"Ownnn... Look how beautiful he is! You have a promising future ahead, boy. Met all the basic expectations without difficulties, this is incredible!"
... ...
TÁ-TÁ-TÁ!!!
"DOCTOR MELAINE, LEAVE HIM! WE NEED TO GET OUT, BEFORE—"
KSSSHHHHHHHHH!!
... ...
"... w-what... what did you do? I'LL—"
— !!!
Arthur woke up with a jolt, his body reacting before his mind. He jumped from the couch, his hands groping frantically at each other, seeking traces of something that only existed in his subconscious.
— What...? Ahn? Aaaah... it was just a dream, but it felt so real.
He blinked against the aggressive brightness that overcame the curtains. The morning light burned in his pupils. He raised his arm, trying to filter the beams of light that pierced through his fingers like needles.
— ...shit! I slept!
The panic of having let his guard down propelled him. His steps were crooked, his legs still heavy with sleep, as he stumbled down the hallway and opened Alice's bedroom door with a brute urgency.
"DOCTOR!"
— ... Alice?
...
To his relief, she was still there. Her breathing remained irregular, a labored wheeze, but it was progress compared to the deplorable state of the previous night.
Arthur approached with caution. He took a clean cloth and, with trembling hands, began to remove the secretions leaking from the stitching of the cut. Heavens... he prayed she would wake up soon; he didn't trust his own expertise to keep that body functioning.
— Sorry... I'm really not good with my hands.
He changed the dressing with a forced calmness, throwing the dirty cloth into a bucket of water. Before he can leave, he covers Alice with a blanket.
— Hããã.... hããã...
When Alice groaned with her forehead beaded with sweat, he pulled back the blanket, allowing her skin to breathe. Before leaving, he wiped his palm across her forehead, cleaning the sweat in a gesture of almost instinctive care.
— Get well soon, okay? I... ah, never mind.
As he closed the door, the stillness of the house hit him.
...
shff… shff…
"She's fine... that's good. But... I let my guard down again, someone could have come in and..."
His thought stops as soon as he stands still at the entrance of the living room. His eyes swept over it... the mess, the dust, the accumulated chaos of a house that hadn't seen care in a long time.
— Never mind. I'll make up for it my way.
While Alice and the girl remained absorbed in their worlds of unconsciousness, Arthur yielded to his only form of compensation.
His movements were slow and rhythmic. Joints creaked as he cleaned the spider webs from the ceiling.
The human body tends to reject effort without purpose, but Arthur worked under the pressure of guilt.
vrrsh… vrrsh… vrrsh… vrrsh…
The broom danced across the floor, sweeping away insect carcasses and remnants of a neglected life. In a few minutes, the living room was presentable. The thick dirt had been banished to the trash.
"Still missing the kitchen and the bedrooms. I think I deserve a bit of a glass of water"
He takes a few steps toward the kitchen, placing the broom leaning against the edge of the entrance.
In the kitchen, the scene was worse. He opens the refrigerator, seeing nothing but a mausoleum of rotten vegetables and leftover drinks. He grumbles discarding everything with a sigh of disgust while he takes a glass and goes to the faucet.
— Is this a cemetery? There's not even cold water.
grrk…
— Glup. Glup. Glup... AAAAAHH...
He wiped his mouth with the collar of his shirt and set the glass on the marble. Then he prepared a bucket with chemicals, mixing them with his own bare hands, ignoring the stinging on his skin.
Arthur starts by pouring a bit of the water on the floor. He scrubbed the floor with the brush until his back muscles cramped. He scrubbed until the floor shined.
---
Right after spending minutes in the same repetitive movement, he stops and starts cleaning the refrigerator from the inside out... then repeating the same process with the cabinet, table, shelves. He wanted that, when Alice woke up, her world would seem less dirty. But, even with everything shining, Arthur's sense of smell detected something wrong.
— Tks... I cleaned everything, from end to end. But I'm still smelling a fucking bad scent.
