Serial: The Abrasion List Part 1 (2026)
1: Kimiko
I find Kimiko quite abrasive, so I’ve decided to kill her before she comes to my room tonight and kills me. I know it sounds paranoid or even delusional, but Kimiko has threatened to kill me tons of times and in a very real sense she never gives up. The second anyone suggests a game or a trial or literally any sort of life-or-death contest, she’s immediately in if the opportunity involves snuffing out her favourite victim in some way. We even played this co-op once where she deliberately tanked the entire team just so that I would die as a by-product of the loss.
Like I say, Kimiko is coming for me…but I’m going to get her first.
When I stick my head out into the corridor, I see breakfast bowls everywhere. I still don’t understand why they leave these things out for us: nobody eats them. It was established pretty early on that most of the class trusted the vending machines in the stairwell and that tracked for a while. I guess there’s something about food that comes in a wrapper that offers a sense of security, even if in our case it turned out to be a false one the second Ryn got poisoned.
I close my door so quietly there’s not even a click. I’ve actually stuffed the lock mechanism with cotton wool, which I know is a risk because it leaves pretty much everything to the latch in terms of a decent barrier… but you play the hand you’re dealt.
I’m carrying a baseball bat and a poisoned dart. I don’t want to beat Kimiko’s brains out, and I’d rather she went slowly and peacefully in her sleep, but she’s an agile little fiend, and I’m not sure I can actually GET her with the dart unless I catch her napping, and somehow I don’t think she catches zees on the same cycle as the rest of us. Asami once found her curled up on top of a washing machine on the fourth floor, and she caught his hand the second he tried to blade her: he didn’t last long after that.
I will.
Creeping past Hiroka’s door, I notice the fat bastard has rigged up a motion detector that follows me on a weird crank arm as I move along the hall. It doesn’t make a noise, though, so maybe it’s broken.
Shibata is definitely awake. His door is wide open, and he’s sitting cross-legged atop an old dresser in some sort of wild trance. The dude is constantly spaced out: how he’s lived this long is anyone’s guess.
Kimiko’s door is shut.
My courage starts to drain away the second I notice that the handle is coated in a weird green paste. Kimiko is a good head smarter than anyone else in the cohort, and if you had to put your money on a favourite, then all the smart coins would land on her name.
That’s when I have an AMAZING idea. I don’t have them very often, so this just goes nova behind my eyes. I think it’s kinda cool at first, but then it just blossoms into this whole scene, and I can see the entire thing unfolding, almost like it’s already happened.
I head past Kimiko’s door, and I go directly to Shah’s room. Shah has been dead for just over a month, and they only put him in the basement last week, so people avoid his room like the plague. It’s not just the smell: Shah owned some seriously weird shit, and the ransack list was smaller than a monk’s ego: literally nobody wanted to pick through his leftovers.
I carefully turn the door handle and creep inside.
The stink hits me like a brick in sock. At first, it’s just a dank smell that steadily grows until it’s like a million tiny atoms of puke are taking root in your nostrils. It’s hard to believe one little guy could smell so bad, but as far as necrotic tissue stench goes, it turns out that Shah is up there with the best of them.
There’s a massive bald eagle in the room, stuffed and surrounded by a swarm of flies but no less impressive for that. It pretty much dominates the room in terms of size, but to be honest, Shah was one of those guys who didn’t really go in for bold statements, so most of his stuff is pretty small and low-key. That said, his voodoo shit is everywhere, and there are so many weedpipes in the room that it almost looks like an old bong shop.
Pity it doesn’t smell like one.
I crossed the room without taking too much notice of the scenery, as I’ve no great desire to relive the gruesome details of Shah’s unforgettable death. Sweet mother of the mercy, the last five minutes of that little guy’s dash to the light have to contain some of the most gore-soaked, bloodthirsty shit I’ve ever witnessed…and I’m not exactly a stranger to a brutal execution.
Thankfully, the balcony doors are open. I step gingerly onto the little platform, careful to check that there’s no booby trap hanging from the floor above.
There isn’t.
I sidle towards the edge of the balcony, keeping one eye on the room behind me just on the off chance that I’ve been spotted and followed.
The door to Kimiko’s balcony is open. This isn’t a huge surprise: the now-notorious incident in the elevator started an entire debate on just how much that girl loves fresh air. The closest I’ve ever seen Kimiko come to an actual breakdown was probably the five minutes we were trapped in that confined space situation: I should have taken my opportunity to finish her then, back when she was shaking violently and breathing into a brown paper bag. If I’d known then what I know now…
..but I didn’t. You live, and you learn…or, in some cases, you die because you didn’t learn.
Not me; no siree. I’m all about the living.
I climb the edge of the balcony and make the near-catastrophic mistake of glancing down…and out. The second before I find my balance, I beg myself not to look in either direction: down is bad enough, a one-way plunge to the car park concrete…but out is absolute education in misery. Catching a glimpse of the world we now live in, even on a small scale, is like a brief occult primer in everything you didn’t want to remember.
The car park contains about thirty ruined, crushed or burnt out cars. Some look like they were parked there hundreds of years ago; others barely resemble cars at all. One or two on the borders of the ground genuinely look as though their owners literally just climbed out of them and will be coming back soon, a coffee in one hand and a briefcase in the other.
Now that’s never going to happen.
I swallow, catch my breath and make the jump, landing comfortably but far too noisily on the floor of Kimiko’s balcony. I skid slightly, grab the edge of the door for purchase and nearly drop my baseball bat in the process. I waste a few precious seconds worrying that the poisoned dart tucked into my belt will actually pierce the skin at the top of my groin before I realise that it fell out during the landing and is now dangling preciously over the edge of the balcony.
I immediately drop to all fours and scramble over to snatch the tiny weapon before it tumbles out of my reach. It’s at this point that I get a look through the closed half of the balcony door and see that Kimiko is fast asleep in a hammock she’s fashioned from a stack of bedclothes that spans the width of the room. She looks like a spider in a deceptively basic web…and is giving off that same vibe you always get from a glance: that weird false sense of security.
Never take anything for granted.
I get to my feet and peer closer, attempting to see if the hammock is in any way connected to either of the balcony doors. It doesn’t seem to be.
I slowly lower the baseball bat that I’d readied as an instinctive defence when I climbed to my feet and raise the dart instead. I’m in front of the closed portion of the balcony doors, but one single side-step and one single throw is all that stands between me and a life-changing situation here on The Abrasion List. It’s all right there for the taking – I just need to seize the initiative.
Don’t think, Soss. Just do it.
I hop sideways and throw the dart, holding my breath as it catches on some thick, flimsy plastic skin that Kimiko has stretched across the doorway. The stuff looks no thicker than cling-film yet clearly contains enough substance to snag the dart almost as soon as it’s left my grasp. I give a silent curse and tear down the transparent sheet almost as an instinctive reaction to the frustration. That’s when an entire cloud of spores mushrooms outwards and bursts into the air like a miniature dust storm: I take a faceful of what I’m immediately sure will turn out to be some form of lethal poison.
I’m not wrong.
It doesn’t even come as much of a surprise when the itching starts, and I begin to claw frantically at my throat. Then the world begins to flash black and white, and I see stars, the sky and so much tinted light. I’m vaguely aware that I’m crashing around on the balcony, any attempt at stealth lost to the four winds as I flail madly in all directions for something, anything that will stop the sudden onslaught of vertigo. For a moment, I go into a wild panic as I think I’ve gone over the edge of the balcony and I’m plummeting endlessly downwards. Fortunately, I offer up a silent prayer to the gods, who hear my pathetic cries and send something powerful to break my fall.
The ground.
