Paranoia, Hate, Or Something More?

Chapter 3 - Where's the arm?

I ended up being half dragged through a new path overgrown with weeds and moss. I could hear Satoko quietly humming a cheerful tune to herself as she skipped along. She looked pretty happy, considering that all we were doing was visiting a garbage dump. After a few minutes of walking over the grassy terrain, we made our way out into a large clearing.

In the centre of the clearing was a large hole, filled with what seemed to be miles of rubbish.

"Come on, come on, lets go!" Satoko chanted optimisticly, pulling me closer to the dump. The cries of crows and sparrows echoed around us as we reached the edge of the deep pit.

"Are we going any further down?" I asked once we had delved at least 10 meters into the seemingly endless maze of rubbish. "Uhh...just a little further...I think we may have to split up, I diddn't mention it before but I really just wanted you to come to help me find this really cute doll I saw while roaming around in here." She admitted. "So how about if you go down the tunnel to our right, and I go left. The dolls really cute, in blue frills; its impossible to miss!" And with that the ran down the left tunnel, leaving me with no choice but to venture down the right tunnel as I had no idea the way to escape this place without Satoko's guidence, and I wasn't quite sure how she would find me again. In spit of that I trudged through the passage ways, searching for anything that matched the description of Satokos doll. Whilst walking I litteraly stumbled across some newspapers which looked kind of interesting, so I decided to take a look at them. According to the date these were printed last week.

****BODY OF MAN FOUND DISMEMBERED IN TRAGIC KILLING ---- This morning at around 5:05pm in the village of Hinamizawa, the Tokyo region, body parts from a resident living in the area have been found, though the culprit is still at large. One arm is still reported missing, though all other parts of the body have been found and buried under the families instructions****

A killer? And this town seemed kind-of nice too! Oh well, I guess there are paranoid creeps everywhere, even if the place does seem peacefull. A tap on the back made me drop the newspaper, scream and fall forwards all at the same time.

"That got you out of your little daydream, diddn't it!!" Satoko called from behind me. "I was shouting you but you either couldn't hear or were so wrapped up in your thoughts you diddn't listen!" She scoffed. While she was speaking I noticed the baby-sized doll she was holding to her side, in a blue frilly dress and shiny white shoes.

"You found the doll! Wow, she's in pretty good condition, I see why you like coming down here now!" I said as she grabbed my hand. Once again I found myself being pulled through the various tunnels that I supposed would get us out of here. Seriously, how does she know these routes so well! When I finnaly began to see the exit to the trail and could smell the fresh air again I remembered about the newspapers.

"So, Satoko, someone was killed in Hinamizawa? I...heard it from someone in town. Did you know that?" I was curious as to how far this news had spread. Her expression turned hard and her eyes darkened to a near black shade.

"No-one was killed. Just forget all about it Rena." She said with no feeling, her eyes looking at me but at the same time streight through me. With that remark we reached the exit of the cove and walked back onto the path we came. Goodbyes said we split up to go to our homes and I couldn't help recap on the strange events that happened today. Going to a new school and nearly being hit in the face by school equipment, going into a dump that I now knew could hold some interesting treasures and finding out about Hinamizawa's ellusive murderer all in one day. Hell this is one interesting town!