He trailed behind River like a silent shadow, not interfering at all. The faster River ran, the faster he followed, all the while making sure he did not disturb the things that River did.
And for once, River enjoyed every second of his time.
Giddy snickers broke out of him once in a while when he saw the things he was doing working, unfolding in a beautiful path through the labyrinth that was this puzzle.
Well, whatever this was. For him, it was something to solve, so it became a most beautiful puzzle without words and faces, only actions and environment and timing done perfectly right.
He took the message out of the gardener’s clothes and threw it into the fireplace, then watched the maid come in and go through them but find nothing.
He ran over to the little lady’s room, sneaking in with the butler again and placing the flower on her table before slipping out again.
He kicked over the maid’s bucket of water so the gardener had a moment of looking up to his beloved, then made sure the gardener could not approach the window again.
They had not only failed because of the letter. The gardener had come over too often, causing the maids to go and report it, and the little lady was too hysterical as if ready to do anything. That was what got her locked in during the evening.
Because of that, she had to climb out of the window and was seen by the butler who had been on his way out anyway.
The letter needed to be gone. The gardener less suspicious. The little lady calmer. Her door had to be unlocked in the evening so she would not be seen from outside.
When he had everything, he stood outside to wait and see what would happen.
His breath was quick from excitement, his chest heaving.
Someone grabbed his left arm and pulled it to the side before pushing up the sleeve.
River flinched away from the sudden touch but Aspen only needed a moment to see the mark engraved on it. He gave a content nod but did not introduce himself. It wasn’t needed anyway, his mark was visible enough.
River rubbed over his skin and covered his arm again. Where he had been touched was tingling painfully.
“Why did you kill those people?”, he asked quietly. Something about the guy made him feel like it was alright to talk to him. Maybe exactly because he had done something so insane.
“They were noisy. Besides, I wanted to see what would happen.” Aspen stared out into the night.
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.
“Cgfc’a sbe jogjlv bo atf qbilmf?”
“Zwwt?” Lf iloafv tlr tjcvr jcv rtbkfv tlr kglrar klat atflg kflgv, mgffqs glcur. “P’w jigfjvs lc qglrbc obg wegvfglcu qfbqif. Kfmtclmjiis, P yfibcu bc atf vfjat gbk.”
“Yt.” Elnfg vlv cba xcbk ktja ab gfrqbcv ab atja. Lf ibkfgfv tlr tfjv.
“I don’t understand why turning a human off is a problem”, Aspen mumbled without being asked. He quietly talked away to himself. “We turn off machines. We turn off animals. But turn off a human and everyone freaks out. If they are so mad about it, why not find out how to turn them on again? Things that are noisy should be turned off.”
He leaned into River’s field of view again, his wide eyes as empty as bottomless pits. They were deeply desolate, he noticed. Lonely. A person who felt that there was no other human on this planet.
“But you are interesting. How are you still moving when you are turned off, like a corpse? Why do I feel like you might come back alive from this?” River’s lips parted in a confused sound. He took a step back but Aspen followed. “You are already dead inside, a candle gone out… But it seems like there are sparks ready to reignite it.”
The concept was highly abstract but River roughly understood what was going on.
Maybe this person simply could not connect with other people. All they were in his eyes were loud, messy things and, as one would do if presented with something loud and annoying, he had chosen not to ignore and tolerate it but to destroy the origin of the noise.
He had no troubles doing that as for him, those weren’t people of his own species anyway. An alien mind forced into a human body, too cut off from his surroundings to become a part of them.
River, however, was someone whose greatest reason for not simply jumping off a bridge or whatever was that he did not feel like breaking out of his routine.
He already knew he would not run when faced with death – he had had both of his legs broken when he hadn’t tried to move out of the way of an out-of-control car last summer. It was truly only that he was too stuck in senselessly doing the same things over and over again that he did not want to pull up the energy to change it, even for death.
He was basically a moving corpse. He was turned off already, as Aspen said it. There was no true will to live.
Only… Only, he really, truly enjoyed things that would need him to use his brain fully. Those were the only moments he did not want to end, those he wished he could keep.
Maybe that was the flicker.
Maybe that was something that Aspen wondered if he could connect to.
“You’re insane”, River stated bluntly, his voice half stuck in his throat.
“I am different”, Aspen responded quietly. “I am bored. I am uncomfortable. That’s what I am. Insane? Criminal?”
He tilted his head and moved his foot over the ground, drawing a circle around himself. He spread his arms with a blank face.
“I now declare this to be a new country. Ah? Isn’t it just something a human has said? They aren’t natural constructs. They are something that people decided on. Is it the animal that’s captured in a cage, or all the people people watching? Who is the free one between the two? You say I am insane – I say, all of you are.” He turned back to look at the mansion, where things were beginning to move. He showed an emotionless smile. “But I’d say, compared to the last time here… I find what you are doing more interesting than what everyone else did.”
He fell silent.
River looked at his figure, so small all of a sudden with his slumped shoulders. He stepped up to stand beside him, though a good large step away. “…I never said that I am normal.”
