/lit/ - Literature

>>17332074
Yayo, Miyouke Yasutarō's wife, was preparing a late meal while carrying her fourth son, Umekichi, on her back. She heard a rumbling noise outside, but before she could investigate, the bear broke through a window and entered the house. The cooking pot on the hearth was overturned, dousing the flames, and in the ensuing panic the oil lamp was put out as well, plunging the house into darkness. Yayo tried to flee the house, but her second son, Yūjirō, clung to her legs, tripping her as she ran. The bear attacked her and bit Umekichi.

Odo had remained at the house as the only bodyguard. When he ran for the door, the bear released the mother and child to pursue him. Yayo then escaped with her children. Odo attempted to hide behind furniture but was clawed in the back. The bear then mauled Kinzō, the third son of the Miyouke family, and Haruyoshi, the fourth son of the Saito family, killing them, and bit Iwao, the third son of the Saitō family. Next to be targeted was Take, Saitō Ishigorō's pregnant wife. She too was attacked, killed, and eaten. From later testimony, villagers heard Take begging the bear not to touch her belly but instead to eat her head. Later the fetus was found alive from her corpse but died shortly after.

The guardsmen who had tracked the bear downriver realized that they were not, in fact, on its trail. As they hurried back to the settlement, a seriously injured Yayo met them and related news of the attack at the Miyouke family's house. The corps raced there to rescue any survivors. When they arrived the house was dark, but sounds of an attack emerged. Believing that the bear had killed everyone inside, some of the guardsmen proposed setting the house on fire. Yayo, hoping that some of the children still lived, forbade this.

The guardsmen divided into two groups: one, consisting of ten men, stood guard at the door while the other group went to the back of the house. When given a signal, the group at the rear set up a racket, shouting and rattling their weapons. As expected, the bear appeared at the front door. The men there had bunched up, with lines of fire blocked by the guard at their head, whose own rifle misfired. Amid the general confusion and risk of crossfire, the bear escaped into the night. Carrying torches made of birch bark, they entered the house and beheld the results of the attack.

Rikizō and Hisano, first son and daughter of the same relatives, were injured but lived. The village people gathered in the school, and seriously injured people were accommodated in the Tsuji family house near the river. In two days, six people had lost their lives, one of them pregnant. After the incident, only veterans of the Russo-Japanese War remained at their posts.
It's like a monster movie