Following the trail of the odor, his eyes stopped at a box hidden in the bottom corner of a cabinet. Without a second thought, he takes that box and opens it with a wrinkled nose.
"Aaah... just more trash. Better if I throw it away and..."
He stops right after seeing a picture frame beneath carcasses of degradable trash and larvae.
He takes a deep breath, digging with his fingers until they reached the desired point... but by then, he would have vomited and dirtied everything again if he didn't have the cold blood to ignore the disgust.
...
He holds the portrait with a light grip.
"Ha... Alice's parents. She was just a baby here. Hahaha... doesn't even look like she turned into this ignorant stone"
Arthur smiled for a brief moment while looking at the family portrait. She was the spitting image of her father...
"Uh? Who is this person?"
the smile died upon noticing a fourth person in the photo. That part was torn, burned, stained by time and by the leachate.
He brought the portrait a bit closer to his face, furrowing his brow as if trying to guess the lost face. Then...
THUD-GRASP!!
— What do you think you're doing?
Alice appears, grabbing the boy by the neck while pressing him against the cabinet with a strength disproportionate to her injured state. The plates clattered behind Arthur's head. The Seraphim gleamed in her other hand.
Despite the strength with which she holds the boy, she was still visibly weakened.
— I-I was cleaning! I swear I didn't steal anything! I just wanted you to not have to exert yourself when you woke up...
...
Alice stared at him. Sweat dripped from her pale face and her breath came out hot as a furnace against his skin.
With a brute pull, she took the portrait and let him go, pushing him with a roughness milder than the initial attack.
— Fine. Just... don't touch my things. Understood?
She turned around and went to the living room, returning moments later with another picture frame.
"Ok, that scared me. She's broken like this and still has this strength? Holy shit..."
Alice places the new picture frame in the center of the table next to the Seraphim. It was the same photo she had brought from Lowden: just her and her parents.
The old portrait, the one with the fourth person, she folded coldly and discarded back into the trash.
— Thank you for... taking care of my wounds.
She says finally, dragging the chair from the table and sitting deliberately with her hands on her abdomen.
— ... If it wasn't for that, I'd probably be dead.
— No need to thank me. I just didn't want...
...
— Forget it. How do you feel? You need rest.
Arthur says, staring at the bandages he made already asking for some mending.
— It's not the best care I've ever received, but it served to hold things together. And don't worry about me. I'll redo the bandages myself later. I don't have the luxury of resting with a freak inside the house.
She tapped her fingers on the table, a grimace of pain crossing her face.
THUMP—mmf…!
— Did you throw her in the basement?
She asks while gesturing to Arthur, asking for a glass of water.
— Yes. She was unconscious when I tied her up.
"lucky me."
— She must have just woken up. I heard the thuds down there.
Arthur felt a chill. He turns off the faucet and returns to Alice, placing the glass on the table and pushing it towards her.
Alice fixed her gaze on the basement door after the first sip of water.
— What are we going to do with her? I waited for you to wake up so we could decide together... to avoid me doing some shit and you trying to tear my head off later.
...
— You did well to wait. But it's obvious: we're going to interrogate her. After that, we finish her off. Simple and easy.
She takes the last sip, standing up supporting her weight on the chair while pulling the Seraphim from its scabbard.
Each step of hers seemed to bend the floor... her body curving under the weight of pain as she headed to the basement staircase.
— Alice, calm down!
Arthur ran ahead, opening the door and descending a few steps.
— What are you doing, huh?
She asks, her brow furrowed.
— You can barely stand. I'm going to make sure you don't roll down the stairs.
Alice descends a few steps, trying to pass by Arthur who blocks her path.
— Let me pass, kid. I don't need your charit—
— It's not charity. We help each other, and we keep doing it... until all of this is over.
Alice observed him for a long moment, the hardened expression softening by a millimeter before returning again.
— I think it's more likely you'll trip and take me with you. But fine. Just don't walk slowly...
She reached out her hand. Arthur held it with a delicacy that surprised her.
"... He's different. What's gotten into him??"
