Aspen climbed in and out of the window, hiding a couple of valuables. He continued opening whatever drawer he could, blindly moving his hands through them to mess them up. “Is the man close enough nearby to hear if we do something?”
“No. That’s why you’ll bait him over.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Make sounds that will lure him over here, then shout when you’re nearby. I’ll break open the lock and take out the letters we need.” River frowned at the cup. For good measure, he broke it on the edge of the bedside table. The cup wouldn’t register directly in the man’s brain, but if he saw it again and again, he’d surely recall that this type was used by the old man.
“Cool.” Aspen clapped his hands together. He didn’t appear to be troubled by the task – he was quite excited, instead. The youth took a cane from the corner of the room for himself, hitting the ground with it. “If you’re ready, I’ll go search for him?”
“I’ll wait, however long it takes”, River responded as a confirmation.
Aspen left the room. He didn’t swing the cane around despite wanting to, keeping the rules in mind. If he remembered correctly – and he was sure he did, it wasn’t that long ago – then the father would come to get the girl.
He found her easily enough, still crouching under the table. From farther away, he watched the father approach and retreated a bit.
He waited for him to pick his daughter up and soothe her. Just long enough that he’d remember such a thing happened. Before he turned to leave, however, Aspen scratched the edge of the cane over the wooden panels on the ground.
The man and child froze up. Aspen took another two steps back, this time letting the cane brush over the wall. It was a small sound, but the man immediately set the girl down. She ran away while her father approached the origin of the sound that was too deliberate for him to miss, too close and within his view.
Fascinated, Aspen watched the Actor.
Its form was bubbling slightly. Every time he made a sound, it distorted and shifted, as if rejecting Aspen’s interference with the setting.
Step by step, the shadow followed him. Slowly, it started lifting its arms into his vague direction, fingers twitching. The body was convulsing as it walked, stuck between its original body and the formless mess of its agitated form.
A chill went down Aspen’s spine. He enjoyed it as a rush of adrenaline, death just three steps away.
How lovely these things were, so beautiful in their simple-minded existence. Any intruder messing up their stupid routine would be killed. It was humanity cut down to its simplest, roughest form.
Aspen leaned against the wall, watching it come closer. By now, it was hardly humanoid anymore, grabbing at air as it blindly searched for him. He wasn’t doing enough to make it rage, just enough to keep it on edge. Aspen dazedly observed, then snapped out of it when he realized that things were getting tight.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Elnfg!”
Ktf mjreji rtbea kjr jcrkfgfv ys j ibev mgjrt.
Ktf vlrabgafv rtjvbk pewqfv yjmx lcab lar tewjcblv obgw, jc jveia wjc cfgnberis ibbxlcu vbkc atf tjiikjs jcv atfc gertlcu obgkjgv.
Zfgf rfmbcvr, yea fcbeut ab ajxf bea rbwf ifaafgr jcv rmjaafg atfw bc atf oibbg.
Elnfg tegglfv ab rajcv ja atf rlvf bo atf vbbg, atfc rilqqfv bea jr rbbc jr atf wjc tjv fcafgfv.
Just like before, the man checked for an intruder first, then went to clean up. Once more, he read the letters and despaired. This time, no one was nearby yet. He caught himself after a minute or two, continuing to clean up.
The Actor’s hand paused over the bedside cabinet, picking up the shards of the broken cup. With slow, meticulous movements, he wiped away the medicine.
River’s eyes narrowed in satisfaction.
He knew that there was a break that was about to start, when everyone would enter the hall and close it. There wasn’t any good time to add more hints for the moment.
“So far, so good. What now? What to do about the girl?” Aspen popped up behind him.
“I’ve got a plan A and a plan B.” The easterner turned on his heel. The girl had run to fetch her mother, so several people were coming to hurry over. They had to make space. “Plan B is the unclean solution, planting evidence.”
“Plan A?”
“She will talk.”
River sat down in front of the safe room, waiting. Only when everyone had entered the hall and the area was open did he stand up again.
