Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 5 Chapter 2 Part 1

CHAPTER II

2—1

“Get out, you parasite!”

A tall building stretched up toward the heavens. It was a beautiful white church decorated with vividly colored stained glass and detailed sculptures. In the center was Atsushi, trembling. His body wouldn’t move, overcome with fear. It took everything he had to simply crawl on the frigid stone flooring. How? Why? He had so many questions, but he couldn’t think clearly. Cold sweat dripped down his pale face.
Atsushi knew where this was.
It was the orphanage he grew up in. A place he left long ago. So why was he here now?
The trauma of days gone resurfaced; his breathing grew shallow. There were footsteps. He looked up with a gasp to find familiar faces staring down at him. They had worked at the orphanage.
“Your kind isn’t welcome here!”
The verbal abuse made Atsushi realize what was happening: This was a memory. A scene from his distant past—days of loneliness and humiliation he didn’t wish to remember.

Is it that I don’t want to remember? Or that I can’t remember…?

The scenery before him was suddenly distorted, and a door appeared behind the orphanage workers. It was a sturdy-looking white door, majestic and divine. Atsushi’s eyes were drawn to it, but he felt that shouldn’t be disturbed. It was a forbidden gate that must absolutely never be opened.

I mustn’t open it. I mustn’t open it. I mustn’t open it…
Atsushi kept repeating those words to himself. His body froze with fear, and he couldn’t stop trembling. Not even Atsushi himself knew why, though. The fear wreaked havoc on his mind and almost instinctively shackled him to the ground.
I mustn’t open it. I mustn’t open it. I mustn’t open it. That door mustn’t be opened at all costs.
“Society would be better off if you just died.” “You don’t belong in this world.”
The vitriol echoed throughout the church. Fog slowly began to creep out from behind the door as if it were reacting to the orphanage director’s voice. Atsushi wondered what was going on, but his curiosity was short-lived. The orphanage workers were gone before he even realized it, and the fog was racing toward him. His eyes opened wide with fear.
“…!”
Fog. Fog. Fog.
All he could see was the pure-white fog as it swallowed his body. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t. The mist forced its way into his mouth, and he felt as though he were being controlled. It hurt to breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He was being eaten alive by the fog. He was going to be consumed and die.

That was when he woke up.

Atsushi opened his eyes and sat up with a gasp. There was only darkness. He panted, confused as to where he was. His entire body was drenched in sweat, and a light blanket clung to his skin. Atsushi finally realized where he was as his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. He was in his room in the company dormitory. Inside the closet, to be exact.
“That was just a dream…?”
He was still gasping for air, but he felt a little more at ease knowing he’d dreamed it all.
Everything’s okay. I’m not the same person I was when I lived at the orphanage. I have friends. I have a place where I belong—at the Armed Detective Agency. Things are different now.
Suddenly, someone called out to Atsushi from the other side of the sliding door while he was taking a few deep breaths:
“Can I come in?” It was Kyouka. “Oh. Sure…”
A pale light peeked into the closet as she slid open the door. It was still nighttime. She must have turned on the lights. She was still wearing her pajamas as she closely examined Atsushi’s face.
“Are you okay?”
“Huh? Why do you ask?”
“…You sounded like you were having a bad dream.”
Kyouka lowered her gaze in a worried manner. Atsushi and Kyouka were currently living together in the agency dormitory. Of course, Atsushi wouldn’t dream of sleeping in the same room as her, so he decided to take the closet. Be that as it may, it was still a closet. The sliding door was thin, and it was far, far from being soundproof.
On top of that, Kyouka was a former assassin—and a highly skilled one at that. She would easily be able to sense anything out of sorts…which was why she woke up to the sound of Atsushi’s voice and started to worry. When Atsushi looked over her shoulder, he noticed her futon had already been made. It must’ve been a little while since she’d noticed he was moaning in his sleep. He started to feel guilty and decided to tell her the truth despite his embarrassment.
“Yeah, just a bit of a nightmare.” “…!”
Kyouka immediately leaned forward and brought her face closer to his. “W-wait, Kyouka?!”
Atsushi panicked. He wasn’t used to seeing her so close-up—and in her pajamas, at that. But what she said next sent a chill down his spine. Kyouka stared at him intently and asked, “…Did you see any fog in your dream?”
“…What?”
His face tensed, for he became bizarrely sure of something. He immediately raced out of the closet and opened the window.
All he could see was white fog. Fog. Fog. Fog.
Just like in his dream, the area was thick with fog. It was as if the night scenery of Yokohama, which he was so used to seeing from the window, had been engulfed by the mist. Atsushi stared vacantly at the sight.
“Is this…?” he muttered. A moment later, he heard Kyouka behind him flip open her phone.
“I’m not getting any signal,” she announced abruptly. Atsushi started searching for his own phone in a panic. He vaguely remembered leaving it near his futon, so he rushed over to the closet and grabbed it. He pressed the call button—no signal.
The situation was dire. Atsushi was so flustered that he bumped his head on the divider in the closet. A dull, throbbing pain ran through his skull. Nevertheless, there was no time to roll around in agony, so he simply rubbed his head while showing Kyouka his phone.
“…Me either.”
A white fog and disconnected phones—Atsushi’s gut was telling him that something was wrong.
“Is this the fog that’s been making skill users kill themselves…?” he muttered after sluggishly crawling out of the closet. Kyouka, who was looking out the window, turned her gaze to him.
“Let’s go to the agency.”
“Huh? Now? Like, right now?” Atsushi was taken aback by her sudden, blunt proposal. His eyes wandered as sweat beaded on his cheek. “Don’t you think we should wait until morning?”
Kyouka, however, looked dead serious. It was clear that she had already made up her mind. Nevertheless, Atsushi didn’t back down yet. With a trembling voice, he squeaked, “Maybe the fog will clear up by th—”
But he never got the chance to finish that sentence.