Memoirs of the Returnee-Novel

Recordark (3)

Meanwhile, Elise and four others from ‘good families’, were conducting interviews in a relatively calm visiting room.

“Yah——————!”

A lion’s roar could be heard from somewhere, but they ignored it. Elise tapped her ballpoint pen on her notebook and asked.

“……You don’t know where the treasure is hidden, do you?”

The prisoner shook his head.

“I know. I know where that is. The place where the treasure is hidden. Of course, I know. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you. So, that is…… Do you happen to have a cigarette?”

“…….”

Elise touched her temples. A quick-witted guard sent the prisoner away.

This was already the third time. Pretending to know the location of the treasure, asking for a cigarette, and when given one, instead of telling, asking for a snack.

……Bang———!

Elise glanced at the guard.

“There’s bit of a ruckus out there. It’s been noisy since a while ago.”

“Oh, yes, indeed. Please wait a moment.”

The guard hurriedly left the visiting room and came back in.

“Yes. There seems to be a bit of trouble between the senior and the prisoners. You don’t need to worry.”

“……I see. Besides, these prisoners don’t seem to want to tell us anything, do they?”

“It won’t be easy. Prisoners don’t easily share internal information about the prison. They’re afraid of being marked as snitches later.”

“Tsk.”

Elise rubbed her eyes.

She was quite tired. She had barely fallen asleep at 6 a.m. yesterday and hadn’t even had a proper shower.

She stood up, brushing her disheveled hair back over her shoulders. She stopped the guard who was about to follow her.

“Wait. I’m going to take a walk. In the exercise yard. Is that okay?”

“Oh, yes. That’s fine.”

She walked out into the first-floor corridor outside the visiting room.

————Let—go—of—me—shit!

Outside was a complete mess.

A man being dragged away by several guards. A prisoner covered in blood inside the cell, and other prisoners laughing at the scene. Gerkhen Kal Doon and the seniors trying to take advantage of their good mood to hastily conduct interviews.

Elise ignored them.

She quietly went out to the exercise yard under the cover of the commotion and walked as far into the corner as possible.

Of course, she needed a key to get to ‘that place’, but she already had it in her hand, thanks to her father’s prior persuasion of the warden.

With the feeling of breaking the rules, feeling her heart pounding, she finally arrived at the entrance to the [Isolation Zone].

From the beginning, Elise intended to come to this prison. The reason she had lost sleep was also because of this.

“Haaah…….”

After calming her mind and body with a deep breath, Elise inserted the key into the tightly closed iron door.

Creak—

The door opened.

She took a step beyond.

“…….”

A dim incandescent light faintly illuminated the interior, and there were large solitary cells lined up in the corridor.

She was not alone.

Although not visible, there was someone here.

She was not alone.

Elise repeated this to herself as she walked down the corridor. She also tightly gripped the rabbit doll, ‘Cookie’, in her messenger bag.

Thud——.

The sound of her footsteps echoed emptily in the isolation zone of Recordark.

She peered inside.

A man was slumped on the bed. Not in a prison uniform, but in a stark white patient’s gown.

Elise called his name as if biting her tongue.

“Yael.”

—…?

For a moment, he looked in her direction. He immediately flashed a bright smile.

—Oh. You came. You came.

He sprang up and approached her, looking into her eyes. He murmured softly, pressing his forehead against the glass window.

—My little sister…

Elise gritted her teeth. The voice calling her ‘sister’ was filthy.

“…I told you not to call me that.”

She despised this man. He was disgusting and repulsive. She wanted to deny the fact that this monster was her blood relative.

—…

He opened his mouth as if shocked. He wore a pitiful expression.

—Oh, so it’s a crime to call a sister a sister. So that’s why I’m locked up here. I didn’t know that.

“Sigh…”

—Ah. Life is okay. They let me take a walk sometimes. They say I can meet other prisoners in about 4-5 years. That’s good enough.

Yael licked the window with his tongue. Elise closed her eyes tightly.

“I didn’t come to ask about that-”

—I know, Elise. It’s not your fault. Dad sent you, right? To stay quiet until the election is over.

His answer was so correct that Elise was momentarily lost for words.

Then Yael exaggerated his expression, as if he was acting in a play.

—Father. Ah, my father. But I understand. The election was important then and now. Very important. Very… That fucking bastard——!

Bang!

He slammed his head against the reinforced glass. His face distorted in an instant. A desperate look flashed in his eyes.

Drip- Drip-

Blood flowed from his forehead, mixing with the sudden transformation of his contorted face.

