Chapter 62 - The Story of Regret
In the end, Mana-chan didn't make it. Just before I leaped out from the van, she had taken a bullet to the abdomen. That bullet had mangled her internal organs, leading to her death from massive hemorrhaging.
After that, we had to move immediately. Perhaps the infected in this city had noticed the gunshots, as they were starting to gather around us one after another. we decided to carry as much luggage as possible from the car and head to the apartment building where the sniper had been.
Since there was no counterattack after Naomi-san's shot, it seemed there had been only one sniper attacking us. The apartment was reasonably high, providing a good view, and since the infected rarely look upward, there was little risk of being noticed. If not for the previous occupant, the sniper, it would have made an excellent base.
We had no choice but to leave Mana-chan's body behind. We had no time to bury her and no leeway to carry her, and above all, the infected are only interested in living humans. They don't feast on corpses. Deciding to bury her after the infected were gone, we headed for the apartment.
The apartment building where the sniper had lurked was like a fortress. Wires were strung across the roads around the apartment to prevent the infected from entering, and nails and short-cut barbed wire were scattered on the ground. Furthermore, alarm devices using string and empty cans were strung about, ensuring that if anyone were to intrude, it would be known immediately.
The interior of the apartment was, quite literally, full of danger. The pitch-black apartment was like a department store of traps.
Piano wire strung at the height of a human's eyes or neck in the middle of the stairs was a given. If you accidentally cut a string at your feet, an axe might swing down from above like a pendulum, or there were traps where boxes containing kitchen knives and blades would tilt, raining down countless sharp objects. Elsewhere, obstacles made by driving countless long nails into boards, designed to pierce through shoe soles and into feet if stepped on, were placed here and there.
After avoiding or forcing our way through those traps, we reached Room 510 on the 5th floor, where the sniper had been lurking. From Room 510, one could overlook the street and the gas station and supermarket lining its sides, and on its balcony lay the corpse of the sniper who had attacked us and whom Naomi-san had defeated.
"Is he... smiling?"
Yui, who had flipped over the face-down corpse to get a look at the person who killed Mana-chan, muttered dubiously upon seeing his face. Was he about the age of a university student? Everything from the forehead up had vanished after taking a rifle round, but a smile was certainly plastered on that man's face.
Why was the man smiling? Was it a sense of accomplishment for killing Mana-chan, or was he glad to be liberated from this hellish world? I wanted to ask him along with the reason he attacked us, but with half his head blown off, I couldn't hear an answer. In a fit of irritation, I kicked the man's corpse once, then picked up the gun lying beside him. Then, I found a palm-sized notebook sticking out slightly from his trouser pocket and flipped through it. It seemed he had been using it as a diary.
The man's room was stocked with abundant supplies. From food and water to medicine and various fuels. Although they were mostly hunting guns, there were also weapons and ammunition.
The weapon the man had been using was apparently a semi-automatic rifle called an M1A. Originally a US military automatic rifle, it had apparently entered Japan as a hunting rifle. In accordance with the Sword and Firearms Law, the detachable magazine could be loaded with up to five rounds, and unlike the bolt-action rifles we had been using, there was no need to pull the bolt handle every time to eject and chamber a round. A scope was attached to the mount base on the receiver, and a bipod was attached to the front underside of the wooden stock. With this gun, the man must have continued to snipe many people.
Several other firearms compliant with the Sword and Firearms Law, such as pump-action shotguns and side-by-side double-barrel guns, were leaning against the corner of the room. Inside the closet were paper boxes of ammunition and knives; it was like a trade fair for weapons.
There was enough food and water to last several months if conserved. Therefore, there should have been no need to attack others and plunder supplies anymore. Why did the man attack us? Had he gone mad from fear, or had he become stained with the pleasure of killing?
Either way, a madman has no ethics. The man tormented Mana-chan to death; that is the fact. And Mana-chan is dead, and will never smile at us again.
"...It's your fault. If you had been more careful, Mana-chan would...!"
Yui, who had been clutching her knees in the corner of the room, stood up and suddenly grabbed the collar of my shirt as I was silently searching for supplies. She shook me back and forth, but the strength of a frail girl was negligible.
Yui, having grabbed my collar, glared at me with eyes wet with tears. Naomi-san stepped in and pulled Yui's hands away.
"Stop it, Yui! This isn't about whose fault it is; it was just bad luck."
"Bad luck? You're going to dismiss Mana-chan's death with the words 'bad luck'!?"
"But blaming him is misplaced. We all decided to take that road, and the one who killed Mana is the man rotting over there. I know it's hard, but you shouldn't lash out at just anyone. He is not responsible."
As Naomi-san said, we had decided in advance which route to take. Of course, not everything could go as planned, so there were points where Naomi-san and I, who were driving, made judgments, but there was no mistaking that we proceeded with everyone's consent. In that regard, there was no reason for me to be blamed.
"...I know that. I know, but...!"
Her sobbing eventually turned into wailing, and as Yui knelt on the spot as if collapsing, Naomi-san led her out of the room. Standing still in that place, Yui's words "It's your fault" echoed in my head.
Naomi-san told me it wasn't my fault. But was I truly not responsible?
That couldn't be right.
If I had always kept the possibility of being attacked by someone in mind, I wouldn't have chosen such a wide, straight road. Even if we did pass through, I would have woken everyone who was sleeping and consulted them on what to do. Since Naomi-san had even received military training, she might have advised us to take a detour, judging that national highway to be dangerous.
