On that terrible day when I first opened my eyes after the accident, what would my answer have been? When I think back on this many years from now, will I wish that my answer today had been different? It doesn’t matter. Here, at this moment, there is no doubt in my mind. “Who was that?” I asked Alice, looking at the unidentifiable pieces of the monster.

“….The man living next door. I don’t know his name.”

“Oh, so it was Mr. Cake.” He was hardly a stranger. We’ve been neighbors for as long as I can remember. I’d go so far as to say we were on good terms before the accident. And now I’ve killed him with my own two hands.

I feel little.

Mr. Cake, the kindly baker who lived next door, is but a distant memory. The pieces of meat around me belonged to a creature whose mere existence was nauseating. Only by killing the vermin could I find relief. He complained about my yard being filthy, the swine. It doesn’t matter what Alice did. He wasn’t worth keeping alive anyway.

These are my honest feelings. My hands are wet with another man’s blood, and yet I am utterly calm. Now I know what I lost in the accident. Alice says that I can take it back, but I know that I cannot. It is gone forever, like the life of the man called Cake.

“Hey, Alice… No doctor could possibly fix my condition, you know.”

“…..Shining?”

“You can do what no human is capable of. You’re not human, are you?” Alice looks away, her expression unreadable.

Everything is monstrous and loathsome in my eyes – everything but Alice. I thought that she was somehow unique. I was wrong. I see her just as I do everything else – as something other than what she really is. But why should that surprise me? Alice is part of my world, just as I am of hers. It doesn’t change what we are to each other.

I stand and walk over Cake’s dismembered corpse. “I read this novel once, about a man who recovered from an accident only to find that he could no longer see the world as it was. Kind of like me.” I finally realize that even though the stench of these monsters’ flesh turns my stomach, their blood and guts smell pretty good. In fact, I know this fragrance quite well. “He saw people as rocks and robots as beautiful women. And so he fell in love with something that wasn’t remotely human.” I took the cleaver, pick up a piece of Cake’s body, and start removing the skin and tendons.

Ahh, just as I thought. The stuff underneath is exactly the same as what Alice and I have been eating. Hey, this looks pretty good. Let’s eat it.”

“Shining…”

“Oh, sorry. You’re in no mood for that now, are you? Now that it’s dead, though, meat is meat. It’d be a waste to throw it away. We should get it in the fridge.”

“Is that… alright with you?”

“Sure,” I answer easily. There is no longer any room for doubt in my mind. “Also, his wife and daughter are probably next door. They might cause trouble when he doesn’t come home. We’d better hunt them down before they go to the police.”

“Is that… really what you want?” Alice asks again, this time with a trace of fear in her voice.

I guess I still haven’t convinced her of my sincerity. “So at the end of this novel, the man who fell for something inhuman gives up his own humanity for the sake of their love. A happy ending, don’t you think?”

“Shining…”

“You’re all I need now, Alice. Nothing else matters as long as we’re together.” Tossing the cleaver and meat aside, I pull Alice into my arms once more. “I can say it now… can’t I? Alice… I love you.”

As Alice wipes away the tears flowing from her eyes, I can no longer see any hint of fear in her face. “I don’t want you to regret this. I don’t but…” I have sworn my oath, and Alice has accepted it. We have nothing to fear now. Alice will never need to cry again. “I can’t help it. I’m so happy. I guess I’m pretty selfish, aren’t I?”

“I don’t mind. I’ll always indulge your selfishness, Alice.” Filled with contentment, we exchange a smile and set to task of cleaning the room. A single person produces a lot more meat than I expected. Speaking of which, I seem to remember doing something similar before.

“About his wife and daughter… I think he killed them. I heard their screams. But their son escaped…”

“Well, that makes things easier.”

“What about the other child?” Alice asked, probably wondering if we should find him or not.

“He’s no longer a liability.” I answered. “He probably won’t go back there since he saw his father did that, right?”

