A story about running and running and running. CH: Prologue

There was a small spider crawling on my arm. A small spider, no bigger than the tip of my pinky finger, crawling all over my school uniform. In the past, I would have clicked my tongue and swatted it away, but now I felt nothing. There are plenty of things more unpleasant and disgusting than spiders lying around on the edge of the road.

I emerged from my hiding place in the bushes. There was a row of houses across the road, but even though it was daytime on a holiday, there were no people passing by. Not a single child was playing in the park where I was now. The entire city was silent.

I took out a palm-sized stone from my pocket, which I had picked up beforehand, and prepared myself in a crouched position. My target was one of the houses lined up in front of me, an ordinary two-story house.

I aimed at the mortar wall behind the block wall and threw the stone as hard as I could. The stone drew a beautiful arc in the air, and with a «Gah!», it hitted the wall. The sound of the collision echoes through the quiet city, and I lie face down in the bushes at that moment. The bushes in the park, which were no longer maintained, were so overgrown that I could easily hide by myself.

In this day and age, it would have been suicide to make an intentional noise, but it had to be done. Although there was still some room to spare, supplies were getting scarce. If I don’t scavenge at least one house around here, I’ll be in trouble later. A little risk was unavoidable.

It had been five minutes since I had gotten down on the ground. If there were infected people nearby, they would have gathered here by now, but I couldn’t see a single person on the road. If there were survivors in the house where I threw the rock, they might have been frightened by the sudden noise and locked themselves in. Or they might have run outside, thinking that the infected had found them.

I got out of the bushes, praying that no one was inside the house. The spider that had been crawling on my arm earlier was gone before I knew it.

Enter the house where I threw the rock from the front. If there were infected people, it would be suicide to walk around the street with a good view like this, but if there were none in the vicinity, you could move around as much as you wanted as long as you didn’t make a loud noise.

The garden had long since gone unattended, and the weeds had grown up to my knees. The shutters on the windows facing the street were not closed, and if there were people in the house, the shutters would definitely be closed. So there was probably no one in the house.

I peeked out the window. There is a tea table, some magazines, and some opened canned goods lying around. There was no movement.

After confirming this, I took out a roll of duct tape from the backpack I was carrying. First, I put a piece of tape at ten o’clock around the lock on the window pane, and then I overlap two more pieces of tape around the crossed part. The four overlapping pieces of tape were attached in a shape that looked like a cake divided into eight equal parts.

I then grabbed the crowbar hanging from my waist belt and lightly tapped the tape on the window glass. After poking it a couple of times, I added a little force and slammed the L-shaped tip of the crowbar against the window.

With a cracking sound, the window cracked like a spider’s web, but it did not shatter into pieces. I had put gummed tape on the window in advance, so it didn’t make much noise when the glass broke, and the pieces didn’t fall on the floor and make noise.

I looked around when the glass broke, but of course there was no sign of anyone approaching.

When I peeled off the gummed tape, the broken pieces of glass stuck to me. I placed it on the ground and wrapped a towel from my backpack over my leather gloved hands. After making sure my arms were completely covered, I gently pushed my hand through the hole in the window pane, groped for the key inside, and twisted it. The lock unlocked, I opened the window and walked in with my feet on the ground.

It sounds like a thief’s trick, but in fact, I am about to be a thief. To put it mildly, it’s a necessary action for survival. Well, what I am doing is thievery itself, but even if someone were to see what I am doing, he or she would not blame me, after all I’m sure they’re doing the same thing as me.

The room was filled with the smell of something rotting. It was the smell of rotting food. There were a few empty cans lying in one corner of the room, so that must be the source of the strange smell.

I took a quick look around the room and confirmed once again that there was no one or anything in the room. This room is the only one that’s been secured, so I have to go around the house and check the other rooms.

I was hoping to find some unopened cans lying on the floor, but it seems that things are not going so well. At least there was nothing in this room that could be eaten. There was a flashlight on the chabudai that I could use, so I stuck that in my backpack.

As soon as I opened the shoji and stepped out into the hallway, a strange smell hit my nose. It was as if I was in a public restroom. I had a bad premonition, so I tried not to make any noise as I walked toward the direction where the odor became stronger.

As I walked down the corridor, I saw the stairs leading to the second floor, and as I looked up, I saw the source of the strange odor.

«Ah…….»

I saw the source of the strange smell that had been drifting up from earlier.

Something was hanging in the middle of the stairs. A plastic cord was wrapped around the neck of a man who looked to be in his thirties, with eyes so wide open that his eyeballs seemed to be popping out, and a tongue protruding from his mouth. The end of the cord is tied to the second floor handrail.

