"No," she said with tears in her eyes. But it continued its approach. There was a sound like that of tentacles wriggling along the floor and bubbles popping like crushed tomatoes.

The whole circus was coming her way.

"Please, stop...*

Asakura appealed desperately. She tried to crawl away and escape, but when she moved, the violent pain in her knee forced her to the floor with a thud.

Lying on her belly, she screamed as she stretched out her arms and dragged herself forward. It was almost upon her. Tears flowing down her cheeks, mucus dripping from her nose, she tried to push up with her elbows, but her body would not budge at all. She cried out in despair. Her knee throbbed in pain. Hands were sticky with sweat and blood.

Something warm and slippery touched one of her ankles.

It then grasped firmly and pulled.

Asakura reached out a hand. Her fingertips met the edge of a sink. She curled four fingers around it with all her might. The creature pulled her leg without mercy. The joints in her fingers reached the threshold of pain. Asakura screamed. She reached out her other hand, but it touched nothing. The thing pulled harder. Her index finger let go. She screamed out repeatedly for it to stop, but it pulled even harder. Its grip moved up to her shin. Her leg bones creaked from the pressure. Her middle finger popped out of its socket. Only her ring finger and her little finger were still barely holding on, but felt like they'd be ripped from her hand at any moment. The creature took hold of Asakura's other ankle, then pulled her with a sudden jerk.

The two fingers cracked and she let go of the sink.

As she was pulled away, the cup shard imbedded in her knee screeched across the floor.

The creature came down on her back with all its weight. A sticky solution clung to her.

The peculiar odor of culture medium, sweet, powdery, invaded her nostrils. She tried to shove the thing away, but she could not get a grip on it. Her arms simply slipped into the thing and got stuck there.

The thing turned her around so that she was lying face up. She kicked her feet, but it was useless. She was completely restrained.

She cried out desperately for help, but a moment later her voice was stifled when something came into her mouth. She clenched her teeth in resistance, but her jaws were soon wrenched open. The sticky thing coated her tongue and teeth. Her face still turned upward, Asakura vomited. What was in her stomach shot up with great force and came showering down on her own face. Bathing in the half- digested food, what was in her mouth started to swell and to fill her throat.

17.

December 24th had come at last.

Before making dinner preparations, Kiyomi arranged some holly and paper flowers around the living room. And while the s.p.a.ce near the television was small, she managed to set up a tree in it. She adorned its branches with cotton in imitation of snow, hung miniature toys, and draped it with ornamental bulbs. She even renewed the dining table by replacing the tablecloth with lace, finishing it off with a polished candlestick in its center. Kiyomi looked around the room, which she had given a holiday air in not even an hour's time, pleased with her work.

She had lived with Toshiaki in this one bedroom apartment since they were married.

Still, she never pa.s.sed up on the Christmas decorations. Toshiaki made a big deal out of it at first. Considering they did not even have any children, he was not into the whole decorating thing. But Kiyomi would not be swayed. She had always celebrated the holiday this way, because for her it was not only about Christmas, but her birthday as well.

On a whim, she turned to the window. She ran to it in antic.i.p.ation and drew the curtain, opening the misted pane slightly. White crystals danced in the evening air.

Kiyomi sighed joyfully, leaned forward, and gazed around the neighborhood.

Everything outside was already faintly dusted. The powdery snow descended gently, yet steadily from the sky. She could not see too far into the darkness, but where the light from her window shone, she clearly made out each individual snowflake.

A white Christmas!

She was elated and hummed "Silent Night", one of the first songs she ever learned on the piano, to herself.

It was getting late when Toshiaki called. The cake was done and dinner was all ready.

Kiyomi pressed the receiver to her ear and sighed in disappointment as she cast a sideways glance to the pot of stew she had made especially for the occasion. Toshiaki said that one of his senior students had failed an experiment and needed to be brought back up to speed.

Toshiaki would be staying to keep an eye on him while he redid the procedure.

"Does it have to be today?" she implored.

"We've already started using the sample. If we don't do it now, it'll go bad."

"I see..."

He apologized profusely. Kiyomi restrained herself and said, in a cheerful voice, not to worry. But she felt lonely. Toshiaki had done the same thing last year. She wanted him to dismiss his work for just one day and come home. It was her birthday, after all. Maybe that was a selfish wish, but it was the truth. Trying to estimate how much longer he would be tied up, Toshiaki began to describe the procedures that had to be conducted.

"Anyway, I need to extract a rat liver and h.o.m.ogenize it for a mitochondrial blot..."

