Editing A Simple Survey:Volume2 Reaper03 (section)

===Part 4===

Hiyama did not return.

Higashikawa and the others had no clock, so they initially assumed their sense of time was off. They assumed not even a few minutes had passed and the constant tension was making it seem longer.

But they eventually began to think something was wrong.

“Hey,” said Kazakami. “Her name was Hiyama, right? Well, how far was she going?”

“She can’t have gone too far. Our path is blocked off by the bars.”

Then why was she taking so long?

None of them had an answer to that question.

“…What should we do? Should we go looking for her?” suggested Higashikawa.

But Matsumi frowned from where she sat on the floor and replied, “We don’t have to. She might just want to be alone. Or maybe she had to use the bathroom.”

“Um…” said Rachel while crouching and avoiding looking in Matsumi’s direction. “What if Hiyama-san found some kind way out? If she did…”

She was not coming back.

It sounded nice if you said she was scouting out ahead on her own.

However, it could also be said she was leaving the other four behind while heading for the exit.

Kazakami grew concerned.

“W-wait a second!! Then we need to hurry. Hiyama is taking it all for herself!!”

“Taking all of what…?”

“Do you really think the organizers will leave the exit open? They might let the first person through and seal the door afterwards!! What if the card key can only be used once!?”

Nothing like that had happened with the previous attractions and they could all pass through the door even if the card key could only be used once, but Kazakami was overwhelmed by the danger he had thought up.

Kazakami had started to subconsciously swing around his weapon a bit, so Higashikawa agreed to search for Hiyama rather than try to oppose the man. He doubted there was some convenient way out, though.

“I’m not going,” bluntly said Matsumi who had her own weapon.

Everyone turned toward Rachel.

Her shoulders jumped slightly, but she hesitantly stood up.

From her past statements and actions, she did not seem the type to charge into danger, but Higashikawa figured she was afraid to be alone with Matsumi and her weapon.

No one had died in the operating room attraction, but it still must have been quite a shock for her.

“Then let’s go. Matsumi-chan was it? If anything happens, just shout.”

“Sure thing. And don’t call me ‘-chan’.”

Matsumi did not care about Kazakami’s concerns, so she watched the other three head down the passageway.

As they did, the man in the work uniform began muttering something.

“Dammit. Hiyama is going to pay if she went on ahead and left us behind…”

Hiyama would want as many survivors as possible just like everyone else, but that idea seemed completely missing from Kazakami’s logic.

Higashikawa felt something odd on his back.

Rachel was nervously grabbing onto his clothes. However, Higashikawa doubted this had anything to do with her viewing him in a favorable light. Hiyama had disappeared and both Matsumi and Kazakami held ominous weapons. The only safe person nearby just so happened to be Higashikawa.

They spotted a figure about 15 meters down the hallway.

It was too dark to see anything in detail, but glass was scattered on the floor where Kazakami had gone on his rampage. A female silhouette was visible in the middle of it. This was definitely Hiyama.

However…

The figure was not standing.

She was collapsed on the glass-covered floor.

All three of them were confused.

That confusion was of course partially due to Hiyama’s unmoving form collapsed on the floor with glass shards everywhere.

But that was not all.

The other figure swinging a fire extinguisher up into the air right next to Hiyama was even more unexpected.

Rachel let out a scream at the top of her lungs.

The figure holding the fire extinguisher turned toward them.

They could now see who it was.

“The organizer…!!” shouted Kazakami.

The woman looked between Higashikawa’s group and Hiyama before tossing the fire extinguisher aside and running away as quickly as she could.

“Wait!!”

It was of course Kazakami who first shouted out and began pursuing her. His weapon was nothing more than a floor lamp, but it was enough to change how he felt. He was able to run off into the darkness the organizer woman was trying to disappear into.

Higashikawa began to head toward Hiyama, but Rachel gave a strong tug on his clothes.

He turned around and she shook her head.

He understood where she was coming from.

After sensing even the slightest hint of violence, she did not want to approach. She could not handle any more. Higashikawa felt the same.

However…

“She might not be dead yet. We might be able to save her.”

Rachel slowly let go of Higashikawa’s clothing, returning his freedom.

