[Autumn Days] All 8 Chapters on pixiv / Chapter 4: "Apocalyptic Sound" https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=9717401
4. Apocalyptic Sound
We heard that sound right after the commotion of the university festival. Following a chaotic ordeal—tossed around by a crowd over a creepy painting drawn by an acquaintance of Shisho's named Fukutake—we ended up meeting at Shisho's house. Shisho said he had burned the painting in the incinerator near the club building. The painting, which he called a monster.
"I had no idea that was Cetus, the constellation of the whale," I said. Fukutake’s painting depicted naked humans with only certain parts of their bodies magnified—hands, feet, eyes—surrounding a monster they seemed to worship. The monster had a walrus-like torso with short arms ending in sharp claws. Its reclining lower half lacked legs, and a hairless tail curled upward toward the sky. Its head featured a large nose. Its split mouth was lined with sharp fangs, and its eyes were small like those of a carnivorous reptile, carrying a cruel expression. It bore no resemblance whatsoever to the whales of the sea that we imagine.
Shisho explained it to me. "In Japan, the constellation known as Cetus is a monster born between Typhon and Echidna. Because Queen Cassiopeia of the Ethiopian kingdom boasted of her beauty, she incurred the wrath of Poseidon, who sent Cetus to the Ethiopian kingdom as his agent. An oracle declared that to appease the rampaging Cetus, Princess Andromeda had to be offered as a sacrifice. And so, Princess Andromeda was chained to a rock in the sea. That's when the hero Perseus arrives riding Pegasus. Holding up the head of Medusa, whom he has just defeated, Perseus turns Cetus into stone and successfully saves the princess to take her as his bride. That's the plot of the myth."
"Then why is it called a whale in Japan?" "Because Cetus originally meant 'whale' in Greek. Though it appears here as a ghost whale."
So, when Shisho and I were looking up at the constellation in the night park the other day, we had entirely different images in our minds despite looking at the same Cetus.
"Why did Fukutake hallucinate this?" Fukutake had said so. That she had seen this. She was a person who saw things that did not belong to this world. She said she drew what she saw to trap the disaster within the art. "…Who knows?" Shisho twisted his mouth.
To me, it didn't feel like a coincidence. *'I am the heart that changes its brightness.'* The words left by the egg-faced neighbor referred to Mira, the heart star of Cetus. And the masked man who appeared as if to intercept us while we were investigating Giant Sensory Syndrome. That mask closely resembled the white masks used by the Cetus Theater Company. Whales, whales, whales. There was no way this was a coincidence. Yet, I couldn't understand what significance that pattern held.
It was right then, after a brief silence had fallen. The window glass of Shisho’s room began to rattle. At the same time I looked toward it, my ears picked up a strange sound. It was an eerie sound, like metal objects scraping against each other. Noticing it too, Shisho immediately rushed over and flung the window wide open.
As evening approached, the undersides of the clouds covering half the sky were being dyed a dark color. Beneath that sky, an inexplicable sound resonated. *Screeech. Screeech.* My immediate thought was that it was a siren. But it lacked any sense of intent to announce something; it was simply an unpleasant sound, like space itself groaning.
"What is this?" "I don't know."
The volume was quite high. From nearby houses, people were coming out of their front doors to peer outside. Everyone wore anxious expressions. I strained my ears, trying to determine the direction it was coming from. But all I figured out was that it seemed to originate from nowhere in particular. There were no factories nearby that would make a sound like this. The unidentified sound continued on and off.
I imagined it. A gigantic train running across the sky, applying its brakes yet failing to stop, continuing to advance inch by inch. A heavy mass of steel, creaking and groaning, endlessly and slowly moving forward.
"Is that the 'Apocalyptic Sound'?" Shisho muttered. "What's that?" "The trumpets blown by the seven angels in the Book of Revelation. The end-times sound announcing the end of the human world and the beginning of the Last Judgment. Unidentified metallic sounds like this observed all over the world are called that." "Unidentified—is it really unknown what causes them?" "From what I've heard, people say various things: sounds of electromagnetic waves accompanying upper-atmosphere electrical discharge phenomena, sounds echoing in underground cavities, or sounds generated by the ground creaking." "Gr-Ground? You don't think it's a precursor to a major earthquake, do you?" I shuddered and instinctively shrank back. "Who knows."
I braced myself, expecting the ground to start shaking at any moment, but after waiting a while, there was no sign of it.
Before long, the eerie sound Shisho called the Apocalyptic Sound became intermittent and grew almost inaudible. The sky grew redder as dusk approached. Wind picked up, and cold air drifted in through the window.
"Is it over?" Just as Shisho said that and reached to close the window— A sound unlike the metallic noise from before, something resembling a growl, suddenly echoed out.
*Gaa… Ii… Gaa…* *Gaa… Ii… Gaa…*
It was a three-syllable pattern. It repeated in a heavy bass that resonated deep in the stomach. I leaned out the window, but there were no abnormalities in the sky or surroundings. Just like before, the sound echoed from somewhere indeterminate—neither from the upper sky nor the depths of the earth. However, unlike the metallic noise, this sound had a visceral quality to it. It was as if something were roaring or groaning.
