The Day of Thunder

[Hisomu Reo]

The brazier in the corner crackles as a piece of charcoal splits. The dim light of the lanterns reflects in a glint off the thin knife Reo holds in his hand. He looks down at the mass of flesh in front of him, headless and splayed on planks of wood. The skin parts easily to the knife, with pins keeping the folds back as he continues the methodical work or exploring what is inside Reo’s eyes narrow, though his hands do not tremor. It is painstaking work, neatly severing organs from the blood vessels, made more difficult by the onset of decay. A hunter rarely needed to deal with such things when handling a fresh quarry. Seekers, on the other hand…

Reo drops another organ in a jar of soju, intent on pickling it long enough to make detailed observations. It was standard procedure for dissections. Well, at least that was the procedure that he had developed. It wasn’t as if many were doing this. At least if they were, they were being as private about it as Reo was. As quiet as he told himself he needed to be. For some reason, the masses didn’t like the idea of cutting up their friends and neighbors.

Though…”friends and neighbors” was pushing it a bit with this one. Reo makes his last cuts and stows the last of his samples before he lights the pyre within the stone table he had used as his workbench. Burning a body took quite a bit of work to do properly and it would take most of the night. He opens the scroll that had come with this particular subject, sent along by one of the junior Seekers tasked with procuring items for research. He had been tasked with uncovering more after an incident in the Spider Archives. It had been the most notable incident, but it had not been the only. Not by a long shot.

Reo continues to document his findings, making plaster casts, rough illustrations through the night, stoking the fire to ensure that the body burns clean. It is a beleaguered dawn he arrives at with a finished draft of the scroll to present his findings. Someone who was better at talking could present it to the kami, maybe Susumu, maybe one of his students. In his present state, Reo didn’t give himself good odds at holding his tongue and temper around Hisomu, and then that would be a thing.

Reo takes one final review before he seals the scroll.


Subject name: Ryoji

Seekers were notified of the subject's pending execution and began investigation.Background history reported by Seekers indicate a subsistence level farmer. The local magistrate was notified of several cases of drunken behavior over the previous months where the subject complained that his wife and children had been replaced by copies, and that they had been “mocking him”. Magistrates were again summoned when the subject entered the village center covered in blood. Subject resisted attempts to question him, killing local peasantry guards and wounding others. Inspection of the subject's farm revealed corpses of wife Sakura and children Momiji and Nauta (ages unknown). Subject violently resisted confinement, requiring immediate termination by Seeker agents.
Body of the subject does not show signs of pustules or black ichor discharge that had been present in creatures affected by the Shadowlands. However, the subject does show signs of renewed bone growth and muscle mass consistent with warrior exercises, along with the presence of retractable claw-like growths similar to a cat beneath the fingernails and fur on the inside flaps of skin. Jade reacts when making physical contact.

No breaches to Jigoku have been reported by surveys, nor sightings of animals that carry Shadowland taint. Transmission vector remains unknown. Wounded peasantry and Seeker agents involved shall be monitored monthly for signs of transference.


Reo doffs the thin hemp gloves and clothing that he had been using as protection and tosses it into the fire. It would be a lost cause to save them, and it wasn’t worth the risk.He drops the scroll into a slot, placing it where one of the junior Seekers would be able to deliver it without drawing notice. Reo staggers to the hallway, grabbing his walking stick and begins the slow limp to his cot. Ninube would be up and out by now, so it would be a cold bed, but even that would be welcome after the long night.

Reo doesn’t notice the music creep up on him until it’s ringing in his ears. He had tried to describe it that night: “a chorus of larks in the trees”, “the gnashing of a thousand trees”. It was the an ache of a limb he had never possessed, a hunger that twisted and growled in his gut.. None of those things were music. Many weren’t sound. Reo logically knows that, and yet the synesthesian melody rings on, worming its way through his mind. His bed looms ahead, a pit that goes down, down, down, doowwwwwn.

Not a pit. A cave.

Reo’s eyes snap open. The sun is setting now, the clatter of the Archives continuing its closing hum as lamps were extinguished and scrolls sorted for filing the next morning. With a wince, he reaches to the side of his pallet, grabbing his walking stick and robe. He hefts himself to his feet, staring through the slotted window. Winter will be ending soon. He would be taking a journey as the thaw of spring begins. The revelation makes no sense, but he knows it to be true.