“You’re probably right…” Alice shrugs the thought off of her mind.

After we finish here, we should go gather the meat from the Cake’s house. That should be enough to hold us for a while, and we can use their refrigerator to store what won’t fit in ours. It’s all coming together. Alice and I will be just fine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I think I recognize this picture.” After we finish our labors and get to bed, I show Alice what I found in the Shadow’s house. “It looks familiar. Yeah, I’ve definitely been here.” The photograph that Alice has selected is the one with a Torchwood Prefecture address on the back.

“That’s… a house, right? I see trees and… mountains?”

“Yeah. Wow, Shining, you can see pictures now?”

“A little.” At the outset of my ordeal, I had to depend entirely on my sense of distance to decipher what I saw. The houses in front of me, the mountains far behind them, the clouds high above – only distance and scale told me what they were.

Photographs and other flat images used to be nearly impossible to make out. Recently, however, I’ve gotten better at understanding what things are by their shape. I know what the mountains and sky look like, for instance, and how to tell them apart from buildings. Each of the three pictures shows a similar scene – a lone house in the middle of a thick forest.

“Dad called it his retreat. He said that no one would find us there.”

“Hmm” Judging by the address on the back of each photo, they probably are excellent places to hide from prying eyes. But why three?

The dates are pretty old, and it seems odd that they were all taken within a few days of each other. Maybe he was scouting properties, looking for the perfect location for his hideaway. Alice recognizes only one of the houses, so that must be the one Shadow picked. Checking the location on the roadmap of the Torchwood area, I find that it’s about three hours out of Canterlot by car.

“Do you think your father will be there?”

“I tried calling him, but he didn’t answer. I don’t think he’s there.”

“But he might have stopped by recently.” The way I see it, our only hope of finding Shadow is to follow whatever lead we have, no matter how small. The probability that his hideout will yield useful information may be low… but it’s not zero. “I think I’ll check this place out tomorrow.”

“Do you have to?” Alice pouts. I wasn’t expecting her to object. “Isn’t it far?”

“It’ll only take about half a day to go there, check it out, and come back.”

“I have to stay home by myself while you’re gone?”

So that’s what it is. Slightly exasperated, I smile and rub Alice’s head. “Be a little patient, okay? You want to find your father too, don’t you?”

After a brief silence, during with her expression is hard to decipher, Alice looks up at me and says, “Hey, Shining… let’s forget about Dad.”

“Huh?” That’s the last thing I expected her to say. “Forget about him? But he’s your father. Aren’t you worried?”

“Not anymore,” Alice says, coming closer to feel my warmth. “I have you now. I call him Dad, but he’s not really my father. He thought me a lot, and probably loved me in his own way… but you’re kinder and warmer.” Alice’s words make me happy, but I also hear the loneliness in them.

“Are you really alright with that?”

“Yeah. You don’t like it being just the two of us?”

“I do… but I also want to meet Dr. Shadow.” Having finally figured out how to explain my feelings, I continue, “I want to get to know you better. If there’s someone who knows more about you than I do, I have to meet them.

“Oh….” Alice doesn’t seem upset, but she does tilt her head quizzically, as though my thoughts are strange to her.

“And I also want to… Yeah, I’m going to check it out tomorrow.” Another plan has started to form in my head, one separate from the search of Dr. Shadow. If I find the doctor there, great; if I don’t well… I think I can find another use for his mountain retreat. “I know you’ll be lonely, Alice, but try to bear it for a little while.”

“Okay,” she nods, and then looks questioningly into my eyes. “Shining… You really want a family and also friends, don’t you? More people you can spend time with?”

“Well, that would be more fun, yeah…” Fearing that Alice will start sulking, I hurriedly add, “But don’t get me wrong. Even if I could have lots of friends, you’ll always be special to me.”

“I know. Heheh, thanks.” Giggling, Alice rubs her cheek against mine. “I’ll find something to make you happy – something just for you.”