Chapter 207 - Who am I?-ish Story
The children who had been using the shopping mall as a base to attack survivors were annihilated by the boy and his group. About a dozen children remained in the mall and attacked the boy and the others who broke in, trying to kill them, but it seemed they were at a disadvantage against a group armed with guns. Left behind were the corpses of the children, and the mountain of supplies they had collected by attacking survivors.
Perhaps because their consumption was low due to being children, most of the food remained untouched. In other rooms, although few in number, weapons such as hunting rifles and police handguns were also stored. According to Aki's story, the man who led the children did not let them have firearms or teach them how to use them. He had apparently feared that if the children, who were already a threat by becoming half-infected, possessed even more powerful weapons, they would kill and wound even more people.
From the state of the children who attacked them, the boy thanked that man. If the children had mastered guns and attacked people, Sato and the boy would have surely died before even reaching the shopping mall.
However, what made the boy and the others lose their words when they found them inside the shopping mall were numerous strange objects made by combining countless human bones. And those bones were all smooth on the surface, clean bones with no rotten meat adhering to them. Just like the bones of fried chicken after being eaten.
The moment they realized those were the end results of the victims the children had eaten, the team members reflexively stepped back. Some couldn't endure it and vomited on the spot. Even they, who were used to seeing corpses, couldn't endure the products of the children's madness. Even if they had seen many corpses devoured by the infected, the thought of making works of art using those corpses was something they could not understand at all.
However, those eerie objects were apparently things the children had made as their own support. It was supposedly so they wouldn't forget the people they had eaten, but now that all those children are dead, it's no longer possible to know the true reason why they made them.
The sweeping operation was a success without a single sacrifice. Although there were injured people due to the set traps and the children's attacks, no one sustained life-threatening injuries. They completely eliminated the children who could be a threat in the future and also obtained supplies. Everything ended perfectly.
But the boy could not simply rejoice in that. On the way back to the Reclaimed Land, while looking out the car window, the boy was wondering if there had been no way to save those children.
The number of vehicles returning to the Reclaimed Land is small. Because the barricades of the police station were repaired and there was a prospect of using it as a forward base, several people immediately stayed behind.
From now on, personnel will be periodically dispatched from the Reclaimed Land to the forward base, and they will take turns monitoring the surrounding area and procuring supplies. Infected or ruffians can be discovered before they approach the Reclaimed Land, and if there are supplies left in the town, they can also be recovered. Now there are nearly 100 survivors in the Reclaimed Land, and the problems of safety and supplies were always present.
By sweeping the children who were becoming infected this time, the safety of the town increased further. There are still infected everywhere, but they can just eliminate them one by one. If they do that, eventually they will be able to create a safe zone not only in the Reclaimed Land but also in the town.
In the vehicle returning to the Reclaimed Land, the boy took a notebook out of his pocket. It was something that had been in the breast pocket of the man's corpse, which was at the altar made of bones.
That man was the leader of the children in the shopping mall, and his infection was also progressing, albeit slowly. And in front of Aki, whom he had ended up kidnapping against his will, he finally turned into a complete infected and was killed by her.
That Aki is now taking a rest in the Reclaimed Land. It couldn't be helped since she was suddenly punched, knocked unconscious, and kidnapped. But the truth was that it was out of consideration that she would be mentally worn out.
Aki has never killed a person until now. Those she had killed until now were infected, and she had no experience killing a "human" who maintained their reason.
But this time, Aki seemed to be brooding over the fact that she might have killed that "human." The person she was talking to until just before lost his reason due to the progression of the infection and attacked her. Whether the opponent was a human or an infected, everyone would think it was unavoidable self-defense that she killed the opponent who attacked her. Aki also understands that, but she still seemed unable to accept it.
The boy remembered the first time he killed a person. He didn't directly do it himself. But he left the opponent in a state where they couldn't move in the face of a swarming group of infected, leaving them behind as bait for him to escape.
The boy at that time justified the act he had performed by making the excuse that it was "unavoidable." After that, every time he killed a person, he told himself, "It's unavoidable," "That guy is bad," and "It's a necessary thing to survive."
Will Aki be able to do that? But if she can justify herself, this time the shackles of her reason will break. She will make the excuse that it's to protect herself and carry out even unnecessary killings. Like the former boy.
"It's a difficult thing..."
