Her scream was silent—a mouth stretched wide, no sound emerging, as if the horror had stolen her voice entirely. Her frail mother shuffled forward, barely able to walk without assistance, her eyes milky with age and confusion.
Behind her came a young man—college-aged, wearing a university sweatshirt, looking around the chamber with the dawning realization that he had entered hell itself.
Mami’s younger brother. She’d come to me and asked if I could pay for his tuition. Of course I had done it. Now he was here, to witness her shame.
"No, Kenji. . .please," Mami finally whispered. “Take them back. T-they don’t know anything.”
I went back to the center of the room as the serpents slithered, sobbed, and begged.
Flick.
Flame.
Flick.
Nothing.
Desperation stank in the air. The kind of desperation that would make most tell everything. The kind that would make them betray everyone.
I walked slowly toward the cluster of family members, letting my footsteps echo through the symphony of sobs and screams.
The Scales forced them to their knees in a line—the elderly parents, Sako’s father, the pregnant sister and her husband, the frail mother, the college boy.
Seven people who had done nothing wrong.
Seven people who would suffer for the sins of those they loved.
I turned back to face the traitors. "Ifyoudon't talk, then I will talk to the ones you love."
Mami was hyperventilating. Sako's father had started to cry. The pregnant sister was praying under her breath, her hands pressed tight against her belly.
Flick.
Flame.
I shook my head. "And it will not be a conversation of words."
Flick.
Nothing.
"It will be one of flames."
The door opened again.
And this time, the sound that filled the chamber was not screaming. It was a low, mechanical hum. The whir of fuel pumps. The hiss of pressurized gas.
Totoro entered the room. Carried by four Scales who moved with the careful precision of men handling a bomb.
The modified flamethrower gleamed under the industrial lights—all black metal and chrome, with the newly filled fuel tanks strapped to either side and a nozzle that looked like the mouth of some hungry beast.
I had named it after that gentle forest spirit from my mother's favorite film because I liked the irony. However, there was nothing gentle about what Totoro did to human flesh.
The reaction in the room was instantaneous.
Mami's silent scream finally found its voice—a shriek that bounced off the ceramic tiles and seemed to go on forever.
Mami’s brother trembled in fear as he saw his bright future go up in a blaze.
