kscans

Chapter 8 - Tsukie's Rampage

The weather warmed up. One sunny Sunday, the incident occurred.

Tsukie had come to visit Hinako in the morning and was playing with Akina as usual. Akina was happy because the bandages on her left hand were coming off soon. Tsukie was just as happy as if it were happening to her. It was when she went to get the bento she had brought from home to eat in Akina's room that it happened.

Behind a meal service wagon in the hallway, two overweight, middle-aged women were standing and talking. As Tsukie passed by, one of them gestured with her chin and lowered her voice meaningfully.

"Look, look, that girl. They're good friends. She can stand to be around her because she doesn't know what a monster she'll look like when the bandages come off."

"And her hand... I heard she had six fingers. That's why they had to do surgery to chop it off."

"Oh my... How terrifying. And they say her eyes glow like a cat's at night."

"She's possessed by a beast. She needs an exorcism more than a hospital. It would be terrible if it spread to my child."

Tsukie froze on the other side of the meal wagon, stunned. She had heard everything the women said. People who talk about things they don't want others to hear always have the loudest voices. Or perhaps they were saying it so she would hear. Their gestures of covering their mouths and whispering were theatrical.

It was the moment a woman looks her ugliest.

Of course, Tsukie knew immediately who they were talking about. The back of her neck prickled, and the sound of her pounding heart echoed loudly in her ears.

"And you know, I hear she's not going to make it. She keeps developing one illness after another. They say she was told she didn't have long to live from the start..."

"Oh, is that so... Well, with a suspicious disease like that, I suppose it can't be helped."

At that moment, it felt as if something inside Tsukie's head snapped. She let go of the bento box she was holding so carefully, placed both hands on the meal wagon, and pushed with all her might.

She wanted to crush the gossiping women on the other side. The casters on the wagon were supposed to be locked when it was parked in the hallway. But at that moment, as if the heavens were on Tsukie's side, the wagon slid forward with the force of a little girl's push.

Just before they were squashed like crackers between the wall and the wagon, the two fat women scrambled and tumbled onto the hallway floor. In a hideous struggle to save themselves first, the larger of the two came tumbling out.

Without hesitation, Tsukie lunged at the woman sprawled on the floor. Taking advantage of her sitting position, she clawed at her face with all her strength. She felt a piece of flesh dig under her nails.

Tsukie was easily thrown off, her back hitting the floor hard. She couldn't breathe, and the pain was excruciating, but without taking a breath, she bit down on the other woman's fleshy arm.

The women, pale with fear at the eerie silence of the attacking child, shrieked and flailed their limbs. Tsukie was punched repeatedly with fists like logs and kicked with feet like an elephant's.

Still, she desperately held on with her teeth. Two of her baby teeth, which had been loose as they were about to fall out, were knocked out, spattering blood.

Tsukie's mouth was stained red, as if she had eaten a person.

Hearing the commotion, other patients and nurses gathered around. A huge crowd formed, and an elderly nurse pinned Tsukie down.

In the end, it was Tsukie who was beaten black and blue. But seeing the hideous middle-aged women, who hadn't forgotten to proclaim their own righteousness, made her blood boil. Covered in a mess of tears and blood, Tsukie screamed. It was the loudest she had ever yelled.

"Don't you dare say bad things about Akina-chan!"

With that, the buzzing crowd fell silent.

Pushing her way through the onlookers, Tsukie's mother rushed into the center of the circle. Without even asking for a reason, she slapped Tsukie across the face and then began apologizing profusely to the fallen women and the surrounding crowd.

Seeing her mother like that, Tsukie felt betrayed. More than the pain of her torn-out teeth, more than the ache in her beaten body, it was the sting on her cheek from her mother's hand and the pain deep in her chest that hurt the most.

After the nurses sent the onlookers back to their rooms, Tsukie was taken to a reception room next to the nurses' station. The wound where her teeth had been was disinfected, and she was made to bite down on a cotton ball to stop the bleeding. A nurse placed an ice pack on her swollen forehead where she'd been hit. The nurse told her mother that she should probably have it properly examined, but Tsukie refused.

The head nurse, who had first spoken to the women in the next room, entered the reception room with a grave expression. Her mother worriedly asked about the extent of their injuries and their anger, and the head nurse replied quietly.

"The bite and scratch marks will likely remain for a while, but they said they won't make an issue of it as long as you give her a good talking-to, since it was just a child."

Her mother kept bowing her head to the head nurse, repeating over and over, "I'm so sorry."

"I'm so sorry. This is the first time something like this has happened... She's not usually like this..."

Her mother's agitation was anything but ordinary. At this rate, Tsukie thought, she'd probably be sent to a psychiatrist or forced to take calming medicine starting tomorrow.

The head nurse turned to Tsukie and crouched down to meet her gaze.

"You can't talk yet with your teeth missing, can you...? If it starts to hurt a lot, or if you feel sick, let me know right away, okay?"

Tsukie looked the head nurse straight in the eye and nodded. The ice pack on her forehead rustled, and the bruise ached. The head nurse looked into Tsukie's eyes, nodded back, and then gently, lovingly, wrapped her arms around Tsukie's small body.

"You won't do it again, will you?"

The head nurse's gentle voice and warm embrace seemed to say, "I know everything." To Tsukie, it felt exactly like that.

In that instant, the taut thread inside her snapped. She couldn't hold back the flood of emotions that came pouring out. To think that out of all the adults around her, only one person understood a little girl's feelings, feelings that even her own mother didn't understand—she couldn't hold it in any longer.

Tsukie threw her arms around the head nurse and sobbed, wailing loudly. I have to be strong in front of Akina. I have to let all my tears out now, she thought.