At that moment, what remained was the concern for the only pillar to hold onto in the midst of this world.
...
Toc... toc... creeeec...
They stop at the last step, the eyes of both scanning the space. The air was heavy, saturated by the smell of mold and moss. The ambient smell was enough to make them breathe and tear up.
The only passage for air and light came from a small stuck crack in the ceiling.
RUSH—CLRRRK!!!
— Hahahaha... You guys have no notion of the danger? WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, YOU SON OF A BITCH? JUST WAIT UNTIL I GET LOOSE!
Alice lets go of Arthur's hand with a pull, approaching a few steps toward the chained girl.
— You already know why we're here. Tell me your name, your anomaly and everything you know about the HU. And, mainly... what they want with Arthur.
Alice's eyes roam over her body, full of scars, keloids and some circles that seemed to be attached along her arms.
The girl takes a deep breath, seeming to prepare for cooperation. But...
PTU!
She spat in Alice's face.
— Pfffff... HAHAHAHA! She thinks I'm going to spill it just like that? Hahahaha...
She shakes her head, trying to wipe away an imaginary tear.
— ... the pretty-faced lady is stupider than I thought.
Arthur looks at the scene in disbelief. He tries to advance against the girl with clenched fists, but Alice blocked him with her arm.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand, without disgust, without apparent anger. She just moved the Seraphim in a quick diagonal arc.
tsshh!
The tip of the blade tore the girl's jaw from end to end. A surgical cut.
— Last chance for you to cooperate. The faster this is over, the more time we'll save. Believe me... you won't want to prolong this session.
The girl writhes slightly in the chains, but soon returned with that haughty and blood-stained smile. The wound closed almost instantly.
— Just that? In our fight you seemed to be a tougher nut to crack. Cooperate? I'd rather kill time thinking about how I'm going to tear your head off. Or maybe I should take it easier? You're not doing too well on your legs.
The girl smiles from ear to ear, staring Alice deep in the eyes.
Arthur clenches his fists at his side, wanting to advance against the girl... but knowing that if he did that, Alice's reaction wouldn't be positive at all.
— All right...
Alice murmured a single time. She knelt at the prisoner's level, taking her hand with a terrifying gentleness. She caressed the girl's fingers and, then...
KRAK! KRAK!
Bent two fingers back until the bones snapped. The girl's scream was muffled by surprise and pain. The bones soon began to realign themselves.
— Your regeneration is the basis of everything. But you also create blades from your own body. Interesting, perfect for combat. But I wonder why you don't create one now to cut me? There is a limit, isn't there?
The girl stares Alice deep in the eyes, and when she opens her mouth to probably let out an insult:
KRAK! KRAK!
Two more fingers. The girl bit her lips until they bled.
— Well... but I think it's not just that. You seem to be quite intolerant to pain. I believe that with this combo of things, it would be a good reason to be one of the pieces of trash that the HU sends to the battlefield expecting nothing more than a successful kamikaze mission.
The girl seems to break into a cold sweat under the comment about pain intolerance that Alice had made. Her teeth grind and tears of hatred sprout from the corners of her eyes, Alice still holds her hand with the lightness of a feather.
...
— Are you going to answer my questions, or... do you want me to keep breaking your fingers one by one? Then your hands... arms... legs?
— Try your luck, bitch...
Alice sighed, standing up.
— ...Arthur, keep an eye on her.
She walked to the back of the basement, returning with a pair of pliers that were blunt, a rusty scalpel and a chemical flask.
— A-alice... isn't this too radical?
Alice gives a push to Arthur, throwing him back while she throws the objects in front of the girl. Without saying a word, she kicked her chest, knocking her onto her back.
— Step on her arms, and don't let her get loose.
He obeyed, his stomach churning, but knowing there was no turning back.
Alice grabbed the girl's leg and broke it with a dry snap, making her groan. Before the regeneration could act and reposition the limb, she holds the leg between her arms.
— All right, no need to rush... I'm going to be methodical.
