Chapter 43: A Zoo

In another bookstore, Uesugi Sonoko looked at the magazine in her hand with great surprise.

Although she had read many of Akiwara Yuto's works, she never thought that he was a psychological pervert as some book reviews in newspapers said.

After all, except for *Mystery Taxi* posted online, the *Little Ornament and Yoko*, *Seven Rooms*, and *Sofar* he serialized all contained discussions on hope outside the thriller elements.

But today's article *ZOO* made her feel a chill from the depths of her soul.

The story happened to an ordinary man. Every morning, a photo of his girlfriend would be sent to the "inbox" at his door.

These photos recorded the process of his girlfriend's body gradually rotting, and one could even see that the position of the maggots was different.

The man couldn't 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 a kind of inexplicable feeling.

He didn't tell anyone about the photos, nor did he go to the police. In other words, the only person who knew she was killed was himself, and everyone else thought she was just missing.

He leaned on the chair, his mind constantly recalling the past between him and his girlfriend. He remembered that he and his girlfriend had watched a movie called *ZOO*.

In this movie, the process of rotting of animal and plant bodies due to bacteria was recorded. He remembered that he didn't understand it very well at the time, but his girlfriend watched it with relish.

After watching the movie, the two went to a zoo. It had been abandoned for a long time, and there was no one there, only some smells filled with animal and plant bodies in the air.

These pasts floated in his mind like pictures.

He opened the computer, scanned the photos received today into the computer, and set them to "12 frames per second" continuous playback together with the previous photos.

In such continuous playback, the girlfriend's pictures kept switching, and the rotting process became clearer—those maggots covered her body together, and soon ate the rotten meat, and then hurried away.

Looking at this process, the man swore to himself: "I must make the murderer pay with blood."

"But where is the murderer?"

He was a bit confused.

A month after his girlfriend went missing, the police stopped searching. But the man still didn't give up. He even quit his job and took his girlfriend's photos before she died to find everyone who might know.

He visited all his girlfriend's acquaintances, including her colleagues, family, and employees of the convenience store she often went to, and went to the street to stop strangers to ask, and even was beaten up once.

But no one could give him a reply.

In their eyes, the man was just a poor person who lost his girlfriend.

The man fell into a deeper level of pain.

He looked at his girlfriend's rotting photos at home every day and continued to cycle the process of looking for people.

At those moments, he wished he had been killed too.

What is this now?

In pain, memories flooded into his mind again.

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

At the request of his girlfriend, the man drove and set off with her.

The two soon found a fork in the road that was not accessible by car, so they got out of the car and walked to the depths of the fork, and found a hut made of old wooden boards.

His girlfriend looked at the ceiling that was about to collapse and showed a very excited expression. Seeing this scene, the man took the opportunity to take a picture of this scene with the snapshot camera he carried with him.

With a "click," the light flashed, and his girlfriend's eyes were hit by the flash, and her face twisted for a while.

She looked at the man taking the picture, grabbed the fragment from the snapshot camera, crushed it, and said in a cold tone: "I hate this."

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

The man was a bit panicked. He asked his girlfriend what she meant. For him, he couldn't bear a life without his girlfriend, after all, only she would treat him so well.

His girlfriend looked at the man's twisted face and calmly said that she didn't love him anymore.

After that day, his girlfriend went missing.

The man put down his memories of the past, took his girlfriend's photos, and went out to ask passersby again.

After a day, he still gained nothing.

He returned to the parking lot, sat in his car, but found a photo under the assistant seat where his girlfriend often sat.

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

The man was very confused. Isn't this photo the one his girlfriend was very angry about, and then crushed? Why is it in his car?

Right, it must have been put down by the murderer.

He thought about it and prepared to put the photo in the dashboard, but when he opened it, he was surprised to find that there was a receipt from a gas station inside.

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

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

He made an inference, drove all the way to the gas station on the receipt, and after seeing a middle-aged man who looked like the boss, he asked: "Have you seen the girl in the photo?"

The man said impatiently: "Seen, she came a long time ago, going west."

"West? Then what kind of car was she sitting in?"

"Of course she was sitting in the car you drove."

"Sure enough!"

"The one driving is also you. Is this answer okay? Is the line good enough? Aren't you tired of doing this every day? Always repeating the same thing, don't you feel bored? Since being involved in your game, it's been several months now. However, you are my old customer, so I'm not good at saying anything."

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

The man responded very shocked.

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

The gas station boss made a gesture of sending guests away, and the man stepped on the accelerator and drove west.

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

Unknowingly, the car drove into the depths of the woods, and the man felt that the scenery here was familiar.

He stepped on the brake, got out of the driver's seat, walked all the way inside, and found a hut.

Walking into the room, he smelled a rotten smell. Turning on the flashlight, he found a pit on the ground, and a tripod supported a camera next to it, facing the pit.

In the pit, it was his girlfriend's body, or, it would be more appropriate to describe it as a skeleton.

Seeing this scene, the man couldn't deceive himself, knelt on the ground, and cried bitterly.

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

"I have to tell the police about this..., I have to surrender." He muttered to himself.

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

No, if I hesitate like this, I will forget the truth of the facts. I must find a means to report myself.

Right, photos, if I take photos, I won't forget my crime.

He walked to the camera and pressed the shutter. The rotten body floated out of the darkness under the flash of the flash.

With a "click," the photo popped out.

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

While driving, he kept saying to himself that he was going to surrender, he was going to surrender.

The car drove in the dark, passed the gas station just now, but because it was late, the other party had already closed.

At this time, the car lights illuminated an advertisement board, on which the word "ZOO" was written.

Seeing this word, the man recalled the bits and pieces of him and his girlfriend. He looked at the assistant seat, and in a trance, he seemed to see his girlfriend, and a thought popped up in his heart.

I love her so much, it must not be me who killed her, so who is the murderer?

The car returned to the apartment, and the man walked down the car with red eyes and threw the photo into the inbox. He prayed that he could go to surrender after seeing this photo tomorrow.

He walked into the house, vaguely remembered the advertisement board he saw before, and felt endless emptiness.

He said to himself silently.

Surrender, I want to surrender.

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

She felt a kind of chilling feeling in this story.

The man who killed his girlfriend, looking for his girlfriend's trail every morning, and every day according to this trail, taking photos of his girlfriend's rotting, his behavior is disgusting.

But in the depths of the man's heart, he could never accept the fact that he killed his girlfriend, and even through constant hints, he thought there was another murderer.

But what happened was there, and it wouldn't disappear because of his deliberate hints.

The happy past with his girlfriend would always float in the man's mind.

In other words, in that hut in the zoo, he also "killed" himself.

But will the man finally surrender?

Or continue to struggle in the depths of his heart?

Uesugi Sonoko was confused for a while, but never got an answer, but she felt that whether it was surrendering or pretending, this man could not escape the pain in the depths of his heart.

Akiwara-sensei is worthy of being Akiwara-sensei, actually being able to write so beautifully!

She thought about it and picked up two more magazines, preparing to buy them together with the one in her hand.

These three magazines, she wants one for collection, one for self-use, and one for preaching! ===== CHAPTER 44 =====