The Novella Life of Illuscia Nester Himawari

『人柱アリス』 ** Please see note at bottom of article. The Alice Killings remain, to this day, one of the strangest and unsolvable serial killings in Japan. From 1999–2005, a series of five killings took place. The five killings might have been completely different, if not for the "calling card" that the killer left at each crime scene. He would leave a playing card (it varied from killing to killing) at each scene, in an obvious location, that had "Alice" written on it in the victim's blood. Very few clues were found at each crime scene, and eventually, the case went cold. Below are details of each killing. --- Sasaki Megumi The first victim was Sasaki Megumi, a twenty-nine-year-old owner of a restaurant. Those who knew her described her as a headstrong woman with a short temper and a sharp tongue when dealing with her employees. She was known by her customers for her fine cooking and her dedication to her job. Outside of her job, Megumi was very social, and often we...

  4/25/11 I awoke abruptly, sweat dripping from my brow. I could feel the presence again. His presence. I looked around my room. I know I’m being watched. It’s not anywhere to be seen. Damn. This is the third night in a row I’ve been awoken like this. The fear is starting to take over my mind. Something out there is stalking me. Something wants me. But I should back up and tell this from the beginning. I’m sixteen years old, and moved into this house with my family seven years ago. It’s about 30 minutes outside of town, so we’re fairly isolated. My parents love living out here. They say it’s peaceful and pretty. I hate it. Not as much during the day as during the night. I’ve always been scared of the dark. It’s my number one phobia. I hate not being able to see. And out here at night, there’s no light other than the moon and stars. No warm, comforting glow of street lamps. No headlights slowly moving up and down the streets; just a hazy darkness. And it’s especially d...

It’s true what they say – that when a person goes blind their other senses heighten in order to compensate. Knowing that, and thinking back on everything that happened to me, I still can’t come to a rational conclusion of how these events unfolded around me without my knowledge. Granted, I couldn’t actually see any of it happening, but I never suspected anything of this magnitude when judging solely on the minor oddities that I had experienced. Sure, every once in a while I would hear noises, but my house was old and seemed to have a mind of its own. All of its pops and creaks had become just as familiar to me as navigating its interior without the benefit of sight. Even when things began to turn more bizarre, I always found a way to rationalize them away. Looking back, I ask myself, “How could I have been so… well, for lack of a better word, blind ?” My mother had tried to convince me not to move into the house alone. “Sarah, a young blind woman shouldn’t be living all b...

  Chapter Six: The Blood Swine  I opted to lay low until that night, when my scheduled meet was to take place. When I was studying up on the town, I looked through countless plats, mentally ran through everything that had happened, and obsessed where Vanessa might be. Then one night, I woke from a sound sleep with my heart pounding and the realization upon me: I had looked everywhere there was to look. Above ground. It was so painfully obvious at that point. Vanessa had to be somewhere below the surface of the town. I shifted my focus on the sewer systems and to large areas of land that were bare of any identifying features above-ground. Roach had a guy who procured me copies of land records and property ownership documents. Careful study did not turn up much, though I earmarked the commune where Jerry’s murder cult stayed. My gut told me that the woods would lead me to Vanessa. Another interesting fact I uncovered: someone had been slowly...

Chapter Five: The Carnival  The trek to the gas station was uneventful, all things considered. The woods were dense, but it was easy enough to fight my way through the underbrush until I saw the familiar site of the dumpster behind the building. That’s when I heard it. The low hum of a drone overhead. I cast my eyes to the ground, keeping my face shielded and my shoulders slumped. I might have been out of the forest, but I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I stomped into the station and saw her. The young girl working the counter. Fresh. Innocent. Long hair and blue jeans. Her back was to me. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought I was looking at Vanessa. Then she turned and gasped. It took me a second to realize why. Fuck. I had forgotten about the gun in my hand and the blood on my face. I slowly put the nine in its holster while maintaining eye contact with the young woman. “I’m not looking for any trouble. I just need...

Chapter Four: The Backroads I spent the night of Vanessa’s “funeral” finding the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Word got to me that the ceremony was attended by only a handful of old classmates and a couple of drunk coworkers. I woke up the next morning to a hangover and a hard realization. I was still alive. The last time I was in town, I skated by on pure luck. I got out; I escaped, but I didn’t exactly go underground. Did a shit job of hiding. Hell, Middleton even called my new number the day the line was turned on. There was no reason a resourceful hitter couldn’t track me down and find a way to slip something into my drink, rig up a fake suicide, or just arrange for me to disappear. I needed to get in front of this train, and that meant making preparations. I started with fifteen jump drives ordered online, overnighted to my office, and paid for from my own bank account. I magnet wiped them all before reformatting and uploading ten gigs of junk da...