The music box touches my hand.
From between its ebony-black body and its intricate decorations, delicate as a skeleton, a rich, lovely sound flows out.
A heavenly sound that fills me with vitality, happiness, and healing surges like a stream between my fingers.
Like fragments of light that can be heard.
But at the same time, I can feel it from the creature inside the cocoon—from Kim Soleum and the mass of citizens.
The sense of the arrival of a world without Ghost Stories.
The pressure trying to erase the being within the Ghost Story called the Flower Golden Mascot!
My body melts away.
‘I know.’
In this place, people go mad and Ghost Stories disappear.
It is a double trap.
The meticulous malice of the one who planned this chokes the life out of you no matter which side you choose. A mental limit that leaves you unable to move an inch. My body, which had barely escaped that razor-edged malice, takes hold of the music box….
Snap.
From the cocoon,
it removes it completely.
The final strand of cocoon thread still attached snaps as Kim Soleum’s left index finger falls away, and the music box drops fully into my melting hand.
It settles there.
……….
Aaaaaaaaah!
soundsoundsoundsoundsoundsoundsound stop the peace the music box gives melting away mel inside the music boxthe truth ah tranquility is….
I shut the music box.
Thunk.
……….
……….
Silence flows through my head.
At that moment.
Something tries to crawl out through the crack in the music box.
“…!!”
Clack.
I forced the music box shut again as it tried to open.
Clack clack.
The music box moves.
Clack clack. Clack…