"Uncle Jenkins, what's wrong?"
The young girl whispered his na as she tended to him. When Jenkins didn't answer, she asked again, her voice filled with concern.
This fifth journey through ti, at last, wasn't in the dead of night, yet the gallery corridor was still eerily empty. Brilliant sunlight stread through the windows, illuminating the space. Outside, there was no fog, no rain—only a clear Nolan sky with blue skies and white clouds.
Only the girl beside him was here. Her familiar call of "Uncle Williams" made Jenkins think of the little girl from just a short while ago.
Fighting down a strong wave of nausea, he lifted his head. The opposite wall was surprisingly bare of picture fras; only a tal statue stood against it.
The statue, clearly on display, rested on a pedestal. It wasn't forged from smooth tal, however; it looked more like an assembly of complex, interlocking gears. Jenkins didn't recognize the figure it depicted, yet its unique chanical aesthetic—a sense of order within the absurd—felt deeply familiar.
For so reason, he thought of [chanical Light].
He turned to look at the twenty-year-old girl beside him. Though a great deal of ti had likely passed, he could still faintly make out the features of the little girl with the flower basket from just a few minutes ago. At the sa ti, the characteristic Williams family features were evident in her now-matured face. This was, without a doubt, his niece.
"Aren't you surprised that I still look so young?"
Their last eting could have been explained away by a decade passing without him changing much, but this ti, at least twenty years must have gone by.
"Uncle Jenkins, what's wrong?"
The girl looked very worried, as if Jenkins had just uttered sothing insane. "Haven't you always been like this?" she asked.
She raised a hand to continue her treatnt, but he gently refused.
He could now be certain that the girl beside him was his niece by blood, which at least ant the Williams family was still safe and sound in this future.
"Why are you here?"
Jenkins had lost the desire to ask about the ti or key events of the future; he didn't know what to believe anymore. So he resorted to small talk, just trying to pass the ti and wait for this damned experience to finally end.
"Have you forgotten? You're the one who asked to co back to Nolan to deliver holiday gifts to your old friends. Uncle Jenkins, are you really alright?"
"I'm really fine."
Jenkins shook his head. He wanted to probe more about the state of this possible future, but he couldn't find the right questions. Even though a part of him was dying to ask things like, "So, who are your aunts?" his reason stopped him.
Prying too deeply into the future invites the mockery of fate—a warning Miss Audrey had stressed since their very first lesson.
When Jenkins fell silent, the girl did too, sitting quietly beside him. It had been hard to discern the finer details of her face when she was a child, but now that she was grown, the Williams family resemblance was unmistakable.
Jenkins was happy to see a relative from the future. He liked this kind of future, even if it ant he was still bound to the material world.
He wrestled with himself for a mont, torn by indecision, but finally resolved not to ask anything more. Once the decision was made, a sense of relief washed over him, and even the throbbing in his head seed to fade. Jenkins sighed and continued to massage his temples.
They sat in silence for a few monts before the distinct sound of footsteps echoed from around the corner. Jenkins lifted his head just as a middle-aged man carrying a walking stick ca into view.
He was dressed in a brown formal suit, a pocket watch chain glinting from his breast pocket where it was fastened to a button. He couldn't have been over forty, but he had a fierce look about him, not like an ordinary, respectable man.
"Do you know him?"
Jenkins asked his niece.
"She certainly knows , but I'm here to kill her. Kris Williams, are you ready...? Huh?"
The man's eyes fell on Jenkins's face, and a look of confusion instantly flashed across his own. He froze for a full second, then spun around and bolted, exposing his back to his enemies.
But the man had been far too close. Vines erupted from the void and bored directly into his temple. As he collapsed, a small, illusory coin rolled to a stop at Jenkins's feet.
Jenkins bent down, picked up the incomplete Sin Coin, and offered it to the girl. He'd already verified—by trying to give his niece pocket money and take a newspaper—that he could neither give anything to the future nor take anything from it.
His niece, Kris Williams, showed no surprise at his action. In this future, it seed she was already aware of so of "Uncle Jenkins's" secrets.
"Oh, it's a Sin Coin,"
the girl remarked with a distinct lack of surprise, as if she'd just discovered his Reading Festival gift was a thick stack of arithtic review sheets.
"Uncle Williams, I've told you before. I don't have your luck, your talent, or your drive. I don't want to beco immortal, and I certainly don't want to transform into one of those strange things. So please, stop giving Sin Coins. You may have chosen the first path, but don't try to force onto the second."
"Hmm? I'm sorry, what did you say?"
Jenkins was confused for a mont, but then it dawned on him. His future niece clearly understood the purpose of Sin Coins. These little round coins seed to be related to that second path to immortality Peter had ntioned.
"I was saying..."
Kris Williams paused, her pretty brow furrowed as she studied Jenkins's face.
"Uncle Jenkins, you seem a little different today."
She took his hand, placed it on her head, and gestured for him to pat it. Jenkins, bewildered, complied. The young girl's expression imdiately shifted to one of sudden understanding.
"You're so hesitant! I get it now—you're the Uncle Jenkins from the past!"
Her face lit up with delight, and she moved as if to hug him, but a wave of drowsiness was already washing over Jenkins.
"I have to go now. Be careful when you're out on your own from now on."
It was all he could manage to say to his niece before leaning back gently, closing his eyes, and letting the exhaustion completely overwhelm him.
"Okay, I will."
Kris Williams said, her arms still outstretched in a half-embrace. She bit her lip, looking a little hurt, as she watched the man beside her fade into a phantom, leaving her all alone in the gallery corridor.
Glancing at the body lying a short distance down the corridor, the girl suddenly felt a little bored. She began to hum a soft tune, a hymn from the church:
"Praise the great God of Lies. You are the pioneer of the new epoch, the heir to all-knowing and all-powerful. You are the protector of flower girls, the Lord of All Machines, the guardian of shadows. You are life, You are death. Praise to You, glory to You..."
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