Wasn’t This a Night Game

All I Wanted Was Quiet

Life at the scrapyard was monotonous.

In the mornings, I’m roused early, almost against my will.

An un-set alarm clock takes care of that.

[Labor agitators seek to overthrow the city!]

[Report! Only reporting can save our city!]

The police, tireless in their fervor, blare the same message daily, the loudspeaker threatening to tear my ears to shreds.

Head throbbing, I venture out to the market.

“The worker’s paradise will come!! You dogs of factory owners!!”

“Get that b*stard!”

More precisely, I must navigate the market, avoiding the police chasing a young labor theorist scattering leaflets. One wrong step and the day’s provisions end up spilled on the ground.

After a simple meal at home, I unfold the newspaper.

Hoping, as always, for news of black mages. Or perhaps demon worshippers.

Of course, no such news appears.

[Labor Agitator Ring Leader! Still no sign of Karl Renaro!]

[Let us root out the laborism gnawing at our society!!]

[Vigilant Reporting Makes for a Healthy Society!]

Only stories of labor agitators fill the pages of the paper.

Tales of just how atrocious their claims are.

Of the detrimental impact they have on the scrapyard factories, on the entire city.

It’s enough to make one’s skin crawl reading it.

This isn’t a newspaper; it’s practically propaganda.

After throwing together some semblance of a meal, I’d burrow myself back inside, avoiding the outside world as much as possible.

An empty, chilled bed.

The moments spent entangled with Erpa, Iomene, and Almene, laughing and content, kept replaying in my mind.

It brought a wave of melancholy.

Perhaps it was the melancholy that kept sleep at bay.

“Labor Theorists are a blight upon society!! They are the villains who threaten the very existence of the Scrap Yard!! They must be apprehended!! Vigilant reporting builds a healthy society!!”

The police broadcasts blaring from outside only worsened the insomnia.

In the end, I could only drift off after intentionally numbing my hearing through modification.

Even then, my sleep was haunted by nightmares.

Dreams of descending into hell.

Dreams of becoming the Demon King and annihilating the world.

Dreams of the women I cherished, undone by my actions.

These visions would often jolt me awake, preventing any semblance of a deep sleep.

I wept frequently, sinking deeper into despondency, which withered my appetite. Before I knew it, I stopped venturing out to shop altogether.

I yearned for news about the black magician to surface, even in the newspapers.

Or, failing that, to witness once again in my dreams the black magician or his demonic followers attempting to bring about the end of days.

The only thought that offered any solace was the desire to be struck by the curse and be done with it all.

Had I spent nearly a month cloaked in such gloom?

Then, one day.

“Hello? It’s the neighbor from next door.”

A person came calling from next door.

Opening the door, a gaunt woman was looking up at me.

“For over a month now, I’ve been hearing cries every dawn, and loud muttering in your sleep. The screams you let out. Are you having nightmares or something?”

I could only manage a bitter smile at the woman’s expressionless words.

The walls here are a bit thin.

So you tend to hear everything.

Looks like I was screaming a bit in my sleep.

“I’m sorry. I’ll try to be quieter.”

As I apologized and went to close the door, the woman blocked it with her foot.

“You. You were let go, weren’t you?”

“Pardon?”

“I understand. I’ve heard that even technicians are getting laid off these days. Here.”

The woman handed me a basket.

Looking inside, there were a few loaves of dark bread.

“I wasn’t going to. Our situation is tight enough as it is, and we don’t have the wherewithal to look after others. But my husband insisted I should give it to you. Eat up and regain your strength. No need to pay me back.”

I stared blankly at her words.

Was she… being kind to me?

Because she thought I was a dismissed technician?

I took a closer look at the woman.

Her features, the way she dressed.

He looked far from being in a position to share bread himself.

The loaves in my hand, considering the woman before me, felt like I was offering not just bread, but life itself.

A sudden sting of tears.

To have someone offer comfort when it’s needed most…it warms the heart considerably.

I couldn’t hide the tears that had already escaped, and simply nodded.

“Thank you. I will eat well.”

My state seemed to amuse the woman; she gave a small chuckle.

“I’m Anna, from next door. My husband, Peter, is a technician too. Technicians sticking together, eh? No matter how hard it gets, you have to keep living. Don’t you think?”

With that, Anna waved and went back to her house.

Even after she vanished, I stood there with the bread basket, weeping for a long time.

It was a small comfort, but it gave me considerable strength.

Yes.

It’s hard, but my choice now is the right one.

Because I’m the one who needs to disappear for everyone’s sake.

I shoved a piece of the black bread Anna gave me into my mouth.

The taste was rough, the texture terribly hard, but the flavor didn’t matter.

It felt as though the kindness within it was healing my weary body and soul.

*

After that day, Peter, Anna, and I became acquaintances, exchanging greetings when we ran into each other in the street.

“Out and about again, I see?”

“Yes.”

Peter and Anna always looked exhausted.

They left for work at an hour that felt more like dawn than morning, and returned close to midnight.

Every time I saw Anna, it seemed I could witness her losing weight in real-time, and Peter, too, was visibly deteriorating.

Adding to it all, when I lay down to sleep late at night, their family’s conversations drifted through the walls.

Unwanted eavesdropping, made possible by the shockingly thin walls of this lodging.

“Jim. Amy. How was today?”

“I only did nine hours of chimney sweeping today. And the factory even gave us food!”

“Excellent. You have to look after your sister, you know?”