"What the hell is this?" When I muttered that, Shisho was covering his ears with his palms, then removing them, trying to verify something.
"This might not be an actual sound." "Not an actual sound? You mean it's an auditory hallucination?" "Look."
When Shisho pointed past the window, residents who had been outside anxiously looking around were heading back into their homes. Thinking the strange acoustic phenomenon was over, they were closing their windows, just like Shisho. But right now, a different, eerie sound—unlike the metallic noise from moments ago—was audible. Yet the residents returned inside briskly, acting as if they couldn't hear it at all.
"Is it only us hearing this? Why?" "Shh."
Shisho was listening intently. *Gaa… Ii… Gaa…* *Gaa… Ii… Gaa…*
The window glass had been vibrating faintly until a moment ago, but now it was still. Only the growling voice echoed from nowhere. In contrast to the inorganic, dissonant noise called the sound of the end times, this time I felt something like the will of the entity producing it. Perhaps it was because it wasn't metallic, but biological.
"It's stopping." Shisho said. The sound could no longer be heard.
I went out through the front door and looked around. The sky, which had been high during the day, was now low. The bottoms of the clouds were heavily lit by the setting sun. What is happening? An unfathomable fear was seeping out from the depths of my body.
◆
The next day’s newspaper carried an article about the eerie sound. The phenomenon seemed to have occurred across a fairly wide area of the city. The article linked it to various mysterious events that had happened over the summer—mischief or bizarre occurrences where street trees and utility poles were uprooted or it rained stones. The article described it as a "metallic sound" and made no mention of the growling-like noise that Shisho and I had heard at the very end.
Shisho's assertion that it wasn't an actual sound took on even more reality.
For a week after that, the metallic sound could be heard almost every day. It was invariably in the evening. Citizens were unsettled by the eerie noise, and some acquaintances of mine even filed complaints with the city hall and the Meteorological Agency. Such disturbances became news, and the panic seemed poised to accelerate further due to reports raising suspicions of a connection to a major earthquake. However, that too began to subside after about four days. The ground didn't shake a bit, and the sound gradually grew fainter.
In the end, the true nature of the sound remained unknown, but during a local news program, an explanation provided by a connected meteorologist—that it was likely due to electromagnetic noise—seemed to give everyone a provisional sense of satisfaction, even if they didn't fully understand it.
A week passed, and the city regained its routine. While listening to the faint metallic sound that echoed from nowhere during the evening hour, junior and senior high school students hurried home, office workers committed to overtime, and housewives went grocery shopping.
Around the time the Apocalyptic Sound was becoming just another piece of ambient environmental noise, the evening local news program reported a gas explosion accident in the southern district of the city. During renovation work at a shopping mall, an old gas pipe buried underground had suddenly exploded. Several workers were injured, but fortunately there were no fatalities or severely injured people, and the prefectural police were investigating the detailed cause, according to the breaking news.
I happened to see this while chatting in Shisho’s room, but at the map of the surrounding area shown on TV, Shisho leaped to his feet. "The left foot." Saying just that, he began preparing to go out. I hurriedly followed. "It's the position of the left foot from the marks we put on that map."
Shisho, driving the battered light car for the first time in a while, said that. "The mannequin's?"
Ever since the nursery school magic circle incident, mannequin limbs had already been unearthed from three locations. If Shisho's speculation was correct, their positions should form the shape of a huge pentagram. Like the figure of a giant lying flat on its back across a wide area of the city. And the shopping mall where the accident occurred was right around that left foot.
When we arrived at the scene, police tape had been strung up, and onlookers had gathered around it. The sun was already setting, and the flickering lights of police vehicles and the orange glow of floodlights were visible in the dimness.
"We can't get close." "Yeah."
A fire truck was visible near the building, but it no longer seemed active. No smoke was rising. Near the police tape, a smaller pumper truck was parked, and people were sitting around it looking unoccupied. They weren't fire department personnel; they were likely local volunteer firefighters. Though from a different district, Shisho belonged to the fire brigade himself, so he seemed to have acquaintances there. He beckoned one of them over and fell into conversation.
When Shisho eventually returned, he said, "Doesn't seem to be any foul play." "Just a gas explosion. The mall building itself didn't catch fire, so it wasn't a major accident. Of course, nothing strange has been found so far."
Shisho used the vague phrase "strange things." He smiled self-deprecatingly. "Anyway, let's head back." "Okay."
The light car was parked at a convenience store a little distance away, so we walked toward it. Glancing sideways at him, I could clearly tell that Shisho wasn't satisfied with the explanation of a mere gas explosion. He looked absent-minded, his eyes not following the scenery.
"Ah." I stopped in my feet. Because the sound had returned.
*Gaa… Ii… Gaa…* *Gaa… Ii… Gaa…*
It wasn't the metallic sound we'd heard all this time, the Apocalyptic Sound. It was a visceral sound, like the groaning of some entity. A sound we hadn't heard since that very first day. Right now, it was sending a muddy resonance through the sky.
