The Domino City Airport was hardly a crowded building. It was not an international airport, at least not officially. Most travelers would, for that very reason, prefer to drop by Tokyo instead, to take advantage of the Narita International Airport for their traveling needs. However, that was not to say it was deserted either. Local flights made up the bulk of its business, those and a sparse handful of international flights for those who knew how to look in the listings. The latter point made this airport in particular perfect for those who preferred a nice, quiet flight, such as Arthur and Rebecca Hawkins.

  The first-class lounge in the airport was hardly expensive either, another casualty of the relative obscurity of the Domino City Airport. The powers that be had to make ends meet, thus they could not be overly picky about what prices they offered. That meant a nice wide window to view planes lining up on the tarmac, plenty of affordable alcohol to those who partook in the drink, and, to Rebecca's delight, free unlimited ice cream cones. Enough so that there was a little dot of ice cream on the tip of her nose, and her teeth were chattering from the cold desserts, even though it was springtime outside.

  Her teeth closed around the side of the second scoop of cookies' n' cream ice cream that was balanced precariously on the end of a brittle sugar cone in her hands. It wasn’t quite Rocky Road, but Rebecca never liked to consider herself a picky girl. If the most chocolately flavor the airport had in stock, well, then she would do her best to make it out of stock before the plane arrived!

  However, the ice cream in her hands was not her entire focus. Spread out on top of a clear glass table in front of Rebecca was her deck, meticulously disassembled in an attempt to answer the most burning question of all – how could she have done better? There was no mistaking that Phil was a powerful duelist. Rebecca was sure of her own strength, just as she was sure that man had played through the game from start to finish in a completely above-board and legitimate way. He had not cheated. He’d beat her through a mixture of skill, luck, and deck-building.

  Rebecca's nose scrunched up in thought. Skill, luck, and deck-building. The first point was one she could improve on given enough time. The second point could be discarded. Luck could arrive and leave at any time no matter what happened. The third point… was represented by the cards spread out before her.

  She didn’t doubt her strategy. Nor was she particularly attached to her strategy, but she didn’t doubt it. Phil’s deck simply contained several different ways to dip under Gravity Bind, unlike most strategies that were popular at this point in time. It happened. For every deck and every strategy, there was a counterplay to it. So what… how could she deal with that specific counterplay without weakening her deck? Or was it time to consider a different outlook on things?

  Her nose scrunched further, the movement dislodging the drops of ice cream on its tip to fall onto the edge of her dark blue skirt. Rebecca’s brows wrinkled in annoyance, kicking the back of her feet against the bench in a rhythmic manner.

  “Gramps-“ She began to say, only for her to realize that she was alone on the bench. Rebecca’s head swiveled around. “Grandpa?” Her voice rose. Had he gone to the restroom? She had been pretty focused on her deck…

  Rebecca pushed her half-moon glasses up further on the bridge of her nose. If she were an old grandpa, where would she go? Her gaze flicked over to the snack counter. Nope. No grey-haired grandpa there. Nothing but a handful of salarymen downing seemingly endless glasses of sake. Rebecca's face instinctively screwed up at the sight of the clear liquid, her memories bringing back the taste of the acrid drink her grandpa had let her try a sip of last New Year's Eve. Yuck. She stuck out her tongue at the glasses of poison and continued looking around.

  Grandpa, grandpa, where was he? Not under the bench, or hiding behind the curtains, or boarding the plane already (he was an old fogey, but Rebecca knew her grandpa would never forget her at the airport).

  Then her eyes widened. There he was, coming out of the bathroom! A sigh of relief escaped her. Of course. Rebecca made to stand, but then… her eyes narrowed.

  Grandpa was walking… weird.

  She stared at him with narrowed eyes until he reached her bench.

  “Gramps?” Rebecca half-muttered the question, leaving the rest of it floating in the air.

  “It is I.” Arthur Hawkins replied.

  Rebecca flinched backward. She couldn’t help it, even though she never thought she’d ever do that in response to anything her beloved grandpa said. It was…

  Wrong.

  All wrong.

  His mouth didn’t line up with his words. His eyes were no longer filled with the sort of joyous life she was so used to seeing. His movements were odd, as if he was suddenly not used to his own body… but that was ridiculous! How would anyone not be used to their own body after almost seventy years of living life to the fullest?

  "Grandpa, are you alright?" Rebecca blurted out. She edged closer, but then her own body stopped without her say so. Belatedly, she realized that was instinct.

  Her instincts screamed at her to get away from her own grandpa. To run in the opposite direction as fast as she could.

