Pharmaceutical Rewrite! Episode 5: The Alley of Ashen Memories
Ghosts of a Shuttered Past
The storm had ended, but the world hadn't thawed. The snow clung to the earth as if it had been nailed down, every drift solid and unyielding. Akio Hukitaske trudged through it with deliberate steps, his boots sinking deep into the white silence. His breath clouded the air, the rhythm of it almost as loud as the crunch beneath his soles.
He stopped in front of the pharmacy.
His pharmacy.
The building was a hollow husk now. Boarded windows sagged, nailed shut in a hurry years ago. The wooden frame bowed slightly from the weight of snow and time. Where once cheerful flowers spilled out from clay pots, there was only brittle stalks jutting up from ice, skeletal reminders of what had once been carefully tended.
The sign—Hukitaske's Remedies—hung crooked, its paint eaten away until only faint brushstrokes of green and white remained. The place looked less like a sanctuary now and more like a tombstone.
Akio stared for a long while, his face unreadable. He hadn't come back since the day everything collapsed. Since grief had hollowed him out and sent him wandering into war.
But the twins had changed that.
The strange kids in black robes. The vial-shattering laughter. The way they had stood in the snow, calling themselves his successors. And behind their crimson eyes, he had seen something he couldn't unsee. A familiarity. A memory clawing its way up from the deep caverns of his mind.
He had met them before.
The Flashback — Snowfall, Years Ago
The memory cut sharp and clean.
It had been another winter like this one—icy winds curling around the corners of the pharmacy, the night sky weeping snowflakes in endless cascades. Back then, the inside had been warm, alive. The little shop buzzed like a hearth against the frostbitten world outside.
He remembered Hikata the baker dropping by with steaming bread still wrapped in cloth. He remembered Raka, the old wrestler, bursting in with her painted mask, frightening the children who then laughed so hard their colds seemed to vanish. The bell above the door had never stopped ringing in those days.
That night, Akio had stepped out to toss the trash into the bins that sat in the narrow alley beside the pharmacy. His hands were gloved, but he still rubbed them together, chasing warmth.
Then he froze.
Two children were huddled there, pressed against the brick wall for shelter. They couldn't have been older than ten. One child clutched a bleeding hand, the crimson staining the snow at his side. The other kid—slightly taller—held a broken umbrella over both their heads.
Their eyes were not glowing then. Not red. Just tired. Just frightened. Just human.
"You'll freeze out here," Akio had said gently.
They didn't run.
He crouched low, reached out, and before long, they were inside the pharmacy. He fed them hot soup. Bandaged the hand with care. Let them sit near the space heater until their trembling stopped.
They never gave him names. Never stayed when the sun was up. But every night, for three weeks, they returned. Not as patients. Not even as strangers. But as shadows who wanted to believe in warmth.
And then one night—they were gone.
Akio had waited. Days. Weeks. He thought maybe they'd found family. Or been taken somewhere safer. He let himself believe it. And then the pharmacy closed, and his grief swallowed everything.
Present Day Revelation
Now, standing in that same alley, Akio let his knees sink into the frost. He brushed aside the snow with his gloved hands, half-aware, searching for something he wasn't sure existed.
And then he found it.
A carving etched crudely into the bricks, half-buried beneath years of weather. Letters jagged, childish, but still legible.
U + B were here.
His breath caught in his throat.
The Uki brothers.
Yatsumiya. Bradzi.
Not strangers. Not monsters born from nowhere. They were the same children he had taken in during those snowfalls long ago.
His hands trembled. He had saved them once. And then abandoned them.
When the pharmacy died, so had their refuge. And where do abandoned children go when hope disappears? Straight into the arms of those who promise power. Straight into the Lab.
Akio whispered into the cold air:
"Forgive me."
Echoes from Marina
Night fell before he stirred. The snow had painted the alley silver, but Akio hadn't moved.
When Marina found him, he was still kneeling in front of the carving. She didn't speak at first. She simply set a thermos beside him and crouched down, sharing the silence.
"They were kids," he muttered eventually. His voice sounded thin, brittle.
"So were we," Marina replied softly. Her breath curled into the night air, dissolving quickly, like words never meant to linger.
Akio turned toward her, eyes brimming with something raw. "They hate me because I gave them hope... and then I disappeared."
"Maybe," Marina said. She met his gaze steadily. "Or maybe they hate you because they still remember what it felt like to believe in that hope. And they can't forgive themselves for losing it."
Letters Never Sent
Later, at the hospital, Akio shut himself inside the old records room. Dust clouded the air, the smell of mildew clinging to old cardboard. He dug through cracked boxes until he found what he was looking for.
His pharmacy notebook.
Inside, tucked between faded prescriptions and formulas, were scraps of paper. Little drawings from children. Crayon-colored suns and stick-figure doctors. Notes that said "thank you." One tiny locket fashioned from string and a button.
And one letter. A small scrap in messy handwriting.
Thank you, Doc. This place makes the cold go away.
Akio stared at it until the ink blurred from his tears.
Was it one of theirs? Yatsumiya? Bradzi?
He didn't know. And that uncertainty cut deeper than certainty ever could.
The Lab's Doctrine
The next days blurred. Sleep was shallow, eaten by fragments of memory. But when dawn came, he forced himself to work.
Through a government contact who had begun leaking files to him—documents about the Lab, redacted reports from years of cover-ups—Akio pieced together the truth.
The Lab didn't just exploit the sick. It didn't just manipulate biology. It fed on despair.
It preyed on grief, loneliness, broken minds. The human condition was their experiment, and hopelessness was the catalyst.
His pharmacy had once been a beacon against that despair. A fragile light in a cold world. When he shut it down, the shadows swept in unopposed.
And the Uki brothers? They weren't just victims. They were the Lab's masterpiece. The crown jewels forged from his absence.
The Emotional Crossroads
The following morning, Akio returned to the ruins of the pharmacy. His footprints were the only ones breaking the pristine snow. He carried a small wooden plank, freshly carved.
He hammered it into the doorframe with steady hands.
Closed, but not Forgotten.
The words stood stark against the decay.
He stepped back, watching them. Not as absolution. Not as forgiveness. But as a promise to himself.
He knew now that medicine alone would not heal what he had broken. Redemption would not be clean. And the twins would not be easy to reach.
But maybe, just maybe, they weren't beyond saving.
Even if they spat on him. Even if they denied every memory. Even if it cost him everything left of his soul.
The snow fell harder, burying the alley in silence once more. Akio turned, his black coat trailing in the wind.
Somewhere in the distance, two pairs of red eyes were watching.
And for the first time in years, Akio felt the weight of what he had to do.
TO BE CONTINUED...