Both young men groaned as soon as the morning bell rang.
They cracked their eyes open, looking at each other with the sad confidence that neither of them had actually gotten any decent sleep. They had simply tried to rest as much as possible.
“Last day”, River sighed.
“I’m not unhappy that it’s the last day, but I would be happier if we knew who to get rid of. Preferably not ourselves.”
They dragged themselves up and out of the bed like insomniacs, a look that ended up not standing out at all, because pretty much every single person in the building had deep, dark eye bags.
People played listlessly with their food, often just gazing out of the windows.
Tomorrow they hoped they were able to leave. Until then, people died.
Another victim had been found, lacking all limbs.
She was the first one who had been part of the staff.
“I saw her”, Aspen whispered. “When I snuck out at night. She was one of the two who were waiting and watching.”
People kept to their own groups. Acorn and Papyrus had vanished off to somewhere, but River didn’t want to run around like a headless chicken.
“I don’t know what the limbs are supposed to imply, and at this point, I don’t care anymore.” River rubbed his temples, hoping to alleviate his headache. “I just need to know what body is based on. What’s the most ideal container for knowledge?”
“Someone, uh… young?” Aspen forced down half a glass of water.
“Why young?”
“I don’t know? I’m guessing.”
“And I’m brainstorming, so throw whatever at me and I’ll see what sticks. Why young and not old and experienced?”
Aspen pushed forward his lips. “Well, young because… everything? Physically, they’re sturdier than older people. Also, their minds are still…” He waved around vaguely. “Impressionable? Formable? Empty. Ideas haven’t stuck as much yet, so they’re more open to new things.”
Rubbing his temples turned into tapping them. “An empty container to be filled with new things, rather than a full container.”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s a kid? There’s many of them here. None of them stand out either, and Miles is nice to all of them. If you ask me, the families here look the safest.” River groaned. “Where do you want me to find out which boy or girl…”
He stopped himself.
Aspen perked up. “What? What is it?”
River lowered his hands down to the table. “Girl”, he muttered, staring into nowhere. “A girl. The drawing.”
“Drawing?”
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.
“A drawing down in the staff rooms…” Irritated, River waved his hands. “Doesn’t matter. A cartoon girl. A character drawing. Kids’ books, Aspen. Where have we seen them?”
“They’re everywhere. Vanessa… Vanessa makes them! Do you remember? She told us she made storybooks for children, that’s how she got scouted!”
“Ktf ybbx klatbea j mbnfg lc atf lcolgwjgs.” Elnfg rabbv eq, rmjglcu rfnfgji qfbqif lc atf gbbw. “Ofa’r ub, lwwfvljafis.”
Ktflg nlrlar ab atf lcolgwjgs kfgf j yifrrlcu. Qlat tbk boafc atfs tjv ubcf, cb bcf atbeuta la kjr kflgv tbk atfs kfca abvjs. Ktf vbbg kjr fnfc bqfc, Vfifcf cba jgbecv.
“Vanessa! Important question.” Too tense, River had no head for formalities. Vanessa’s forced smile switched to a serious expression. “Your storybooks for kids. Do you write them?”
“No, I’m no writer or artist. I only put them together for others.”
“Wait, so this one wasn’t written by you?” Aspen got the book with the blank cover and held it out towards the old woman. Inside the infirmary, the other injured people watched them with quiet confusion. “Didn’t you say you made it?”
“Oh yes, I did bind it”, Vanessa said, all the while shaking her head. “But the book wasn’t written by me. Miles is the one who wrote and drew it for Selene, years ago when she was just a child. He wanted to add a copy here, so he printed the pages and asked me to bind them together.”
“Miles?” River’s voice hitched up a note. “He… No, what, Selene? Why for her?”
“You don’t know? She’s his daughter.”
The warning bells inside River’s head could not ring any louder. He grabbed the book out of Aspen’s hands hurriedly, then slowed himself down in fear of breaking it.
