Vol Chapter 3 (1/2)

Chapter 3: The Color Red

Once again, when I opened the second door, I found a familiar room. These World doors appeared to lead to rooms modeled after rooms in the facility. A large number of teddy bears were watching me, giving me déjà vu.

“…A-A… Alice?”

The absurd quant.i.ty of teddy bears grabbed my attention, but someone standing in the center of them spoke up, looking toward me. A red poncho and a puffy balloon skirt, the front of which was covered by a frilly white ap.r.o.n, light brown hair tied with circular red hairclips… It was Chelsy.

“…A-Ah…”

She seemed to want to say something, but couldn’t form a solid sentence. She seemed even more shy than usual.

“Want to play together?”, I invited, as she seemed at a loss. Chelsy was startled by my voice and yelped more pathetically and shrilly than usual.

“…Eh? Eh, uhhhmmm… …okay.”

“What should we do?”

“…Can you open the closet?”

The same answer I got from Letty. “Okay,” I replied, then stared closely at her. Her eyes were spinning around abnormally fast. I hurriedly turned away to look at the closet. An aroma of flowers was seeping through the gap. It calmed me a little.

When I put my hand to the door, I was sucked into the closet, heart and all.

The blankets were very warm and comfortable, and the light coming in the window made them warmer still. I briefly considered falling asleep here, then shook it out of my head and forced myself up. It must have been evening, as the room was turned a pretty orange color.

They weren’t as numerous as Chelsy’s room in the facility, but I saw many teddy bears sitting in neat rows. I picked one up and found it fluffy and very light. It appeared to be hand-sewn.

After carefully putting the teddy back in its place, I looked around the room. Nothing caught my eye. Judging from the teddy bears, I suspected this was Chelsy’s World, but saw no sign of her.

I approached the door and tried the k.n.o.b. I prepared myself slightly, keeping in mind Letty’s World, but it clicked open with only a light turn, which left me a little disappointed.

I entered what looked like the dining room. It had a nice smell that brought to mind trees and flowers. To my side, I saw a door to a room neighboring the one I’d come out of. Deciding to explore that one later, I looked around this one and saw hunting implements in the corner. The bows and guns had an unusual, impressive presence. They sure looked strong…

In the opposite corner was a dresser. Before opening any drawers, I poked and prodded it to no particular reaction. It didn’t seem like this one would speak.

Inside one drawer was a number of letters. I hesitated a little as I went to pick one up, but then again, it was just a dream. What would be the harm? Looking at it that way, I opened up the envelope, and took out the stationery inside.

“Thank you for the letter. Is your mother all right? You shouldn’t push yourself too hard, either. If there’s anything you need, please get an adult to help.”

“I owe so much to your mother. If you don’t mind, I’d really like to see you again. Give my best regards to her.”

The message had a very kind tone, the letters drawn carefully and large. Below this was a strange object that I could swear I’d seen before, and some kind of riddle.

All the other letters looked like further correspondence with the same person. The newest of them promised that the writer would be coming to the house soon to meet “your mother.” If this was Chelsy’s house, that must have meant Chelsy’s mother. …Deciding this had little to do with finding the key, I put the letters back in their envelopes and into the drawer.

I went to open the room next to the one I was first in. And again, the door opened for me without any problems. In Letty’s World, I’d had to force them open… What would explain that difference?

As soon as the door was open, a powerful scent raced into my nostrils. I had no memory of such a scent. Reflexively, I reached to hold my nose. It was so overpowering as to make me forget what I’d been thinking about.

At the back of the room, a girl was facing a table. I couldn’t see past her well enough to tell what she was doing. Slowly, I approached the table, the smell getting stronger with each step.

“Ch-Chelsy… Agh… What’re you doing?”

When I opened my mouth to speak, the smell infiltrated my body through it, and I coughed. The girl at the table, Chelsy, didn’t seem to notice me at all until I spoke, so she quickly turned around toward me and fell out of her chair.

She hastily tried to get back up, but seemed very disoriented and swatted at air. I extended my hand to her; her face went red and she timidly took it, finally getting up. She muttered something so quietly that I couldn’t hear. I think it might have been “thanks.”

“Squeak…”

I heard a little voice from somewhere. It turned out to be a mouse lying on the table, weakly crying. Beside it were a few bottles with some kind of medicine.

“…Animal experimentation?”

“Ah, n-no, Allen. Apparently its stomach hurts, so I was mixing things to make medicine for it… It isn’t going well…”

The source of the bizarre smell in the room seemed to be the medicines Chelsy had mixed. The contents of the containers were a hard-to-describe color and produced a lot of worrying bubbles.

