Chapter 82

He came to his senses.

But what he saw wasn’t the blue sky.

A gray landscape.

Quilbion jumped up in startled surprise.

He’d desperately wished for this. To come here again. To wander among the countless cracks and arrive here again.

“Twella!”

Quilbion ran while calling the name of his foolish friend.

A space where he couldn’t grasp direction.

Previously, he’d been able to find Twella with the hawk’s help, but this time there was no clue.

Where could she be?

“Hey, Twella!”

He moved while shouting at the top of his lungs.

Several days passed.

His throat bled and his thighs convulsed ceaselessly.

He bent at the waist while dry coughing continuously. His head was dizzy. Sleep poured over him, but even when he closed his eyes, peace wouldn’t come.

Quilbion lay on the sandy floor and massaged his thighs. Beyond trembling, cramps had arrived. He groaned while gripping the muscles that split and throbbed.

When the pain subsided, he stood up again and walked.

His vision grew hazy and he even forgot why he was walking, but still he moved forward.

“Where are you?”

What was where?

Quilbion just stared blankly at the gray sand. What had he been doing here? It seemed like he’d been searching for a person, but no—was he looking for an object?

His thoughts wouldn’t connect.

He buried his face in the sand.

He wanted to rest. So much that he thought it would be fine to die if only he could rest.

It was when he couldn’t move a single finger under the languidness weighing down his entire body.

Something tickled his arm. He barely lifted his eyelids. A centipede was wandering over his arm.

Where did that come from?

The centipede that had been spinning around whipped its head around and looked at Quilbion.

With its long antennae leading the way, the centipede approached right before his eyes and raised its body.

The centipede shook its body left and right.

It looked just like dancing.

– Don’t die. If you die, I’ll have nowhere to live.

“What?”

– Don’t die. Get up quickly.

He didn’t even have the energy to respond. It was when he closed his eyes again and waited for peace that wouldn’t come.

His eye socket stung. When he flinched and opened his eyes, he could see the centipede stepping back.

Like before, it raised its body and shook left and right.

– Save me.

It was absurd enough to laugh. Save it—a bug?

– I really hate this, but I tore off my life. You live first.

The centipede that had been shaking its body limply went limp. The centipede’s body dried up completely, then soon moved to his finger and wound around his index finger in circles.

Quilbion looked at the black ring and got up.

His head cleared a bit.

He remembered what he’d been doing too.

“……Thanks.”

He said while stroking the ring. The fellow didn’t answer. Had it fallen into a deep sleep?

Quilbion swept away the gray sand covering his legs.

He could know instinctively.

If he was buried in sand, he would forget everything and remain here. Neither dying nor living, just as part of the gray.

“A frightening place.”

He had to return. Thinking rationally, that was the right answer. He had to open his eyes in the main body when his will was operating normally.

Quilbion stood up and finished brushing off the sand on his body.

He knew the right answer but wouldn’t choose it. The foolish woman’s stupid consideration. That’s why Quilbion also decided to make an idiotic choice.

“Twella.”

He walked while calling her name.

To find that child who would remain alone somewhere in this world.

He knew it was a foolish act.

There was no map, and he couldn’t know what this world looked like.

What if it was an endlessly spreading world?

What were the odds that two humans no different from dust would meet?

It was something that couldn’t be discussed in numbers.

It was a situation where even putting the word possibility to one’s lips was ridiculous.

If they encountered each other.

If they met.

Would that be a miracle wearing the mask of coincidence, or fate wearing the mask of miracle?

“I love you, damned fate.”

Quilbion saw it.

A house built from gray sand, and flowers.

Even now, the foolish woman was carefully crafting flowers.

Quilbion knew. That when the wind blew, everything would be buried in sand again.

Even so, Twella was crafting flowers.

He approached slowly.

He wanted to hear the story.

Why she’d gone so far to save him.

She must have seen this place, this hell that the living couldn’t endure.

She must have known she would remain here eternally.

Weren’t you afraid?

And now, don’t you regret it?

How long had he walked?

Quilbion realized the distance between them hadn’t narrowed at all.

He stopped walking.

He couldn’t approach. His voice wouldn’t reach either.

Quilbion sat down. Sitting, he watched her endlessly.

When the wind blew and the house disappeared, she lay down for a long time looking up at the sky.

Until her entire body disappeared buried in sand, she didn’t move at all.

Then, as if nothing had happened, she brushed off the sand and stood up, moving her hands again.

She made grass and crafted flowers.

A familiar flower garden was created.

She made a bench too, lay on it, and kicked her legs.

Quilbion also fiddled with the gray sand. He pressed firmly to make a flower. It was ugly. So much that he couldn’t even call it a flower.

How much time had Twella spent to create such pretty flowers?

Before long, the house made of sand was completed.

She only looked at the house proudly but didn’t enter inside.

The wind blew again.

