Chapter 126: The Empty Air
The survivor he’d met at Savannah Station.
The very man who had desperately begged Walfred to root out the Skinwalkers hiding in the shelter: Colton.
In the middle of the screening, he had said he was going to check on his daughter, and then vanished into thin air like smoke.
’And yet...’
Who would have thought they’d run into each other in a place like this?
Just as Walfred narrowed his eyes, Colton spoke up, his face full of shock.
"H-Hunter, what are you doing here...?!"
"That’s my question."
Walfred answered without withdrawing the ice axe pressed against Colton’s neck.
Had he only just noticed it?
"...!? Hgh!"
Colton flinched violently and toppled backward.
Landing hard on his rear, he immediately scrambled onto his knees, frantically waving both hands.
"I, I’m not a monster!"
"That’s exactly what all the Skinwalkers said."
"It’s true! Please, you have to believe me!"
Colton pleaded desperately.
Walfred, expressionless, tightened his grip on the axe. But just as he was about to swing it at the Skinwalker pretending to be Colton,
’Wait.’
A strange feeling struck him.
He saw something that set this one apart from all the Skinwalkers whose heads he’d been splitting on sight. Colton’s body was severely frozen over.
Lips turned blue, as if from long exposure to subzero cold. The bridge of his nose and his cheeks flushed red. Unmistakable symptoms of frostbite.
’If he can feel the cold...’
Then he wasn’t a Skinwalker.
The Skinwalkers had never shown so much as a shiver at his [Cold Emission], let alone frostbite.
Colton, on the other hand, had frostbite symptoms, and he trembled every time Walfred’s body gave off cold. Putting all the pieces together, he was human.
"Tch."
After a moment’s deliberation, Walfred withdrew the ice axe he’d aimed at Colton’s head.
That didn’t mean he dropped his guard.
Ready to crush the man’s skull at any moment, Walfred threw a question at the relieved Colton.
"Why did you disappear earlier without a word?"
"Pardon? Ah! That is, well..."
Voice trembling, Colton began to speak, thinking back to when the screening had been in full swing at the shelter.
"That night, I realized how late it had gotten, so I only meant to slip over to the residential area for a quick look at my daughter’s face. But..."
"But?"
"My daughter, Dawn, was gone."
His daughter wasn’t the only one missing.
The acquaintance who was supposed to watch Dawn while Colton was away, and everyone waiting in the residential area for their turn in the screening, had all vanished.
Half out of his mind, Colton had wandered everywhere searching for his daughter. The residential area, the quarantine zone, inside the shelter and out, everywhere he could look.
And then,
"That’s when I met the pharmacist."
"What? The pharmacist?"
"Yes! And she wasn’t alone. She came back with reinforcements from the Macon shelter!"
Colton’s eyes sparkled.
In contrast to his expression, glowing with hope as if he’d met a savior, Walfred’s face hardened.
’Come to think of it...’
This man didn’t know.
He hadn’t read the shelter management log the pharmacist, Helen, had left behind. He’d already vanished before Walfred ever found it.
If he’d known what was in that log, he could never have been this overjoyed about meeting Helen.
"Then I heard some shocking news."
Meanwhile, Colton continued his explanation.
"She said the Skinwalkers that had been hiding in the shelter were kidnapping people and fleeing to escape your screening, Hunter."
"...Who did you hear that from?"
"From the pharmacist. She said my daughter was among those who’d been taken."
Was he reliving the shock of that moment?
Colton clenched his fists hard enough to draw blood, his whole body shaking.
After that, driven by the single-minded resolve to save his daughter, he had volunteered to accompany Helen. And after arriving here and combing through every corner of the industrial complex,
"I finally got Dawn back."
"You got your daughter back?"
"That’s right! Haah, she didn’t have a scratch on her. You have no idea how relieved I was..."
Colton looked genuinely relieved.
Walfred, on the other hand, felt a deep sense of doubt.
"..."
How could he not?
There was no one standing beside Colton as he sighed in relief over recovering his daughter.
From the moment Walfred had first seen him inside this building until now, Colton had been alone. Feeling a strange sense of wrongness, Walfred asked,
"Where is your daughter?"
"Pardon?"
"You said you found her. So then..."
Why is she nowhere to be seen?
That was what Walfred meant to ask. But Colton’s answer came a beat faster.
"Hunter? What are you talking about?"
An expression of genuine bewilderment.
Eyes round, Colton tilted his head and asked back. Then, out of nowhere, he pointed at the empty air and broke into a wide smile.
"She’s right here, isn’t she?"
"...?"
"Oh, my apologies. The truth is, my daughter is quite shy around strangers."
Colton laughed sheepishly.
Then he gently wrapped his arms around the empty air and spoke in a tender voice.
"Come on now, say hello to the Hunter."
The moment he saw that, Walfred’s face went rigid.
He knew instinctively that Colton was not in his right mind. Gripping his ice axe tight, Walfred swept his eyes quickly over their surroundings.
But,
’There’s no black fog.’
He’d suspected Colton had been engulfed by the black fog that caused mental corruption and fallen into delirium. Apparently, that theory was wrong.
Then why had Colton ended up like this?
Had he simply lost his mind?
Amid a swirl of theories, just as Walfred turned back toward the strangely behaving Colton,
"Uncle?"
A voice suddenly called out to him.
At that familiar voice, one he could never forget, his body froze like a statue. A moment later, Walfred turned around, his eyes trembling.
And there stood a familiar face.
"Jenna...?"
At the end of Walfred’s gaze stood Jenna, dressed in a neat school uniform with a white coat over it. She tilted her head and asked,
"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You... Key West... the school trip..."
"What are you talking about? That was ages ago."
Jenna burst out laughing.
And then, all at once, his field of view expanded.
A living room bathed in warm sunlight.
A sofa, a little worn but still serviceable, and a TV that had been reduced to decoration. A familiar scene. It was the apartment where Walfred had lived alone.
"What... is this..."
What was going on?
Walfred stood rooted to the spot, blinking blankly. Jenna, who had been giving him an odd look, turned toward the front door and said,
"Mom. What’s wrong with Uncle?"
The word that slipped from her small mouth: Mom.
The instant he heard it, Walfred’s shoulders twitched involuntarily. At the same time, a familiar voice drifted over from the direction of the front door.
"Beats me."
In that moment, his eyes shook violently.
A voice he had buried deep within his memories.
At that longed-for voice, one he had never once forgotten, Walfred turned his body like a creaking wooden puppet.
And there,
"Maybe you’re still half asleep?"
he came face to face with a face he had missed so terribly.
The only family he’d had left, the one who had cared for Walfred like a mother from the day they lost their parents until he became an adult.
"S-Sis..."
Walfred’s one and only elder sister, Heather.