He ran over to Hiyama, but Rachel did not follow.

The hallway was dark enough that he could not see her injuries with any detail. But from her silhouette, she at least had no broken limbs, her skull had not caved in, and she had no other obvious signs of damage.

“Are you okay? Hey, can you hear me!?”

The organizer woman had been using a fire extinguisher. It was a blunt weapon. She had likely been aiming for the head. Higashikawa was unsure if he should shake her, so he settled for shouting at her. He wanted to treat her, but he did not know what he was supposed to do for a blow to the head.

He doubted cooling her with ice or a compress mattered much in a life-or-death situation.

“Ukh…”

After Higashikawa had shouted for a short while, Hiyama finally let out a groan.

But she did not get up.

She may have had a concussion.

But then Higashikawa heard a cry come from the direction the organizer woman and Kazakami had disappeared in.

It was a male voice.

“Shit!! What is going on!?” shouted Kazakami in an irritated voice.

The organizer who controlled the stage may have fought back. Or he may have fallen into a trap.

Higashikawa wanted all of them to return home alive.

He did not want to leave Hiyama, but he could not ignore Kazakami if his life was in danger.

“Rachel. Rachel!”

When he forcefully called her name, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman jumped in shock while watching on from a short distance.

“Look after her for me. I’m going to go check on Kazakami!!”

“Eh? But…”

If he waited around for every single opinion, he would never get anything done, so Higashikawa ran off into the darkness without waiting for Rachel’s reply.

(But why did this happen?)

Higashikawa thought while rushing along.

(Why did the organizer appear on the same stage as us? Isn’t she afraid of us fighting back? They didn’t seem like the type to leave such an opening.)

They still had not seen the rules of the overall attraction. Perhaps there was some rule behind the organizer woman appearing at this time.

If so, discovering why the organizer had taken action could lead to discovering the overall rules and perhaps even a method of reversing the situation.

“Wait. This is…”

Higashikawa saw a sign and stopped running after Kazakami.

He was at the medical office.

This was where Hiyama had intended to get a bundle of wire.

“…”

He took a slight detour before running after Kazakami once more.

He found the man next to the emergency stairs.

Kazakami shouted at Higashikawa as if to send out his frustration over having the metal bars block his path. He did not kick at the bars, but that might have been because Hiyama had mentioned the possibility of traps earlier.

“Shit, shit!! We really do need the card key to these bars!!”

The emergency staircase headed both up and down. The organizer woman was catching her breath in that space. Just as Kazakami had said, she held a thin card in one hand.

They could not reach her like this.

Now that he was sure of that, Higashikawa placed a hand on Kazakami’s shoulder.

“Move.”

“What are you going to do!? She has the card key. We can’t do anything!!”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

Higashikawa pushed Kazakami completely out of the way and approached the metal bars without worrying about any traps. More specifically, he approached the small door meant to let people through.

But he was not trying to open the door.

His intention was the exact opposite.

“What?” said Kazakami in confusion.

The organizer woman who had been trying to escape to another floor spun around when she realized what was going on.

Higashikawa used the wire he had taken from the medical office to tie together the metal bars and the bars of the small door. He wrapped the wire around again and again and again.

It was as if he was locking himself inside the birdcage.

In a way, that was exactly what he was doing. But in another way, it was the exact opposite of what he was doing.

“She left her safe zone and entered our cage. She ran away because she knows it’s dangerous standing on the same stage as us. So why did she take that risk in the first place?”

Higashikawa bent the wire back and forth enough times that it broke off due to metal fatigue.

After making sure the metal bars were sealed shut, he gave the rest of the wire to Kazakami.

“Seal off the bars in front of the other emergency staircase and the elevators just in case! That way, the organizers can’t reach us!! The invisible rules to the overall attraction are probably hidden somewhere near Hiyama. If we can figure those rules out, we won’t have to continue feeling our way blindly through a minefield! We’ll be able to move freely!!”

“!!”

The organizer woman frantically ran up the emergency staircase and Kazakami ran toward the other emergency staircase.

If they knew the rules, they could fight back.

In all likelihood, they were done for if they could not make a reversal here.