“You’re going to make it drink this?”

Chelsy swung her arms in a panic. “N-No, that’s one of the mistakes! It’ll explode if it drinks that!” Of course, she didn’t need to deny me that strongly to make me have reservations about offering this to the mouse… I had much more than a few already. Though I didn’t know how much humans and mice had in common.

“I-I’ll throw this away. It made the room smell really weird leaving it there, anyway…” Chelsy took the mysterious substance from my hands and left the room with it.

It had occurred to me that Chelsy didn’t seem to mind the smell. …Maybe she was accustomed to it?

Even with the source of it gone, the smell still filled the room and pierced my sinuses. I went to the window to try and air it out, and noticed the sky was a spine-chilling red. I pushed the window carefully to keep from breaking it. Lukewarm winds came into the room and brushed my cheek.

Finally, the strong odor came to be replaced with a pleasant floral smell. As I stood in the breeze, I heard Chelsy trotting back in.

“Whew… Huh? Allen? Were you getting hot with the window shut?”

I was sort of embarra.s.sed that she saw me s.p.a.cing out. I turned around and tried to play it off. “Oh, uh… Never mind that. You have to make that medicine, right?”

“Oh, right… for the mouse. The stomach medicine is made from mixing three of these colored medicines into the clear one… But I can’t read grandma’s memo…”

Chelsy handed me the note. It had the steps for making the medicine in somewhat unusual handwriting.

“I’m not sure if this is right, but… Is the order green, yellow, red?”, I told her, managing to interpret the note. Her face lit up, and she thanked me and turned back to the desk. Then, like she said, she poured the colored liquids into a clear one.

“Can you not read your grandma’s writing?”

“Um… Well, she usually shows me how to do it herself… I’m still not very good at reading her writing, and she tells me not to mess with medicine when I’m alone.”

“…But now is fine?”

“Not… really… But I need to, for this poor mouse…”

With a somewhat stressed look, Chelsy carefully mixed the medicine. Earlier, she said that drinking the other medicine would make you explode, so maybe now, too, a small slip-up could blow us to smithereens. With that in mind, just watching Chelsy’s hands work made my heart pound.

“It’s done! Oh, good… Mousey, drink this in three gulps.”

The mouse quickly nodded its blue head and took the small container. What would happen to the mouse if it were to drink it all at once…? My mind was dominated by all kinds of ridiculous worries.

“Ahh, thanks. I feel much better. Your grandma’s medicine’s really something!”

The mouse acted like it was nothing and thanked us. I wasn’t surprised, but Chelsy’s eyes popped, and she hid behind me.

“I’ll be going back home, now. Bye-bye.” The mouse lept off the table and vanished who knows where.

“W-What was that…? A talking mouse is like something from a storybook, or a dream…”

“This is a dream, isn’t it?”

“Huh?” Chelsy stared at me, surprised.

“It’s a dream. It’s fine,” I remarked, telling it to myself as well. I wasn’t sure how true it was. But the question was no longer a major one for me. She seemed to understand, and her tenseness melted away.

Perhaps getting embarra.s.sed, she spoke quietly as she let go of my back. “I see… Well, this is my house. There are some differences, but the dressers had the same things in them, and my bed was just as warm, so I thought I’d come back for some reason…”

Actually, Letty had said something similar in the previous World… While I thought, a soft breeze blew in from the window.

“…This wind is really warm and refres.h.i.+ng,” I idly remarked. Chelsy’s face beamed.

“Oh, yeah, at this hour, it’s warm since the sun is coming through. And the room’s all orange and pretty.”

“Yeah, it is. …Is that sweet smell flowers?”

“Yes! There’s a garden near the house, with lots of different types! Um… Do you want to go see?”

Chelsy shyly invited me outside. I hadn’t really investigated yet whether this room had the key in it or not, but I decided to go along with it for now. It sounded like it was close, and we could return here later if we needed to.

I went with Chelsy through the dining room to the front door. When I turned the k.n.o.b, it just made a hoa.r.s.e sound and didn’t open. Repeated attempts all had similar results. All the doors in Letty’s World had been like this, but this was the first such in this one.

“Huh? …It won’t open?”

While I pondered whether I should use force, Chelsy took my place and twisted the k.n.o.b. Then it opened easily, as if it had been waiting for her. Through the gap came a warm wind, carrying a stronger smell of flowers than before.

