Authors: Hideaki Sena
At that moment, a tidal wave
of heat exploded around them.
Screams and frantic
footsteps.
Toshiaki panicked, fearing
for those who had come to their aid.
A blast of magma-like air
pierced his body. Something heavy smashed into his waist. He lost all feeling
in his legs. Distant screams:
“Oh my...!”
“What is that?”
“It’s alive!”
He heard only snatches of
speech, followed by the sound of flesh being torn from the bones, damp
explosions, and truncated screams. While Eve was trying to keep Toshiaki under
control, she was simultaneously venting out her power and destroying everything
around them.
This could not go on. No one
would ever make it out alive. He had to calm Eve somehow. There was no reason
to let anyone else be sacrificed. He felt something hot swelling up from the
very core of his being. He would stop this thing. He had to kill it. Even if...
“I order you to stop!” thought
Toshiaki, with all the fury he could muster.
He sensed Eve’s momentary
hesitation. He screamed with more force.
“Come here! Look at me, me! I
am your father! Come here!”
Eve whined, turning her
attentions to him. The blazing wind lost its intensity.
“I know all about you. I know
why you are the way you are. Come to me. Let me hold you.”
Eve’s movements weakened. She
looked around in confusion for her mother. But Eve 1 was already dead. Toshiaki
spoke to her with sympathy.
“Your body is breaking apart
now. It hurts, doesn’t it? I understand. Come here. Let your father hold you. I
will share your pain. You can make all the children you want. But what about
parents? You can’t create them. And your mother is dead. I am the only parent
you have left. Share your suffering, with me. Think only of me. Over here. I am
here. Now come!”
The heat died down
completely.
Silence fell. The alarm faded
away as Toshiaki’s ears grew deaf to it. The ceiling stopped crumbling as well,
as if the concrete fragments falling from above had ceased in mid-air. A
silence that could not even be called silence.
And then, movement broke
through the quietude, turning slowly in Toshiaki’s direction.
Yes, that’s it
,
he said encouragingly as he spread open welcoming arms.
It touched his waist with a
warm and greasy appendage, wrapping around his torso. Toshiaki smiled and spoke
gently.
“Come now, share your pain
with me. Fuse with my cells. Let us become one. If you do, you will no longer
be afraid. You were not at peace, because you knew there was another self
separate from you, because the life I gave you was trapped in another. I
understand your torment. Become one with me. Come into my body. Be one with
your father. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Now.”
Toshiaki felt his body
melting.
Eve’s cells opened the pores
in his skin and flowed inside. Cell rubbed against cell, creating friction and
heat. All sense of direction disappeared. Toshiaki could hardly feel anything.
He knew that Eve’s cells were passing into him, that their membranes were
binding to his cells. Her mitochondria were becoming one with his, as were her
mitochondrial DNA. Eve’s power vanished in the blink of an eye.
She moved. The friction and
heat increased and Toshiaki realized he was on fire. He felt like he was
flying. It was such a mysterious sensation, a stimulation beyond anything he
had ever imagined. Perhaps it was something no living being on earth had ever
felt. Was this what it felt like to evolve? He was experiencing a completely
different dimension. Its joys and sorrows could never be comprehended by
organisms that hadn’t so evolved, nor would such creatures even know what they
did not know. Human beings, too, would perhaps evolve to such a point someday.
But would they still be in symbiosis with mitochondria then? Probably, yes.
Evolution occurs in the process of one thing trying to coexist with something
other than itself. That other could be another organism, or an environment. It
was hard to say whether it would be on earth, another planet, or inside cells,
but when human beings managed to build a new symbiosis, a new, evolved world
would be theirs.
Eve growled as she integrated
herself into him. Toshiaki merged with her in silence, their strength fading
like a dying star.
It ends here
, he thought.
This is where the
nightmare ends.
Kiyomi, you will return to
what you once were.
To the Kiyomi I always loved.
25
As Shigenori Anzai opened his
eyes, there was a stranger reflected in them.
“He’s opened his eyes!”
screamed the man excitedly to someone unseen. Anzai heard the patter of
approaching footsteps.
“Are you alright? Can you
hear me?”
The white-robed man peered
into Anzai’s face and checked his body for injuries.
...Ah, I’m still alive.
At this thought, Mariko’s
name revived in his brain. He immediately snapped out of his daze and called
out for her.
“Mariko! Where’s Mariko?!”
“Please calm down. You
shouldn’t move.”
The doctor tried to restrain
him, but Anzai would not hear of it. Mariko was his only concern right now. He
stood up, ignoring the intense pain in his back.
Anzai saw that he was in the
hallway outside the autopsy room. There was a large crack in the concrete. Both
the floor and ceiling were heavily damaged. He also saw a half-open steel door
off to the side. Police officers and doctors were bustling about. There were
several injured guardmen on stretchers. Yoshizumi was on a stretcher, too. His
body was covered completely with blood and his right hand twisted at an
unnatural angle, but he did not seem fatally hurt.
Yet Mariko was nowhere to be
seen.
“Mariko!”
Anzai ran towards the autopsy
room as fast as he could, staggering from the pain in his knees.
Just when he reached the
door, several paramedics came carrying out a stretcher.
