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“Gasp…!”
Eyes wide open, a short breath burst out.
The cool air entering deep into the lungs, the dark ceiling, the heavy wooden scent unique to old houses. Just as he was slowly becoming aware of all these things, the sound of heavy breathing snapped him back to full consciousness.
His eyes, glancing sideways, pierced through Rohan even in the darkness. The longer he looked at him, the more his anxiously beating heart gradually calmed down. Only then did he have the composure to assess the situation.
His hand moved slowly, fiddling with the neatly laid blanket, then moved up to wipe away the cold sweat on his forehead. Perhaps due to the damp sensation left on his fingertips, an unfamiliar emotion swept through his eyes as he looked at his hand.
“…A nightmare?”
Apart from feeling strange about the current situation, he quickly came to a conclusion.
Waking up startled, an unstable heartbeat, cold sweat flowing down his face. Though mixed with sensations he had never experienced before, there was an inexplicable feeling of déjà vu. Even in his dazed state, he recalled glimpses of Rohan as a child. More precisely, the days when that tiny child suffered from nightmares.
So he could understand. That these were symptoms commonly shown by humans when they had nightmares.
‘What did I… dream about?’
His thoughts naturally drifted there, but nothing came to mind. Even after retracing his memories several times, it was the same. Perhaps because it felt like some part of his mind had been painted over with pitch-black ink, his blinking eyes took on a blank look.
After wandering for a while, his gaze finally returned to Rohan. He could see the dense eyelashes extending below his tightly closed eyelids, his body slightly turned, and the breath flowing between his slightly parted lips seemed to touch his fingertips.
Arpel’s hand twitched briefly.
‘Hand…’
Suddenly, he thought he wanted to sleep holding hands.
His action was as quick as his decision. His hand wriggled under the blanket, seeking out Rohan’s hand. He thought that if they slept holding hands, the uneasy feeling from the unremembered nightmare would improve.
But Arpel’s plan soon shattered. Just as their fingertips lightly touched, an unpleasant presence made itself blatantly known outside the window. Instead of grasping Rohan, Arpel carefully lifted the blanket so as not to wake him and silently approached the window.
When he pulled back the old curtain covering the window, the first thing that caught his eye was the blurry view of the village.
It wasn’t that there was a problem with his eyes, or that the window was dirty making things look blurry. Fog. Fog that had flowed in from the forest was thickly filling the village.
The faintly bluish-black fog undulated, constantly growing in volume. It was a strange sight, as if the entire village was being devoured. A slight unpleasantness settled on Arpel’s face as he silently watched it.
“…Arpel. Why are you up?”
“Ah.”
With a rustle of pushing away the blanket, a voice still heavy with sleep called out to him. The unpleasantness melted away from his face like snow as he turned to look at Rohan approaching from behind.
His eyes, unable to hide their sleepy state, were drooping oddly. Arpel had to resist the urge to reach out and caress the corners of his eyes. Given the situation, he did lightly pat Rohan’s cheeks to wake him up.
Blink, blink. Only after his eyelids, which had been slowly lowering and raising repeatedly, regained some focus did his long fingers point outside the window. Rohan’s face froze instantly as his gaze followed that direction.
Bluish-black fog. He too had seen the ominous colored fog pervading the village.
“That’s…”
“It seems to be the cause of the curse.”
A very similar energy to what he had felt inside the cursed sleeping person before was undulating within the fog.
The malice swirling within the bluish-black fog, the curse that puts people to sleep and eventually takes their lives. Though very faint, it was clearly the energy of specters.
Ordinarily, normal people find it difficult to survive when exposed to dense spectral energy. Even more so if it’s in a fog-like form that immediately infiltrates the respiratory system. Yet, the villagers only fell asleep and had their life force drained because the energy was diluted enough to barely maintain life.
“…For now, let’s move again tomorrow.”
Rohan’s voice, now completely devoid of sleepiness, soothed him. His firm tone seemed to subtly urge him to let go of the curtain he was holding. The persistent argument that ‘we need to sleep well to move actively tomorrow’ was an added bonus.
In the end, Arpel had no choice but to release the curtain and let himself be led by Rohan’s hand.
The ‘fog’ had started from that forest they had visited a few hours ago. Given that they had returned due to a sudden abnormal symptom, it was clear that going back into the forest to find the source of the fog would yield no results.
