Dead Hours — The Fly, Page 17
By Suha · Published
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Transcript
Three panels — dawn. First, grey dawn light fills the glass. The sliding doors stand open as a morning delivery arrives, a stacked crate silhouette at the threshold, pale light spilling in. Kaito watches from the counter, spent and still. Second, the fly drifts lazily out through the open doors into the dawn, entirely on its own, indifferent to everything. Kaito watches it go, defeated, not moving. KAITO: ...you could've done that any time. Third, at the same open door a second identical fly drifts IN from the dawn street as the first leaves — a fresh fly, now inside. Kaito's eye catches it, dead inside, as Rin's phone rises again. RIN: Night two.
Image description
At grey dawn the delivery doors open; the fly drifts out on its own as a second identical fly drifts in, and Rin says 'Night two.'
About this chapter
3 A.M. and the Dead Hours store is spotless — until Kaito spots a single housefly. He decides on the spot that it must be gone by morning, alive: no death on the record on his shift. Rin starts filming "Man vs Fly." The night's regulars each hand him a different, confidently useless folk method — trap it under a cup and a card, approach from behind because flies supposedly can't fly backwards, just wait because it'll die within a day anyway, clap above it because they jump upward to take off, or open a window — and none of them agree. Three times Kaito freezes mid-air, whispers "There," and swipes at nothing. Rin, in a rare unguarded moment, quietly slides the door open a hand's width to let it out, then denies doing it. At last Kaito clamps a cup over the fly in triumph — and lifts it to find nothing underneath; the fly was sitting on the outside of the cup the whole time. At dawn the delivery doors open and the fly drifts out on its own, entirely indifferent to six hours of war — and a second fly drifts in as it goes. Kaito gets his answer and nothing else; Rin got her whole video. The final panel mirrors page one from the same angle, in grey dawn light, the new fly circling under the ceiling speaker.