—Tell that son of a bitch. Tell our parents. I… I’m getting by.

Whether he was trembling or breathing, he slowly lowered his head.

—Just… getting by…

“…Crazy.”

Elise licked her purple-tinted lips.

Bang! Yael hit the reinforced glass with his palm.

—Answer me———!

“Stop, stop shouting!”

Elise shouted out in a fit.

—…?

Yael blinked for a moment, then smirked. He returned to his normal self and scratched the back of his neck.

—Ah sorry. My little sister doesn’t like shouting…

Thud——.

At that moment, a sound that shouldn’t be here.

Clearly, someone was stepping.

Thud——

She quickly turned around. Yael also followed, turning his gaze.

“…You.”

A place unknown to most ordinary people.

Thud——.

He stopped in front of a solitary cell.

A cell surrounded by reinforced glass on all sides, with a sign like a nameplate attached, bearing the number [115].

Elise’s eyes were filled with astonishment. A vague smile spread across Yael’s lips.

“?”

In a place where it was a crime for ordinary people to even enter, a madman was nonchalantly tilting his head.

Shion Ascal.

Under the pale incandescent light in the darkness of the corridor, his buzz cut stood out.

……It was quite an old acquaintance.

A not-so-ordinary relationship that started in a hospital and led to a prison.

When I first met him a long time ago, he told me he had killed someone. He said he had personally cut off a person’s neck.

At that time, I was a critically ill patient in the hematology ward, and he was a patient in the psychiatric ward.

I thought he was obviously a psychiatric patient, but it didn’t matter to me at that time whether he was a psychiatric patient or a ghost.

A fourteen-year-old outcast, a cancer patient, needed a friend. At least a talking companion.

So I didn’t avoid him. I held onto him, who only spoke strange words. We had a lot of conversations.

He was the only person who accepted me, and I was the only person who listened to his words.

Maybe…… he was the first friend I ever made in my life.

Then, one day, now a faint memory, he told me a strange story. That Petra University Hospital was administering a new drug called ‘Gelt’ to me, not the most popular leukemia drug ‘Maglev’.

He said that the father of a fellow patient in the same hematology ward was a journalist who knew a lot about leukemia, and suggested I go see him.

I did as he said.

I went to the journalist and asked.

Why is Petra administering a new drug called ‘Gelt’ to us, not ‘Maglev’?

The moment the journalist’s face changed, he checked out of the hospital with his son, and the following week, a scoop about Petra University Hospital’s rebate exploded.

And me?

Of course, I was kicked out of the hospital.

It must have been a day when the rain was drizzling.

I left the hospital with my hair shaved off due to chemotherapy, and I remember a beautiful child glaring at me from the hospital balcony.

That child might still blame me.

……Well.

If the story had ended here, it would have been a shitty ending for me, but fortunately or unfortunately, there was more to it.

Had it been about three months since I was admitted to another hospital?

That journalist came to see me again. His suit was flashy, and a dazzling watch hung from his wrist. His complexion, which had been sallow, was now clean compared to before.

He said his son was all better now, and asked if there might be another secret at Petra Hospital. He added that he would give me 20,000 Ren if I told him.

At the outrageously expensive proposition, I thought of the man from the psychiatric ward.

At that time, I thought I had been fooled by him. I believed I was kicked out of the hospital because of his impulsiveness.

Out of revenge, I exposed that he had killed someone.

The journalist left me with a somewhat strange face.

He never came back.

There was no promised money.

I thought I had been fooled again.

The story after that……

Hmm, there’s none now.

There was, but it disappeared.

Because I regressed.

But if I were to briefly mention that ‘missing story’, I, who was in my twenties, committed a certain crime and was incarcerated in Recordark.

‘He’ was in Recordark at that time.

To be precise, he was transferred from the psychiatric hospital to Recordark ‘because of me’.

Yet, he didn’t blame me. On the contrary, he was a great help to me, who was still weak.

—It’s an old story. I didn’t know you’d be kicked out of the hospital either. Are you okay?

I came to respect him.

I became friends with him again.

But he didn’t even tell me his name even when I left the prison. Let alone his name, he didn’t even try to talk about his personal affairs.

—Don’t know too much. If you know, you’ll die. Like that journalist back then.

He carefully hid himself so as not to leak even a tiny hint, and I didn’t dig deep either.

Today, I finally learned his name.

“Yael.”

The voice flowing from Elise’s mouth.

That was the name of my friend.