Everything crumbled futilely and returned to the beginning.

Quilbion crafted one last flower. This one he made fairly well. He carefully planted the tulip-like flower on the sand.

The direction the flower pistil faced was toward where she was.

“I’m sorry. I’ll come again.”

It was time to return.

Until the last moment, Quilbion took in Twella with his eyes.

*

Twella looked up at the sky.

Soon ‘it’ would come.

Its descent was unchangeable fate. It had recognized her, made her its coordinates, and she too was drawing it in.

In the thousands and tens of thousands of futures she’d seen, it always descended.

No method existed to stop it.

Even Winte, the incarnation of the great one, couldn’t suppress it.

Inevitability.

Its procession was a fact that had to occur.

Twella tried every method to find a different future.

It was useless.

It was the ‘unchangeable flow’ Winte had mentioned.

Twella gradually grew exhausted. Seeing the future was a terrible curse. The despair of having to walk forward while knowing there was a cliff ahead.

Every time she looked in the mirror, she felt terrible dissonance. Was that skinny girl inside the mirror really her?

Twella had lived for thousands of years.

All events occurred inside her head. Actual time hadn’t flowed more than a few months, but the time Twella had experienced was easily thousands of years.

She’d grown up alone among snotty-nosed kids.

Even in a space with limited social activity, if you thought, acted, and contemplated alone for thousands of years, things called the soul and spirit would naturally mature.

No, mature was an insufficient expression.

Twella had rotted and fallen apart. Her physique was that of a girl, but what was inside was something unidentifiable that couldn’t really be called human.

One day, Twella yawned while watching children being toyed with by goblins.

She felt everything was futile.

Why should I prepare for calamity?

Why should I try hard for that?

Why only me?

Even on the day such thoughts arose, she saw the future without fail.

Twella was sitting on a bench. It was a familiar time frame. What would happen next was clear before her eyes.

Den would fall. If Den didn’t fall, Gain would start cleaning. If neither happened, Yuri would pass by sniffling, and if even that didn’t happen……

It was tedious.

She’d seen it too many times.

Struggling alone while looking into the future was indeed a meaningless act.

Why hadn’t she given up on this reckless act in the first place?

It would end if she died.

Death.

When she woke up, let’s go up to the rooftop and fall. Or hanging herself would be good too.

Let’s wake from this terrible hallucination where nothing could be changed and advance toward comfortable death.

“Are you okay?”

Twella looked at the kid sitting beside her. A neatly dressed kid. Looking into those black eyes filled with worry, she remembered.

The reason she’d struggled.

It was because of this child. She’d wanted to save at least Quilbion by any means.

But it was a futile act. In the future where it descended, no survivors could be found.

“Quil, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I’m going to stop now. I’m going to die.”

The moment she left that foul-smelling confession to the most precious child, the sky split.

‘It’ suddenly descended.

It was a future she’d never seen. It was when she looked up at the sky emptily.

Quilbion grabbed her hand and started running. Twella followed that child weakly.

“Twella! Snap out of it!”

“Quil, it’s useless. We can’t do anything about that.”

“What are you saying?”

“I know everything. I know it all. I came to know.”

It was when she smiled weakly and stepped forward. Her body was pushed. Twella rolled on the floor and looked ahead.

Quilbion, whose lower body had disappeared, said in a trembling voice.

“……You have to live.”

With that sight as the last, she returned to reality.

After watching the children coming and going from the dormitory, she went up to the rooftop.

She climbed on the railing and looked down at the ground. It truly looked cozy. If she jumped down, peace would come.

There was no fear or anything.

Such things had disappeared long ago.

It was when her body leaned forward.

Why?

Twella grabbed the railing.

You have to live—the boy’s trembling voice disturbed her ears.

Let’s die tomorrow.

Nothing would change even if she postponed it by a day.

Twella returned to her room and sat on the bed. As soon as she rested, the detestable future appeared.

It was the cafeteria.

She could see children deliciously eating black porridge.

It was when she was staring blankly at the bowl.

Breaking through the ceiling, ‘its’ energy transmitted.

Half the cafeteria flew away. The Ascetics raised both arms and praised it descending.

The other humans were the same.

It was strange.

Unseen futures appearing one after another.

But Twella stopped thinking. Because nothing would change. While eating the disgusting porridge, it would descend and kill everything.

After that, she would escape the future as if waking from sleep and open her eyes in reality.

“Twella!”

It was you again.

Twella looked at the small hand grabbing her wrist.

“Quil, I said it’s useless.”

“I don’t know what you saw, but run for now!”

Above Quilbion shouting urgently, its foot cast a shadow.

Just before Quilbion’s head burst, that child shouted.

“Run, Twella!”

Thud!

It descended while crushing Quil’s head and smiled brightly.

Twella looked at Quilbion who’d become a pool of blood and muttered to herself.

“See. I told you it’s useless.”