  Arthur Hawkins’s eyebrows wiggled up and down like large grey caterpillars.

  “Alright? I am more than alright! I am perfectly-super-ooper-duper-grandilicously-well!”

  Such was the force of Arthur Hawkin’s shout that his words reverberated off the walls to bounce around like jackhammers on her skull. Rebecca winced, her eyes closing briefly enough that she only managed to catch the tail-end of her grandpa casually wiping away a small trail of blood dripping from his nose onto his gray mustache.

  “Wha-“ Rebecca’s confusion deepened, but Arthur Hawkins interrupted her without a care for what she wished to say.

  “Tell me, Rebecca Hawkins, what do you know of Phillip Jenson? What kind of man is he? His strengths? Weaknesses? Preferred style?"

  Rebecca began to inch away. The back of her legs hit the table on which her cards were still spread out on.

  “Grandpa, are you okay?” She asked. Desperation leaked from her voice. He didn’t look okay. Not in the slightest. Was… mom had mentioned this could happen to older folks. Their… memories could start to fade. Was that happening to her grandpa? Tears welled up in Rebecca’s eyes.

  Was he about to forget her, too?

  “Grandpa… you know Phil. You told me all about him on the plane ride over here… do you… remember him? Do you remember… me?” Her voice cracked at the end.

  Arthur Hawkin’s neck cracked as it tilted to the side at an alarming angle. His mouth widened into a lopsided grin.

  "Why of course I remember you. Rebecca Hawkins~. Apple of my eye. Light. Of. My. Life. Tell me, oh will you darling, what you know of the man known as 'Phillip Jenson'? For I very much wish to know, oh yes I do."

  Arthur Hawkin’s hand flashed forward to grab Rebecca’s wrist, moving quicker than she’d ever seen her grandpa move before.

  “Tell me. TELL ME!” Arthur Hawkins shouted, spittle flying from his lips.

  Rebecca flinched. “Ow! You’re hurting me!” So great was his grip that she could feel her arm bone creaking. She squirmed in his grasp, but that only made her grandpa’s grip tighter. Her surroundings lowered themselves – but a quick glance around revealed the truth. Arthur Hawkins was holding her off the ground by her arm.

  “Gramps! Lemme go! Please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Rebecca gasped in pain. It was like he was trying to break her arm through grip strength alone. A frantic glance around revealed nothing but more fear. The salarymen at the snack bar were watching her with empty eyes and sadistic smiles. The door connecting the lounge to the rest of the airport was shut.

  A gurgled laugh spilled from Arthur Hawkin’s lips. He held her in the air, his grip never faltering no matter how badly Rebecca struggled. His eyes looked at her not like a human, not like a grandfather gazing at his granddaughter, but like a sadistic child regarding an insect, still in the midst of deciding how he wanted to pluck off that insect’s legs one by one. Should he start near the head? Or in the middle? Or did he wish to fetch a magnifying glass to burn it alive instead?

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Oh child of my child. Are you familiar with the word 'oubliette', by any chance?"

  His words still did not properly match the movement of his mouth. Rebecca's heart felt freezing, like a block of ice. She knew.

  This wasn’t her grandpa. Not anymore. Her eyes filled with tears that quickly began to run in thick streams down her cheeks.

  Arthur Hawkins seemed to take her silence as an admission that she did not know what that word meant. His lopsided grin grew to match the sickening joy of his gurgled laughter.

  "It was a type of dungeon back in the good ol' days. Well, maybe dungeon would be giving it too much credit. It was more like a stony hole in the ground. A deep~ hole in the ground. The word itself comes from the French, believe it or not! I think it means… ‘to forget’? Yes, ‘to forget’. I nearly forgot about that definition! Being forgotten… now that is already a terrible thing, do you agree? But this is worse. This hole in the ground, this stony, cold hole, would only be accessible through a trapdoor. No lights. No windows. No other people.”

  Arthur Hawkins tightened his grip. His fingernails pierced through her skin to draw blood, eliciting a cry of pain in the girl dangling from his grip. He shook her up and down as a dog would to its prey.

  “You’d be tossed down there through the trapdoor. You’d see torchlight beyond it, and then that too would fade to darkness once the trapdoor is shut. Then… nothing. You’re forgotten about. No visitors. No food. No water other than what seeps through the stone. And seep it will. Water seeps through the stone to gather in a puddle you have to be in, for there is no room to move. It gathers there, stagnant as it rots away at the flesh of your feet day by day. You won't drown, no, not at all. That's too… easy. You can't sit either. The hole is too small. You can lean, but you cannot sit. Yet it’s enough water so that it is difficult die of thirst. Hunger, now hunger you may still perish from, but…”

  Arthur Hawkin’s grin became toothy. He held Rebecca closer to his face and chomped his teeth together to make several large clicking sounds.