I looked at her hand with surprise, and she spoke sheepishly. “Um? It’s not locked… Maybe it’s kind of broken. I think my house has been here for a long time, so…”

Yet I could open all the other doors without issue, so I felt like it wasn’t a structural problem. Were there requirements of some kind…?

While I baffled, Chelsy tugged my sleeve. I stopped thinking and just decided to go with it.

Taking a step outside, I looked to the sky. The sun shone redder than I thought, seeming to turn the whole sky that color.

“The sun seems a little more radiant than usual today…”, Chelsy murmured, putting her hand over her eyes and looking up. Her childlike face was colored red by it, as well as her white ap.r.o.n, and her skirt was redder than ever.

“…I don’t think I like this sky,” Chelsy said with a frown, and dropped her gaze. “Let’s keep going,” she insisted, tugging my sleeve again.

“…Hm? Are these vegetables?” Curious about the fields I saw, I stopped Chelsy’s hand.

“Huh? Oh… Yeah, we can’t go to other towns for shopping, and the town’s far away, so we try to grow as much ourselves as we can. I think now… Eek!”

Just as Chelsy, with a hint of bewilderment, pointed to the vegetables in the field to explain, a worm wrapped around her finger.

With a little scream, she immediately collapsed toward me, and we both fell on our bottoms.

“Ahh… S-Sorry, Allen! I-I grabbed your h, h, han…”

Just as we landed, Chelsy’s little hand ended up on top of mine. It was slightly cold, and she promptly pulled it away. Her surprise was making her have trouble with articulation.

I gently escorted the worm, wriggling on the ground after Chelsy tossed it, back to the field, and extended my hand to Chelsy to pull her up. Her flailing limbs came to a stop, and she peered at me. I wasn’t sure why, but she seemed afraid and nervous.

“We’re going to the garden, right? If we don’t hurry, it might turn night.”

I personally doubted that would actually happen, but making sure to state a suitable reasoning, I grabbed her hand. Though she hesitated, she stood up with my help and neatly dusted off the dirt from her clothes.

“…You just have to go straight ahead here to reach the garden.”

Chelsy circled around to the back of me and grabbed my sleeve. I think maybe she had a habit of grabbing sleeves. Just as I was about to take the path she indicated…

I felt the same pain as before, but it echoed more strongly.

“There was a white house near a flower garden.”

“In this white house lived a mother, a father, and a girl. The father rarely came home to the house.”

“The mother was old and frail, so the girl did various tasks in her stead.”

“…en? Allen, are you okay?”

“Um? Oh, sorry… I’m fine.”

When I came to, Chelsy was stroking my back. I had crouched to the ground from the pain, it seemed.

“If you’re not feeling well, we don’t have to go…”

I stood up. “No, I’m really fine. Let’s go,” I told Chelsy, and took a few steps. She didn’t seem to understand what was going on, but after calling to her again, she hesitantly grabbed hold of my sleeve.

And we walked down the path to the garden.

“Oh, Allen, there it is!”, Chelsy happily shouted after walking a while.

I looked where she pointed. It was a garden packed with flowers of all colors, like a carpet on the ground. When the wind blew, a variety of aromas went through my body.

“Huh? These flowers shouldn’t be growing in this season, or these ones either… Well, it’s a dream, so I guess that can happen.”

Chelsy was carefully weaving some small flowers together into a ring shape. I watched her work for a while, and before I knew it, she had a wreath in her hands.

“Here, Allen. It’s kind of luxurious having all these flowers that bloom from spring to winter in one place, huh…?”

“Huh? For me…?” I was at a loss when she handed me the wreath with a sweet smile. “…I think it’d look better on you, Chelsy.”

I took the flower crown, but only to put it on Chelsy’s head. It stopped right above her forehead.

“Um… er… d-does it look good?”, she asked with concern. It definitely seemed like it suited her better than me, at least. She smiled in a significantly different way from usual. I nodded my head without question.

“I-I see. Thanks. …To tell the truth, I’m not supposed to stop in this garden along the way.”

Chelsy awkwardly removed the crown from her head and dropped her gaze to her hands.

“But… You know, sometimes I think it would make her happy to pick some of these flowers for her… I was told not to, but I just think that would be better. …What would you do in that situation, Allen?” She timidly looked up at me.

“…If it was just a quick detour, maybe I’d pick a few flowers, sure.”

Chelsy sighed with relief. “…Huh. You too, Allen… Okay, thanks. Sorry to ask…”

Standing up quickly as she said it, Chelsy put the wreath back on her head, then held her hand out to me. As far as I could remember, no girl had offered to hold hands with me before.