The moment Kiyomi heard those words, her chest leapt. Kiyomi gasped. Her ears rang loudly, vision turned red. Her entire body reacted as if scalding water were being poured all over it."What's wrong?"A moment later, she came to her senses. A bit shaken, she put the receiver back to her ear and smoothed over the interruption. She told him it was nothing, saying she had only noticed the snowfall and gone to see it.She stood motionless for a long while, sweat building up in her armpits. Now a sudden coldness was making her shiver.These reactions were getting stronger. It had accelerated ever since she married Toshiaki, but lately it was particularly severe.Just hearing the word "mitochondria" set her heart racing. Up until the beginning of their marriage, she often wanted to know all about Toshiaki, and even asked him about his experiments. In these past few months, however, she had stopped speaking of his research altogether. The fits were becoming violent and unbearable. Something unknown to her was responding to all of that. A voice from within.The voice's master was ecstatic upon hearing of Toshiaki's work, tearing around elatedly inside of her. She felt it with this phone call as well. She thought to tell Toshiaki to hurry home, but the voice in her head seemed to want him to continue with the experiment.Kiyomi had no control over herself anymore.Toshiaki ended up coming home around eleven. He apologized for being so late, then looked around the room and smiled with wonder at the decorations.Kiyomi lit the candle and the tree and then laid out the dinner. Toshiaki expressed his delight. She was still unhappy that he'd come home so late, but his efforts now to liven up the occasion by being talkative pleased her very much.After dinner, Kiyomi brought out a cake. She came up with a special frosting design every year. This time, she had made snow-covered trees and a small wafer house at the center. She thought she'd done a pretty good job.As the candle burned low and the room darkened, they ate cake and drank champagne.Toshiaki took out a package from his bag, her birthday present, and handed it to her. She opened it to find a cute watch.It was past 2 am when they went into their bedroom.As they turned out the lights, Toshiaki leaned over and kissed her softly. The moment his lips touched hers, a pleasant sensation ran along her spine.Kiyomi sighed in spite of herself. She lost all feeling in her legs and surrendered. It was such an amazing excitement, she thought she would melt.She soon realized that her tongue was venturing out aggressively. Though the rest of her body was limp, her tongue seemed to have a mind of its own. No. She could not believe it. It couldn't be. There was no strength in her hands and feet. She was just standing there, held in Toshiaki's arms. Even so, her tongue continued in rapture, curling around his own in hunger, and gliding along the back of his teeth. This wasn't happening.Suddenly, she was overcome with intense drowsiness, ready to fall into darkness at any moment. She'd have fallen into the abyss if Toshiaki hadn't been holding her. She let her head fall back. Yet the tip of her tongue still writhed around in search of sustenance. What was this? Toshiaki placed a kiss upon her neck. A violent flash behind her eyelids. Sleep a.s.sailed upon her without mercy. She shook her head helplessly to drive it away. What was going on?Just before all her senses seemed to twist ominously, a voice echoed across her brain..She opened her eyes instantly. The drowsiness withdrew a little, but only for a moment.Returning with full force, it drew a thick curtain over her consciousness. No. Kiyomi shook her head again, struggling to keep her eyes open. It was the same voice as before. Make it stop! She called to Toshiaki for help, but her voice only turned into a deafening roar in her head. Who are you? Her heart began beating like a drum. She gasped for breath. She had never felt anything so excruciating. Her body spasmed. She was crumbling. Sleep kept crashing in like a tidal wave, and she just barely withstood the onslaught again and again.Every time her mind receded, the voice's master pushed up from inside her. It was full of joy, calling out Toshiaki's name. Kiyomi was anxious. It was as if the voice's master was making love to her husband; if she fell asleep, it would rise to the surface of her body and mingle l.u.s.tfully with him. It was going to steal him from her. She desperately fought to keep herself awake. She managed to come afloat a few times, but soon sank into the bottom of the dark.Someone was speaking. A loud voice that seemed to echo throughout the room. Was it hers or the other's? She sensed in it a profound delight. She could not tell what she was doing now...only that her body was in chaos, jostled about in the shadows of roaring waves.When Kiyomi came to, everything was quiet.She was dreaming.It was the same strange dream she had every Christmas Eve. A dream about her distant memories of wandering in darkness.But the dream had evolved. Kiyomi noticed elements that were different from the vision she had every year.She felt herself moving all around. Her vision was vague, making it impossible to distinguish up from down. And yet, she could feel, upon her skin, the current changing direction, moment by moment. She was moving fast. Her strength