Chapter 43: A Zoo

At another bookstore, Uesugi Sonoko looked at the magazine in her hands, feeling very surprised.

Although she had read quite a few of Akiwara Yuto’s works, she never believed he was a psychological deviant, as some newspaper book reviews claimed.

After all, aside from "Detective Taxi" published online, the works he had serialized—"Koshu and Yoko," "Seven Rooms," and "Sofar"—all contained explorations of hope beneath their thriller elements.

But today’s piece, "ZOO," made her feel a chill that originated from the depths of her soul.

……

The story happens to an ordinary man; every morning, a photo of his girlfriend is delivered to the "inbox" at his front door.

These photos record the process of his girlfriend’s corpse gradually rotting; one could even see the maggots shifting positions.

The man could no longer remember how many times he had received photos in the inbox, but he still wasn't used to it, especially after looking at his girlfriend’s rotting face; he always felt an inexplicable sensation.

He hadn't told anyone about the photos, nor had he gone to the police. In other words, he was the only one who knew she had been killed; everyone else thought she was just missing.

He leaned back in his chair, his mind constantly recalling the past he shared with his girlfriend, and he remembered that he and his girlfriend had once watched a movie called "ZOO."

In this movie, the process of animal and plant corpses rotting due to bacteria was documented; he remembered not understanding it much at the time, but his girlfriend had watched it with great interest.

After finishing the movie, the two went to a zoo; it had been long abandoned and there was no one there, only the smell of animal and plant corpses filling the air.

These memories surfaced in his mind like images.

He opened his computer, scanned the photo received today into it, and together with the previous photos, set them to play in a loop at "12 frames per second."

In this continuous playback, the images of his girlfriend began to switch constantly, and the rotting process became even clearer—those maggots covered her body together, soon ate the rotting flesh, and then hurried away.

Watching this process, the man muttered to himself, vowing: "I must make the murderer pay in blood."

"But where exactly is the murderer?"

He was a bit confused.

……

One month after his girlfriend went missing, the police stopped their search. The man, however, still hadn't given up; he even quit his job and took photos of his girlfriend from when she was alive to find everyone who might know something.

He visited all of his girlfriend’s acquaintances, including her colleagues, family, and the staff at the convenience store she frequented; he even went to the streets to stop strangers to ask, and was once beaten up for it.

But no one could give him an answer.

In their eyes, the man was nothing more than a poor soul who had lost his girlfriend.

The man fell into an even deeper level of suffering.

Every day at home, he watched the photos of his girlfriend rotting and continued the cycle of searching for people.

In those moments, how he wished he had been killed instead.

What exactly was this, living like this?

Amidst the pain, memories flooded back into his mind.

……

On the day of the incident, his girlfriend saw an advertisement board hanging with "ZOO" on it and excitedly wanted to go to that zoo.

At his girlfriend’s request, the man drove her there to set off together.

The two soon found a side road that was impassable for cars, so they got out and walked deep into the side road, discovering a shack pieced together from old wooden boards.

His girlfriend looked at the ceiling of the shack, which was about to collapse, and showed a very excited expression. Seeing this, the man took the opportunity to use the instant camera he carried with him to snap a picture of the scene.

With a "click," the light flashed, and his girlfriend’s eyes were hit by the flash, her face twisting for a moment.

She looked at the man taking the photo, snatched the fragment that came out of the instant camera, crumpled it up, and then said in a cold tone: "I hate this."

After a pause, she added: "Forget about me."

The man was a bit panicked; he pressed his girlfriend to ask what she meant. To him, he could not bear a life without his girlfriend; after all, only she had ever been so good to him.

His girlfriend looked at the man’s twisted face and calmly said that she no longer loved him.

After that day, his girlfriend went missing.

……

The man let go of the memories of the past, took his girlfriend’s photo, and went out to ask passersby again.

After a day, he still had nothing to show for it.

He returned to the parking lot and sat in his car, only to find a photo under the passenger seat where his girlfriend often sat.

The girlfriend in the photo was in a dilapidated room, looking up, and one could see her excitement. And in the bottom right corner of the photo, it was exactly the date his girlfriend went missing.

The man was very confused; wasn't this the photo his girlfriend was very angry about and then crumpled up? Why was it in his car?

Right, it must have been left there by the murderer.