"Hey, what is that?" Shisho seemed to have noticed too; he stopped and stood stunned. People walking down the alley walked briskly past with complete indifference. As if no such sound could be heard.
An auditory hallucination? I covered my ears. But the sound didn't stop.
*Gaa… Ii… Gaa…* *Gaa… Ii… Gaa…*
Far from stopping, it seemed to grow gradually louder. At that moment, I noticed something strange about Shisho, who had stopped after saying "What is that?" and remained frozen. He was staring up in a weird direction, standing rigidly. I looked that way too, and a chill ran down my spine.
In the dim, dusk-darkened northwestern sky, a giant human figure stood. The faint outline of a transparent giant stood there, piercing the heavens. I remembered the transparent giant draped in clouds that I had seen once on the mountain of the cloud-dispelling master. Wasn't that just an illusion born of fear, seen while thunder and storms approached?
Even when I rubbed my eyes, the giant before us didn't vanish. The massive body—hundreds, no, thousands of meters tall—just stood there motionlessly. Rooted in place without a twitch. As if it had been there since primeval times.
Nobody else could see it besides Shisho and me. Pedestrians, every single one of them, walked past us without even stopping. Only the two of us, Shisho and I, looked up at the majestic presence of the transparent giant.
"Wh-What is that?" "……"
A contour resembling a mouth formed on the giant's faceless head. Only then did I realize the giant had been facing us. The giant's mouth moved slowly.
*Gaa… Ii… Gaa…* *Gaa… Ii… Gaa…*
That sound reverberated heavily. The sound was now clearly leaking from the giant's mouth.
*Gaa… Ii… Gaa…* *Gaa… Ii… Gaa…*
I pressed both hands over my ears. The sound didn't vanish. My head was spinning from the surreal event. Shisho covered his mouth with his right hand and wore an expression as if he had realized something. "Wait." "Huh?"
Shisho removed his hand from his mouth and used the index fingers and thumbs of both hands to form a square. Far beyond that viewfinder was the giant's face. Shisho's lips moved slowly in time with the giant's voice.
*Baa… Ii… Baa…* *Baa… Ii… Baa…*
Shisho made a sound with a pronunciation different from the giant's voice. "Wh-What is it?" "Look."
Shisho pointed at the giant's mouth. Its transparent outline moved slowly. "Ah." Indeed, it wasn't "Ga." The mouth didn't stay open; it closed once. A plosive sound. The "pa" of pineapple, or perhaps the "ba" of an idiot. It looked like one of those mouth movements.
Shisho traced the movement of the giant's mouth with a serious expression. It was just like during the numerous lip-reading practice sessions we'd done. "No doubt about it. The mouth is moving as *Ba, i, ba*." Shisho said cautiously. Then he tapped my shoulder and pulled me close. Pulling me in as if throwing an arm around my shoulder, he pressed his cheek against mine. "Listen, watch closely. The movement of the mouth. Watch it while casting aside preconceptions, and listen. What is it saying?"
Feeling the softness of Shisho's cheek directly against mine, I tried to suppress my pounding heart. At the edge of our vision as we pressed our faces together and looked up at the northwestern sky, the giant's mouth began to move again.
*Daa… Ii… Daa…* *Daa… Ii… Daa…*
That was how it sounded. Different from just a moment ago. It wasn't *Ga, i, ga*. Nor was it *Ba, i, ba*, which Shisho had read from the lip movements.
*Daa… Ii… Daa…* *Daa… Ii… Daa…*
*Da, i, da*. That was what it was saying.
Ending with those syllables, the giant closed its mouth. Then the outline of the mouth faded away. Simultaneously with the mouth disappearing, the outline of the face melted away into the sky. And that dissolution spread to the torso and the entire body. Before our eyes, the giant vanished without a trace.
Abruptly, the clamor of the crowd rushed back into my ears. Pedestrians walked past us with strange looks, staring at us standing still with our faces pressed together in the middle of the path.
"The McGurk effect," Shisho said, pulling his face away. "Wh-What's that?" "A human cognitive impairment. When people see someone making the mouth movements for *Ba* while vocalizing *Ga*, humans perceive the sound as having heard *Da*, neither *Ga* nor *Ba*." "I've never heard of that in my life." "Sound alone wasn't enough. Hearing that sound, which ordinary people can't perceive, and furthermore being able to see that transparent giant. Only when those conditions are met can you understand the true nature of the word." Shisho muttered to himself. "Da-i-da. Da-i-da…"
As if savoring it, Shisho repeated those syllables over and over. Then, frowning, he murmured: "Daidarabotchi… Daidarabotchi?" "D-Daidarabotchi? The giant from the old tales?"
I wasn't all that surprised that such an outrageous name had come up. My faculty of thought was completely paralyzed by what had just happened before my eyes. "Daidarabotchi," Shisho repeated to verify, looking up at the sky where the giant had vanished.
To be continued in Autumn Days Chapter 5: "Underground"
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