legs together. That much matched her apparent wealthy upbringing.
“Driver, take me to Taori-san’s apartment. Wow, my hair is soaked with sweat and the sea breeze. My pride won’t let me work any more!”
“I wasn’t aware freeloaders had any pride.”
Himatsuri-san did not seem to care as she wrapped her slender arms around my waist and clung tightly to my back. She made it look like her sitting in the back was the default.
And she apparently did not care about another aspect of this because I was just a kid: I-I can feel two soft masses on my back! And don’t fidget those delicate-looking hands around below my navel!! H-hwah. What is this sweet smell? It isn’t like the Class Rep’s shampoo or Erika’s perfume. It seems oddly unhealthy and immoral. It must be some kind of luxury makeup or something!!!!!!
She probably only thought of it like holding onto a body pillow or a giant cushion because she did not hesitate to rest her cheek against me and lean her body weight on me.
“Hm? Your heart is already pounding? Are you out of breath already, indoor boy?”
“I have my reasons!”
“Well, you have been pedaling this bike all over the city. Hm, that’s weird. A boy’s sweat isn’t unpleasant at all. I wonder why that is. Sniff, sniff.”
Himatsuri Asami showed no restraint whatsoever. Even if she thought of this on the same level as spotting a stray cat walking along a fence, I wasn’t sure what category to file the memory under.
My mom, Magatsu Taori, lived in a high-rise apartment building nearer to the coastal shopping district than a quiet residential district. It would not take long to pedal the bike there from the harbor block.
Or it shouldn’t have.
But while waiting at the light to cross the pedestrian scramble in front of the train station, I spotted something unpleasant out of the corner of my eye.
“Maxwell.”
“Sure. I have confirmed it with the camera lens.”
A warning message appeared on the smartphone in the GPS holder.
There was someone on the other end of the pedestrian scramble. There were not many people around since it was past 11, but I saw a stubbly man in a gray work jumpsuit with his hat pulled deep over his eyes.
I did not recognize him.
The problem was the heavy-looking object he held in his right hand: a white plastic bucket. And just the bucket would not be so heavy.
Besides, it was odd to be walking around with a liquid-filled bucket without any other janitorial equipment. That would be like taking a test with an eraser but no pencils, mechanical or otherwise.
Himatsuri-san also seemed to notice.
“What is that…? Detergent?”
“Or water.”
The dry sound of the word seemed like it would split my lips.
Water.
The entrance to that death match.
The light was going to change soon. Once it was green, he would be released. It was worth being a little worried, so I grabbed the handlebars again. I considered changing our route, but then I saw something else that was very bad for my heart.
Standing a short distance away was someone who looked like a cabaret girl with stiff hair of a far lower grade than Himatsuri-san. She had a coat that looked synthetic folded over her arm. It was probably meant to cover her exposed skin instead of keep out the cold, but I caught a glimpse of something below it. Was that the muzzle of a water gun? If it had a hand pump, I couldn’t just laugh it off as a children’s toy.
It only had to be enough water to fit our vertical bodies, so a manhole-sized puddle would do it. That meant a bucket or a large water gun were valid weapons.
“Dammit! Maxwell, search for an escape route!!”
We didn’t have time to just sit around. I jerked the handlebars over to forcibly change course and began pedaling away from those two. At the same time, the pedestrian scramble’s light turned green and the stiff-haired cabaret girl tossed aside her cheap coat. And it did not end there. I heard something heavy hit the ground and looked back to see a washbasin’s worth of water fall in the exact spot we had been stopped a moment before. They had dropped it from a window or rooftop!
“Warning: Be on the lookout in all directions. I cannot predict a route. Watch out for assassins lying in wait!!”
“What are these people!?” asked Himatsuri-san. “Are they trying to send us to that shark’s place!?”
“It’s either that or they want to see you with wet and see-through clothes. Which seems more likely to you!?”
It was past 11. The day was nearly over. If it was true we could only be taken into the water once a day, the Leviathan would not want to waste that ticket.
