1972. Japan. Retribution Island.
Evening was settling over the island slowly, in layers, as if some invisible hand were extinguishing the colors of the day one by one. The sun had already vanished below the horizon, but the sky still held its memory, deep streaks of violet giving way to an almost black blue in the east. The clouds, thin and ragged, were lit from below by the fading glow, like ash that still held warmth. The moon hung low, large, pale, with a yellowish tint, as if cut from old yellowed paper, and the stars around it were only just beginning to appear, timid, scattered points of light.
The sea breathed steadily, heavily, rolling onto the sand in dark sheets of waves that hissed as they withdrew, leaving behind a wet strip that gleamed in the moonlight. Somewhere in the distance a lone bird cried out, sharp and abrupt, and then silence fell again, broken only by the rumble of the surf.
On the small beach, right at the water's edge, a campfire burned, small but hungry, throwing sparks into the darkness, devouring dry branches with a frequent, cozy crackle. Smoke rose at a slant, carried by a weak breeze, smelling of resin and salt.
Around the fire, on scattered jackets and old checkered blankets, sat four young men, all just past twenty. Their smooth, still youthfully unfinished faces gleamed with the heat and the reflected flame. Takayama sat closest to the fire, knees pulled to his chest, arms wrapped around them, his gaze fixed somewhere through the flames, as if looking further than his eyes could actually reach.
One of the friends, a lean guy with a guitar on his knees, quietly picked at the strings, a simple melody, a little melancholic but beautiful, and sang softly, almost in a whisper.
"That song again," snorted the big guy, the one holding a stick with marshmallows skewered over the fire. The white lumps were slowly turning golden, bubbling, beginning to drip sweet goo into the coals, filling the air with the smell of burnt sugar mixed with smoke and sea salt. "You've been playing that since school."
"Guess it's a good song, then, if it hasn't gotten old yet," the guitarist replied, without looking up from the strings.
The third guy, thin, with long fingers, was fiddling with a can of peaches in syrup. The metal lid screeched as it gave way. He scooped out a piece with a spoon, brought it to his lips, licked the dripping syrup.
"Sweet," he said simply, and passed the can around.
"Give it here, don't be greedy," the big guy said, reaching out a hand without looking, still focused on the marshmallows.
"You're one to talk. Your candy's basically charcoal already."
The big guy glanced at his stick, the marshmallow had indeed gone black on one side, and blew the ash off it with a laugh.
"Burnt tastes even better. You just don't get it."
Takayama had been silent this whole time, staring into the fire as though he saw something there that the others couldn't, shapes, shadows, fragments of thoughts that wouldn't arrange themselves into words. The guitarist noticed, turned his head slightly.
"Takayama, why so quiet? Off in your own world again?"
"Not really my own. Just..." He paused, shrugged. "I don't know. It's quiet here. Too quiet. Like I'm realizing you can hate everything that exists. Because even once we grow up, we still drive ourselves into some pit of hopelessness, like we owe something to everyone, everywhere. We just sit here and exist."
"Maybe that's just how it is."
"It's an island, not a city," snorted the thin one with the peaches. "It's always quiet here. That's exactly why people come."
Takayama didn't answer, just shook his head and suddenly stood up, brushing sand off his knees.
"I'll go get some firewood," he said quietly. "Ten minutes. Quick."
"Take the flashlight, or you'll fall in a hole again like last time," the big guy called after him, and the others laughed, apparently remembering some old story.
"That happened once," Takayama muttered, but smiled at the corner of his mouth as he picked up an old, heavy flashlight from the sand, its metal casing scratched and darkened with age.
The friends nodded, not taking their eyes off the fire. The guitar kept playing, quiet and steady. The marshmallows hissed over the coals. Takayama clicked on the flashlight, the beam carving a strip of sand out of the darkness, and he headed toward the forest that separated the beach from the rest of the island.
The path, barely visible even in daylight, vanished under his feet almost as soon as he stepped beneath the tree canopy. The flashlight beam slid over the trunks of pine trees, cutting them out of the darkness, gnarled, covered in rough bark, oozing sap in places that gleamed dully in the light. The moss underfoot was soft, damp, springing back with every step, fallen needles rustling quietly, almost inaudibly. The air here was colder than on the beach, thicker, saturated with the resinous scent of pines and wet earth, nothing like the salty sea air behind him.
Somewhere in the treetops the leaves stirred, though there was hardly any wind to speak of. Once a branch snapped, far off to the side, and Takayama stopped for a moment, swept the flashlight beam in that direction, but saw nothing except dense blackness between the trunks.
"Probably a bird," he muttered to himself and kept walking, less certain than he'd been at the start.
He was thinking about a lot of things. Since childhood, Takayama had dreamed of having sex with a dead body; he knew a corpse couldn't really be "raped," since it was no longer alive and therefore couldn't give consent or refusal. But how do you prove that to people who hide their fear and helplessness behind morality?
