Fifteen

Even at night, the Port Syndicate’s dungeon was guarded. After handing over duty to the night shift, the day shift guard took another look inside the cell.

A thin man stood facing the corner. Through the peephole on the door, only his skeletal back was visible.

“What’s wrong?” The night guard glanced in, curious.

“Nothing, just strange. He’s been holding that position for a whole day,” the day guard said hesitantly, stroking his chin.

The night guard chuckled, patting his colleague’s shoulder casually. “He’s just a lunatic. Officer Ozaki said so himself. What else would a lunatic do but act abnormally?”

“Listen, the ones caught with him all died—suicide. I don’t know where they found such resolve to strangle themselves,” he whispered mysteriously into the day guard’s ear.

“What?!” the day guard exclaimed.

“I just found out myself. There was blood everywhere in the cell, and the guards on duty were punished,” the night guard lamented. “Compared to them, this guy just standing there is much better.”

The day guard gasped. “Alright then, I’ll head out. Be careful tonight.”

“I know,” the night guard nodded. Although all these prisoners were mad, they were captured by the Port Syndicate for interrogation. Yet, dying mysteriously in a guarded cell was a direct slap in the Syndicate’s face.

After the shift change, the once noisy dungeon gradually fell silent, save for the occasional pained groans from within the cells.

The calm lasted until late into the night, when a drowsy guard suddenly heard rustling from one cell.

Fearing another suicide like before, he quickly opened the peephole and looked inside.

The man, who had been quietly standing in the corner, was now twisting on the floor in a grotesque, contorted posture, his limbs bent in unnatural directions.

His deranged face showed bulging eyes, almost forced out of their sockets.

The guard was frozen in terror by the horrifying sight, missing his chance to alert others.

The man writhed on the ground, arching his back with great effort. His once-flat abdomen ballooned like an inflated balloon, swelling madly within seconds until it was larger than that of a woman at full term pregnancy.

Though wracked with pain, his face was lit not with agony alone but with a twisted excitement and obsession.

“Tomie! My… Tomie! You’re mine! I personally… conceived… you… Tomie! You can’t… leave me…”

His hoarse, dry voice broke into manic laughter. Like a zealot sacrificing himself, even as his bones cracked and muscles tore with horrendous sounds, he gazed wildly at his swollen belly.

The guard could not look away, gripped by an inexplicable force despite his overwhelming fear.

Finally, the swollen belly burst open. The man screamed in agony, fixing his body rigidly in one position, like an ant parasitized by fungus—no matter the pain, he wouldn’t move an inch.

Inside his abdomen, there were no organs; only scant blood trickled down his twisted limbs. He had been completely consumed.

A wet head emerged from the man’s belly, black hair matted with blood, pale and beautiful cheeks smeared with remnants of fascia and flesh.

Like a blooming flower, a boy unfolded his body from the man’s abdomen. At first, only the boy’s head appeared human. His torso and limbs were limp and distorted, like a deflated plastic doll—twisted and grotesquely fused together.

But as he slowly stood upright, the shriveled and terrifying body began to fill out like butterfly wings gradually suffused with blood, becoming full and alluring under the guard’s dazed gaze.

When the boy’s upper body became indistinguishable from a normal person’s, the man he had parasitized was reduced to scattered fragments on the floor.

He had no lower body; where his waist should be grew tiny buds and blood vessels. Clearly, one man’s flesh was insufficient to form the boy’s entire body.

“Useless creature, not even enough nourishment—less than trash,” the boy sneered at the pile of remains. After muttering curses, he turned his gaze slowly toward the peephole on the cell door.

When the guard met the boy’s eyes, he swallowed nervously, mesmerized by the boy’s flawless, handsome face and the pale, delicate skin of his bare chest.

“Big brother, it’s so cold here. Will you take me away? I don’t want to stay here at all. You’re so kind, you’ll take me away, right?” The boy clung to himself, pleading pitifully, those jet-black eyes staring intently at the guard.

“Click.”

The door lock was opened, and a sharp alarm blared through the dungeon. Yet the guard seemed oblivious, entranced by the boy’s half-formed body. “Of course. I’ll take you away right now.”

After the mysterious suicides in the dungeon, someone had brazenly taken a prisoner away.

Officer Kureha Ozaki’s eyes were icy as she stared at the wide-open cell door. The cell was now empty.

Taking a few steps forward, the crimson-haired beauty in traditional dress crouched to examine the traces on the floor: bloodstains, scraps of flesh, and unidentified debris.

“Officer Ozaki, it was the night guard who opened the cell door. We are currently tracking him,” a subordinate nervously reported. Repeated emergencies, all inside the dungeon, with no intelligence gathered—and even a defection from their own ranks.

They would all be held accountable. Even Kureha Ozaki herself could be questioned.

“Where’s the surveillance footage?” Kureha Ozaki ordered, sealing off the area.

The blood and flesh were one thing, but the strange debris made her suspicious.

“We found it. The night guard fled from the cell carrying something wrapped in cloth,” her subordinate said, immediately handing over a tablet. Kureha Ozaki’s gaze fixed on the large bundle.

“Continue the investigation. Those who betray the Port Syndicate will pay the price,” Kureha Ozaki said coldly. Her stunning face now looked like a terrifying demon to her subordinates.