  “It takes a long, long time to die from starvation. Especially in a state of low activity. A month, two months, maybe even three. Do you know that if you get hungry enough, your body will start to digest your own bones for nourishment? Not fast, not fast at all. Think of it like pinhole pricks being taken by your body in its desperate search for nutrients~. It sounds horrible, doesn't it? It is, but it is not as terrible as being forgotten. Oh~ the silence. Being in it long enough can drive a man mad. You scream, but did you really? A man goes so long without hearing another voice… he’ll start to wonder if his own words can be heard, or if it’s nothing but a figment of his own imagination~.”

  Suddenly, Arthur Hawkin's grip tightened so much that a loud 'snap', like a dry twig breaking in half, came from Rebecca's arm, followed by such a great wrenching pain that it caused a deafening screech to tear from her lips. Lances of agony rampaged through her body, increased even further once Arthur Hawkins bounced her in his grip again, to the point that black spots began to cluster around Rebecca's vision. Her breath hitched in her throat. Bile threatened to rise from her stomach. Her arm… it was broken. Arthur Hawkin’s grin widened, relishing the sight of Rebecca’s agony.

  “I am your grandfather, oh child of my child~. As such, it is my duty, or so I am told, to increase your knowledge on this great green planet of ours. I know where one might find an oubliette of great obscurity. Let us go on a, shall we say, a ‘learning’ ‘field’ ‘trip’, shall we? You did not answer my questions, oh no you did not. That shows a lack of filial piety! It does! It does! I shall throw you in one for many months, many years until you feel like cooperating, oh child of my child! It’ll be fun~! You will ROT and ANGUISH and REGRET and SCREAM this man SCREAMED he FEARED even now he SQUIRMS as I make him WATCH! Isn’t it so delightfully… amusing~? I can feel~ his terror, how he begs in his mind to do all this to him instead of you. It’s such a… giggle? Isn’t it?”

  Arthur Hawkin’s gurgling laughter reached a fever pitch as Rebecca squirmed like a wildcat in his grasp, heedless of the terrible wrenching pain in her broken arm or the black spots crowding her vision.

  “Here! As your esteemed grandsire, I must provide entertainment in an educational manner! Do you know our fingers are fragile? You could bite them off like a carrot if not for your brain stopping you! Fortunately, I don’t have any kind of mental inhibitions keeping me from that! Watch and learn!”

  Rebecca continued to fight as Arthur Hawkins raised his other hand and brought it closer to his mouth. He extended his own pinky finger past his pearly white teeth, and then in a flash of movement he chomped down in an action accompanied by a spray of blood that lightly speckled Rebecca’s face. He chewed the digit with relish for a few moments before opening his mouth to reveal the mangled half of his pinky finger within and spitting it out onto the floor.

  "Like a carrot~." Arthur Hawkin's voice purred. "Now, child of my child, they say sharing is caring! Here comes the choo-choo train~!”

  His pinkyless hand snatched at Rebecca's other hand, but for the briefest of seconds, a spasm kicked out from his hand that was holding Rebecca's broken arm. That spasm was enough – through tears of pain and fear, Rebecca squirmed free of his weakened grip and hit the ground running.

  It wasn’t her grandpa. It wasn’t her grandpa. It wasn’t her grandpa.

  Those words played on repeat in her mind like a broken record. She ran, even as the gurgled laughter from Arthur Hawkins followed her, even as the empty-eyed salaryman from the snack bar leapt to their feet to pursue her. She ran, bursting through the door into the main hallway. Shouts rang out in surprise from the sparse handful of people traveling from gate to gate, but Rebecca ignored them all, recklessly spinning around each person while gingerly clutching her broken arm to her chest. Her lungs heaved as she ran. It was the furthest she’d ever sprinted, but even so her legs did not slow. The lounge door behind her flew open with a ‘BANG!’. Surprised shouts turned into screams.

  “I’M GONNA GET YA! I’M GONNA GET CHA! AND I’LL BITE YOUR LITTLE FINGERS OFF UNTIL YOU TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW! AHAHAHAHA!” Arthur Hawkins hollered out between gurgled laughs.