“Yeah. I know.”

Before I knew them, I would have dismissed these conversations as mere noise, but now that I knew them, all sorts of things seemed to catch my ear.

Like most of the laborers here, Peter’s family was not doing well.

“Your cough sounds bad lately.”

“It’s still less than some of the other women at the factory. Don’t worry, Peter.”

His wife, Anna, had developed a frequent cough since working at the textile mill.

Many of the other female workers at the factory were even coughing up blood, she said.

“The factory owner announced he’s cutting the wages of the skilled workers. Reducing our pay to ninety Leons.”

“How are we supposed to live on that!…”

“He said if we refuse or strike, he’ll fire us immediately and report us as labor agitators to be sent to prison. If you go to the camps, your body is ruined. I can’t do that. What can we do? We have to accept it.”

“Damn factory owners!…”

“Don’t say things like that so carelessly, Anna. The police will hear and arrest you. Label you a laborer.”

“Jim and Amy, only three and five, are already working as chimney sweeps. And yet, why do things never seem to get any better…”

“I’ll try harder. What else can I do?”

Peter’s eyesight was steadily failing, and Anna’s cough never ceased.

And Jim and Amy, just three and five, were indeed already working as chimney sweeps.

A fresh weight settled on me, the meaning of the dark bread they had given me reverberating anew.

In such straits themselves, they offered bread instead of anger to someone tormented by nightmares every night.

Suddenly, the gold carefully hidden in the corner of my room flickered in my mind.

The thought sparked: what if I were to share some of the money with them?

But I quickly banished the idea.

This money, it was earned so I could live without meeting people as much as possible, not to save them.

Thinking of the dangers that lay dormant within my soul, I couldn’t carelessly spend it.

They helped me, yet I’m in a position where I can’t help them.

I could only feel guilt festering within me as I listened to Peter and Anna’s family troubles.

Even within that situation, time flowed with cruel certainty.

During that time, I did my best to search for demon worshippers and black mages.

I made an effort to sleep as much as possible.

In hopes that my prophetic abilities would once more show me a vision, in the form of a dream, about demon worshippers or black mages.

And when I awoke, I wandered the shadowy back alleys, searching.

Most of the time, of course, it was fruitless.

Instead of demon worshippers or black mages, I only met thugs.

“Anything you know about black mages? Or demon cultists?”

“Nothing, sir.”

And they, too, knew absolutely nothing about demon worshippers.

“Forget you ever met me. That’s an order.”

Erasing the memories of thugs and leaving the back alleys in a gloom became a recurring routine.

And that day, as well.

One of those unremarkable days, failing again and leaving the back alley.

It wasn’t until I returned to my lodgings, quickly washed, and lay in bed, pulling the covers up, that I sensed something was amiss.

No sound came from the next room.

Normally, I should have heard the voices of Jim and Amy, and Peter and Anna, chattering and making their usual noises, but the next room was as silent as a tomb.

For the first two days, I thought nothing of it.

Everyone has their circumstances, don’t they?

Maybe they’d gone away somewhere briefly, or perhaps work had kept them away for a few days.

But on the third day…

“Empty this place. All the furniture inside is ours, so pack it up. Clean it out completely!!”

That day, too, just as I was returning from another fruitless trip to the back alley, I saw the lodging manager, who came to collect rent every month, forcibly opening Peter and Anna’s room and dragging out their belongings. That’s when I realized something was wrong.

“Wait a minute! Why are you doing this all of a sudden?”

At my question, the manager jerked his chin dismissively toward Peter and Anna’s room.

“They haven’t paid their rent, so we’re disposing of all their belongings according to the contract. We have to make up for the unpaid rent somehow.”

“Rent unpaid? But Peter’s a factory tech, and Anna and the kids work hard, too…?”

“Where did the landlord go?”

“If I knew that, would I be hauling their belongings out here? Vanished somewhere. Gone! That’s why I’m doing this!!”

The irritated voice sent me scrambling back to my room, snatching up money and rushing back to the caretaker.

“I’ll pay this month’s rent. Just…don’t touch their things.”

“Well, that makes my life easier. You sure you’re alright with that?”

“It’s alright.”

I paid the caretaker then bolted out of the lodgings.

Something was definitely wrong.

Peter. Anna. And Jim and Amy.

Where did they go?

What happened?

Before I knew it, I was running through the scrap yards.

“Peter! Anna!! Jim!! Amy!!”

Shouting their names, I frantically scoured the city.

“Where are you!! Where are you!!”

Please, let it be nothing serious.

Just a surge in factory work, a three-day stretch with lodging there.

And somehow, they simply forgot to pay the rent.

I prayed that inside my head, spending close to half the day racing around the city like a madman.

As the sun bled away, a frigid air and a brutal darkness descended upon the city.

Good news and bad news found me then.

The good news was that I had located the family.

The bad news was…

“Mama. I’m cold. I don’t want to go in there.”

“We have to. Jim. Just a little further, and you won’t hurt anymore.”

“If you walk in there, you won’t hurt anymore. Amy. Jim.”

The bad news was that the four family members were about to walk into the terribly frigid river.

And the instant I saw them.

I understood immediately why the family was doing this.

Peter’s right arm was severed.

Jim and Amy were blindfolded.

Anna was so wasted she was coughing up blood.

Symptoms you could easily witness after just a week living in the Scrap Yard.

Injuries commonly suffered by laborers who had experienced industrial accidents.