I only hesitated for a second, but her face clouded with worry about me not taking it, so I hurried to grab it. She promptly pulled me up, but seemingly pulled too hard and nearly fell backwards, so I helped her keep balance.

“Are you okay? …Where should we go next? Back to the house?”, I inquired of red-faced Chelsy.

The sky was starting to turn a darker red. It would be dark soon. That would make finding the key more troublesome. I wanted to finish with the outside quickly, but there was still a room in the house I hadn’t checked. I started to feel the slightest impatience.

“Umm… Oh… That’s right. Before you came, Allen, I saw Teacher. He said not to leave the house. But… I broke my promise. …Should we look for him? My grandma’s house is past here. Though it’s kind of a walk…”

…Teacher? Rick also mentioned meeting Teacher in Letty’s World. What was he up to in these Worlds? And if we found him, would he even tell us?

After some indecision, I nodded, and headed in the direction Chelsy indicated. The forest was colored a deep red, almost making it look like it was on fire. The color felt ominous, even, instilling some dread in me.

…At this rate, it was possible something akin to what happened with Letty would happen again. But if I couldn’t find the key, I would be empty forever. That was harder to bear than anything else. …Had I been such a selfish person even when I had my memories?

“It was kind of a walk even just to the garden… Are you tired? Should we rest?”

I’d come to a stop, so Chelsy started to worry about me. I said I was fine, but she stared at me with unbelieving eyes.

“One day, on an errand, the girl broke a promise with her mother and picked flowers in the garden.”

“The girl went to her grandmother’s house with a kind person she met there.”

The moment I looked at Chelsy’s eyes, that voice and pain came into my head again. But I toughed through it and kept it from showing on my face.

“…You shouldn’t overexert yourself.”

Chelsy went behind me again and put her hand out in the next direction to go in. So that I would have nothing else to think about, I focused on her pointing and moved my feet again.

After some walking, Chelsy’s feet came to an immediate stop. In front of us was a big river with lots of fast-moving water. The water reflected the dark red of the sunset. The depth of the river was uncertain, but this fierce current would no doubt sweep our little bodies away.

“Huh? T-That’s weird. There was a bridge here, and when you crossed it, you’d be almost at grandma’s house… Now we can’t get there… W-What now, Allen?”

Chelsy looked to me with worry. I wanted to do something for her, but alas, I had no idea what I could do. We could only stare at the red stream in our path.

“In a jam?”

All of a sudden, I heard a familiar cattish voice against my back. You again…, I sighed.

“h.e.l.looo, Alice and… Oh! Also Alice!”

“Uh… Me? Um…?”

Chelsy turned around, and I reluctantly followed suit. The Ches.h.i.+re Cat was looking at us in a cheerful pose.

“…Don’t stare too hard. It’s deadly, y'know?”, the Ches.h.i.+re Cat warned in a hard-to-read tone. He seemed either displeased or amused by the wary look Chelsy was giving him. She shuddered and shrunk behind my back.

“Juuust kiddin’! Don’t freak. So you wanna cross the river? 'Cause I could take you over… What’ll it be?”

“R-Really?”, Chelsy asked, peering from behind me.

“But you won’t do for free, will you?”

“Yep… You just gotta play a little game!”, he readily replied.

What horrible and dangerous, or illogical and impossible, things could a “game” with him possibly entail? Whatever it was, I was sure it wouldn’t be simple.

“Hey, now! I wouldn’t be that malicious. Cut me some slack!”, the Ches.h.i.+re Cat whined, seeming to see through my thoughts again.

“It ain’t even nothin’. Just some fun riddles. Alice there’s great at 'em, aren'tcha?” He grinned toward Chelsy.

“If I can… answer your riddles, you’ll take us to the other side?”

“Yep! That’s a bona-fide promise. And I don’t break promises, on principle.”

“…Okay. I’ll do it.”

Trembling slightly behind me, Chelsy accepted the Ches.h.i.+re Cat’s conditions. Hearing it, his mouth and eyes happily distorted further.

“Three questions in all. Don’t worry, ain’t no time limits or nothin’. …So here’s the first one. This guy’s always got a smile whenever I take it. What’s the thing I’m takin’?”

After a few seconds, Chelsy answered. “Um… a photo? Because people smile when you take photos.”

The Ches.h.i.+re Cat laughed repulsively, which I guess meant she was right. I was surprised how quickly she got it. Thinking about it, I remembered there were riddles in the letters I found in Chelsy’s house. So did Chelsy like that kind of thing?

“Okay, next one. What would you find in a kitchen that you’d never wanna see on a boat?”

