Soot was rushing to open every single drawer she could find. Nothing was left unopened and unturned.
She was so concentrated on her task and so used to the staff members walking around without a care that she did not notice the pair of footsteps that stopped in the doorframe.
“…”
River observed her for a full minute.
Soot was, on the surface, the same type as him. Unremarkable from the outside, but with a far too good memory.
And yet she wasn’t like him at all.
In his eyes he saw all the things that he had lost so long ago – all those wild emotions, all that liveliness, all that damned humanity that stood between himself and a peaceful life.
He did not want to care about it, but he hated it nonetheless – how she was what he couldn’t be.
She did not react until he stood all the way right behind her.
She was feeling so safe around here. Her first game? Or lucky up until now, never part of something that showcased the full ugliness of human nature?
Every single moment River wasn’t with Aspen, he expected someone to hunt him.
Without a guard at his side he was nothing but helpless, a single person with no training and no weapons. Her? She was worse; smaller than him, though not more frail after the drugs had wrecked his body.
A whole drawer crashed to the ground when River grabbed her hair and yanked her backwards.
Soot was screaming in pain and shock – her dark eyes immediately rolling up to look at who was attacking her, eyes going wide when she recognized River. In hardly a second, her fingers were up at his hand, nails scratching deeply into his skin.
He didn’t let go.
Instead he kicked her back, ruthless. He found no joy in the act, and so did his face mirror his feelings.
Faced with the empty eyes and doll-like expression, Soot’s teary eyes were narrowing with calculation and pain. Could she get out? Could she knock him down? Could she get help?
“Help me!”
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.
The scream was loud enough to hurt, holding back nothing.
Elnfg ogbkcfv jcv raemx j rlcuif olcufg lcab bcf bo tlr fjgr. Lf qeiifv atf ulgi ys atf tjlg jujlc, atlr alwf eqkjgvr, wjxlcu tfg rmgjwyif ab ufa tfg offa bc atf ugbecv.
“Who are you calling for?”, he mocked. “The staff? The people who couldn’t care less what we do? or your teammates several floors up? Yeah, I’m sure they will come to your rescue.”
Vbwfbcf qjrrfv ys atf bqfc vbbg, ecybatfgfv.
Rba atflg lrref.
Rba atflg ajrx.
Ktf vbiir kfca bc klat atflg ilof ktlif atf utbrar uijgfv fjmt batfg vbkc.
“Let me go! You can’t hurt me!”
Soot found stable footing quickly enough, though she was careful about not agitating him quite yet. River wisely kept her with her back to him, making it clear with an unrestrained kick to the back of her knee that he didn’t allow her to turn around.
Certainly, he was more likely to tear out her hair than do further damage like tearing off her scalp, but a normal person wasn’t used to the pain of even the former.
Humans were quick to give in when they were faced with pain they couldn’t handle, life threatened or not.
“I can’t? I think you misheard the rules.” River clicked his tongue. “I’m simply not allowed to kill you. No one said anything apart from that.”
Slowly, he pulled her head further, allowing their eyes to meet. Soot’s lips started quivering as River gave a joyless smile.
“And with time ticking away, thanks to you guys in particular, I’m not as much into ignoring the options I’m given.”
…The staff did not care.
They walked on, peacefully passing by the room, ignoring the screams and stench.
Not a single one reacted as River passed them by, red dripping to the floor. Not a single one cared as he washed up at their sinks and took their towels.
“I would like to say you created fascinating dolls”, River said out loud – for the Gamblers to hear, addressed to them. He was sure they knew. “But that would be a lie. Humans, alright. Looking away from what they don’t like, even if it’s right in front of their eyes.”
An empty laugh.
How often had he wished that someone reacted. Just a single person, to help him.
But this was humanity.
“I like your games, you know? They’re fascinating. But at the same time… It really makes you realize just how fucked up this whole planet is.”
Whether the staff thought he was insane for talking to himself or not, River didn’t care.
He peacefully walked back to the room from before and, without a care in the world, pulled a shelf from another room over. He closed the door and blocked it, forcing the handle to stay upright.
The same staff member that had let him inside stopped near him with a cocked head.
When he returned her gaze, she tilted her head upright.
“I’ll be leaving now”, he announced calmly to her.
This time, she smiled.
River took the elevator to get up to Aspen. He was shaking out his arms, which hurt from strain, and rolled his shoulders.
He hadn’t gotten a lot out of her.
Ultimately, it was the same as what he already guessed and knew:
There were no two goals, only one single race for the ritual. Acorn had gathered just about the same hints and come to the same conclusions as River had, though they had not yet found where the ritual would be held. Their guess had been the first floor, in contrast to River’s guess for the seventh one.
As for what she had found down there…
There wasn’t much. Things were as you’d expect them to be, on a floor intended for the staff to work.
Well. There were medical tools, which were not normal but within expectations in this specific case.
If one thing stood out, then it was a drawing that she had snatched and hidden inside her clothing.
It had gotten too bloodied for River to take it along, but he remembered what was on it – a cartoonish, childish young girl on a comically round hill. With the sky bright blue in the background, she did a curtsy towards the viewer, a bright smile and happily curved eyes on her cute face.
It was odd in its existence, but didn’t fit into anything that he knew, so he stashed the thought away for the moment.
Aspen had managed to keep the two men occupied perfectly in the meantime. River played out the role of coaxing him away, something that Aspen obviously obediently followed.
River summed up what had happened in hushed whispers, and Aspen nodded along.
“Will they find her?”
“Probably. But they won’t say anything.”
“Why not?”
“Because they can’t. There is not a single way to get Soot out from down there and explain why the staff didn’t notice and didn’t help her. They can’t say anything against the staff.”
Aspen blinked thoughtfully. “So you think they will keep quiet?”
River shrugged in response. “She will be a mysterious disappearance, I fear.”
That was exactly what she became.
As dinner approached, Acorn and Papyrus stared at River from afar, eyes glowing viciously.
No one asked about Soot, because no one knew where anyone was right now.
River sipped at the tea he had made himself for dinner.
As nice as that had been, they still didn’t have the final puzzlepiece, but one last day left to find out.
The night that came was filled not with the peace of sleep, but with a strained conversation and rustling papers as notes were turned over and over again.
Author’s Note
Please do read
I’m done with writing!!! Heck yeah. First off, I’d like to apologize, as things might maybe appear a bit rushed now, I hope it doesn#t affect your experience.
Next, I’ll be releasing these last chapters daily. If you do decide to save them and binge them, I’d ask you to take a moment after each chapter and let it rest for a second, this is especially important for the last ones.
Most importantly: This novel has an epilogue and an extra. I repeat, it has an epilogue. You can skip the extra, but do not skip the epilogue, okay?
Okay. No skipping the epilogue. I will be a good girl
Greatly appreciated 😀