NOVEL WEB Chapter 27: I Dreamt
“It” was fleeing in the darkness of the night.
For “it” that knows true darkness, the darkness of the night outside isn’t a hindrance.
That house isn’t its home anymore.
I want to go home…… I want to go home……
However, “it” has lost too much blood.
Despite the stinging heat it feels from its wound, its body and limbs grow colder and colder.
I want to go home……
Back to that warm place……
“It” staggers towards a building that stands out in the darkness of the night.
However, there was a wall surrounding it.
A wall that, if it were in perfect physical condition, it could have leapt over with a single jump.
However, it was hopelessly high for “it”, whose consciousness was starting to be hazy……
At that moment, “it” suddenly smelled the scent of blood, stimulating its appetite.
Blood…… I want it…… Blood…… Flesh…… Meat……
The delicious scent…… It wafts from that large iron cylinder……
And thus, going into the cylinder, “it” started eating carrion before eventually losing consciousness.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
[How scary. I hope they catch the culprit as soon as possible.]
Machida, a security guard who had come to work after shrugging off his family’s pleas to not go because of the danger, looked up at the helicopter flying overhead and anxiously muttered.
He is grateful to the company for continuing to employ even people like him who held no special skills.
Besides, the company has many employees who are younger and more capable than he is.
And so, Machida believes that it’s the job of the elderly to protect the young.
Machida recently obtained a forklift license.
It’s so that he can contribute to the company in any way he can.
[It’s time like this that I have to do my job as usual.]
Following his usual routine, Machida used the forklift to load several drums for “harmful animal carcasses disposal” that were placed outside the gate onto a transport cart.
The President had set up these special drums for this purpose, which made it much easier to deal with the animals that ran into the fence.
[Safety first after all.]
According to the work procedure manual, if there’s an open drum, the contents will fly out and cause an accident, so it’s important to check it.
Following the procedures, Machida checked the drum and properly closed the loose drum lid.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
[Good grief. The police are very energetic in the morning, aren’t they?]
Hiroki was awakened by the roar of search helicopters flying over early in the morning, and after washing his face and getting dressed, he headed to the bar a little early.
[Many of the employees weren’t able to go home last night…… I guess there would be plenty of coffee brewed already.]
Fortunately, Hiroki had stocked up a large amount of coffee beans as a hobby.
[Morning.]
[Good morning……]
There were several times as many employees as usual hanging out at the bar.
The color of tiredness was deep in all their faces.
[What, you couldn’t sleep? Was there not enough futon in the security room?]
The security room was supposed to be equipped with enough sleeping bags, water and food for the number of employees in case of a disaster.
[No…… It’s just that, isn’t it scary that a murderer who could break through a police siege had escaped and was left on the loose?]
[That’s right. Those who could sleep through that are the ones that are strange.]
The employees were talking about the horrible incident lately.
[That aside, what are we gonna have for breakfast? We do have emergency food ration bars for disasters.]
[I guess…… there would be no delivery around at the moment huh.]
[I don’t think so. Even the morning papers weren’t delivered earlier.]
In addition to the fact that the company is inside the police emergency line, they’re in a remote area, and even the employees are afraid to go out of company premises.
Even if they were to order meals for them delivered, they would be refused.
However, even if they did come, they would feel too sorry for the part-timers who had to make those deliveries.
It would be bad for their conscience to make them risk their lives for a 1200 yen an hour job.
[I’ll ask the contractor to deliver the lunches to come earlier, and I’ll increase our orders. Since it’s an emergency, we’ll pay for it out of company funds.]
This is the limit of the measures that can be taken.
The good thing about their company is that they don’t have to worry about too much food loss and waste.
However, that isn’t something important at the moment, for there’s an important test that will be coming up later.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
The test, titled “Advanced Waste Disposal Monitoring Test”, is a critical test for MCTBH’s future strategies, or so Ishida said.
[To put it simply, this is a test to see if there’s any leakage or dispersal of waste, solid or liquid, that is difficult to treat at existing facilities.]
It was hard to make out the color of Ishida’s face, as he was dressed in a full protective gear often seen in biohazard movies, but his voice rings out loud and clear.