“Who are they!? Why would our fellow humans side with that giant shark!?”
“I don’t know. They might have been threatened in that glowing ocean!”
I pedaled full speed around a nearly circular bus roundabout, but on the way, an employee messing with a hose in front of a family restaurant sprayed water at us and a drunk in a suit chucked his beer can at us. We could not let that hit us or ride over the puddles they created on the road. The more time passed, the farther the minefield would grow.
I swerved in an S-pattern and managed to get past the roundabout and away from the train station.
“Dammit!!”
Then I slammed on the brakes. I used the lever for the front and back wheels and also pressed my feet against the ground.
An old man was flinging water out of a ladle to cover the way ahead, but that wouldn’t be for uchimizu this late at night.
This was far more troublesome than the ones trying to hit us directly. If the road was covered with a puddle too wide to jump across, we would lose our escape route.
I twisted my body around to check and saw a few people clearly running after us.
It was now or never.
“Himatsuri-san, get off!”
I snatched the smartphone from the handlebars, abandoned the collapsible bike, and ran into a nearby alley. Himatsuri-san seemed to be following close behind.
“What do we do? Where do we go!?”
“That’s the thing…”
I heard the sound of rubber soles on the ground up ahead, but we didn’t have time to see who it was. We were surrounded. So we climbed over a short metal door as if for a fence and began climbing the emergency stairs clinging to the building wall. I heard splashing water from below. This was creating a major commotion, but no one would think it was any more than some mischievous people having a water war in the middle of the night. The police weren’t going to bother showing up. And yet our lives really were at risk!
“What do we do? Where do we go? Climbing is only going to leave us cornered at the top!!”
“Yes! We’ll be hit eventually like this. And if they cut off the entire train station block with that uchimizu, then we’re trapped. So we have to change our priorities!”
“?”
“If we know we’re going to be chased by the giant shark in that flooded world, then we need to at least give ourselves a decent starting point.”
I wasn’t proud of this decision. I couldn’t decide whether or not this was the right thing to do. But sitting around wasn’t going to help.
“The glowing ocean is submerged up to about the 5th floor, so we can’t start from a puddle on the ground. We need to least avoid starting on the ground level!”
I felt a powerful tug on my arm, so I pitched forward and came to a stop. I looked back in confusion and saw Himatsuri-san clinging to my left arm like a child. She was pale-faced and shaking her head.
“Himatsuri-san.”
“We can’t do that.”
“Himatsuri-san! We can’t stop here! We can’t escape them even if we turn back now!!”
“We just can’t!! That thing is beyond human understanding. We can’t just assume we’ll be lucky enough to survive again!!”
We had made all sorts of preparations.
We had bought materials at a discount shop, worked in the container yard, and distributed out secret weapon throughout the city.
But that did not mean we would be mentally prepared when the time came. Plus, I wasn’t exactly a survival expert. There was no guarantee our plan would really work, so I understood why Himatsuri-san hesitated to make the running start.
But that girl with her blonde hair in a giant flashy hairdo did not have another plan. And complaining was not going to fix anything here. The gun had been cocked and we had no idea when it would fire!
“Anyway!!”
There was no time to worry about appearances. I somewhat forcefully dragged her to the multi-tenant building’s roof like I was bringing a struggling child to the dentist.
“Ah, ahh, ahhhh…”
She looked like she would collapse the instant I let go of her hand. It did not matter that a younger boy was watching her. She no longer cared.
And I couldn’t blame her.
It didn’t matter if you were an adult or a child. Anyone would be afraid.
Her puppy dog eyes wavered with uncertainty and pleaded me not to abandon her.
They pleaded me not to let go of her hand even on the other side.
“…”
I gave a wordless nod just before I heard the unreliable emergency stairs creak. I turned back to see a man in a gray work jumpsuit climbing them. He held a white plastic bucket. I recognized his stubbly face. It was the man I had first no