“……A sink. Because… you wouldn’t want the boat to ”sink.”“

There was a longer pause that time, but the Ches.h.i.+re Cat’s joyous laugh told me she’d got it in one again. I remained a silent wall keeping the Cat and Chelsy separate, watching over the proceedings.

”Right you are. Gotta say, don’t hate you clever kids. Then here’s the last one.”

Seeing Ches.h.i.+re with his biggest grin yet gave me a bad feeling.

“What color do you hate the most?”

Was that really a riddle? Either way, once Chelsy answered it, the Ches.h.i.+re Cat would take us across the river, I mused. But Chelsy didn’t answer as promptly as before.

“…Chelsy?”

When I turned around, Chelsy was trembling much more. Even I faintly felt her shaking as she clutched to my sleeve. She was pale, and trying to voice something, but only a low groaning came from her lips.

I figured there was no way she could answer like this. That must have been exactly what the Ches.h.i.+re Cat expected. What a jerk he was.

“Red. Chelsy hates the color red.”

She had mentioned not liking the red sky earlier. I was taking a gamble on whether it was her most hated color, but no other likely possibilities came to mind, so I answered for her in half-desperation.

“Correct! Alright, off on your way. Close your eyes. If ya don’t, this time you really will die!”

I turned toward Chelsy. She already had her eyes tightly shut, still shaking slightly. I faced back forward and closed mine.

I was consumed by a feeling of my senses growing distant, and for a few minutes experienced an unpleasant sensation of floating in darkness.

When I opened my eyes, we were on the other side of the river. The Ches.h.i.+re Cat was nowhere in sight, but it seemed like he really had taken us across.

“…Oh, we can get to grandma’s house from here. …I wonder if Teacher’s there?”

Chelsy’s eyes were open too. Her shaking seemed to have calmed down, giving me some relief. How could she hate red so much if she wore red clothes? I’d be lying to say I wasn’t curious, but it clearly wasn’t something she wanted to touch upon, so I stilled my tongue.

“…I wonder if mother’s okay. I don’t know how she’s been doing since I started living at the facility, so I’m worried for her. Grandma says that she’ll get better, but the thought that someday… there might be some day she won’t wake up… No, I always did think that, didn’t I…?”

Chelsy lowered her head and mumbled, still holding my sleeve, and began questioning herself toward the end. Were her memories jumbled?

“Allen, is there someone you want to protect?”, she abruptly asked.

I’d been able to recover some shards of memory by going around the Worlds, but it was all still covered in fog. It was still difficult for me to remember anyone who I might have hoped to protect. I meekly shook my head.

“Oh… You lost your memories, huh, Allen. I didn’t mean to… …I’m sorry.” Her eyes clouded up as she looked down.

I said it was fine, and stroked her back, knowing she had a kind heart. She looked up a little and stared at me. I gave a little smile, and finally she appeared relieved.

…Good. I must have done a better job of smiling that time.

Following the path straight ahead, a blue brick house came into sight. There was a large field in front of it, where many plants with names unknown to me grew.

Chelsy gazed at the field and explained. “These are the medicinal plants grandma grows. She told me she had a job making and selling medicine. She says she can make all kinds with these.”

“What kind of medicine does she make?”

“Um… Lots of kinds. Recently, she made a medicine for a disease spreading in a village somewhere, and… She also mentioned something about a, dreaming disease, I think…?”

Dreaming disease? Those words sparked something in my memory. I felt like I’d seen mention of such a disease in a newspaper somewhere.

The facility didn’t get newspapers or have a TV, so all we knew about what was happening in the world came from Teacher. Of course, even that was never anything particularly important, and always restricted to peaceful stories.

“Well, let’s go… We might find Teacher.”

Chelsy tugged me along to the front door. However, when she tried to open it, it just made a thunk and wouldn’t open.

“Huh? That’s weird… And after we came so far…” She turned the k.n.o.b repeatedly with a disappointed look.

“My, you strange little girl. You do realize you’re only wasting your time with that.”

Hearing a high-pitched voice from by my feet, I looked down to find it. A white mouse was looking up at us.

“Huh? Another talking mouse…?”

“Hrmm? Do you think it strange that I can speak? How rude!”

“Um, miss mousey, do you know how to open this door?”

“Why yes, I do. But it will come at a price.” She snorted her nose at us with a haughty, squeaky laugh.

“Er… What do we need to do?”

“Hm! Yes. Would you part with that crown upon your head?”

Chelsy was wearing the wreath she made in the garden earlier. It seemed to have wilted just a little since making it.

“This? That’s all…? Here you go.”