He thought for a moment and prepared to put the photo into the dashboard, but when he opened it, he was surprised to find a gas station receipt inside.

He looked at the receipt and muttered to himself: "I didn't go to this gas station that day; I seem to have stayed home the whole time. So the murderer used my car to kidnap my girlfriend."

"Then, the person at the gas station might have seen the person driving this car that day."

Having made this deduction, he drove all the way to the gas station on the receipt. After seeing a middle-aged man who looked like the owner, he asked: "Have you seen the girl in the photo?"

The man said impatiently: "I have. She came a long time ago, heading west."

"Heading west? Then what kind of car was she sitting in?"

"She was sitting in the car you’re driving, of course."

"So that’s it!"

"You were the one driving, too. Is that answer good enough? Is the script good enough? Aren't you tired of doing this every day? Always repeating the same thing, don't you get bored? It’s been several months since I got involved in your game. But you’re a regular customer of mine, so I can’t really say anything."

"Don't talk nonsense! But it was really me driving? How is that possible?"

The man responded in shock.

"The car carrying her that day was actually driven by me...?"

The gas station owner made a gesture for him to leave, and the man slammed on the gas and drove west.

The man began to doubt himself; wasn't I at home that day? What exactly happened?

Unknowingly, the car drove deep into the woods, and the man felt the scenery here was familiar.

He stepped on the brake, got out of the driver’s seat, walked all the way inside, and discovered a shack.

Walking into the room, he smelled a rotting odor. He turned on his flashlight and found a pit on the ground, with a camera supported by a tripod next to it, aimed directly at the pit.

Inside the pit was his girlfriend’s corpse, or perhaps, it would be more appropriate to describe it as a skeleton.

Seeing this scene, the man could no longer deceive himself; he knelt on the ground and burst into tears.

He finally realized that because his girlfriend had asked to break up at the time, he had killed her by accident.

"I have to tell the police about this..., I have to turn myself in," he muttered to himself.

But, can I do it? He couldn't help but ask himself.

No, if I keep hesitating like this, I will forget the truth; I must find a way to report myself.

Right, the photo; if I take a photo, I won't forget my crime.

He walked up to the camera and pressed the shutter; the already rotting corpse emerged from the darkness under the flash of the magnesium light.

With a "click," the photo popped out.

The man tremblingly picked up the photo, returned to the car, and started the engine.

As he drove, he kept repeating to himself that he had to turn himself in, that he had to turn himself in.

The car drove through the darkness, passing the gas station from before, but because it was late, the place was already closed.

At this moment, the headlights illuminated an advertisement board with the word "ZOO" written on it.

Seeing this word, the man recalled every little detail of his time with his girlfriend. He looked at the passenger seat, and in a daze, he seemed to see his girlfriend, and a thought popped into his mind.

I love her so much, it definitely wasn't me who killed her, so who exactly is the murderer?

The car returned to the apartment; the man got out of the car with red eyes and dropped the photo into the inbox. He prayed that he would be able to see this photo tomorrow and then turn himself in.

He walked into the room, and vaguely, he remembered the advertisement board he had seen earlier, feeling an endless sense of emptiness.

He silently said to himself.

Turn myself in, I have to turn myself in.

……

The story ended here, and when Uesugi Sonoko saw this, she couldn't help but get goosebumps all over.

In this story, she felt a sense of horror.

The man who killed his girlfriend spends every morning searching for her tracks, and every day follows those tracks to take photos of her rotting corpse; his behavior is nauseating.

But deep in the man’s heart, he could never accept the fact that he had killed his girlfriend, even going so far as to use constant suggestion to believe in the existence of another murderer.

But what had happened was, after all, right there, and it would not disappear because of his deliberate suggestion.

The happy past with his girlfriend would always surface in the man’s mind.

In other words, in that shack at the zoo, he had also "killed" himself.

But will the man eventually turn himself in?

Or will he continue to struggle in the depths of his heart?

Uesugi Sonoko was confused for a while, but never reached an answer; however, she felt that whether it was turning himself in or pretending, this man could not escape the pain deep in his heart.

As expected of Mr. Akiwara, to be able to write something so good!

She thought for a moment, then picked up two more magazines, preparing to buy them along with the one in her hand.

Of these three magazines, she would keep one for her collection, use one for herself, and use one for proselytizing!