In the sky filled with dark clouds, the sun hid its face, not even allowing itself to shine. Soon, the heavy rain that poured like a shower stopped, and the thick forest sank into darkness, filled with the loud chorus of insects.
Chirrup, chirrup.
Insects of unknown kinds responded to each other.
Snore, snore.
In a room, there was a child who had embarked on a journey to dreamland with those sounds as companions. The terrible scars visible between the bandaged eyes and baggy clothes revealed that this child had lived an extraordinary life.
Perhaps longing for affection even in dreams, the child, curling up with a fluffy blanket, looked extremely happy. A scene that could make anyone smile.
……..
And there were a pair of eyes watching through a narrow gap.
Eek!
“……..”
“…..Swaek…”
The door slowly opened, and two glimmers of light flickered through the gap. In the pitch-black darkness, eyes glowing red stared at the child deep in sleep, oblivious to the world.
Unable to get closer, just watching from afar. With pupils elongated like a predator’s, it could be mistaken for a beast watching prey, but if seen up close, no one would think so.
In those red eyes, there was evident affection for the child.
………
“…Huh…”
The owner of the eyes, Saelli, stood there for a long time, watching the peaceful expression of the sleeping child. As if she would never forget that moment.
The small smile she wore held such longing.
“….Sweet dreams.”
“….Mhm…”
In a small voice barely audible to the child, she murmured. Almost as if in response, the child’s adorable sleep talk continued.
Then, Saelli looked at Alice with a surprised expression.
“….Haha..”
Her mouth curved into a small smile upon seeing the child mumbling in sleep. The child lost in deep slumber seemed unlikely to wake up for a while. Believing that no major issues would arise for the next few hours, Saelli quietly left the room, trying not to make any noise that might disturb the child’s sleep.
Click, the door locked.
A faint sound barely perceptible to ordinary people began to fade away from the room.
Soft, soft.
Gently, very gently.
To that side.
Completely.
Disappearing—
Click.
The child’s finger twitched.
In the darkness not visible to anyone, the child quietly smiled.
Hehe.
A laugh that couldn’t kill. Under the still night sky, it echoed softly.
—
It was a small desire. To prepare a meal for someone and sit around the table to eat together. To hold hands while smelling the fragrant flowers under the warm sunlight.
When I realized that going to sleep wasn’t to end a boring day but to welcome a tomorrow filled with excitement and anticipation, I had to admit.
I could never go back to those previous days.
“−Kwee, kwee!”
“….”
A person who had lived in darkness all their life wouldn’t know what darkness really was.
A monster that had lived in solitude all their life would not realize their loneliness. Gradually becoming accustomed to contempt and oppression.
It was only natural.
It was everything in life.
—But unfortunately, the monster had come to understand love.
“Kwee!! Kwee, kupiii!”
“…..Ah, right.”
Just one day, just one day.
Tomorrow, I’ll have to say everything. The truth is, I’m not a kind and reliable big sister who saved you.
But a monster who savors eating people, secretly licking your wounds and drinking your blood with those suspicious red eyes.
I wanted to free myself from the lies that had been forced upon me, wanting to speak up.
The hidden lies.
I wanted to tell Alice—
“…..Alice—”
“Elli! Look! I made it with all my might!”
“…….”
“…..H-Hope it’s not a mess?”
I wanted to say—
Hehe…
“Isn’t it hot?”
“It’s hot, but I like this more!”
…..Gathering my resolve—
“—You can’t leave the bell pepper.”
“..E-Eh!?”
“….I can see everything.”
“U…Uuh…”
…The truth.
“—Elli, I love you!!”
“……!!!”
I tried to say it.
But I didn’t want to betray Alice. Thinking that the child would look at me with fear made me too terrified.
I just hoped that this brief moment of happiness built on a slippery glass castle would not be disturbed.
Tomorrow, I’ll say it.
No, next week.
After this month ends.
After spring passes and the flowers wilt, I’ll—
…
Days passed, a week passed, a month passed—by the time I noticed, it had been half a year since Alice had come to my house.
However, the bandage would still cover Alice’s eyes every morning, unchanged even after half a year.
Tightly bound without ever loosening.
I missed my chance.
At the beginning, when we didn’t know each other well, would it have been okay to reveal everything?