Because of the sensitive nature of the test, Ishida and Hiroki are the only two people near the hole.
[The construction work has been completed to prevent anything from leaking outside, right?]
[Yes. It was simple construction work after all. With that, the negative pressure room is ready.]
The concrete box covering the hole is still under construction, so some of the steel frame is only covered with metal sheets, but the basic piping for a negative pressure room has been completed.
In facilities that handle poisons and pathogens, air conditioning is designed to keep some rooms at a slightly reduced atmospheric pressure, which is often referred to as negative pressure.
The air pressure is kept a little lower in the room so that air can come in from the outside but not go out.
Conversely, in food processing and precision machinery factories, positive pressure rooms are designed so that air can leave but not enter.
This is to prevent the entry of fine dust and bacteria.
The hole is equipped with a negative pressure room due to the disposal of substances hazardous to humans.
However, the negative pressure piping system here is different from that of ordinary facilities.
In a normal facility, polluted air that enters the room is passed through multiple filters to reduce it to a harmless concentration before being exhausted to the outside, but here, the air is simply forced into the hole as polluted air.
In other words, the air is sucked into the room and disposed into the hole. In a stupidly convenient way, not having any filters.
In short, what they had installed in their facility was just an air pump.
[It’s foul play that this is all that’s needed to complete the construction.]
Ishida said, astounded.
This is why all the chemical plant companies, plagued by the cost of cleaning up the contaminated liquid waste and contaminated air that will inevitably be produced once the facility is up and running, are eager to partner with MCTBH.
[Well then, let’s get started.]
Hiroki lifted up the color-coded drums for the test one by one and threw them into the hole.
Meanwhile, Ishida recorded it in a notepad.
It was apparently easier to record with a pen than with a keyboard when wearing protective clothing.
[Aren’t they heavy?]
Ishida asked Hiroki after he had thrown three more drums into the hole.
[Not really. Well, it’s hard to move in this outfit.]
A drum full of liquid…… How much did it weigh again? About 300 kg? Maybe a little more.
In any case, it doesn’t seem that heavy for Hiroki.
Hiroki continued on, lifting up the drums and throwing it down like a machine.
[Ahh.]
However, suddenly feeling a different response in the drum he was carrying, Hiroki reacted.
[Is something the matter?]
[……I felt a strange sensation. It felt as if something inside moved.]
[Errr, that drum…… is a carcass disposal drum. The sensation is different from that of a drum filled with liquid, so it may have shifted inside.]
Ishida checked the data in his hand and spoke about the contents of the drum.
[I see. That certainly felt like that was the case.]
The mere tossing of the drums, which was labeled as an Advanced Waste Disposal Monitoring Test, continued for the next two hours, and then ended uneventfully, with only the external sensors monitoring the drums on the hour.
When Hiroki went out of the building, a police helicopter was still circling noisily in the sky.
[I want to drink a beer and go to bed. I hope the police will catch that culprit as soon as possible.]
As he took off his protective gear, Hiroki muttered to himself.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
That night, Hiroki had another dream.
In the usually deafening silence of the jet-black world, a fierce struggle was taking place.
In the Kingdom where “they” crawl around, rejoicing in their prosperity, a foreign body had been thrown in……
The sound of mincing meat and the ground being tread on is drowned by the sound of buzzing wings.
“It” and “they” swung their claws, stomped with their feet, bit with their sharp jaws, and pounced on each other for their own survival……
“It” was huge, a thousand times bigger than “them”……
“They” were a multitude, assaulting “it” with numbers over a million……
It wasn’t possible to say who was the winner of the short, but furious struggle……
The battle between size and numbers seemed to be tilted in favor of numbers, but the surrounding polluted atmosphere caused “those” with poor gas exchange ability to fall one by one.
However, “it” also lost a lot of blood in the struggle outside, weakly falling down on the ground……
The polluted air and water that are continuously thrown down from the heavens ruthlessly washed away the weakened “it” and “them”.
Soon, the warm place became silent and only the darkness of the place remained again.
Head deeper……
Head deeper……
Even deeper……
Even deeper……
Hiroki thought he heard something calling to him in his dream.
Thanks to this, he was able to wake up the next morning in a peaceful and pleasant mood again.