Koji Suzuki - Edge

The image leeched away at the courage he had built up, and he felt his reserves of hope drain away. He tried to pull himself together and looked at the others, trying to work out who had been within earshot. Just Isogai, Kato, and Hosokawa. That made just five of them, including himself and Toshiya. Kagayama was talking to his mother and sister in the distance. Chris was standing with Isogai but had switched off as everyone had been talking in rapid Japanese. Isogai, for his part, didn’t look inclined to share the horrifying information with his lover.

“They would have found the bodies hundreds of years after we died. Maybe the bones had just turned to dust …” Hosokawa’s voice trembled. He stood, arms crossed, hugging himself.

Toshiya shook his head. “No, the limbs had been severed while the people were still alive.” He had decided that any attempt to hide or embellish the facts would just make things worse.

So that was their destiny? To have their limbs torn off, to be tossed into a mass grave?

“I told you,” Isogai screamed out, staring at Hashiba, Kato, and Hosokawa in turn. He started to stamp at the ground, losing his temper completely. “This is because of you! We’re all going to be punished because of this, this parody.”

“And this coming from a scientist!” Hosokawa sneered back. “How very unscientific, to bring up the wrath of God!”

“Listen, fuckwit. Shall I explain to you what’s going to happen to us?” Rather than explode, Isogai just grinned. “We’re going to be sacrificed. We will go back to the Machu Picchu of five hundred years ago. There, our own foolishness will bring about a calamity. We’ll be unable to fulfill our roles as gods. We will reap only the anger of the people. One by one, we will be taken up to an altar and have our limbs torn off. We will be cast into a mass grave. The people will then abandon their city. That is our history.”

Isogai’s prediction sounded logical enough, but it was just an interpretation. Hashiba had come up with his own interpretation of what lay before them. They could arrive after Machu Picchu had been deserted and find nothing but the empty remains of the place. They would all pitch together and succeed in forging a new life, but something would happen. Perhaps an attack by a nearby tribe; they would be captured and then killed.

Hashiba looked over to Toshiya and asked, “Did they find signs of a battle?”

“None,” he answered simply.

Even if there were no signs of a battle, that didn’t necessarily negate his theory. Faced with overwhelming force, they would likely surrender. Perhaps attacked by the Spanish, or maybe a force that wasn’t even human, an unknown beast, a demon, the devil … Hashiba’s thoughts grew increasingly dark, and he pictured ancient and grotesque objects of fear.

Still, whether as an offering to the gods, the result of a foreign attack, or the acts of a malign entity, one thing was painfully clear. All 173 of them would be captured and dismembered, probably sooner rather than later. That much could be deduced from the fact that the number of people was exactly the same.

Hashiba recalled Buddhist, Christian, and other religious paintings. People fled from a dark shadow that plucked them one by one from the muck, suspended them upside down, and tore off their limbs. In the underground gloom, patches of fire lit up the victims’ agony. Depictions of hell were found all across the world.

The vivid rush of images proved too much for Hashiba. He collapsed to his knees, and a cracked noise escaped from his throat. It struck him that he had subconsciously taken the pose for prayer.

He didn’t know how much time they had left; it might be a matter of minutes, or perhaps hours. But the end was near. He had to make a decision, and he had to make it now. He could just get up and leave and not go through the wormhole. But it was precisely this need to choose on the spot, rather than his fear of the unknown, that was enervating him.

If he did leave and only 172 people remained, would that be enough to change their destiny? Leaving meant exposing himself to the phase transition. It was hell either way. Even so, he knew that he had to force a decision. One path meant a slow, tortured death; the other, the possibility of a painless and sudden end. He didn’t know what waited for him through the wormhole; he could only see ambiguity and chaos. Faced with an impossible decision, Hashiba gave up all his efforts to think rationally and craned his neck upwards. Stars continued to blink out one by one, each one seeming to accentuate the relentless passage of time. His nerves were on fire.

Hashiba closed his eyes and clasped his hands together in prayer.

It all began with you …

Saeko replayed Seiji’s words in her head. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t work out what he meant. The only option was to ask him directly. Seiji’s mouth hung half open, and his brow was furrowed. Saeko had never seen a snake about to deliver its venomous charge, but that was the image that came to mind looking at him now.

“You still don’t know how the world works, do you, little girl?”

Saeko sat bolt upright. How the world works . That was a phrase her father had used countless times. “And you suppose that you do?”

“Well, you know, it’s like a bundle of threads rolled together. Each end has its own idea, the exact opposite of the other end.”

“And?” she pushed for more.

“You can’t think of these ideas as isolated things, separated by the length of the thread. Each helps the other. Each complements the other. The thread joins them. You know of how the Devil came to be, right? The Devil is a fallen angel.” He let out a vulgar, croaking laugh.

Again, Saeko felt afraid of something she couldn’t quite place. Her father had once explained to her that the universe was composed of opposing ideas. “God and the Devil complementing each other?”

“Every little thing that happens is related to something else.” Seiji brushed his fingers along the table next to him. “It’s like a spider’s web, an amazingly intricate tapestry of threads. The world is built on the shoulders of these relationships. The passage of time is simply an expression of the development and change in these relationships.”

Saeko glanced at her wristwatch. Why was she sitting here listening to him talk at her? If it were her father, she would probably be impatient for more, but the words of this grotesque man … All she could see was a feeble attempt to hide his disgusting nature. She wanted to get out of this situation as soon as she got the chance, and every moment was precious.

She glanced at the plaster casts on his legs. If she made a run down the corridor it was unlikely he would be able to give chase, but she had to be sure about the wormhole. Would it open in this room or not? Besides, she had to know what he meant when he said that it had all begun with her. She had to know what happened to her father. She had to get him to talk.

“Let’s get back to the point. Enough rambling.”

“Not exactly the attitude you’d expect when someone’s asking a favor, now, is it? So, you want to know what happened, yes?”

Saeko began to nod but stopped herself in mid-movement. She glared at the man before her, her heart thumping wildly. All she could do was wait.

“All right, then. Humans are only aware of a tiny, infinitesimal part of the world. It’s like an iceberg, most of it hidden below the sea. What most people see is just the visible bit, but some people see more. They can discern the tangle of relationships hidden beneath the surface. Those with a third nipple — in other words, us. That old bag Shigeko was one too. Some of her better predictions were right on the mark.