novelraw Chapter 34: Intellectual Terror!
Chapter 34: Intellectual Terror!
Completely unlike the icy coldness in the Iwata Section that seemed as if a Siberian cold current had passed through, the Suzuki Section was currently brimming with an enthusiasm and clamor akin to a midsummer festival.
"Next week... continue broadcasting?"
When Suzuki Kiyoto announced the notice just received from the Broadcasting Department, the entire office boiled over.
"That's wonderful! I knew it! Our 'Yamishibai' is the best!" Minamura Hoshi waved his fists excitedly.
"Although the viewership rating for early Saturday morning might be somewhat artificially high because everyone doesn't work the next day, this is absolutely the station's greatest affirmation of us!" Haseji Kakeru also said excitedly.
On everyone's face overflowed a heartfelt joy of having endured hardships only to be rewarded with sweetness. They looked towards that corner, at that young man who from beginning to end had merely been quietly drawing something, their eyes full of an almost fanatic worship and trust.
Suzuki Kiyoto also looked at Nohara Hiroshi, his eyes carrying inquiry, and also carrying a trace of reliance even he himself hadn't noticed.
As if as long as this young man was present, they had a backbone, and they had the confidence to face all challenges.
Nohara Hiroshi stopped the pen in his hand, and drew out another thick stack of manuscripts from under the desk.
He gently placed that stack of manuscripts on the desk, that movement like setting down an already prepared, guaranteed winning chessboard."The seven episodes for the second week are all here." His voice was flat without waves, yet carried a calming power, "'Umbrella Goddess', 'Curse', 'Moon', 'Video Tape', 'Tomoya-kun', and also the final episode, 'Pain possesses the body'."
He lifted his head, his gaze sweeping across the crowd, within those clear eyes flashing a wisdom that saw through everything.
"Everyone, our snowball has just begun rolling. Next, what we need to do is make it roll bigger and bigger, ultimately forming an avalanche capable of drowning everything."
"Ohhhh—!"
In the office, deafening cheers erupted once again.
Everyone seemed to have been injected with the most potent stimulant. They took those brand new manuscripts, upon which every storyboard, every line of dialogue, seemed to contain some kind of magic, making them unable to wait to turn them into reality.
They knew what they were participating in wasn't merely the production of an animation.
They were creating a legend belonging to this era, named 'Yamishibai'.
—
Sunday night descended quietly amidst this stiff atmosphere. Tokyo was like an exhausted behemoth; after experiencing a week of rushing about, it finally retracted its daytime fangs and claws, lying down heavily, leaving only countless fine, scale-like lights stubbornly flickering on its black fur.
The light carried the final trace of indolence as the weekend neared its end, and also revealed a sorrow thin as a cicada's wing as Monday approached.
However, in this vast sea of stars formed by countless window panes, a considerable portion of the lights didn't choose to sleep.
They converged into small, bright spots of light, stubbornly awaiting the arrival of a certain moment.
In a university dormitory in Setagaya, the air was permeated with a slightly sour and stale scent mixed with cheap beer and youthful hormones.
Several male students who had just returned from a mixer unprecedentedly didn't turn on their game console. Instead, they gathered in front of a small television, like gathering around a bonfire, preparing to undergo a secret ritual belonging to men regarding courage.
In a midnight diner in Shinjuku, the L-shaped bar counter was fully seated.
The food and drinks in front of the customers were barely touched. That food aroma belonging to late night, meant to console loneliness, was actually entirely overwhelmed at this moment by a more intense, tense atmosphere named "anticipation".
Mizukami Sho wiped glasses quietly, but his gaze also involuntarily fell onto that old television in the corner.
Countless such corners, countless such pairs of eyes, chose to pay the price of sleep this night to go on a date with fear.
12:20 AM.
That familiar children's rhyme and drumbeats arrived as scheduled.
The man wearing a mask pulled open the curtain. That raspy voice, sounding like it came from a dry well, carried the echoes of olden times.
【Yamishibai · Contradiction】
The opening of the story was an ordinary bachelor apartment lit with warm light. A young girl was preparing to go to bed.
The phone suddenly rang.
It was her friend, Mayumi.
"Save me... save me..." The voice on the other end of the phone was full of extreme panic and trembling.
The girl's heart instantly leaped to her throat.
Mayumi recounted intermittently that she and her boyfriend, Toru, went to explore an abandoned hospital tonight.
"...Just as we went in, I felt something was wrong. Inside... it was too cold, there were strange noises everywhere..."
"...But Toru, he acted like he was possessed, constantly walking further inside. No matter how I called him he wouldn't listen..."
"...Then, he walked into a patient room, and that door... closed on its own. I was scared, I... I just ran out myself first..."
"I'm downstairs at your apartment right now, I'm so scared, you... can you let me in?"
The girl agreed without hesitation. But right at this moment, the voice of Mayumi on the other end of the phone suddenly became incomparably eerie.
She began talking to herself using a dream-talking, emotionless tone.
"...Toru... Toru he came out... he found me... he... he is smiling at me..."
"...His face, is so pale... hehe... hehehe..."
Listening to that eerie laughter over the phone, the blood in the girl's entire body seemed to solidify.
Right at this moment.
"Thump thump thump."
The door to her apartment was knocked.
Trembling, the girl inched to the door step by step, looking out through the peephole.
Standing outside the door was a man wearing a jacket.
It was Toru.
He was raising his head, facing the peephole, wearing an incomparably radiant yet incomparably stiff smile on his face.
The girl was frightened out of her wits, retreating violently, the phone in her hand also dropping to the floor.
But the call didn't hang up.
From the receiver, Mayumi's eerie laughter, seemingly originating from the depths of hell, continued to transmit.
"Hehe... hehehe... open the door..."
"Let us... in..."
"Ding dong—"
The sound of the doorbell, and the laughter from the phone, overlapped together at this moment.
The scene stopped abruptly.
The End.
...
"Ah——!!!"
In the university dormitory, an earth-shaking exclamation mixed with fear and extreme excitement erupted.
Inside the midnight diner, it was dead silent, only a few chopsticks dropping to the floor emitting crisp sounds.
This episode of "Yamishibai" had no sudden ghost faces, no bloody scenes.
What it played with was pure, soul-striking logical sophistry.
It made you think frantically between two seemingly contradictory options, trying to find that safe, reasonable explanation. But when you were immersed in it, it told you that both of these options were doors leading to hell.
This was an intellectual, crushing terror.
It made you feel an indescribable icy coldness rising from your tailbone at the instant you understood the truth!