  Rebecca risked a glance over her shoulder. Arthur Hawkins had already closed half of the distance between them, and the salarymen were no more than a foot behind him. Her legs pumped as fast as she could, but it wasn’t enough. For every stride she took, they were able to take double that length. They were gaining on her, and fast. For what was not the first time in her life, Rebecca internally cursed her short little legs. Tears mixed with black spots in her vision to nearly blind her as every little jostle in her stride elicited a wrenching pain from her arm. Her lungs burned, snot ran freely from her nose, and it felt like she would faint from the pain alone.

  Then a crashing sound came from behind Rebecca. She risked another frantic glance, fast enough to see Arthur Hawkins on the floor in a tangle of limbs with a woman who was heading from one gate to another. Her brows furrowed in instinctual worry to see her grandpa fall to the floor, but the emotion was not for long. Quickly, it was replaced with nauseous horror as Arthur Hawkins let out the most horrible laugh of all and lunged forward with snapping teeth to bite off the woman’s nose.

  “GOT YER CONK!” Arthur Hawkins laughed uproariously amidst a spray of blood and the woman’s screams. Several more screams ran out, including an airport worker shouting to call security, but it wasn’t enough. Rebecca turned her head back to the path in front of her, quickly but not fast enough to avoid seeing the salarymen slipping long, curved knives from under their jackets and dashing toward the other adults. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the screams behind her still tore through her ears as she ran.

  Only when she reached the doors leading to the parking lot did the sounds become muted. But even then, she did not stop running.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  The man who was Arthur Hawkins but not Arthur Hawkins rested on the floor, wiping a trickle of blood from his chin as he considered the situation before him. Three dead bodies were motionless on the ground. A woman in a business suit with a missing nose, her eyes still containing traces of fear left over from her sudden death. A gate agent, still with a knife buried deep in his breast. A traveling man with his throat slit.

  His host internally screamed in horror at the sight, causing the man who was Arthur Hawkins but not Arthur Hawkins to mentally remind the old fool that this was only an appetizer.

  The man who was Arthur Hawkins but not Arthur Hawkins spat out the severed nose from his mouth. One of his brothers, still inhabiting the corpse of a dead salaryman, walked up to him to regard him with empty, unblinking eyes.

  “We lost her in the parking lot, Ahmose. Too many people, too many obstacles.”

  Ahmose lightly shrugged his shoulders where he sat. “Such is life, such is life, Iset. I shall let our brothers in the city know to watch for her. Perhaps she will go to the hospital to mend her wounds. That is what people in this age do, correct?”

  Iset turned to stare at the end of the hallway. It was empty. Hardly unusual, as this particular airport was not a popular one to use.

  “Your host resisted during the interrogation?”

  Ahmose gently nodded without saying anything. The real Arthur Hawkins sobbed for forgiveness in his mind. Ahmose mentally reminded the old fool that when he caught the girl, he would remove her fingernails one by one.

  The clicking of dress shoes against the tile floor heralded the arrival of another of his brothers. To this brother, though he was cloaked in the appearance of an ordinary salaryman, Ahmose rose and dipped his head in a light bow.

  “Pink Winter.” Ahmose politely greeted. There were no traces of his previous mocking tone or gurgled laughs present in his words.

  Pink Winter signaled for Ahmose to stand up straight, staring at him with the same empty, dead eyes as his other brother.

  “Red Summer will not be pleased.”

  Ahmose licked his lips, savoring the taste of blood on flesh.

  Pink Winter’s eyes narrowed.

  “You like to play with your food too much. You should have killed the old man before inhabiting his body and been done with it. His resistance caused you to lose the girl.”

  Ahmose shrugged, holding his palms upward in a placating gesture. His tone became a hint more carefree, closer to what it had been when he was enjoying himself in terrorizing the little girl. “You know as well as I that the millennia drag on~. Without a hobby… perhaps I would be as mad as some of our other, lesser brothers have become. I’ll finish devouring the old fool once our business is concluded in this sad little city. Until then… it pleases me to force him to watch his own hands be covered with blood and steeped in fear. His emotions are the most delicious treat in all the world~.”

  “Mhm.” Pink Winter turned his attention away from Ahmose to regard the rest of the hallway, watching as the three corpses suddenly sat up with unblinking eyes and motionless chests. He hardly seemed to care about the turn of events that had led to the girl being lost.

  “Do not let your fun interfere with our goals again. Find the girl. Be ready on time. That brat’s tournament is the best chance we will get for a very long time.”

  All three of the brothers then swiveled their heads to stare at each other with unblinking eyes. The three corpses stood, taking a moment to adjust their clothes into a state that would better hide the various lethal wounds scattered across their flesh. The three brothers were now six in number. In unison, they all spoke with monotone voices.

  "So sayeth the wise Red Summer."

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