Or I should have turned back when I saw the corpses and cars scattered on the road. At that time, even while feeling something was off, I made the decision to go straight. If I had been able to connect the fact that there were unusually many crashed cars despite it being a road with good visibility with my previous experience of being attacked by fellow humans, I would have been able to judge that they had been attacked by someone.
Complacency. That one word summed up what brought about this situation. Because I was careless, Mana-chan died.
Having been attacked by fellow humans in Osawa Village, I gained the lesson that even fellow humans cannot be trusted. But I couldn't make use of it. There had been many desperate situations until now, but we had pulled through them together every time. Without a single person missing, we had all survived together. So it'll be fine no matter what situation we fall into; there's no way any of the four of us will die. Such a thought had been somewhere in my heart.
Of course, I thought many times that someone might die. However, that was merely kept as a possibility, and I hadn't seriously considered a situation where one of the four of us would actually die. We can keep going as the four of us from here on. Without any guarantee, I had convinced myself of that, and today I was once again confronted with the reality of this world.
However, no matter how much I regret it, I cannot change the fact of Mana-chan's death. I paid the price for my choice with Mana-chan's life.
Life is a cruel thing, I thought. Unlike a game, choices aren't clearly presented before your eyes, nor can you boot up save data and redo things from a branch point. You have no choice but to keep moving forward, surrendering yourself to the flow, but what waits ahead isn't necessarily the correct answer.
As a result of continuing forward believing this path was correct, or without noticing there were other choices, you are confronted with reality. Along with the words, "You were wrong." No one tells you which was the correct choice, or from where you started down the wrong path.
And while tormented by the feeling of helplessness at not being able to change the reality before my eyes and the regret of "if only I had done that then," I have no choice but to continue living from here on. This was my price for the complacency I held as a result of my assumptions that ignored reality, and Mana-chan's death because of it.
It seems that my vow to survive even if my companions became sacrifices was just a bluff. I held such a sense of emptiness, as if a hole had opened in my heart. If I were truly a person who could behave like such a machine, I shouldn't have thought about such things every time someone else died.
In truth, I was afraid of losing my companions.
When humans gain something, they fear losing it. A person who has gained something must continue to fight the fear of losing it forever. I gained companions: Yui, Naomi-san, and Mana-chan. And I should have fought the fear of losing them, but I ran away from it. Using such nonsense as "I will survive even if I sacrifice someone" as an excuse, I tried to escape from the fear.
I already tasted the fear and sadness of losing someone close when I cracked open the head of my mother, who had turned into an infected. That's why I had been living alone until I met Yui.
If I don't make important people, I won't have to fight the fear and sadness of losing them anymore. That's why I was living alone, yet I ended up saving Yui that day. Then I saved Mana-chan, was saved by Naomi-san, and before I knew it, I had become deeply involved with them.
And I became forced to fight the fear of loss once again. But I ran away from it.
In truth, I didn't want anyone to die. There was no one I didn't mind dying. Even describing Mana-chan as a burden was just to gloss over the fear of losing her.
If I consider all the people around me as irrelevant folks whose deaths wouldn't have much of an impact, the damage I receive when they die will be shallow. That's why I kept lying to myself, capping my true feelings, and continuing to deceive myself. It's true that not wanting to die is my honest feeling, but that doesn't mean it's okay to sacrifice everyone.
The fact that I know surprisingly little about Mana-chan despite being together for months was also the result of unconsciously trying to avoid becoming deeply involved even after we started acting together. The more you know about a person, the greater the sadness when you lose them. That's why I didn't try to know everyone deeply. I can't remember Mana-chan's favorite food. In the first place, I don't know it.
Settling everything with the words "it can't be helped" was also to ignore the feeling of helplessness toward the reality before my eyes. When I killed the three defenseless people in Osawa Village, and when I left the man to die and shot and abandoned the mother and child in the city where the tank was—if I thought about it, there might have been other choices, but those were merely convenient excuses to avoid blaming myself for not being able to find them.
In truth, I shouldn't have had to do those things. But at that time, I couldn't find any other clever way. So, to avoid regretting it when I remembered it, I stopped facing reality with the words "it can't be helped" and took the easiest choice. Even if that choice was killing someone, having abandoned facing reality, I ran toward such an easy choice.
"Why, did it come to this..."
Such words escaped me, and I slid down to sit on the spot.
I wanted to redo everything. From long before I met Yui. That day when the infection spread in Japan and we were taking refuge in the school. If I hadn't run and hidden when the shelter was attacked but had gone to look for my father and mother, maybe it wouldn't have turned out like this. I might have died then, but at least I shouldn't have become a person who keeps running away from something like I am now. I would have become a person who could take more pride in myself.
"But, it's already impossible..."
No matter how much I regret it, nothing will change. The fact of losing Mana-chan cannot be changed. We three who survived will carry that fact and have no choice but to live while being tormented by the fear that our companions will die from here on.
Was it at least fortunate that Mana-chan could die without knowing that everyone in her family except herself had died and she had become all alone in the world? The moment I thought that, I mocked myself, thinking this too was an escape.
Did the sniper who attacked us also want to escape from something? Through the window left open, I stared at the man's corpse lying on the balcony. Having lost the upper half of his head, his eyes from which light had vanished conveyed nothing. All that was there was just a smile. Seeing the man's smile, as if he had been saved from something, I found myself envious of him.
Someone, help me. Before I knew it, such words escaped my mouth, and I buried my face between my clutched knees.
I look forward to your opinions and impressions.