He knew the island, knew these trails, had walked them back and forth over the few days they'd spent here, but in the dark everything looked different, foreign, as if the forest had rearranged itself overnight.
His footsteps sounded muffled, swallowed by the thick layer of needles and moss. Takayama walked on, shining the light at his feet, looking for larger dry branches, occasionally bending down to pick one up and snap it in half over his knee, the crack echoing unexpectedly loud in the silence of the forest, almost indecently so.
And then he stopped.
The flashlight beam fell on something red and torn, lying off the path, among the crushed ferns.
Takayama froze, not immediately understanding what he was looking at. Then his breath caught.
On the ground lay a security guard, one of the men who looked after the vacation cabins, an older man Takayama had seen that very morning, sweeping the path by the reception desk. His uniform was torn to shreds, the dark fabric soaked through, gleaming black rather than red in the flashlight's beam. His chest had been torn open, ribs jutting out as white fragments through the mangled flesh. Almost nothing was left of his face.
Blood had spread across the moss and needles in a wide black stain, soaking into the earth.
And standing over the corpse was a wolf.
Alone. Large, its thick fur matted into dark clumps with blood. Its eyes yellow, glowing even in the dark, as if they reflected not just the moonlight but something of their own, from within. It didn't growl, didn't raise its head at the sound of footsteps or the flashlight's beam. It just ate. Slowly, methodically, tearing off chunks of flesh with powerful jerks of its head and swallowing them almost without chewing. Its fangs glistened wetly. The crunch of bone rang out sharp and clear in the night silence, almost like the crackle of branches in the campfire back on the beach, only far more alien, far more wrong a sound.
Takayama didn't move.
He stood frozen, the flashlight trembling faintly in his hand, only a thin strip of light shaking across the wolf's body, but the beam never turned away for even a second, as if it were locked onto the scene against Takayama's own will. There were no thoughts in his head, only an empty white noise, through which one thing broke through: run. But his legs wouldn't obey.
The wolf ate. Instinct devoured everything, flesh, clothing, fear, morality. There was no philosophy in it. No words at all. Only hunger and teeth, and the dull, wet sound of a life turning into food.
Takayama watched. For a long time, the seconds stretching out, as if time itself had gotten stuck in this forest. His lips moved before he even realized it.
"Holy shit... goddamn..."
His voice came out hoarse, almost a whisper, breaking somewhere in the middle, but it carried everything at once: shock, horror, and a strange, almost out-of-place awe at how simply, how naturally this killing was unfolding.
The wolf finally lifted its head, for a moment, just a second, and looked straight at the flashlight's beam, at the man behind it. Its gaze was empty, without malice and without interest, as if Takayama were nothing more than a tree or a rock. Then the beast lowered its muzzle back to the body.
Takayama still couldn't move from the spot. His breath came in short, jerky bursts, turning to steam in the cold forest air. He stood like that, maybe for an eternity, though in reality it was probably only a minute, until the wolf had finally eaten its fill. The animal jerked its head one last time, tore off another piece, swallowed it, then turned and unhurriedly disappeared into the darkness between the trees, dissolving into it almost silently, as if it had never been there at all.
Instinct had won over philosophy. Won over morality. Won over reason.
Takayama was left alone in the silence of the forest, never having gathered any firewood.
The next morning, only one person stood on the shore, Takayama.
The sun had already risen over the water, flooding the beach with a light too bright for such a morning. The sea was calm, almost mirror-like, only a faint ripple stirring right at the edge. The campfire had long since burned out, leaving a black stain of ash on the sand that the wind was gradually scattering. The blankets still lay exactly where they'd been left the night before, forgotten, no longer needed by anyone.
A rescue boat approached slowly, its engine rumbling dully over the water, cutting a white trail across the smooth surface. Two men in uniform jumped down onto the wet sand, which still held the coolness of the night.
"Where are the others?" one of them asked, squinting against the sun and scanning the empty beach.
Takayama looked at the water, not turning around right away. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat, empty, as if it belonged to someone else.
"They went off to do something. Said they'd be back soon."
The rescuers exchanged a glance. One of them narrowed his eyes slightly, surveying the blankets, the extinguished fire, but said nothing, just nodded to the other.
"Alright. Get on. There's no one else here."
Takayama stepped onto the boat without looking back at the blankets, at the dead fire, at everything left behind on that beach. The engine roared, the boat rocked and began to turn.
He stood at the stern, looking back as the island slowly receded, as if it didn't want to let him go. The dark strip of shore, the green crown of the forest, the outlines dissolving into the morning haze. Retribution Island grew smaller and smaller, becoming a dark speck on the horizon.
Takayama understood one simple, final thing.
Instincts are always higher than morality.
No matter how much we wave them off.
No matter how much we pretend.
They always win.
The boat dissolved into the open sea.