Alice drags her hand slowly to a pair of pliers, positioning the blunt object on the tendons of the joint. And then...
krrk—Nhic!
— AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!! YOU... wait.... no, what are you doing? HEY WAIT—
krrk—Nhic!
Alice cuts another tendon, twisting it to the sides and pulling all at once. Blood squirts everywhere, falling on Alice's face and on Arthur's clothes.
The blunt pliers continue their task. They don't cut... it's not smooth. They tear, each closing she makes over the tendons is a long and constant sensation, and when it's over... she repeats the same cycle.
She shoves the tip of the pliers deep inside the girl's leg joint, cutting every tissue... every bone that threatens to return to its place.
The cycle is staggering, the girl doesn't beg for it to stop. All she can do is scream and kick.
— I HOPE YOU KNOW HOW TO PRAY WITH BOTH EYES OPEN!! YOU'RE GOING TO PAY DEARLY FOR THIS, YOU BITCH—
krk!
The muffled sound of the girl's leg bones snapping again silences her along with the agonizing pain.
— I noticed something...
Alice pulls the pliers out of the girl's open wound... opening and closing the tip in a slow and almost casual way.
— ... whenever I hurt you and your regeneration does its work, you make an expression of pain. This means that you feel every process until the wounds are healed, right?
Hanna trembles, her voice and even the sound of her shaky breathing is cut. The black pill of her left eye seemed to be filled with fear... and something she recognizes.
— Very well then. I'm going to make sure every tissue and tendon of your leg reconnects in a wrong way. And then, I'll break it again. And again... and again... and again. Until I get tired. And I can guarantee: I won't get tired doing this job just moving my arms.
...
Alice stares at the girl's face, noticing the scar that runs across her neck to her jaw.
— ... But first, I want to observe this scar more closely...
Alice drops the pliers and her hands go for the rusty scalpel with the half-bent blade, holding it lightly and giving it little flicks.
— H-hey, I really don't know anything! Please, don't...
The girl goes back to struggling, her skin pale while she tries to get free from Alice and Arthur's grip.
Alice brought the blade close to the scar on the neck. The girl went into absolute hysteria.
— NO! PLEASE! I SWEAR I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! I WAS JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS!
— Alice, that's enough. She really doesn't seem to know anything. She seems like she doesn't have much to say.
Alice ignores Arthur's protests, placing the scalpel against the scar and tracing a light cut from end to end...
She tilts her head back and looks up, her eyes full of tears and a redness taking over her pale skin.
— PLEASE, HELP ME! I'LL DO ANY... KOFF!! I'LL DO ANYTHING! DON'T LET HER HURT ME ANYMORE, I DON'T WANT TO LIVE THIS AGAIN!
"Please... Arthur"
...
PAH—Tlin!
— ENOUGH ALICE!
The only move he made right after the girl's plea was a brute and dry kick to Alice's hand, sending the scalpel flying away. He was trembling, eyes dilated.
— ... this has already gone past the limits. You've already done enough by putting fear in her, isn't that enough? Please, let's stop this. This time she will tell everything she knows, even if it's not much.
Alice remained static, her hand still suspended in the air, her eyes fixed on Arthur with an intensity that seemed to burn his whole body. For a second, the boy thought he would be the next target. Hanna sobbed softly at his feet, a broken sound, too human for a freak.
— Alice...
— ... Fine. Last chance.
Alice moves away, letting go of the girl's leg and sitting down exhausted. The girl does the same thing, sitting up and still sobbing in terror. Her head was down, her silver hair covering any trace of her expression... only her noises could be heard.
— I'll repeat one more time: Tell me your name, a bit about your anomaly and what the HU wants with Arthur.
...
— M-my... glup. My... name is Hanna. My... anomaly allows me to create bladed weapons from any part of my body... and regeneration.
Hanna says, taking a deep breath and choking on her own saliva while she tries to calm down.
— That's the obvious, I fought with you. I want you to tell me the cons of possessing an anomaly like that.
Alice demands, her tone rising once more.