In a way, this too was a kind consideration. A consideration hoping that he wouldn’t feel troubled by dwelling on a situation that couldn’t be solved immediately.
Arpel, who had crawled back under the blanket like before, lightly touched Rohan’s hand. He quite liked the startled reaction that transmitted through his fingertips.
“Want to sleep holding hands?”
“…That would be nice.”
A strange flush appeared on his face, clearly visible even in the darkness. His softly speaking voice seemed to contain a hint of bashfulness. Even in this situation, his hand, not missing the opportunity, moved carefully to gently intertwine their fingers.
It felt as if a small heart had newly formed between their clasped hands. Thump, thump. The faint pulse felt in his hand wasn’t bad at all. Perhaps due to that regular rhythm and the body heat warming his palm, for some reason his vision began to blur.
By now, feeling sleepy beside Rohan had become familiar. Surrendering to the approaching drowsiness, Arpel slowly closed his eyes.
Just before falling asleep, one thought fleetingly crossed his mind.
‘What’s the reason?’
The kidnapping carried out in the slums he had witnessed earlier, and the cruel human experiments. As horrific as they were, the Salvation Church clearly had a ‘purpose’ for conducting these two things. The purpose of ‘creating a person fully imbued with the power of specters’.
Then this fog, the curse on the village…
What purpose could it possibly serve?
* * *
In the dim light of early morning, Maisen was pacing around inside his house instead of going out as usual to exchange unnecessary morning greetings with the villagers. Unable to contain his excited mood, a smile kept escaping and the corners of his mouth kept rising.
“Finally, today…”
The big event would take place.
He exhaled a long breath while clutching a crude bluish bead in his hand. Once today passes, he won’t need to deal with the annoying people clinging to him anymore, and he can leave this backwater village. And the path he’s been longing for will open up.
The future he had dreamed of was drawing near. Expectations swelled up in his mind. It was a sweet fantasy enough to blow away all the hardships and stress he had endured until now.
—Creak.
His body, which had been floundering in pleasant imagination, flinched. His gaze, quickly turning to where the sound came from, narrowed rapidly.
‘I should have closed all the windows…’
It couldn’t be that an open window was shaken by the wind, since he had closed every single window and even drawn the curtains carefully. After suspiciously looking in the direction of the noise, he finally moved, but as expected, the window was tightly closed and the curtain neatly drawn.
Was it his imagination? Maisen clicked his tongue thinking so. He’s probably being overly sensitive because of the impending event, he thought.
And the moment he turned around to leave the room.
“Ack!”
A loud scream burst from his mouth. A dark figure was standing silently right in front of him. Not having heard even a hint of presence, noise, or breath before encountering this giant, his breath caught and his heart sank.
He took one step back, then another, but perhaps unable to overcome his fear, his trembling legs soon gave out.
Maisen’s body, having lost balance, fell straight backward. The loud crash and his frightened, panting breaths were the only sounds in the dark house. Despite the commotion, the man resembling a shadow just stood there motionless.
His breath, which had been on the verge of hyperventilating, gradually calmed down at that consistent attitude. A faint hope appeared on Maisen’s face.
“Pe-perhaps the ex-executive sent you…?”
“Executive?”
The man in the robe, no, Rohan, tilted his head slightly as he asked back. A familiar voice he had heard somewhere before. Realizing this, Maisen’s face turned ashen.
“Y-you are…”
Only then did the lower half of the face revealed under the robe look familiar. As hope faded from his face and fear began to surge again, someone firmly grasped his shoulder.
“…! Ugh.”
His head turned slowly with a creak. The moment he saw the hand gripping his shoulder, so white it was almost pale.
With a short groan, Maisen’s body completely fell backward.
“…It seems he’s fainted?”
The body sprawled completely on the floor, foam in his mouth, and eyes rolled back showing the whites, was unmistakably the appearance of someone who had lost consciousness. Arpel, who had only placed his hand on the shoulder, looked down at the fainted Maisen with eyes that couldn’t understand.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. We can just pour some water on him.”
Shadows spurting from the floor tightly bound Maisen’s body. While a perfect knot that wouldn’t allow even a single struggle was being formed in real-time, something that had fallen to the floor caught Arpel’s attention.
A small bead rolling around. Its surface, rough enough to be called crude rather than smooth, was glimmering with a dark blue light.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
