Dagoku wondered what he had done to be stuck in this position. He remembered leaving his apartment not too long ago with his little sister and sending her to school, and heading to work.
Dagoku managed to arrive at his apartment just as the sun came up, and went to go mabreakfast and lunch for him and Emiko. After about half an hour later, he heard Emiko wake up and saw her exit from his room, to which he said "good morning" to her. She also replied the same phrase back and went over to cling onto him like she did almost every other morning.
After eating their breakfast, getting ready, packing their lunches and bags, and leaving the house, they took the shortcut to Emiko's school and said their goodbyes. As Dagoku saw Emiko heading inside the school, he thought about how lucky he was to have a younger sister like her and reminded him of some memories from his past.
Dagoku decided to use the shortcut he always uses to get to work quicker. However while he was walking, he felt as if something was terribly wrong. He didn't know what it was, but he just had that feeling that something terrible was going to happen. He turned the corner to his workplace and saw that nothing was wrong with it, however his instincts were screaming at him not to go.
Dagoku decided to ignore these feelings of uneasiness and entered the building. He headed over to the locker room and got his blade. He entered the room next door, also know as the conference room, and said "hello" while making a cup of coffee for himself. Dagoku then sat down on a nearby chair and thought about the amount of work he would have to do today. As Dagoku was thinking, he noticed that the room was awfully quiet, and also realized that nobody said "hello" back. Dagoku looked around, only to then realize that nobody was in the room with him. Dagoku started to look around the building, however there seemed to be no human soul in sight. Dagoku looked around everywhere, opening each door and checking every room. However, his efforts were futile, and he realized that nobody was in the building. Dagoku checked his phone and saw that there were no new updates in the group chat, so it was either they did not come to work, or they left early without informing him.
Dagoku suddenly heard a weird noise coming from below, so he decided to check the basement of the building. He had forgotten that there was a basement in this building in the first place, as barely anybody went there, for it was pretty bare and dark in there. He opened the door to the stairs, as the basement was only accessible by foot, and went down. He arrived at the basement door, and grabbed a flashlight from a drawer next to the door, and entered.
Dagoku had never been inside the basement, as he had no reason to, and also for the fact that it had seen unsettling to him. Dagoku felt an ominous sensation wash over him as he entered, and he clicked his flashlight on as there was basically no visibility in the dark space.
Dagoku noticed that the walls were run down and how everything also seemed to be made of concrete, except the metal pipes, which were extremely rusty. Dagoku had a feeling that he had been in here before, however this was impossible as he had never been in the basement.
"Please…help…"
Dagoku suddenly heard somebody groan for help, however he hesitated on whether to head into the darkness or stay back.
Ultimately, Dagoku chose to go deeper into the basement and try finding the source of the voice.
As Dagoku was walking in the basement with his flashlight on, he noticed that the basement was much larger than he had anticipated. There were many rooms and corridors, all leading to more rooms and corridors. He wondered when the basement got so big, as he thought that even the building above was as large as this. Dagoku noticed how everything looked extremely run down, and questioned why nobody used this place, especially with how unsettlingly large it was. As he turned another corner, he saw something that made him momentarily stunned. He saw the entire corridor in from of him splattered in a dark red color. The indistinguishable stench of iron immediately made Dagoku realize that the red that covered everything was blood.
Dagoku tried to stop himself from gagging due to the extremely potent stench and took a minute to breathe. He still was not used to the smell and sight of blood, even after working as a private hunter for the past couple months. Every nerve in his body screamed at him to not go any further and that he would die, however Dagoku decided to head in deeper anyways.
The uneasiness grew inside Dagoku more and more as he entered the long, bloody corridor, with the metal pipes on the roof creaking every so often. Dagoku wondered how much more he had to walk to reach the end. That was when his flashlight suddenly gave out, causing everything to become pitch black. Dagoku frantically tried to turn the flashlight back on, however it seemed as if the batteries had died. Dagoku sighed and put the flashlight in his pocket and continued walking forward, as there was nothing else he could do. Unfortunately, being unable to see where he was going caused Dagoku to constantly bump into the bloody walls, which disgusted him a lot. Soon enough, his entire body smelled like blood, making his nose wrinkle.
A while later, Dagoku finally smashed into something solid headfirst. As he got up while rubbing his head, he realized, with the limited amount of vision he had, that the surface he slammed his head into, against his will, was a door.
Dagoku decided to open the door, and after spending some time trying to find the door handle, he was able to open the door.
Dagoku was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of terror the second he entered, however before he could try and get out, he heard the door slammed behind him, and when he looked back, seemed to have merged with the concrete wall. As Dagoku started to wonder what he should do, he started hearing voices in the room, all speaking to him.
"Please, save me…"
"Help me…"
"Release me from this…"
All the voices started to plead with Dagoku to come and rescue them, however he did not want to go towards the direction of the voices. He felt as if this was all a trick set up to kill him, but he soon realized that there was no more options but to head towards the voices calling out to him.
That was when he noticed he had a huge gash that stretched across his torso.