— Eh... I need to consume a lot of food throughout the day to maintain my regeneration and... create weapons that don't break so easily. If I don't maintain it... my regeneration can be imperfect, or—
— Not regenerate and lead you to immediate death?
Alice completes for her, and Hanna affirms with an uncomfortable nod of her head.
— That explains why you didn't try at any moment to extract any blade, not to mention your pale body. Not to mention that you feel constant pain with this use, whether creating weapons or regenerating. It's a complete curse with a bonus.
Hanna shrinks even more with Alice's comment, squeezing her knees against her chest and grinding her teeth, a low growl escaping between the cracks.
— Keep talking. What does the HU want with Arthur?
Arthur comes out from behind the girl and walks to Alice's side, stopping and watching the answers intently. Perhaps this will bring him the information he so desires. Perhaps this will silence the voices. Perhaps this—
— I don't know anything, I really didn't lie when I said that. They just sent me here and told me to take him alive. I was just obeying orders from my superiors. And if I didn't come, they would.... they would...
The girl can't finish.
...
"I always thought the idea of the HU wanting back anomalies it had discarded itself was strange, and it had been a while since I had delivered any into their hands. But, this time it's even stranger. The superiors sent her directly after him. This boy..."
— You don't know anything else, are you sure? Because if I find out later that you lied to me... we'll have another...
"Session"
The girl recoils, putting her hands over her ears. That word echoed through her mind and seemed to have unlocked some trigger.
— I swear I don't know, I swear! I don't know... I don't know... I don't know... I don't kn—
frrsh...
— Uh?
The scene ahead shocks even the girl. Arthur had approached her, hugging her while resting his head on her shoulders.
— We understand now, okay? You don't need to prove anything. Just relax, we won't force you into anything anymore.
Hanna trembles against Arthur's embrace, trying to let go. But... soon after she gets used to it, her body relaxing while she hides her face even more against Arthur's shoulder. Her screams cease, and the fear is soon replaced by the calm that his touch brought.
She cries silently, staining Arthur's clothes with her tears and muffled sobs. Arthur gave her the luxury of the embrace, and the luxury of being able to shed tears without them seeing her face.
Alice looks at the scene, she doesn't yell at Arthur, doesn't pull him back. But she questions him.
— What do you think you're doing, Arthur? She was sent to take you to an organization that wants your head, how can you embrace her after that?
Alice stands up, bringing her hand to her wound which was starting to pulse and leak secretion again.
— We have enough, Alice. And I believe she won't cause us any more trouble. Because, she failed the mission. If she goes back now, it's death or something worse. There's no more reason for her to continue with this. And... I'm not like them.
...
Alice sighs, bringing her hands to the back of her neck and squeezing lightly.
— You know this is a huge risk to take on, don't you? But I know you won't change your mind so easily. So I'll let her live and stay with us, but she's going to stay down here for a while, and this is not a negotiation... it's a condition. Understood?
... ...
— Yes, I understood perfectly.
Alice turns her back to the two of them, taking steps toward the stairs.
— Ah, and if she does anything suspicious or something that harms us... I won't hesitate to cut her head off. Anyway, are you coming?
The question hangs in the air while she casts a sideways glance at Hanna.
— Yes, I'm coming.
Arthur gives a few pats on Hanna's back and whispers something inaudible in her ear before following Alice.
The girl raises her arms toward the stairs when Arthur leaves her embrace. But soon she retracts, at least... she was free from a bigger problem.
---
Alice and Arthur were walking through the hallways, each going toward their own rooms.
— Hey, Alice... sorry for yelling at that time. I... I don't know what came over me. I just wanted to stop that, and it was the only wa—
— Don't apologize, I understood the situation and it's fine. I'm going to sleep now...
She definitely wasn't going to sleep anytime soon, both because of the wounds... and because of the time-bomb in her basement...
— All right. If you need me, you can call me and...
Crrk—click.
—...
The boy finally follows to his room. As he lies down on the bed, the voices and the mist are no longer the only things haunting his sleep...
...
It's not your fault...