Mariko’s naked body was lying
on top of it.
“Mariko! Mariko!”
Tears flowed from his eyes.
He clung to the stretcher, but she showed no signs of movement. Even when he
screamed directly into her ears, there was no response. Anzai drew close to his
daughter’s cheek and stroked her hand. She could not be dead...
“Mariko will be fine.”
Someone patted Anzai on the
shoulder. He lifted his head in surprise and looked around at the doctors.
“Really?”
“Yes. She lost consciousness;
but she’s still alive. We found almost no external injuries.” Upon hearing
this, Anzai felt a warmth spread in his chest. He was too tired to cry.
“Oh, Mariko...”
Anzai held her again tightly,
pressing his face against hers. Her skin was somewhat cold, but when he put a
hand to her chest, he felt her heartbeat clearly. There really were hardly any
visible wounds. How she had managed to avoid being hit by the crumbling
concrete was beyond him.
There were scabrous
bloodstains in her groins. When Anzai touched them, tears at last flowed hotly
down his cheeks. When it mattered most, he had not been able to protect that
which was most sacred to him. A deep feeling of regret seized his heart.
“...dad,” came a small voice
in his ear.
He bolted upright.
Mariko opened her eyes
wearily.
“Mariko...”
“Dad...I...”
She moved her fingers
slightly. Anzai wrapped her hand in his and brought it to his cheek, crying and
nodding. Her lips trembled in an attempt to say something.
“I...I...”
And then...
THUMP.
Mariko’s lower abdomen
jumped.
Anzai cried out. The
surrounding doctors gave a suspicious look. Anzai’s vision grew dark, thinking
that the monster was still alive, trying to eat its way out of her. He screamed
for it to stop.
But Mariko pulled him close,
then caressed his back gently.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m
fine. My kidney...won’t do that ever again... Because...it’s mine now...mine.”
Anzai looked at her.
She smiled back. Her eyelids
fluttered sleepily and closed softly, like a butterfly coming to rest.
He touched her abdomen
cautiously, but there was nothing wrong with it. Just transplant scars and wet
skin.
The kidney was now fully assimilated
into her body.
He held her once again with
all his affection. Considering her recent behavior, she would probably never
have allowed such closeness save at a moment like this. But Anzai would try his
best to reconcile their problems. He would spend more time with her and share
his thoughts until she opened up to him. Their real life together was about to
begin.
“Come along now, we’re going
to get your daughter out of here.” So saying, one of the doctors gave him a pat
on the back.
He could have held Mariko
forever, but he put his faith in them as they carried her out.
As soon as they were out of
sight, Anzai remembered Toshiaki.
“What happened to that man?”
he asked the officer next to him. “Nagashima...the donor’s husband.”
The police officer’s face
became grave, and Anzai had the chills.
“What’s wrong? What happened
to him? Tell me, please.”
“...over there.” The officer
nodded towards the area behind him.
Anzai turned around and
gasped. There was a white sheet spread out, with the center bulging up. It was
clearly covering something, but it looked nothing like a human shape.
He ran over to it. He heard
the officer’s warning but paid no attention and lifted the sheet.
“...my God.”
He looked away.
Nothing but a half-dissolved
pile of flesh. He could only tell it was face up from an ambiguous human chest.
One hand was stretched out to the side, trying to grasp something. The skin’s
surface on the arms had liquified. Though an expression was slightly discernible
upon the face, it was charred and shriveled up beyond recognition. A jelly-like
substance oozed out from the chest and spread out on the floor. The odor of
cooked meat penetrated Anzai’s nostrils.
“Wait, bring Mariko back
here!” he shouted.
Thinking something had
happened, everyone else turned around at once.
“What’s wrong?” An officer
came running up. “Come sit down, please, you’re badly hurt. You need
medical...”
“Please, I’m begging you. If
you just do this one thing, I’ll do whatever you say. Bring Mariko back here
one more time. It won’t take long. Please, I promise it’ll only take a second.”
The officer frowned.
“Please.”
“...okay, but make it quick.”
He sighed audibly and called
one of the younger cops over. With a few words and a pointing of the fingers,
the cop was off into the hallway.
A short while passed before
Mariko’s stretcher was carried back in. There was an oxygen mask over her mouth
and an IV tube in her arm. Her body was now covered with a blanket.
“Please put her down over
here,” Anzai requested. The medics set the stretcher down next to him.
“What’s going on?”
But he did not answer and
removed Mariko’s blanket. Then, he took Toshiaki’s dilapidated hand.
Anzai placed the hand on the
left side of Mariko’s lower abdomen, where the kidney of Toshiaki Nagashima’s
wife had been transplanted.
It seemed to Anzai that
Toshiaki’s hand had been trying to touch Mariko in his last moments of
strength, and thought it only appropriate that he should be granted his final
wish. It was the least Anzai could do for the man.
Maybe Anzai’s emotions were
getting the best of him, but he could have sworn that Toshiaki’s blackened
mouth widened just barely into the slightest of smiles.
“Moving on now to the
awarding of master’s degrees for Pharmaceutical Sciences. Sachiko Asakura,” the
chair called out.
“Yes!” Asakura hopped up
enthusiastically and moved to the front of the line.