surged and she felt like she could go anywhere, traversing unimaginable distances. She realized she was happy about this.She had no idea how much time had pa.s.sed. There was suddenly an odd turbulence in the current washing over her body. Something was close to her. It was large and clumsy in its movements, wriggling and swaying uncertainly.She remembered it. She had come across it many times. Some of those times, she had attacked it. It punctured easily, but on occasion it captured her.As she grew conscious of it, a new impulse arose in her without warning. She had no idea what it was, where it came from, or what it was trying to tell her. Before she could even notice she'd burrowed into the other thing.It seemed surprised. But when she shared her power with it, it accepted their coexistence. Inside it was comfortable. Maybe she'd found her eternal nest.In her dream, Kiyomi wondered what this feeling was, what it could possibly mean.But she didn't know.She didn't know what to make of any of this.18."First up's you, Asakura."Asakura stepped up to Toshiaki, who pa.s.sed her a pointer. She proceeded to the screen, ma.n.u.script in her right hand and the pointer in her left.Toshiaki spoke as he pressed the switch on his stopwatch."Yes. Our first presenter is Sachiko Asakura, whose topic will be 'The use of retinoid receptors in the gene induction of 2,4-dienoyl-CoA reductase unsaturated fatty acid beta oxidation enzymes.' Asakura?""Thank you, slide please."There was a soft click and a diagram appeared on the projection screen. Glancing at her ma.n.u.script, she began."I have come today to report that we have successfully introduced clofibrate in rat livers and generated unsaturated fatty acid beta oxidation enzymes in their mitochondria. By activating nuclear receptor proteins with peroxisome proliferators, we have established that retinoid receptors are a vital component in the induction of these beta oxidation enzymes. For this experiment, we investigated '2,4-dienoyl-CoA reductase,' enzymes necessary for the beta oxidation of unsaturated fatty acids. We cloned their genes and found that these genes are governed by retinoid receptors. This is what I will be discussing today. Next slide, please."With another click, the screen changed.Toshiaki listened attentively, glancing now and then at the stopwatch face. All the professors and most of the staff and students of their course were gathered in the small seminar room. Though the fans were on, the curtains had been closed and the lights turned off for the slides. The crowd made the room feel much more claustrophobic than usual.It was five days before the conference. Thinking it would make things easier on the presenters if they practiced their speeches at least once beforehand, the professors had called for a mock session. a.s.sembling slides at the last minute was bound to cause mishaps; writing up the presentations well in advance and giving a trial run, on the other hand, helped reduce the stress for the first-timers.Asakura had completed her slide diagrams much more quickly than Toshiaki had antic.i.p.ated. Perhaps she'd slaved at it and worked late hours; but no, this did not begin to explain the speed with which she'd finished them. When asked how she'd pulled it off, she simply smiled and didn't answer.In any case, she seemed well-prepared for her presentation, which put Toshiaki at ease.Asakura had certainly been hustling more than ever, coming to the cla.s.sroom early in the mornings and working fervently until late at night without showing any signs of tiring. She'd made Toshiaki wonder if he wasn't getting too old in fact.Asakura continued without a trace of hesitation. She accurately elucidated the various components of each diagram with the pointer, capturing the audience's attention whenever she raised her voice to emphasize key areas. Her presentation had perfect modulation.Toshiaki gazed at her profile with fondness. A researcher with years of experience could not have given a finer presentation. Despite his confidence in her, he never thought she'd be this good. In fact, she was flawless.He suddenly realized something that wasn't appropriate to notice then and there. In recent days, Asakura had become beautiful, beyond recognition almost.She wore the same rough jeans and t-shirts she always did, but there was now a certain magnificence about her. Perhaps it was because she'd changed her hair style. No longer tied back in a ponytail, her hair flowed loosely. Yet that couldn't have been it. Her expression had always been lively, but it was now complemented by a noticeable refinement. The sparkle in her eyes, and her gestures, exuded confidence."The aforementioned data show how the enzyme in question is induced via clofibrate.It may be hypothesized that many other enzymes for processing unsaturated fatty acids will exhibit the same property. Their genomic cloning should further clarify the role of retinoid receptors. That is all. Thank you very much for the slides."The screen went blank and the lights were flipped on. Toshiaki came back to reality and clicked the stopwatch."Fourteen minutes, twenty-seven seconds.""Was that okay?"Professor Ishihara nodded, visibly satisfied. Asakura looked relieved. This was more like the young woman Toshiaki was used to."The time limit is fifteen minutes?""That's right, "Toshiaki answered.