In the meantime, Aspen had swayed back and forth on his heels, bored. He did understand the need to wait, but that didn’t mean he liked it. If there wasn’t a risk of it disturbing the puzzle, he’d have gone have fun with the other people.
He had no clue what River was up to.
Inside the girl’s room, River took the jar with its folded stars. He let it slip out of his hands, falling to the ground. The fragile jar broke without a lot of noise, stars spilling everywhere.
With a blank expression, he stepped on some of them.
“So many broken things”, Aspen laughed.
River was putting down a trail, small glittering pieces of glass showing a path to the room right next to this one. For good measure, he took some of the girl’s candy and deposited it in her relatives’s room. It was not her sister’s – anyone entering would see the difference in treatment due to the aunt. Good. They had to remember how much she cared.
With that done, he put his hands into his pockets, strolling over to the aunt’s room. He crouched to get the empty medicine package, flattened it, and put it between the aunt’s patterned paper.
The young man stopped, frowning.
…Where were people getting their cups from?
“What do you need?”
“I need to exchange the cups to ensure that everyone only uses the design of the grandfather’s…”
River scolded himself for his oversight. Sure, it was only a detail, but every detail would increase the chance of everything working out.
“There’s a kitchen over there, I think.” Aspen pointed in a direction.
“Hurry.” River didn’t mince his word but started running. Aspen kept up with him easily, staying half a step behind until they entered the area that Aspen had mentioned. It was indeed something of a kitchen.
An unhappy noise escaped River. The kitchen was a mess – whoever was managing it should be fired. Realizing the same, Aspen also hurried to help him find the cups hidden everywhere and exchange them. It wasn’t easy to ensure that none of the wrong cups would be used if apparently everyone took the tableware from all kinds of corners.
It was hard to gauge the exact passing of time without a clock. River hadn’t kept count from the start, which meant he only had a vague feeling, and he preferred being finished too early over too late.
Aspen indulged him, following his tempo.
They exhaled in relief when they were done. It was time to wait again, which was annoying, but there wasn’t much to be done.
In the courtyard, the other three stressed people were running around. Rhythm even stopped them, glowering. “What are you two up to?”
They had had the conversation before. Aspen’s lips twitched slightly, hinting at his growing irritation with the topic. “None of your business. Contrary to you, we haven’t caused everyone to run out and nearly kill us.”
Rhythm’s eyebrows furrowed. Crisis put a hand on his shoulder, tugging at him. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
“All of us might die here”, Rhythm said in a loud voice. “Your best chance is searching for that door with us.”
Aspen slowly lifted his arms and, deliberately and provocatively, shrugged. He didn’t believe in that mysterious door and didn’t care, honestly. River was even worse than him, merely blankly tilting his head in response.
“We aren’t messing with you, don’t mess with us”, Aspen threw back. Rhythm clicked his tongue, but let himself be led away by Crisis to continue searching.
Feeling River’s eyes on him, Aspen turned to face the easterner. His lips formed a peaceful, innocent smile, a questioning hum accompanying it.
“You’re not killing anyone this time.”
“Oh, that. I regret that. I’m worried that doing it now might cause a mess, so I should have done it at the start. Didn’t expect them to be so troublesome, though.”
“Appreciated.”
The curt comment relayed everything it needed. River really did not want his solution to break down.
In time, the shadows left the closed room again. The kids moved to their rooms while the adults stayed outside to talk. The little girl paused when she saw that her door was open, then ran inside.
It only took moments for her to start wailing with an annoyed and sad tone, running back outside to confront the child living to the side.
The verbal fight escalated after mere moments, prompting several adults to intervene.
The little girl latched herself onto her mother’s legs, tugging at them and holding up one of the destroyed paper stars. All attempts of soothing her failed, so the mother did exactly what River had hoped she would do.
Turn to the aunt, who was the only one that had the paper to repair the stars.
Things are starting to go well…?
Thank you for the chapter!! ❤️❤️
This is so exciting and fun to guess what will happen!
Thank you for the chapter (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)
thank you for the chapter <33