The boy opens the notebook. On the first page, along with a handwritten message saying "To the person who picked up this notebook," his name, address, and several other names were written.
"This diary is proof that I lived. If you are reading this notebook, it means I am dead. In that case, it is a great trouble, but please deliver this notebook to my family. Please."
The diary began with those words. The day the infection spread in Japan, how he fled desperately but couldn't go anywhere. Help didn't come, and how they somehow evacuated to the shopping mall. How they then split into two groups: those who planned to escape and those who chose to stay in the mall, and that the whereabouts of the former were unknown.
He had heard the general story from Aki, but being confronted with the man's raw feelings in the diary made the shock he received different. As if the man who wrote this diary were alive, the boy understood his feelings as if he could grasp them. No help coming, no food, in such a desperate situation, he could feel how they lived as if he were there.
The diary ended the day before the boys went to the police station. The next day, for a grand double suicide with the surviving children, the man maneuvered to kidnap Aki and have her attack the boy and Sato.
The man apparently understood that what he was trying to do was wrong. But there was no other choice but to do this. While both he and the children were becoming infected, the only way to not kill any more people was for them to die.
Was the reason the handwriting in the diary was distorted because the infection was progressing and he was losing his reason, or was there another reason? In any case, he can no longer know about that man except through this diary.
Should I deliver this diary to the bereaved family? The boy thought.
The diary says that if the man's family is alive, he wants the notebook delivered. But would the family be happy to receive this diary? Would they want to know the end of the man who ate human meat in the suffering of hunger and consequently became infected and killed many people, even if they were alive?
After agonizing over it, the boy put off giving an answer. In this situation, he doesn't know how many of the people written in the notebook are still surviving. Even if they were alive, he doesn't know if he can meet them. In other words, the possibility of being able to meet the man's bereaved family is quite low. If so, he shouldn't spend his thought resources on things that are doubtful whether they can even be done, such as how to hand it over to the family of a dead person.
However, the boy thought. I should also write a diary.
The boy lost his family, friends, and everything. The only one who knows about him is himself. No one knows what he has experienced until now or what he has been thinking and doing.
And there is no means to prove who the boy is. Since he was a minor, he hadn't made an ID card, and he lost his school student handbook in the mess during the chaos. The government offices have also ceased to function, and there is a possibility that paper documents and servers containing resident information have been lost in fires. Even if the government offices resume in the future, no one will know who the boy is.
In other words, who the current boy is can only be expressed by the boy's own words. His name, what he has done until now, and what he was thinking. To leave proof of that life, he must keep a record, whether it's a diary or anything else.
Above all, if he dies now, there will be no one who can tell of the final moments of the people the boy has met. What they were doing before they died and how they died. If the boy dies without leaving any record, they probably won't even know that they died.
In the current town, corpses are rolling everywhere, and it's impossible to identify who all of them were. If in the future, assuming the world is restored, many of the corpses left behind will be treated as "unidentified" without knowing who they were, and many of the people who died will be treated as "missing."
The boy must leave a record that they lived and that they are no longer in this world. That was the least atonement he could do for himself, who had driven many people to their deaths and then couldn't save them.
After returning to the Reclaimed Land, the boy brought out a notebook from the bookstore in the shopping mall that served as their base. There was no use for books that couldn't be eaten, and thanks to no one entering the bookstore, plenty of diaries and notebooks remained.
Returning to the empty store assigned to him, the boy immediately opened the notebook. First, he wrote his name, date of birth, and address. He didn't write a message to his family. There are no longer any of the boy's family members alive.
And on the next page, he wrote down as many of the people he had met until now as he could remember. Their names, their ages, their appearances. Where they lived, stories about their families, and so on.
In addition, he wrote down how he parted with them, where they went missing, or where they died. The possibility is extremely low, but by writing down as much information as he remembers like this, if the information in this notebook passes to someone else, it might be possible to find the bereaved family or identify the individual when recovering the body.
After writing down several names like that, the boy paused for a moment and took a deep breath.
What he is about to write is his own actions since the world changed completely. That includes acts he never wants people to know and things that are by no means to be praised. Things that if someone else knew, they would surely severely criticize the boy.
But the boy resolutely began to run his pen. Leaving a record like this, having someone know. That was a means to leave his own existence in this world and at the same time the only way to pass on the stories of the people who had died.
I'm waiting for your opinions and impressions.