April 28, 2012 - Tokyo, Japan

298

Add another tally to my growing number of pointless goose chases. I was picking up some pretty damn big spatial distortions at this date/location, and I investigated with the hope that Grendel would be the culprit. No such luck. Found another kind of excitement waiting for me there.

Dropping right into Tokyo without preparation might have been a bit rash, in hindsight. You’d think by now I’d understand the importance of, I dunno, actually understanding the language of the country you’re going to, but it seems like I’ll need that lesson rammed into my skull a few more times before it sticks. Picked up what I could, and asked for help whenever necessary; usually that help involved reading. Given Grendel’s habits towards the dramatic, I assumed anything he was doing would show up in the papers.

Going through the news didn’t uncover any stories about half eaten bodies being impaled on flag poles, but did reveal several missing person reports. Missing persons who had vanished without any trace.

Not Grendel, then. Far too subtle. But there’s a lot of other things which cause freaky spacetime stuff and make people disappear, none of them pleasant.

Maybe I should have left then and continued hunting down Grendel. But that wouldn’t have been very heroic, would it? If people were disappearing, then I had a responsibility to at least find out why. And if I was lucky, the thing behind it all would be something that wasn’t immune to bullets.

Spent a while jumping up and down the timeline where the distortion was present, doing some sleuthing. Picked up a lot more Japanese than I thought I’d ever learn in that time. Especially got used to the word “hikikomori.” Heard a lot of the victims being described by that word. Let’s see what this time period’s Wikipedia has to say on its definition:

“A term to refer to the phenomenon of reclusive adolescents or young adults who have chosen to withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement because of various personal and social factors in their lives.”

Social isolation, huh…. If it was what I thought it was, then looking around for clues wasn’t going to help me find anything. Fears don’t hide in caves waiting for you to find them. I’d need to confront it directly.

The plan was to jump back to the point in time where the most recent victim, a 16 year old boy named Shou, had last been witnessed, and then wait around and see what showed up.

Didn’t go that way. Why do even my simplest plans never work? When I made the jump, I was forcefully pulled out several hours later in the timeline than I’d intended. Found myself in Shou’s room; recognized it from the investigation I’d done of the place after his disappearance. Looked mostly the same. The stack of empty Ramen noodle cups was in the same place as when I’d last seen it. Same place as where I would see it. Dammit, tenses. Except this time, the room was freezing cold. Felt like I’d been thrown into a freezer buried under an Arctic glacier. Frost had covered the windows, and icicles were hanging from the room’s computer desk. Sitting at that desk was Shou, absolutely motionless, and completely covered in a thick layer of ice.

”The Sandman's coming in his train of cars With moonbeam windows and with wheels of stars”

A child’s voice sang out, rhyming as cracks appeared along Shou. The cracks spread fast, until his entire body crumbled into a pile of red ice.

”So hush you little ones and have no fear The man-in-the-moon he is the engineer”

A little boy appeared over the remains. He was wearing a sailor’s outfit, with skin tinged slightly blue, and with a cruel smile spread across his face.

The Cold Boy. Fear of the cold, both literal and metaphorical: the fear of isolation, being cut off from human contact. First time I’d seen it up close. Before it could do anything more, I pulled out a shotgun and fired a slug at its head. The slug smashed through, shattering its face just like Shou had been shattered.

My confidence surged when I saw the damage, and I fired again, until the Cold Boy’s body was nothing but broken ice on the floor. Ha! I’d won! Easily! I’d managed to beat one of the Fears, just with a shotgun and why was it getting colder?

”The railroad track tis a moonbeam bright That leads right up into the starry night So put on you 'jamas and say your prayers”

I could still hear the Boy’s voice, but it was coming from every direction now. The temperature was dropping ridiculously fast. I ran to the door, but it was covered by a wall of ice. The windows were also sealed, blocked by sheets so thick my bullets couldn’t break through. The cold felt like knives were cutting through my coat and skinning me. Conventional escape didn’t seem to be an option, so I started grabbing at time, trying to just make a jump out of the room. Reached for the first strand I could see, but I was torn back to earth before I could grasp it. The Cold Boy’s presence was all around me, a black pit in reality which warped the strands of time around it, pulling me in deeper no matter how much I struggled.

The room kept getting colder. I no longer felt pain, but that was only because I wasn’t feeling anything by that point. Thoughts were moving slow, and the lights seemed to dim. Had to get out. Kept reaching, trying to grab hold of time, but my will was being beaten down by the incessant rhyming of the Cold Boy. Couldn’t let him take me. Couldn’t die like that….

There! A single strand, dipping close to the black pit of spatial distortions. It existed for less than a second, but that was long enough for me to throw myself forward into it.

Not the cleanest jump I’ve made. Fell out several feet into the air over some tiny island; I couldn’t tell you where/when I had landed. Had some fun there, treating the twisted ankle I got when I hit the ground. And the hypothermia. God damn, the hypothermia.

So that’s the Cold Boy. Definitely not the best first encounter I’ve had. A part of me wants to go back there, find a way to stop it, save the people its killed… but I don’t know if I can afford the detour. Don’t know if I can survive the detour. Dammit. Soon as I’m finished with Grendel, I’ll be coming for you, Boy.

I-330