He watched the figure of the gardener begin to sneak out and found his face twitching into a happy grin.
Alright, so that guy was insane and so was he, but at least he had dared to do this thing he truly enjoyed because Aspen had spoken up. Since both were insane, so be it, let’s be insane together for a night.
Just a short time. Just this nightmare. Everyone else was dead, no one else was there to judge it, only one insane person keeping the other company – oh, who was the one accompanying and who was accompanied, he wondered? – it wasn’t that bad.
“I don’t think the breaking point is after twelve hours”, he said out loud without checking whether Aspen was listening or not. He felt his mouth move on its own as he babbled away. “It’s that this starts twelve hours away from the breaking point. The other way around. You see, in this one, it restarts when he dies. The last round it got delayed for a few seconds because the butler stumbled on the way and the breaking point was a bit later. It’s when the gardener’s heart stops moving. It’s a puzzle, you see? A repeat is not good. What you want is for time to flow normally, but this one is broken.”
He started to point at various areas around the mansion, his voice becoming louder.
“So if you want things to run normally, you have to get rid of the breaking point. Since that’s his death, he mustn’t die but we can’t simply interfere. We aren’t the Actors – we’re not allowed on stage. We can only change the script. That’s how it is, according to what I have seen so far. Why would these settings reappear if not because there is something that has yet to be done?”
He snickered.
Because the Actors were humans, there was much more to consider than simply changing the original story. Depending on the character, they would react differently to certain changes.
“So? Have you solved it?”, Aspen asked and watched as the girl ran out of the mansion. The gardener gave her a quick hug and then pulled her hand to run.
“No”, River said directly. “I haven’t. I wasted too much time… I would have had to use each try from the start.”
The couple ran. The mansion was still quiet, no person showing.
“What did you forget?”, Aspen curiously asked as he looked around. What was it that would kill the young man?
River looked at the two of them, climbing up the ivy on the wall to outside. He sighed and moved forward to the mansion.
Seconds after the two vanished on the other side, blood-curling screams and violent barking could be heard.
“The dogs.”
He still had to find out what he would have to do to ensure that the dogs would not be outside. Additionally, he would have to make sure that those changes wouldn’t disrupt the rest of the plan.
A pity. He would have liked to solve it.
“That’s too bad”, Aspen commented without feeling and followed the other, away from the slowly collapsing setting. “What about the door? Do you have a suspicion on how it decides who is killed?”
“It’s random.”
“I just want to hear your theory. I know that there’s no true pattern to be found yet.”
They walked up the stairs together, down the hallway and towards the resting room, where the large white door was opened up into nothingness.
River only stopped for a moment before it to look at Aspen, whom he did not think he would meet again. “That is my theory. I believe that it truly, honestly… is random.”
He turned around and stepped into the darkness.
A long, long time later, River thought back to that one meeting. If he had known about what was to come, would he have done things differently?
Although he had to admit, no matter how good his brain was, he would never have thought that the person who would become the closest to him was an insane killer.
Thinking back on it, River could only shake his head.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Author’s Note
At this point, the names on the card images are explained~
Aspen/Jing Ci doesn’t count as a psychopath, if you go by the standard definition. It’s not that he lacks emotions or can’t distinguish between right and wrong. He knows very well how to fit into society, but he’s like a different species. He can imitate the expected behaviour patterns, he just doesn’t see a reason why he should. Between killing a bug and killing a human, there’s not much difference for him, so he treats it the same. (Hands up who has killed a fly/mosquito because it was buzzing around and annoying you? Yeah, that’s his reaction to noisy humans.)
oh? noisy human? smack
hehehe I love characters like this uwu
thank you for the chapterr
Thanks for the chapter 🤧
…….i know this is random and has nothing to do with this book and plot but…….i had deja vù feeling when reading the ending of this chapther……….
p.s. can’t wait fore more.
I like Jing Ci/Aspen. How his mind and thoughts work. It’s quite, fascinating. Seeing another perspective.
What have i gotten myself into
Guys let’s be insane together
(つ≧▽≦)つ
Most of our common fears are believed to be our conscience warning us of danger. So where did the common fear of beings or creatures that resemble humans while not being a human come from? (Ex- Shadows, mannequins, masks, etc. Also related is the fear of human noises coming from something that’s not human.) Some people believe that we used to have a predator of some kind with an appearance similar to ours. That or maybe it’s from something like the fact that we can often be our own greatest enemy.
Anyways, I don’t quite believe in this theory myself, but it definitely haunts me with mental images whenever I remember it.
I love that theory haha. Creepy theories are a lot of fun to explore~
Mais um casal na minha lista dos preferidos 😍
I adore how you can physically read the lifelesness in River’s monologue. How you instinctively feel the monotony in River’s actions, and the sparks of life he experiences when he’s exhibiting his genius. I already adore his character.
Thank god it comes across right haha 😀 It definitely makes the story better if you can “read” him change slowly!