GOTH:GOTH

GOTH

1

About 20 days after the end of summer vacation, on a school day, I finally met Morino.

Before the start of morning homeroom, while they were taking attendance, through the crowd of noisily chattering classmates, she unexpectedly approached my desk.

We didn't have any history of exchanging greetings. Morino stood in front of me, took a notebook from her pocket, and placed it on my desk.

It was palm sized; the cover was fake brown leather. It was an ordinary thing you'd find in any stationary shop.

"I found this," She said.

"Well it's not mine."

"Well I know that."

Presenting the notebook to me, she had a somehow cheerful air about her.

I picked the notebook up from my desk. The cover was smooth to the touch.

I flipped briefly through the contents; the first half filled with small, meticulous writing. The second half was completely blank.

"Read from the beginning!"

It was as she said, the owner was unknown; I looked carefully through his writing. Line after line of itemized writing.

May 10th In front of the station, I meet a female named Kusuda Mitsue. Age 16. I flirted with her; a while later we walked to my car. Just like that, I took her to T mountain. She kept staring outside the window, al the while telling me about her mother who is interested in column writing. The car stops near the summit of T mountain. From the boot, I take out the bag containing the knife and nails. She laughingly asks me what it is. ............

The words continued like that.

I recognized the name Kusuda Mitsue.

......Three months ago, a family went on a hiking trip to T mountain. It was a family of one boy and two parents. Since it was a long-awaited holiday for the father, he slept as soon as they arrived at the mountain. The boy tried to wake up the father so they could play, but it was no use.

In the afternoon, the boy took a walk alone into the forest.

The mother noticed her son missing. And then, she heard a scream from deep in the forest.

The couple searched the forest, and then found the boy. He was found looking upwards, frozen on the spot, as if glaring at something.

Following their son's gaze, the father and mother immediately noticed the nearby tree trunk was stained dark red. And then, they noticed there was something strange nailed down to the tree, at approximately eye-level. Looking around, they realized that all the surrounding trees had things attached to them with nails.

Those 'things' were Kusuda Mitsue. Someone had done a dissected her, deep in the forest. Her eyeballs, tongue, ears, thumbs, liver... They were all attached by nails to tree trunks.

On one tree, in order from the top, her left big toe, upper lip, nose, and stomach were attached; other trees had the rest of her remains, arranged like Christmas tree decorations.

The incident quickly had the entire country in a panic.