Would it have been okay if I had poured my heart out, ready to be abandoned?
Every evening, as I fell asleep, those hypothetical scenarios mingled with happy dreams and the harsh reality, torturing me well into the early morning.
No, perhaps I should have said it back then.
Haha.
Ha ha ha…
Puff!
“Ha…”
“Kwee…kwee…kkuu…”
But now, it’s far too late.
It all started from my small actions, not wanting my true identity to be revealed.
Adding on more lies because I feared the consequences of that lie coming to light.
Accumulating lies, getting bigger and bigger.
Like a snowball rolling down the mountain.
Roll, roll.
On a snow-covered mountain, a snowball rolls.
The snowball, tightly packed like a small fist, rolls along, its head forms, the head becomes the body, the body becomes a person, the person becomes a tree, and the tree becomes a forest, ultimately becoming a mountain.
Small lies became flesh and blood, and before I knew it, the lies became an avalanche ready to sweep everything away.
Now, it cannot be undone.
Really.
Where did it all go wrong?
Drip, drip.
“….Kwee….”
“…Ha…haha…”
The fading light in those empty eyes.
Nevertheless, the wild boar, holding onto its dying spark of life for its own sake, attempts to distance itself from me.
A futile struggle that means nothing.
In the terrified eyes, the monster reflects.
In those eyes, filled with fear, the monster reflects.
Still clutching the pulsating, unidentifiable, crimson mass, a woman drenched in blood stands before me.
Zzzz, tearing the meat held in her hand with her mouth.
Smack, like the sound of juice splattering, a fresh noise is heard.
In the increasingly pale eyes of the wild boar, the face covered in blood from the meat takes shape.
Ah.
Yes, perhaps it was wrong from the very beginning.
“—Did I do wrong?”
“……..”
The corpse grows cold and stiff.
The wild boar, even if it’s dead, knew it couldn’t answer.
Even so, I couldn’t help but ask. Had to ask.
“Did I do wrong?”
“……. “
“Is it because of me, my very existence that’s wrong!!”*
Three days, three days.
Days spent enduring this dirty, horrific, ugly, suspicious, and gruesome act.
Previously, I could hold out for a month, but the cycle of impulse grew shorter.
Still, I could hold out for more than a week, but after not feeding on Alice’s blood, the intervals rapidly decreased, and now it’s even hard to go just beyond two days.
At first, of course, I tried to hold on.
For the sake of the child sleeping soundly next to me, I tried to endure somehow.
Scratching my neck, breaking my fingers, even considering pulling out all my teeth later on.
But I failed.
Swallowing was like consuming boiling oil, and breathing felt like dancing with sand.
It hurt.
Painful.
As if the pain reminded me that I wasn’t human.
Even in the humid dawn air, my mouth felt like a desert, seeking something to quench this burning thirst.
Blood and flesh.
A small life.
—Alice.
“Puhah, hahah…hahaha!”
“……..”
“Hahaha…hahaha…”
I laughed.
Bending over, squeezing the chunk of meat in my hands, I laughed.
Pshh, blood splattered everywhere.
In this miserable reality, I had no choice but to laugh.
—Yes, my body craved Alice.
Sweet enough to melt my brain, fresh enough to wash everything in my mouth away.
A temptation that still occasionally lingered in my memory.
Even as I made my last vow to prove that I wasn’t raising the child, my body craved the child’s blood.
Yes, this is punishment.
Ultimately, it was a punishment from a worse and evil monster that imprisoned the clueless, innocent canary in a narrow cage.
“Ha…hahaha…”
As the sun sets and countless stars rise in the night sky, the place where more lives awaken and stir than the stars themselves.
In that buzzing place, only my laughter remained.
The rustling bushes were eerily quiet.
Not even animals or insects dared to make a sound.
Holding their breath, they distanced themselves as if afraid of me finding out.
Fear.
Ha!
“—Hahaha….hahahaha!!”
“Are you afraid of me too?”
Of course, you must be.
That fact seemed so natural that it made me nauseous, it was so amusing that I wanted to kill.
I had to laugh.
Lost in rapture, I snickered at the lifeless bodies that offered no answers.
I laughed, and laughed again.
—
“—Unnie?”
“—Ah?”
Creek.
My head turned.