From the body of the dead man hanging by the neck, the strange smell of excrement is drifting out. I had heard from someone once that if you commit suicide by hanging, you’ll end up with all kinds of stuff dripping out of every hole, and it seems that the story was true.

But seeing the corpse didn’t make me feel any emotion. It was just another scene that could be quickly dismissed as such. A few months ago, this would have been unthinkable, but now the corpse was just another thing I was used to seeing. Besides, I had seen many corpses in a more horrible state, and compared to them, this one was a beautiful one, as all four limbs were still intact.

«Why did he die?» I don’t think that. I know why. This man must have left this world, where there are no dreams and no hope. If his only future is to be eaten alive or to starve to death from lack of food, his decision was a wise one. In fact, I had witnessed many people commit suicide out of despair over this world, and the man had joined the ranks of the dead, that’s all.

Looking at this house, I can’t imagine that the man lived alone. He probably lived with his family, but there was no smell of corpse decomposition in the air. Since the man’s corpse is here, it is unlikely that the family committed suicide, so the family must have died or become infected, leaving the man behind.

I don’t think they’ll give him a funeral, I said to his corpse in my mind. There have been enough deaths in the past few months to keep monks and funeral homes busy. The last time I saw a funeral was a month ago, and it was nothing more than digging a hole, throwing the body in, saying a few words of farewell, pouring gasoline on it, and burning it. That’s about as shabby as it gets. The monks and funeral home employees are long gone.

I’m not sure what to do. I need to secure our homes and get supplies quickly. I don’t have time to think about dead people.

I left the hanging corpse, which looked like an ill-favored shining monk, and examined the entire first floor.

I searched the kitchen, but there was no food left at all, not even seasonings. The dead man must have eaten it all. I wondered if that was a factor in his suicide.

On the first floor, I found only a few unused batteries and a few tools. This is not worth the effort as usual.

I had no choice but to head upstairs. There was no point in going upstairs since there was no food on the first floor where the kitchen was, but I had to make sure. Even a small amount of food is precious right now.

«Whoa!»

Just as I was about to pass by the corpse of a man hanging halfway up the stairs, the plastic cord suddenly snapped and the corpse fell to the floor. The man’s corpse slid down the stairs head first and then stopped. If it were a human, he would have been sent to the hospital, but since he was a corpse, it was no problem. Probably the plastic string couldn’t bear the weight and was slowly breaking. What a surprise.

I walked upstairs, careful not to step on the filth that must have dripped from the dead man’s body as his muscles relaxed. I looked around the room from one side to the other, but still no one was there. There was only one body lying on the floor.

When I opened the sliding door of the last room, the smell of incense wafted through the air. On the wall near the ceiling, there were several images of what appeared to be ancestors, and there was a Buddhist altar.

I punishably wondered if there were any offerings, but of course there were none. I took some lighters and candles from the altar and was about to go back downstairs, but I felt awkward and decided to prepare one incense stick for the people of this house. I lit it with a lighter, put it on the stand, and put my hands together.

Then, with the offering plate and another stick of incense in my hand, I went down the stairs. I placed the plate next to the dead man’s body on the floor and put the lit incense stick on it. It wouldn’t cause a fire.

I hope you will be able to go to heaven.

I said and put my hands together. Heaven and hell would be overflowing with the dead by now, but I tried not to think about that.

I thought it was useless to think about the dead, but I still couldn’t seem to forget the peaceful days of a few months ago. The custom of treating the dead with respect meant nothing to me now.

In the end, there was not much to be gained. Unlike before, I walked out of the front door with dignity. There was still no one on the street.

I had to quickly find another place to stay for the night. The place where I had been hiding yesterday was already swallowed up in the middle of the infected’s territory, and I couldn’t just hide in some random house. A safe place where the infected would not be able to find me was what I needed most right now.

The sky was beginning to be covered with gray clouds. It would start raining soon. I couldn’t use an umbrella because it would block my hands and slow me down, but I would catch a cold if I stayed out in the rain. Doctors have long since passed away, and medicine is hard to come by since the pharmacies have been looted. Even the slightest illness can become a serious problem, so I have to be very careful about my health. If you get sick or injured and can’t move, there is no one to help you.

I put my backpack back on and started running through the empty streets.

Translator Note:

Hello person who is reading this! I’m the translator of the prologue of this novel. Sorry if this is a little bit unreadeable, after all, MTL has its limits and my primary language is not English. The page is at the most in default, so, sorry about that too. If some decent translator liked the prologue and want to translate the novel, go ahead and do it, I dont mind. With that said, hope the person who is reading this likes the novel and have a nice day.