The cover was empty as there had been nothing printed out for it. Opening it, he found himself facing neat handwriting accompanying cute, almost lovely little characters drawn in bright colors.
The drawn girl was familiar, her bright eyes greeting him.
River read out the story, Aspen looking over his shoulder. The pages rustled as he turned them.
“A long long time ago,
in a land far away,
lived a little girl and a little boy.
The little girl was lively and curious. She loved to run around and play, and her mother would spend the evenings tugging out leaves and grass from her hair.
The little boy was quiet and sickly. He could not leave the house, and his mother would spend the evenings wrapping him up tightly so he would not freeze.
“I hate the world”, the little boy would tell the little girl at his window. “The world is cold.”
“Is it?”, the little girl asked, surprised. “I think it is quite warm.”
“I hate the world”, the little boy would lament. “The world is dark.”
“Is it?”, the little girl wondered. “I always thought it was bright.”
“I hate the world”, the little boy whispered, tears dripping down his eyes and onto the bed. “Because the world hates me.”
“Does it?” The little girl smiled like the sunshine. “I think it loves you, and I will prove it.”
And so the little boy watched as the little girl gathered up her things – clothes and money and food, all in a little bag. He watched her as she left, smiling happily like always and with a spring in her step.
But his world was cold,
and it was dark,
and it hated him,
so he was not happy.
But the little girl loved him, that he knew, and she had promised to prove that the world did as well.
He waited
and waited
and waited
watching through the little window out into the world that stared back silently.
When the little girl returned, she was not little anymore.
She did not stop in front of his window.
She climbed in and took his hands, and laughed.
“The world is cold”, she said, her fingers frozen from the wind. “And it is also warm. I saw the whiteness of snow covering the earth, and I saw dunes of sand stretching into eternity. The world is freezing and boiling, it is mild and extreme. The world is everything.”
His fingers slowly warmed hers, and he felt better.
“The world is dark”, she continued, pointing at the cloudy sky outside. “And it is also bright. I saw the nothingness in the deepest cave, and I saw the glare of the sun at the highest peak. The world is pitch-black and blindingly bright, it is all the shades in between. The world is everything.”
The cloudy sky broke open to let the sun shine through, and he felt better.
“The world hates you”, she whispered. “The world hates us all. It hates us who kill and destroy, who take, who demand. It hates the humans that take without thinking and leave behind damnation. And it also loves us. Loves us who help each other for nothing in return, loves us who play and enjoy our life. Loves those that stop at a flower and smile at its beauty. The world loves us because it hates us, because we are not perfect, and that is just right.”
He heard the words, and yet he did not feel better.
The boy started to weep. He looked at her, who was so different from him. “But I am too sickly to leave, so I will never know all of this for myself.”
“So it will be, then”, the girl declared. “I shall use my voice to tell you about everything I know.
I shall use my hands to write it down, so you can always read about it.
I will give you this heart of mine to let yours beat,
give you my eyes to look at the world,
and my memories to understand all that I am telling you.
I will protect you so that you may not feel frightened.
This body of mine shall be yours,
and you shall be no longer alone.
All that I know will be all that you know.”
The world was cold and warm.
It was dark and bright.
It hated and loved,
and loved so much more,
and welcomed those that tried to understand all that was to be loved.
All that the girl knew became all that the boy knew,
and all that the boy knew became someone else’s.
The little girl was no little girl anymore, but long after her body had become one with the world, she still lived.
For her words remained,
and everyone who heard her words understood-
The world loves us, and we love the world.”
The image of the adult girl in front of vast empty space, hugging a small earth was what stared at River, taunting him with its words.
She still lived, for her words remained.
Carefully, he returned back to an earlier page, his lips pursuing as he wordlessly mouthed along the girl’s speech.
“This body of mine shall be yours,
and you shall be no longer alone.
All that I know will be all that you know.”
…the voices in my head are speechless. They’re all clapping and loved this chapter, and are now looking forward to reading more of the Owl’s stories. (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